1774. Sir Joshua's, and a humane as well as active member of the Et. 46. House of Commons), Gibbon, and Joseph Warton. "I wonder," exclaimed Johnson, when he read this part of the remonstrance, and the names, "that Joe Warton, a scholar by "profession, should be such a fool. I should have thought Mund Burke, too, would have had more sense." His formal answer was not less emphatic. He requested Reynolds at once to acquaint his fellow mutineers, that he would never consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an English inscription. The Latin was accordingly placed upon the marble, where it now remains. I append a translation as nearly literal, line for line, as I could make it, consistent with an attempt to preserve the spirit as well as manner of the original. OLIVARII GOLDSMITH Poetæ, Physici, Historici, qui nullum fere scribendi genus nullum quod tetigit non ornavit : sive lacrymæ, affectuum potens, at lenis dominator ; Amicorum fides, Lectorum veneratio. Natus Hiberniâ, Forneiæ Lonfordiensis in loco cui nomen Pallas, Nov, xxix. MDCCXXXI. Eblanæ literis institutus, Apr. iv. MDCCLXXIV.* *This epitaph was first made public in Campbell's Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland (437-8), Doctor Johnson having furnished a copy. But it was then OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH Poet, Naturalist, Historian, who left scarcely any kind of writing and touched nothing that he did not adorn: or tears, commanding our emotions, yet a gentle master : in style weighty, clear, engaging- the faithfulness of Friends, the reverence of Readers. He was born in Ireland, at a place called Pallas, (in the parish) of Forney, (and county) of Longford, on the 29th Nov. 1731. Trained in letters at Dublin. Died in London, 4th April, 1774. incomplete, the exact place of birth not having been ascertained. Mr. Croker, in Τὸν τάφον εἰσοράᾳς τὸν Ὀλιβάροιο κονίην Here GOLDSMITH lies. O ye, who deeds of Eld 1774. Et.46. CHAPTER XXII. 1774. THE REWARDS OF GENIUS. 1774. WHILE Goldsmith lay upon his death-bed, there was much Et. 46. discussion in London about the rights of authors. After two decisions in the courts of common law, which declared an author's property to be perpetual in any work he might have written, the question had been brought upon appeal before the House of Lords, where the opinions of the judges were taken. This was that dignified audience in whose ears might still be ringing some echo of the memorable words addressed to them by Lord Chesterfield. Wit, my Lords, "is a sort of property-the property of those who have it, "and too often the only property they have to depend on. "It is, indeed, but a precarious dependance. We, my Lords, “thank God, have a dependance of another kind." Safe in that dependance of another kind, what was their judgment, then, as to the only property which not the least distinguished of their fellow citizens had entirely and exclusively to count upon for subsistence and support.* * Lord Shelburne, in a letter to Lord Chatham, describes the scene, with a very manifest spleen against the Chief Justice. "Lord Mansfield showed himself the "merest Captain Bobadil that, I suppose, ever existed in real life. I ought, instead "of being a bad writer, to be a good painter, to convey to your lordship the ridicule First for the opinions of the judges. Five declared their 1774. belief that, by the common law of England, the sole Et. 46. right of multiplying copies of any work was vested for ever in him, by the exercise of whose genius, faculties, or industry, such work had been produced; and that no enactment had yet been passed, of force to limit that estate in fee.* Six, on the other hand, held that this perpetual property which undoubtedly existed at common law, had been reduced to a short term by an act passed in the reign of "of the scene. * Arthur Murphy, at this time practising as a barrister, argued the case against the perpetual right, as counsel for Donaldson and the other appellants (Foot's Life, 356). He had already, five years earlier, defended, against Millar's prosecution, a Scotch pirate named Taylor, for having seized and appropriated Thomson's Seasons. I mention this because his argument, in which I have little doubt that Johnson assisted him, is a somewhat elaborate statement of the reasoning in favour of the limitation of the author's right, and is partly printed in Foot's Life, 340-6. It is to be hoped, however, that Johnson did not supply him with the hint for one part of his defence, which would be equally good as an argument against the admission of any kind of property in the production of a book. "To whom," says Murphy, "is it owing that many valuable compositions are now to be had in pocket "volumes? To the country booksellers altogether . . . and the London booksellers, "in their own defence, and not from choice, have had recourse to the same measure. The present defendant lives at Berwick he goes about to fairs and "markets with a cart, and there disposes of Thomson's Seasons, &c. by which 66 means a taste for reading is propagated in the country, where, perhaps, without "his activity, that benefit would not be so extensive." The special verdict in this case of Millar v. Taylor found it as a fact," that before the reign of Queen "Anne it was usual to purchase from authors the perpetual copyright of their "books, and to assign the same from hand to hand for valuable considerations, and "to make them the subject of family settlements ;" and, in the subsequent elaborate judgment, Lord Mansfield, Mr. Justice Willes, and Mr. Justice Aston, concurred in holding that copyright was still perpetual by the common law, and not limited, except as to penalties, by the statute. 1774. Et. 46. Queen Anne, and somewhat strangely entitled (if this were indeed its right construction) as for the encouragement of literature. Chief Justice Mansfield's opinion would have equalised these opposing judgments; but, though retaining it still as strongly as when it had decided the right in his own court, the highest tribunal of common law, he thought it becoming not then to repeat it. Lord Camden upon this moved and carried a reversal of Lord Mansfield's decision, by reversing the decree which had been founded upon it. The House of Lords thus declared the statute of Anne to have been a confiscation to the public use, after a certain brief term, of such rights of property in the fruits of his own labour and genius, as, up to the period of its enactment, an author had undoubtedly possessed. Lord Camden glorified this result for the sake of literature itself. For he held that genius was not intended for the benefit of the individual who possessed it, but for the universal benefit of the race; and, believing Fame to be its sufficient reward, thought that all who deserved so divine a recompense, spurning delights and living laborious days, should scorn and reject every other. The real price which genius sets upon its labours, he fervently exclaimed, is Immortality; and posterity pays that.* On the other hand, Mr. * "Glory is the reward of science; and those who deserve it scorn all meaner "views. I speak not of the scribblers for bread, who tease the world with their "wretched productions; fourteen years is too long a period for their perishable trash. "It was not for gain that Bacon, Newton, Milton, Locke, instructed and delighted "the world. . . . When the bookseller offered Milton five pounds for his Paradise "Lost, he did not reject the offer and commit his piece to the flames, nor did he 66 accept the miserable pittance as the reward of his labours; he knew that the "real price of his work was immortality, and that posterity would pay it." Parl. Hist. xvii. 992. Having thus a great lawyer's opinion of those who "scribble for "their bread," one would much like to have known what he thought of those who quibble for their bread, and whether the one was not quite as respectable as the other. |