ys
henceforth the admission is to be 2s. 6d. (60 cents), and Saturdays 5s.
($1.20), and many believe the Palace will be as crowded on these as on
other days. I doubt.

THE LITERARY GUILD.

"The Guild of Literature and Art" will have already been heard of in
America. It is an undertaking of several fortunate authors and their
friends to make some provision for their unsuccessful brethren--for
those who had the bad luck to be born before their time, as well as
those who would apparently have done better by declining to be born at
all. The world overflows with writers who would fain transmute their
thoughts into bread, and lacking the opportunity, have a slim chance for
any bread at all, even the coarsest. No other class has less worldly
wisdom, less practical thrift; no other suffers more keenly from "the
slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," than unlucky authors. If
anything can be done to mitigate the severity of their fate, and
especially if their more favored brethren can do it, there ought to be
but one opinion as to its propriety.

And yet I fear the issue of this project. The world is scourged by
legions of drones and adventurers who have taken to Literature as in
another age they would have taken to the highway--to procure an easy
livelihood. They write because they are too lazy to work, or because
they would scorn to live on the meager product of manual toil. Of
Genius, they have mainly the eccentricities--that is to say, a strong
addiction to late hours, hot suppers and a profusion of gin and water,
though they are not particular about the water. What Authorship needs
above all things is purification from this Falstaff's regiment, who
should be taught some branch of honest industry and obliged to earn
their living by it. So far, therefore, am I from regretting that every
one who wishes cannot rush into print, and joining in the general
execration of publishers for their insensibility to unacknowledged
merit, that I wish no man could have his book printed until he had
earned the cost thereof by _bona fide_ labor, and that no one could
live by Authorship until after he had practically demonstrated both his
ability and willingness to earn his living in a different way. I greatly
fear the proposed "Guild," even under the wisest regulations, will do as
much harm as good, by aggravating the prevalent tendency toward
Authorship among thousands who never asked whether the world is likely
to profit by their luc