chaser of a printed copy of a book could not lend it, or let it out for hire to a reader, or even transcribe it for charity, without violating the alleged exclusive right of the author. The exclusive privilege of the author consists in the sole right to print a written composition and to take the profits of the sale of printed copies. In this sense, the law of England undeniably recognized a species of property in ideas, for it absolutely prohibited the printing of a written composition, still in manuscript, without the consent of the author or proprietor. Yet in the case of manuscripts, the same argument could be urged, from possession of the copy, as from possession of the copy of a printed book. If the common law recognized this incorporeal right, in the one case, it needed no other element of property to recognize it in the other. The only remaining question, after publication, is, whether the sale of a printed copy carries with it a license of publication, when the loan of a manuscript, or its delivery for a specific purpose, carries no such license, according to the common law. The decision in the house of lords was immediately followed by an application to parliament, on behalf of the booksellers of London, representing that large sums had been invested in the purchase of ancient copyrights, not protected by the statute of Queen Anne, upon the generally prevalent opinion that that statute did not interfere with the common law right; that by the late decision of the house of lords, such common law right of authors and their assigns had been declared to have no existence, whereby the petitioners would be very great sufferers, through their former involuntary misapprehension of the law; and praying for relief in the premises. Evidence was thereupon taken before a committee of the house of commons, and a bill was brought in, to vest the copies of old books, not protected by the act of Anne, in the purchasers of such copies from authors or their assigns, for a limited time.1 Counsel were heard at the bar for and against the bill, and a long and angry debate ensued upon the question of its passage. After a struggle at every stage of its progress, the bill finally passed the commons, on the 26th of May, 1774, by a vote of 40 to 22,2 but was afterwards thrown out in the lords, chiefly through the exertions of Lord Camden. In this posture of things, the universities applied to parliament, and succeeded in obtaining in 1775 an act, which enabled the two universities in England, The evidence showed that a great amount of money had been invested in such old copies. 217 Parl. Hist. 1077-1110. The whole discussion, both on the part of the counsel and the members opposed to the bill, was marked by a spirit of acrimony quite unworthy of the occasion. The appeals to prejudice against the booksellers, as a class of monopolists, were of the coarsest character. The principal persons who supported the bill were Mr. Fielde, Col. Onslow, and Mr. Burke, the latter taking that enlarged and liberal view of it consonant to his elevated character. The interests arrayed against it were the country and the Scotch booksellers; but letters were produced by several members from Mr. Hume, Dr. Hurd, Dr. Robertson, Dr. Beattie, and other writers of established reputation, containing the warmest wishes for the petitioners, lamenting the late decision in the house of lords, as fatal to literature, and expressing the hope that the booksellers might get speedy relief. Mr. Charles James Fox was among the opponents of the bill. Ibid. the four universities in Scotland, and the several colleges of Eton, Westminster and Winchester, to hold in perpetuity their copyright in books given or bequeathed to them for the advancement of useful learning and other purposes of education.1 A quarter of a century later, the statutory term of copyright for authors in general was extended to twenty-eight years, in case the author should be living at the expiration of the first fourteen years. 2 Subsequently, a further change was introduced, by which, instead of copyright for fourteen years and contingently for fourteen more, authors were to have a term of twenty-eight years, and also for the residue of their lives if living at the expiration of that term.3 * The next important step was the passage of an act, 3 Will. IV. c. 15, giving to the authors of dramatic compositions the sole right of representing their plays or causing them to be represented in the British dominions.1 This was followed by the international copyright act, 1 and 2 Vict. c. 59, passed 31st July, 1838, giving a copyright in England to foreign authors whose governments shall have engaged to give the same privilege to British authors.5 Finally, by the 5 and 6 Vict. c. 45, passed 1st July, 1842, the former laws relating to literary copyright were revised, the term extended to the natural life of the author and for seven years after his death, or to forty-two years from the first publication; and many other important changes were introduced. Upon a review of the history of the rights of authors in England, it must be admitted that they have long had to struggle against a great weight of prejudice and illiberality in the legislature. Every important concession that has been gained for them has been won as a trophy from a well fought field.1 