was so often quoted against him. I was in
Washington, dining with Mr. Verplanck, when the vote on this nomination
was taken. As we were at the table, two of the Senators, Dickinson, of New
Jersey, and Tazewell, of Virginia, entered. Verplanck, turning to them,
asked eagerly: "How has it gone?" Dickinson, extending his left arm, with
the fingers closed, swept the other hand over it, striking the fingers
open, to signify that the nomination was rejected. "There," said
Verplanck, "that makes Van Buren President of the United States."
Verplanck was by no means a partizan of Van Buren, but he saw what the
effect of that vote would be, and his prediction was, in due time,
verified.

While in Congress, Mr. Verplanck procured the enactment of a law for the
further security of literary property. To use his own words, it "gave
additional security to the property of authors and artists in their works,
and more than doubled the term of legal protection to them, besides
simplifying the law in various respects." It was passed in 1831, though
Mr. Verplanck had begun to urge the measure three years before, when he
brought in a bill for the purpose, but party strife was then at its
height, and little else than the approaching elections were thought of by
the members of Congress. When party heat had cooled a little, he gained
their attention, and his bill became a law. If we had now in Congress a
member so much interested for the rights of authors and artists, and at
the same time so learned, so honored, and so persevering, we might hope
that the inhospitable usage which makes the property of the American
author in Great Britain and of the British author in the United States the
lawful prize of whosoever chooses to appropriate it to himself, would be
abolished.

A dinner was given to Verplanck on his return from Washington, in the name
of several literary gentlemen of New York, but the expense was, in fact,
defrayed by a generous and liberal-minded bookseller, Elam Bliss, who held
authors in high veneration and only needed a more discriminating
perception of literary merit to make him, in their eyes at least, a
perfect bookseller. On this occasion Mr. Verplanck spoke well and modestly
of the part he had taken in procuring the passage of the new law;
mentioned with especial honor the "first and ablest champion" who had then
"appeared in this cause," the Hon. Willard Phillips, who had discussed the
question in the "North American Review;