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. But 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. that money is to be made of books, even after twenty-eight years, is certain, or what becomes of Lord Brougham's statement, thạt 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 no bidders? Not to name Shakspeare or Milton; would Johnson's Dictionary, as copyright, fetch nothing in the Row? or would the shade of Defoe again go a-begging from publisher to publisher, with his "Robinson Crusoe ?" Why, in the Literary Stocks, there could hardly be a safer investment. In the Upper House, the opposition to the Bill was led by Lord Brougham, not without expressions of great respect and "sincere affection" for literary men, whom he represented as claimants, not only on the justice, but on the benevolence of the house. To this last character, however, I for one must demur. There has been too much of this almsgiving tone used towards authors, so that an uninformed reader of the speeches would imagine that the poor dogs were on their hind legs begging for a bone, or a boon, as some pronounce it, instead of standing up like the kangaroo for their natural rights. For, be it remembered, by Tories, Conservatives, and Royal Oak Boys, that we have only been agitating to regain our usurped possessions-to effect not a Revolution, but a Restoration! Apart from the above vile phrase, the compliments of Lord Brougham were highly flattering, and his sincere affection would no doubt be a valuable possession, but, alas! when it came to be tested, the tie, though showy, was no more binding than the flimsy gilt book-covers of the present day. His Lordship soon repented of his attachment to authors, and refused to "be led away, as many had been led away (and oh! that our state wheelers had never any other leaders!) by a generous, natural, and praise-worthy feeling." The Peers had listened too much to kind feelings, and he felt compelled to remind them of "the strict duties of the legislative office." A very superfluous injunction-for what has the legislature done for literature? How have our legislators "leaned towards the side towards which they must all wish to lean, and towards which all their prejudices and partialities must bear them ?" Why, they found the authors in possession of a common law right, so called from being founded on common sense and common justice and how did they show their amiable weakness, their partial warp and bias, their over-indulgent fondness for that spoiled child—a son of the Muses. To borrow a comparison, one of the most ill. used members of creation is that forlorn animal, a street dog. Every idle hand has a stone, every idle foot has a kick for him -every driver a whip, and every carpenter a cleft stick. He has only to look at a butcher's shop-merely to point at a sheep -to be snatched up instanter. Bang! goes the chopper! and off fly a few inches of his tail. He has only to be looked at by a bevy of young blackguards, and in a jiffy away he scours, encumbered with an old kettle. Even so it fared with the author. He was ragged in his coat, bare on his ribs, and tucked up in the flank-in short, he looked a very peltable, kickable, whipable, and curtailable dog, indeed. Accordingly, no sooner had Law caught sight of him, than it caught hold of him, docked his entail at a blow, and tied Stationers' Hall to the stump. So much for the strict duties of the legislative office, to which we owe that we have only a lease of our own premises—a temporary usufruct in our own orchards-that we have been encouraged by a sequestration, and protected from retail privateering, on the condition of wholesale piracy hereafter! To be sure it has been urged, that an extended copyright (an author's monopoly instead of a bookseller's) would damage the public interest-that it would enhance the price of books-at any rate, that it would prevent their re-issue at a reduced rate. But this speculation remains to be tested by experiment. The higher and wealthy classes do not compose, as formerly, the great mass of readers—the numbers have increased by millions, and our writers are quite as well aware as the trade of the superior advantage of a cheap and large circulation. They have the double temptation of popularity and profit. One can even fancy an author publishing without hope of pecuniary reward, nay, at a certain loss, provided it would insure his numbers a Bozzian diffusion; whereas it is difficult to imagine a writer setting so high a price on his own book as would necessarily confine its perusal to a very select circle. On these points I am competent to speak, having re-issued the majority of my own humble works, at a price quite in accordance with the demand for cheap literature and most certainly not enhanced by the time my copyrights had been in existence. It is true that the cost of a volume has occasionally been purposely hoisted up, for instance, : by wilfully destroying the wood-blocks and copper plates, as in the case of Dr. Dibdin's " Bibliographical Decameron," but such dog-in-the-mangery acts have been committed at or before publication for even the maddest Bibliomaniac would hardly dream of making a work "scarce," after a sale of forty-two years. It follows, then, that the shorter the copyright the longer the price of the book! for supposing the term cut down to one year for the writer to sow, reap, and gather in his harvest, what so likely to set him Dibdinizing as the brevity of his lease? "Odds books and buyers!" says he, "only twelve months market before me, less fifty-two Sundays! As my time is so scant, I must make the most of it!" So he stirs up the coals to a bonfire, pitches into it all his costly wood-cuts, as if they were so many logs, and enhances the price of his volume to ten guineas a copy! Apropos of cheapness, it seems never to have occurred to the sticklers for it, that an article may become unreasonably reasonable that the consumer may be benefited overmuch. For ex ample, there have been certain staring shop announcements to be seen about London, in which the low price of the commodities was vouched for by the ruin of the manufacturer-broad proclamations that the "Great Bargains in Cotton" had shut up the mills, and that the "Wonderfully Reduced Silks "had exhausted not only the bowels of the worm but those of the weaver. But is such a consummation a favorable one, and devoutly to be wished, whatever the fabric? Is it really desirable to see our authors publicly advertised as "Unprecedented Sacrifices ?” Or would anybody, except Mr. Wakley, or some useless Utili tarian, be actually gratified by reading such a placard as the following: UNEXAMPLED DISTRESS IN GRUB STREET! PROSE UNDER PRIME COST!!! POETRY FOR NOTHING!!!! It is certain, nevertheless, that new works, and especially pe riodical ones, have been projected and started, during the Rage for Cheap Literature, at rates so ruinously low, that they might afford brown bread and single Gloster to the Publishers or to the Writers, but certainly not for both. Thus, a few months since, I was applied to, myself, to contribute to a new journal, not exactly gratuitously, but at a very small advance upon nothing-and avowedly because the work had been planned according to that estimate. However, I accepted the terms conditionally; that is to say, provided the principle could be properly carried out. Accordingly, I wrote to my butcher, baker, and other tradesmen, informing them that it was necessary, for the sake of cheap literature and the interest of the reading public, that they should furnish me with their several commodities at a very trifling per-centage above cost price. It will be sufficient to quote the answer of the butcher : : "Sir,-Respectin your note. Cheap literater be blowed. Butchers must live as well as other pepel-and if so be you or the readin publick wants to have meat at prime cost, you must buy your own beastesses, and kill yourselves. I remane, &c., John Stokes." And, truly, why not cheap anything, or everything, as well as cheap literature? Cheap beef, cheap beer, cheap butter, and cheap bread? As to books, the probability is, that distant reissues would be at reduced rates; but, even supposing them to remain at their original prices, why should Mr. Thomson of 1843 have his "Waverley" any cheaper than Mr. Thomson of 1814? At any rate, the interests of both parties ought to be fairly considered. Nay, Consistency goes still farther, and hints that the literary interest should be especially favored. For, hark to Consistency! "Let the public," she says, "be cared for-let the public be well cared for,—and let the Authors be particularly well cared for, as the most public part of the public!" "But if we give an extended term to the authors," cries Lord Brougham, "we must also give a longer day to the patentees." And why not, if they deserve and need it? But it is as easy to show cause against a patent being perpetual, as it is difficult to prove why a copyright should be limited. In the abstract, the absolute rights of both parties may be equal-but as the monopoly of a mechanical invention might be an enormous evil, Expediency, with propriety, steps in to protect the public interest when the private one has been amply gratified. In fact, |