It has been remarked that the inventors of valuable discoveries are commonly ill rewarded, and that the price which the public pays for the new benefit is obtained by a very inferior class of men, who make these discoveries practically useful. The fact is undoubtedly as has been supposed, and the explanation is not difficult.

In the first place, it must be remembered that the reward which the inventive class chiefly regard is fame and the esteem of their fellow-men, which advantages an inventor can best obtain by publishing his discoveries to the world, and thus leaving them to the free use of all competitors. When Jenner discovered the preventive virtue of the cow-pox, he might probably have derived large gains by keeping the secret to himself. So of Watt's steam-engine; and the use of ether and chloroform in relieving pain.

But, secondly, even if the man of science were desirous of rendering his discoveries a source of pecuniary profit, he is likely to want the requisite qualifications. To embody what he has discovered in fit, visible, and tangible forms, when necessary; to recommend them successfully to the notice and confidence of the public; and to defeat the cavils and hostility which they are certain to encounter, requires a knowledge of men and things, and a talent for business in which the devotees of science are almost always grossly deficient. These business talents are possessed by men very differently trained, who thus benefit themselves by benefiting the public.

In the third place, the want of capital is alone sufficient to render some discoveries and inventions that are pregnant with utility, valueless to their authors. Had Oliver Evans possessed the requisite funds, or the credit to obtain them, it appears incontestable from the little book published by him, that he would have perfected his steam-carriage for ordinary roads; iron tracks would naturally have succeeded, and thus railways would have been anticipated. What he had not the means of effecting, he distinctly and emphatically predicted would soon be accomplished by others.

But of all intellectual labors, those of authors are, in general, the worst rewarded. Now and then, indeed, a popular writer receives a liberal remuneration; but, for one of this description, there are probably fifty failures, and perhaps twenty who do not receive for their efforts in this way the pay of a common laborer.

A main cause of this signal want of success seems to be the large number of competitors for the public favor, of this class, arising from the very lively desire of literary distinction, and the self-delusion which inspires the hope of attaining it; so that a great majority of the books published meet with the neglect and oblivion which they justly merit.

A small number of authors, having at once rare merit and good fortune, are very highly remunerated, for they are able to command monopoly prices. Those of average merit, who are best rewarded, are writers of approved school-books, voyages and travels, and, above all, works of fiction. Men pay more freely and liberally for pleasure than instruction; and there are probably an hundred readers of an interesting romance for one of an eloquent sermon.

As a general rule, the remuneration of every species of labor which administers to our pleasures will be certain and liberal. This is strikingly manifested in all the imitative arts, in music, dramatic exhibitions, public shows, and games. In the nobler species - painting and sculpture - we see the elements of high price in the great demand, caused by the exquisite pleasure they give; and in the small supply, caused by the rarity of the talent exhibited by a first-rate artist. Accordingly a portrait by an eminent painter may sell for five hundred dollars, and a statue by

Canova or Thorwaldsen for from five to ten thousand dollars.* It is not unusual for a great singer or actor to earn several hundred dollars in a week; and the celebrated Jenny Lind, whose tickets of admission were sold at unprecedented prices, is supposed to have earned, in the United States, for herself and her employer, in a single year, more than three hundred thousand dollars. Were Garrick, or Mrs. Siddons, or Talma, now living, and disposed to make the most of their rare gifts, they might probably earn as much. The compensation which should be received by the public functionaries, particularly by legislators, has been often discussed, and it is a problem of some nicety to decide what rate of pay is most conducive to the public welfare. A very high or very low remuneration has each its respective disadvantages. If it be very low, or, as in the British Parliament, nothing at all, it would confine the office to rich men, or the dependants on rich men, and exclude many who may be superior both in ability and love of country, but who could not afford to give their time gratuitously to the public. In monarchial governments, those who confer their services may be compensated by lucrative places; but in popular governments that would be impracticable, and would be liable, moreover, to the objection of making the legislator dependent on the donor of his profitable office. If, on the other hand, the remuneration be very high, the post is set up as a prize, to be scrambled for by such of the mercenary, the cunning, and the unprincipled as assume the character of being the friends of the people. There is always some danger in making public offices very desirable. The power of appointment, whether exercised by one, a few, or the people at large, is ever exposed to the chance of mistake or abuse. No one of these can certainly distinguish between their flatterers and friends. It is better, therefore, that public men should be the unbiassed choice of the constituent class, than that candidates should offer themselves to be approved or rejected by the people. In this way alone, modest merit, - often the highest merit, - which would shrink from what might seem an ostentatious self-display, would be brought forth from its retirement to high station. It was in this way that the American people procured the invaluable services of George Washington, who never was a candidate for any one of the high offices which he filled; and some of the most meritorious of his successors were almost equally passive in obtaining their elevation.

