anti-copyright,--Mr. Virgilius Maro, of Mantua--

"Hos ego versiculos _emi_, tulit alter honores."

Or, in other words, I pay for every line and letter of Maga, and lo! Mr
Bathyllus Reprint, of New York, carries off the sesterces! Think,
Godfrey, what a charm of a life this Bathyllus must make of it! His are
all the honey, and the bird's nests, the corn-bags, and the fleeces of
the Ebony estates; and yet he has no trouble to see his banks furnished
with bees, or to preserve game in the brake; no care to drive away
crows, or to stifle the blatter of sheep. For him--to descend from the
firmament of metaphor, to the plain prose of George Street and
Paternoster Row--for him, Mr North inspects boxes of Balaam, with the
patience of a proofreader, and deciphers pages of wit and pathos with
the perseverance of a Champollion. For him, with each new moon, and
punctual to the day, comes forth the Maga of the month, the fruit of
incredible diligence, and the flower of admirable skill. For him the
foreign purveyor of all he lives by pays down the golden _honorarium_,
fifty guineas for the sheet, that he may have the whole for less than
fifty pence. For him--the same benevolent provider takes pains to
silence, by the same metallic spell, ten thousand other claims and
clamours, contingent to each lunation of Maga. All things work for him!
For him the steamer ploughs Atlantic surges; and for him, when she gains
her port, two hundred miles of wire are put into galvanic tremor,
bidding him prepare his covers, and rally his compositors. It is there
that Reprint, with a grateful sense (perhaps) of all that has been done
for him, and a still more gratifying sense of the very little that
remains for him to do, finds himself called to bestir from a fortnight's
nap, and proceed to do that little. With railway speed, and thunder
step, the Express of Harnden brings to his hand almost the only emigrant
original of _Blackwood_ that ever touches these occidental shores. No
prosy correspondence--no botheration manuscript--no rejectable
contribution--but the choicest literary matter that the genius of the
British empire can furnish, all picked, packed, and laid at his feet, in
fair white printed copy, without pains and without cost! Another's all
the toil--his, all the profits! In a turn or two of his hand the
American market is supplied. Sure sale--no risk--all clear gains, and
quick returns! I am sure Mr Bathyllus Reprint must be the happiest