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proposed twenty modifications for the consideration of the former Committee, and of those twenty only three were granted. The bill was not passed with their assent and concurrence; it was forced upon them, contrary to their representations and petitions, and in spite of all the resistance which it was in their power to make. They exerted their utmost efforts to prevent the oppressive intention from being carried into a law, and when those efforts were in vain, and the law had passed, they did as was their duty to do, they obeyed-and made new efforts, which have not, we trust, been in vain, to convince the legislature of the injustice and impolicy of their enactment. While the bill was pending, they were told," says Sir Egerton, that the public bodies would exercise their claims mildly and liberally; that they would take lists, and only call for such books as they absolutely wanted; that their main object was to establish their right, but trust them, and it should be seen how they would use the power. See, indeed, how they use it!' and Sir Egerton states the portentous fact, that the libraries have indiscriminately demanded every book which has been published, with an honourable exception of the Advocate's Library and Trinity College, Dublin, both which have declined receiving either music or novels. The other libraries have exercised their right to the very rigour of the law, and beyond it: (as we shall presently prove:)—they have exacted every thing; ribaldry and nonsense, sedition and blasphemy, filth and froth, the scum of the press, the lees and the offal-they have taken it all!

"I am bound to ask,' says Sir Egerton, though some of the public bodies may affect to repel the question indignantly, what do they do with this indiscriminate mixture of expensive and useful works, and contemptible trash? Where do they deposit them? Do they keep them in order? And do they bind them? If they do, would not the funds ex=pended in paying the binder, the house-room, and the librarians for thus dealing with the mass of rubbish, be more generously and more usefully expended in paying some small portion of the price of the valuable works? If they do not, what becomes of the ably alleged colour of their claim-that of public use?'

This evil,' he continues, requires to be a little further elucidated. The Copyright Act, as now put into force, is the most perfect instrument of collecting and disseminating all the mischiefs flowing out of an abuse of the Liberty of the Press, which human ingenuity has ever yet contrived. Thus is brought together, in each of eleven public libraries, dispersed in the three great portions of the Empire, all that is silly and ignorant, all that is seditious, all that is lascivious and obscene, all that is irreligious and atheistical, to attract the curiosity and mislead the judgment and passions of those, for whose cultivation of solid learning and useful knowledge these gratuitous supplies are pretended to be enforced. Nothing short of such a law could have brought many of these contemptible, disgusting, and contagious publications out of the obscu

rity, in which they would otherwise soon have perished. Here they remain registered in Catalogues, preserved on shelves, and protected for posterity, with all the care and trustiness of Public Property.

'How are they to be separated from the valuable matter with which they are intermixed? To whom is such a discretion to be confided? If once they are allowed to make waste of what they do not want, where is it to end? Abuse will creep upon abuse: from waste it will come to gift or sale!

But if every thing be kept, the room, the trouble, and the expense, will soon become overwhelming. Already the libraries begin to complain heavily of the inconvenience. In thirty years the united Catalogues of the books thus claimed by the eleven libraries will amount to ten folio volumes, of 600 pages each, eighty-two articles in a page. The whole number of articles will not be less than half a million !— Summary Statement, pp. 16, 17.

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Let us exhibit, also, one or two instances of the manner in which the public libraries have enforced their claim. Among the most costly republications of this age is that of Dugdale's Monasticon. One of the conditions upon which it was published was, that only fifty copies upon large paper should be printed, and 300 upon small, as a guarantee to the subscribers that this book, which they subscribed to bring forward at a high price, might not be depreciated in value by a too great multiplication of copies, and consequent reduction in the value of those copies thus subscribed for.' This whole number of copies was subscribed for fifteen months prior to the enactment of the law, and one part of the work had actually been published; yet, under these circumstances, the large paper copy of the work was claimed by the British Museum; though the case was represented to the Trustees, and though it can hardly be doubted that the Museum possessed the original edition of the work,-the claim was repeated and enforced by a letter from the Solicitors of the Museum, hoping that the requisition would be complied with, without recourse to legal proceedings. The proprietors were compelled to purchase a subscriber's copy; they had, however, the satisfaction of being assured, that the Museum did not