* Powers' Greek Slave has recently sold at auction in England for nine thousand dollars.

Upon the whole, it would seem to be most consonant to republican principles that legislators should be paid for their services; that their pay should be such as to enable men of small property to serve, so that the people should be less circumscribed in their choice; but that it should not be so large as to encourage intrigue or corruption, or to give an undue stimulus to mercenary men to obtain it; that the pay should be in proportion to the length of the service - that is, a daily pay rather than an annual salary; and lastly, that the pay which the alteration of the value of money, or any other cause, might make it expedient to change, should never be received by the legislators who made it, but only by their successors. Experience amply justifies those who opposed this part of the Federal Constitution, who objected that, if the members could raise their own compensation, it would expose them to the temptation of paying themselves too liberally, and, at all events, to the suspicions of the people; which, by lessening mutual confidence, is always injurious both to the party suspecting and the party suspected. It is a matter of equal surprise and regret to the friend of popular government, that when Congress, in 1818, gave to its members an annual salary of $1500, the people, disapproving both the mode of pay and its amount, indignantly turned out almost every man who had voted for it; yet when, after the lapse of forty years, the same body gave to its members a salary of double the amount, it has escaped open popular censure. No satisfactory solution has been given of the striking inconsistency.

There are several commodities of great utility and extensive consumption which seem to have equal claims to be regarded as raw produce, and as the product of manufacturing industry. Of this character is sugar, whether made from the cane, the beet, or the maple. So of every kind of wine, of cider, butter and cheese, and vegetable oils.

We have now gone through the subject of labor; yet before we take leave of it, let us pause awhile to notice its great and diversified agency in creating national wealth. Though labor must have the aid of natural agents, yet they would be of little avail without the concurrence of human industry. This so acts upon land as to make it produce the materials of man's aliment twenty-fold, or even fifty-fold of what would be its spontaneous yield. It furnishes him with apparel, derived partly from the animal and partly from the vegetable world, suitable to every season. It enables him to provide commodious dwellings, to afford him warmth in the winter and shade in the summer; to make tools and utensils, in infinite variety, to facilitate his labors, and to enlarge his powers over brute matter. After thus contributing to his more important wants, it augments and multiplies his pleasures. It gives to his edifices and his furniture those forms that are most grateful to his eye or his taste. It ransacks the three kingdoms of nature, both on the land and in the ocean, for materials of aliment, and combines them in endless variety, to make them at once pleasant and wholesome. It ministers to the gratification of all the five senses, and delights his taste and imagination by the cultivation of literature and the fine arts. It exercises the noble faculty of reason to discover and understand the laws both of matter and of mind, and to discharge the various functions of government. Man is, indeed, urged to almost unceasing efforts to win the means of subsistence; but he is amply rewarded for his toils by the result of those very efforts, and is always rising in dignity by obeying the instinctive desire of promoting his own happiness.

Every faculty of the mind, whether it be intellect or sense, is thus put in requisition, and they all contribute - each in its way - to the complicated machine of civil society. The powers of man over matter are ever enlarging, either in overcoming its diversified forms of resistance, or in making it subservient to some purpose of utility, greater or less, from a lucifer-match, or daguerreotype, to a railroad or steamship; and thus it may be said, without a metaphor, that, by the exercise of the endowments with which he has been so liberally gifted, he is the artificer of his own condition.