A correspondence in Wednesday's Times between Mr. Ashbury (M.P. for
Brighton) and Mr. Gladstone, on the subject of a hint in a speech of the former, delivered at Brighton on the 30th of January, that the Ex-Premier had profited so largely by the sale of his recent pamphlets as to supply him with a strong motive for writing them, demonstrates that Mr. Gladstone has not made anything like £10,000 by his books, pamphlets, and literary articles, in all the forty years of his literary life, so that many of the rumours as to the extraordinary receipts from " Vaticanism " and the pamphlets on the Eastern Question are clearly mythical. In fact, no one knows how very little is usually made by even the most successful publications. Authors have, no doubt, profited considerably by the recent prac- tice of publishing their books first in parts, in periodicals,—for which, of course, they are paid,—and then republishing them as soon as complete, in volumes, with all the repute, in the case of a successful author, gained through the medium of the previous publication. But even with this advantage the prizes of the lottery have been very few, and the number of bare compensa- tions very many. As a rule, literature earns very respectable wages, but wins no great fortunes, and cannot compare for a moment on that head with even the least enterprising branch of commerce.
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