LETTER IV.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATHENÆUM :

Five years ago I ventured in your popular journal to publish my private thoughts on the nature and laws of Literary Property. In those letters, without underrating the International Question, it was recommended that we should begin at home, and first establish what Copyright is in Britain, and provide for its protection against Native Pirates or Bookaneers. It was contended, therefore, that the author's perpetual property in his works should be formally recognized, and that" by taking this high ground at once, and making Copyright analogous in tenure to the soil itself, its defence might be undertaken with a better grace against trespass at home or invasion from abroad."

The fate of the Bill subsequently framed by Serjeant Talfourd is well known. An opposition was set up by publishers, stationers, binders, printers, journeymen, devils, and hawkers; and Mr. Tegg even so far discomposed himself as to compose a pamphlet, in which the earnings and emoluments of Scott, Byron, Moore, Southey, Hook, &c., were summed up as if they had been so many great sinecurists fattening in idleness at the cost of our dear public. Messrs. Wakley and Warburton chimed in with the pamphleteer, and even one or two country gentlemen, who had set their ridge and furrow faces against cheap food for the body, were all in favor of cheap food for the mind, as if it were desirable to see the public like a huge ricketty child with its head a great deal bigger than its belly. Nevertheless, even this opposition might have failed if the tone of the House had remained at its original pitch. The eloquent speech of the learned Serjeant, on introducing his Bill, had a thrilling effect. And when he ceased, "those airy tongues that syllable men's names filled up the pause, till the very walls seemed whispering "Chaucer!" "Spenser !" "Shakspeare !" "Milton!" whilst sadder echoes responded with Chatterton, Otway, and Burns! Every head with a heart to it, and every heart with a head to it, answered to the appeal. The accomplished nobleman, the gentleman of cultivated mind, the man of taste, the well-educated commoners. at once acknowledged, as debts of honor, their

deep obligations to literature. They recalled with affectionate interest and honorable respect the poets of their youth and the philosophers of their manhood-their intimates of the closet— their familiars of the fields and forests-the intellectual minis ters from whom they had derived amusement in leisure, wisdom in action, society in solitude, and consolation in travel. They remembered the friends of their souls. Even the opponents of the measure confessed the national importance and value of literature, and its beneficial influence on the community, by their very struggles to make it cheap for the public at the expense of all liberal feeling and common justice. Moreover, the question involved, more or less, nearly the hereditary principle—the law of property-the nature of freehold and copyhold-the protection of a native interest-and, in some opinions, the national honor. But, alas! the argument had fallen on evil days! The question did not suit the temper of the times or the ordinary tone of the place. It contained no political Ode to the Passions. There was no ardent overproof unrectified party spirit in it to excite a parliamentary delirium tremens. There was no side. bone of contention for Whig or Tory. It was a subject whereon political Montagues and Capulets might shake hands. Faction overcame Fiction. The accomplished nobleman, the gentleman of cultivated mind, the man of taste, the well educated commoners had other fish to fry-hotter broils and stews to arrange— and their gratitude and good will to literature chilled as rapidly as mutton gravy on a cold plate!

Since then, the reprinting of English works in America has progressed with steam celerity: whilst the King of the Belgians has openly recommended this literary piracy to his subjects, as a profitable branch of the national industry:-a speech, by the way, for which his Majesty deserves an especial address from our literati, whenever he thinks proper to revisit this country. The importation of the foreign reprints has also increased, and to an extent that has made our publishers quite as alarmed as the farmers and graziers, when they recently fancied themselves surrounded by outlandish bulls of Bashan, and bellowed out for protection against foreign oxen, all ready to invade Smithfield, and drive our own beasts, without drovers, clean out of the mar

ket. But our author feeders have more cause for alarm than the cattle breeders, inasmuch as it appears that the foreign bullocks, though invited, will not come in, whereas the foreign books will enter in spite of being forbidden.

In this extremity, Lord Mahon has opportunely brought for ward a new bill, which has been supported by authors and booksellers with a harmony as strange as pleasant-a harmony not so attributable, I fear, to Wilhem's system, or Mr. Hullah's vocal exercises for singing in tune, as to the fact that the voices of the literati form a powerful and welcome addition to the cry set up for protection against foreign piracy. On the extension of the term of Copyright, the trade is now liberally indifferent, but extremely anxious for some very stringent enactment to stop the smuggling of piratical reprints—and, of course, with a retrospective clause, which shall prohibit Flemish, French, or American impressions of Shakspeare and Milton, as well as of Harry Lorrequer or Zanoni. And why not a retrospective clause -for how is a man to protect his property if he may not shoot into the back garden as well as into the forecourt? Provided always, that the grounds in the rear be really the property, or at least in the legal occupation of the man with the blunderbuss. Of which more hereafter.