The same publishers further shew the oppressive operation of this act, by proving, that in four works alone, upon the publication of which they are at present engaged, a loss is entailed upon them amounting to no less than £2,198: 14s.

viz. 11 copies of Sir Wm. Dugdale's Monasticon and History
of St. Paul's

1008 0 0

11 copies of Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great
Britain, with Biographical Memoirs, by E. Lodge, Esq. 630 0
11 copies of the History of the County Palatine and City
of Chester, by George Ormerod, Esq.

11 copies of the Rev. P. Bliss's extended edition of An-
thony Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses -

283 10 0

277 4 6

£2,198 14 6

wish to drive them to purchase it at an exorbitant price, if it could be avoided. The price of this copy, when the work is completed, will be not less than a hundred and thirty guineas. Mr. Todd presented a copy of his edition of Johnson's Dictionary to Sion College; the college, however, claimed and exacted another under the act. Mr. Murray's case is thus stated before the Committee:As soon as the act passed, he directed one of his clerks to enter every book that he published, and send the eleven copies when demanded. He acceded to the request of the British Museum, that all periodical works might be delivered to them immediately on their publication, instead of delaying them till the time allowed by the act, which would have rendered those works less interesting when their novelty was gone by. One day, however, he was informed that two gentlemen wished to speak to him. Being engaged, he requested that they would acquaint him with their business; they said that they did not know him, nor he them, but that they wished to speak to him on particular business. Accordingly he went down to them, and was immediately served with a writ. His clerk had been prevented by illness from entering four books; in the sudden access of that illness he had forgotten to commission another person to perform this part of his business, (all this has been stated upon oath ;) and this was the summary method which was resorted to for demanding the books, the delivery of which had been thus delayed! Mr. Baber, of the Museum, justifies this proceeding before the Committee, by saying that Mr. Murray received the general notice of the passing the act very ungraciously; he did not, therefore, think it necessary to give him any further notice upon a fresh occasion, the act did not require it, and by his former incivility, he had forfeited it.'

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The general notice which Mr. Murray (before a Committee of the House of Commons) is accused of not having received with good grace, was a circular threat of prosecution if the act were not complied with, issued by the Museum as soon as the act passed, and before there had been time to enter a single book. It would not imply any remarkable irascibility in a publisher, if, when he happened, soon after the receival of such a billet-doux, to meet the Keeper of the Printed Books in the Museum, he should have complained that that highly respectable body had not acted very graciously toward the booksellers in issuing such a circular, before any contumacy on their part had been experienced.

This, indeed, was a case of individual ill-humour; but the manner in which all the public libraries have proceeded, by giving a general order for all publications, seems contrary to the spirit of the act. That act substituted for the general delivery which the statute of Anne required, an obligation to deliver only such books as should be de

VOL. XXI. NO. XLI.

mauded

manded specifically in writing, within twelve months after the publication, and directed that a copy of the list of books entered at Stationers' Hall should be transmitted to the librarians every three months, with the evident intention that a selection, and a selection only, should be demanded. It may be desirable that there should be one library which should receive every thing; one general receptacle, in which even the rubbish of the press should be deposited, for the chance that something may be gained by raking in it hereafter. The British Museum should be the place, as being a national and metropolitan library. But with regard to the University libraries, it should be remembered that their original and proper object is the collection of books which may assist the graver pursuits of the scholar, and which, because of their cost or scarcity, might otherwise be inaccessible to him. It cannot be necessary that they should supply the student with Dr. Mavor's Catechism for the Use of Children under seven years of age, with the newest editions of Dr. Solomon's Guide to Health, nor with treatises upon the theory and practice of gaming, upon the breeding and training of greyhounds, and upon the flavouring of wines and spirituous liquors. It is possible, however, that they may have no other means of ascertaining what is good, than by requiring a general delivery from the booksellers, and by a subsequent selection on the spot. Still the hardship of the general delivery remains.

