Page:Studies of a Biographer 4.djvu/196

 Shakespeare wrote for money, and Byron, Scott, Tennyson, Dickens, Macaulay, and Carlyle were not above being paid. 'Take away from English authors their copyrights, and you would very soon take away from England her authors.' He wrote, therefore, as he avows, for the very same reasons which prompt the barrister to go to the bar, or the baker to set up his oven. I have certain qualms about the theory of copyright—though I don't mention them to my publishers. It is not that I would deprive authors of their reward. In the ideal state of things, I fancy, the promising author will be infallibly recognised by the scientific critic; a parental government will pay him a handsome salary and trust to his honour to do his best and take his time; and his works, if any, will then be circulated gratis. That scheme would avoid the objection which occurs to Trollope's theory. We can hardly assume that the author's usefulness to his fellow-creatures is precisely proportioned to his earnings. On the contrary, the great evil of to-day is that an author has constantly to choose whether he will do the best, or whether he will do the most profitable work in his power. Tennyson and Carlyle, to take Trollope's examples, would never have