66 1 To Mr. Serjeant Talfourd belongs the chief honor of the last and greatest of these achievements. It was mainly through his exertions that the act 5 & 6 Vict. was passed. But it required repeated efforts to accomplish his purpose. In 1837, he addressed himself to the task in the following manly and generous strain of eloquence: Although I see no reason why authors should not be restored to that inheritance which, under the name of protection and encouragement, has been taken from them, I feel that the subject has so long been treated as matter of compromise between those who deny that the creations of the inventive faculty, or the achievements of the reason, are the subjects of property at all, and those who think the property should last as long as the works which contain truth and beauty live, that I propose still to treat it on the principle of compromise, and to rest satisfied with a fairer adjustment of the difference than the last act of parliament affords. I shall propose -- subject to modification when the details of the measure shall be discussed that the term of property in all works of learning, genius, and art, to be produced hereafter, or in which the statutable copyright now subsists, shall be extended to sixty years, to be computed from the death of the author; which will at least enable him, while providing for the instruction and the delight of distant ages, to contemplate that he shall leave in his works themselves some legacy to those for whom a nearer, if not a higher duty, requires him to provide, and which shall make "death less terrible." When the opponents of literary property speak of glory as the reward of genius, they make an ungenerous use of the very nobleness of its impulses, and show how little they have profited by its high example. When Milton, in poverty and in blindness, fed the flame of his divine enthusiasm by the assurance of a duration coequal with his language, I believe with Lord Camden that no thought crossed him of the That a period of nearly a century and a half should have passed away, after the propriety of legislative wealth which might be amassed by the sale of his poem; but surely some shadow would have been cast upon "the clear dream and solemn vision" of his future glories, had he foreseen that, while booksellers were striving to rival each other in the magnificence of their editions, or their adaptation to the convenience of various classes of his admirers, his only surviving descendant a woman should be rescued from abject want only by the charity of Garrick, who, at the solicitation of Dr. Johnson, gave her a benefit at the theatre which had appropriated to itself all that could be represented of Comus. The liberality of genius is surely ill urged as an excuse for our ungrateful denial of its rights. The late Mr. Coleridge gave an example not merely of its liberality, but of its profuseness; while he sought not even to appropriate to his fame the vast intellectual treasures which he had derived from boundless research, and colored by a glorious imagination; while he scattered abroad the seeds of beauty and of wisdom to take root in congenial minds, and was content to witness their fruits in the productions of those who heard him. But ought we, therefore, the less to deplore, now when the music of his divine philosophy is forever hushed, that the earlier portion of those works on which he stamped his own impress-all which he desired of the world that it should recognize as his is published for the gain of others than his children that his death is illustrated by the forfeiture of their birthright? What justice is there in this? Do we reward our heroes thus? -- Did we tell our Marlboroughs, our Nelsons, our Wellingtons, that glory was their reward, that they fought for posterity, and that posterity would pay them? We leave them to no such cold and uncertain requital; we do not even leave them merely to enjoy the spoils of their victories, which we deny to the author; we concentrate a nation's honest feeling of gratitude and pride into the form of an endowment, and teach other ages what we thought, and what they ought to think, of their deeds, by the substantial memorials of our praise. Were our Shakspeare and Milton less the ornaments of their country, less the benefactors of mankind? Would the example be less inspiring if we permitted them to enjoy the spoils of their peaceful victories-if we allowed to their descendants, not the tax assessed by present gratitude, and charged on the future, but the mere amount which that future would be delighted to pay extending as the circle of their glory expands, and rendered only by those who individually reap the benefits, and are contented at once to enjoy and to reward its author? cre "But I do not press these considerations to the full extent; the past is beyond our power, and I only ask for the present a brief reversion in the future. 'Riches fineless' ated by the mighty dead are already ours. It is in truth the greatness of the blessings which the world inherits from genius that dazzles the mind on this question; and the habit of repaying its bounty by words, that confuses us and indisposes us to justice. It is because the spoils of time are freely and irrevocably ours — because the forms of antique beauty wear for us the bloom of an imperishable youth — |