The Yazoo Democrat., 1854-05-17

LuIcC uuhulOu IuouSeuu UOtlaFS worth Ol
/" WooDs and BAcHE's Medical Dispensary''
have been sold; and among the medical wri-
ters of this country, DUNGLINsoN and PAN
COAST have been equally fortunate in selling
their bald compilations and medico-literary
piracies from the eminent English, Scotch and
French doctors.
Among our jurists, KENT, SroRY. and
GREENLEAF have been the most popular and
successful. Eighty-four thousand copies of
KENT's Commentaries have been sold, at
S. ss per volume; and SroRy's works, after
enriching their author, still yield 5000 per
annum to his family. GREENLEAF's work on
Evidence has also had circulation almost
equal to that Of KENr's Commentaries.
OF PREscoTT's Histories 100000 copies
have been sold, and of BANcRoFr's United
States $4,000 copies,-the works of both
historians averaging 50 per volume.
The sales of the writings Of g Tx MARVEL"
HAWTHORNE, LoNeFELLow, Bryant, Willis,
CURTIS, EMERSON, HOLMES, and LOWELL
have been equally great with that of other
authors, the statistics Of whose profits and
sales we have given. Nearly all of the
American authors of merit, and many of no
genuine worth, are in comfor table, and very
many of them in afiluent circumstances
Here we have literary mountebank, like
HEADLY, living in affiuence, whilst in Ger
many, that great writer, HUMBOLDT, 'aoW
eightyJoar gears Of age, Ices IN small
room, a0ith a sanded floor, and IS too poor to
o,cn copy Of hts oaOn aoritings. Tom HOOP
died some years ago, destitute of the neces-
saries of life, whilst I" Tx MARVEL" wears
corn-colored gloves, and saunters about Sara
toga a buck of the first water, and now rep
resents his country abroad in very honora
bic capacity. That intolerable puppy, VIII
LIS, writes his letters for the Home Journal
from castellated, magnificent country resi-
dence, but TAsso was too poor to buy can
die by the light Of which to write his immor
tai poem. Steele was badgered and hunted
like wild beast by bailifs, but Hawthorne
enjoys a salary of thirty thousand dollars a
year. Poor Goldsmith sold the Vicar of
Wakefield for ten guineas, to pay greedy
landlady, who proposed to him prison or
Washington Irving owns
paradise on the Hudson, and is surrounded
by every comfort and luxury. Cervantes
perished for want of bread, Defoe died insol-
vent, Boyce died in garret from starvation,
Milton, as we all know, sold his Paradise
Lost for ten pounds, Otway died of hunger,
Dryden died in garret, Sheridan wrote for
his 'leg Of mitton," and Plautus was a mil
Ier Indeed, all the literary 1MMoRTALs'' of
ancient, medieval, and of modern times
even to the close of the last century-had a
hard and dreary time of it, and certainly
found the muses. anything but liberal mis-
tresses. and Parnassus a desert rather than a
land of gold.
But the American authors have realized"
that better time," which was SO long IN ma
king its appearance. The brain of hungry
starving Cervantes, could have furnished the |
intellectual stock in trade of all the New
England authors; yet LongfelloW has more
money in bank than all of the great writers
of the davs of DR.. johnson ever saw. Head |
ly is booby at whom Johnson would have
roared like a "pricked moon calf'-yet
g Washington and his Generals owns finer
house than the old literary lion ever slept in,
except when visiting lord.
Melville, Prescott Sparks, Lowell, the Sedg-
wicks Holmes, Emerson, Bancroft, Godrich, |
and the other New England writer's, own
beautiful and tastfil residences in the most
picturesque portions of Massachusetts,, for lit
erature has now its substantial as well as its |
honorable rewards. Fortune and Fame unite
in making the successful author happy and
man. There are no longer writers
of genius, with lalirelled brows, and empty
stomachs starving in garrets, for posterity to
erect marble hypocricies over their pauper
bones Fame now sounds the successful au-
thor's praise through silver trumpet:
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