In the meantime, the new bill has not been discussed, in either House, without some opposition to its provisions, and, as usual, especially directed against the section intended for the benefit of the author. In the Commons, up jumped Mr. Wakley-perhaps a Coroner accustomed to violent and sudden deaths could not relish anything expiring so deliberately as with forty-two years' notice however, up jumped Mr. Wakley, as vicious with poetry and poets as if he had just been kicked by Pegasus, or rejected in turn by all the Nine Sisters, and after a flagrant assault on the Bard of Rydal, behind the back of Mr. Wordsworth, protested vehemently against any further protection of good-for-nothing books. As if, forsooth, our dear public could be injured by even a perpetual copyright in works which nobody but the author would ever think of reprinting! These good-for-nothing writers, it has been fashionable to estimate as ninety-nine out of one hundred, and, admitting the proportion,

what is to become of the rara avis, the phoenix, the one of a hundred? Is he to receive no reward or encouragement which may stimulate others to go and do likewise? Let us suppose a school kept by Doctor Posterity, and which offers, as usual, a prize for the best scholar. The term is at an end, the reward is to be conferred, and the best boy of a hundred is desired to step forward. "Master Scott," says the Doctor, "it is my pleasing task to inform you that you have won the highest prize in this Classical Establishment. The talents bestowed on you have not been abused or neglected. Your genius has been equalled by your industry, and your performances have given universal satisfaction. Your themes and essays in original composition have particularly excited my admiration and approbation: I have read them with interest and delight. Master Scott, I have had few boys like you. You are an honor to the school, as you will be an ornament to your age and country. I have no difficulty in awarding the first prize intended for the encouragement of genius and learning. Behold this large gold. medal! It is eminently your due. You have richly earned it —but, mind, I'm not going to give it you, and for this reason, that all your ninety-nine school-fellows, put together, are not worth a dump!"

Is this the way to encourage the production of standard works, and to improve the breed of authors? Is it on this system that we have sought to improve the breed of horses, horned cattle, and pigs? Is a prize ox ever denied the prize because there are so many lean beasts in the market? Would Boz, Ivanhoe, or Satirist be refused the gold cup at Ascot, because Dunce, Tony Lumkin, or King Log had been distanced in the race? Is it thus that merit is rewarded in other countries? My travelled readers have doubtless seen what is called, in France, a Mat de Cocagne-a tall well-greased pole-" Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb!" with some public prize at the top. Many are the candidates, particularly sweeps and sailors, who attempt to swarm up the slippery mast; some heavy-sterned fellows only mounting half way; others scrambling almost within arm's length of the reward: but, alas! down, down, down they slide again like greased lightning, and cursing Sir Isaac New

ton for inventing gravitation. At last some more fortunate or clever aspirant attempts the task-up he go-up he go-like the 'possum, till he actually reaches the tiptop, and clutches the tempting article. Lucky dog that he is, not to be an English author, and rewarded by English authorities! No one grudges him his success-no one objects that the nineteen other candidates have gone to the bottom of the pole. He has not only won the prize, but wears it, and perhaps literally in the shape of a new pair of breeches.

It has been said, indeed, that a writer would derive no advantage from an extended property in his works; but why should not long copyrights be as beneficial as long leases, long purses, long annuities, long legs, long heads, long lives, and other long things that are longed for? Much stress has been laid on the declarations of publishers, that they would give no more for forty-two years than for twenty-eight, or fourteen. And no doubt the parties were perfectly sincere in the declaration. There are persons who would not plant trees, however profitable ultimately, because the return would be distant and not immediate : and even so some publishers might not care to invest their capital in standard works for a sure, but slow, remuneration. But that money is to be made of books, even after twenty-eight years, is certain, or what becomes of Lord Brougham's statement, that publishers have been making large preparations, and incurring great expense for the purpose of bringing out works of which the copyrights were just expiring? Nay, is there not one bookseller in Cheapside, who is understood to have made hundreds and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, by this sort of author-snatching? But to bring the question to issue, let us take a batch of writers who are all as dead as if they had been boiled, and yet at whose head and brains there is better sucking than in a quart of shrimps. For example, there is one Fielding, whose last novel was published a century ago, and, consequently, has been common spoil for some fourscore years. Will any one be bold enough to say, that a revived copyright of "Tom Jones" would be valueless in the market? Then we have one Smollett, and one Sterne, and one Goldsmith, all defunct fifty years since,—would an exclusive right in their works obtain