The matter is now once more before the legislature, and the report of the Committee of the House of Commons made in the last Session of Parliament, is favourable to the aggrieved parties. The Committee state that in no other country, as far as they have been able to procure information, is any demand of this kind carried to a similar extent; that in America, Prussia, Saxony and Bavaria, one copy only is required to be deposited; in France and Austria, two, and in the Netherlands, three, but that in several of these countries the delivery is not necessary, unless copyright is intended to be claimed. They deliver it as their opinion that one copy should be delivered in future to the British Museum, and that, in lieu of the others, a fixed allowance should be granted to such of the other public libraries as may be thought expedient. Upon an average of those years, it appears, that the price of one copy of every book entered at Stationers' Hall would be about 500l. If it should not be thought expedient by the House, they say, to comply with this recommendation, they think it desirable that the number of libraries entitled to claim should be restricted to those of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Dublin Universities, and the British Museum. They advise, also, that books of prints wherein the letterpress shall not exceed a certain very small proportion to each plate, shall be exempted from delivery, except to the Museum, with an exception

exception of all books of mathematics; that all books in respect of which claims to copyright shall be expressly and effectually abandoned, be also exempted; and that the obligation imposed on printers to retain one copy of each work printed by them shall cease, and the copy of the Museum be made evidence in lieu of it. Before we conclude this subject let us be permitted to offer a few brief remarks upon the existing laws of Copyright. Mr. Professor Christian quotes and eulogizes a part of Lord Camden's argument against the common-law right to literary property, which, though it has often been quoted, we shall repeat here. Glory,' said his lordship, 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 press with their wretched productions; fourteen years are too long a privilege for their perishable trash. It was not for gain that Bacon, Newton, Milton, Locke, instructed and delighted the world. When the booksellers offered Milton five pounds for his Paradise Lost, he did not reject it and commit his poem to the flames, nor did he 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.' Is it possible that this declamation should impose upon any man?* The question is

* In opposition to this rhetorical flourish, we cannot do better than submit to our readers the following extract from the argument of Lord Mansfield upon this subject; who, as he says, had had frequent opportunities of considering it at large, had travelled in it for many years, and had been counsel in most of the cases that were argued in his time, and who brought to it, not merely the acumen of a lawyer, but the feelings of a scholar and a gentleman.

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It is, certainly,' says this great lawyer, not agreeable to natural justice, that a stranger should reap the beneficial pecuniary produce of another man's work.-Jure naturæ æquum est, neminem cum alterius detrimento et injuria fieri locupletiorem.

'It is wise in any state to encourage letters, and the painful researches of learned men. The easiest and most equal way of doing it, is, by securing to them the property of their own works. Nobody contributes who is not willing: and though a good book may be run down, and a bad one cried up for a time, yet sooner or later, the reward will be in proportion to the merit of the work.

He who engages in a laborious work, (such for instance as Johnson's Dictionary,) which may employ his whole life, will do it with more spirit, if besides his own glory, he thinks it may be a provision for his family.

I never heard any inconvenience objected to literary property, but that of enhancing the price of books. An owner may find it worth while to give more correct and more beautiful editions; which is an advantage to literature: but his interest will prevent the price from being unreasonable. A small profit upon a speedy and numerous sale is much larger gain than a great profit upon each book in a slow sale of a less number.

Upon every principle of reason, natural justice, morality and common law; upon the evidence of the long received opinion of this property, appearing in ancient proceedings, and in law cases; upon the clear sense of the legislature, and the opinions of the greatest lawyers of their time, in the court of Chancery, since that statute, the right of an author to the copy of his works appears to be well founded. And I hope the learned and industrious will be permitted from henceforth not only to reap the fame, but the profits of their ingenious labours, without interruption to the honour and advantage of themselves and their families.'

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