those scenes of warlike glory, with which even the most refined of ancient, as well as modern nations, delight to deck their public structures, induces us to believe the people of this region to have been mild and inoffensive. So far, no specimen has been found of iron, or indeed of any other metal, -no ornaments to explain the manners and customs,nothing which reveals the history of the daily life of this people. Imagination can people the palaces at Uxmal and Palenque, deserted and waste, with invisible, yet potent spirits. But the living, actual man, as he lived, moved, and had his being, it cannot restore, nor conceive. At Copan, neither palace nor private house survives the ruin of its inhabitants. As the cross, that the traveller of the Appenine meets in his way, marks where some wayfarer fell, so the temple of Copan marks the spot where a rich and great people perished. The ruins of Palenque and Uxmal deserve a more particular notice than we have given them. But our limits do not allow further notice of these volumes; indeed, no language can, without the aid of engravings, or other copies, convey adequate and correct ideas of these ruins. Mr. Stephens is of opinion, that the style of architecture common to these ruins, is indigenous, and not derived from any other people. 'I set out,' says the author,' with the proposition that they are not Cyclopean, and do not resemble the works of Greek or Roman; there is nothing in Europe like them.' After having compared these ruins with those of India and Egypt, he can discern no resemblances. The lofty columns, the deep and labyrinthine excavations of the Hindoo architecture are wanting. This is the more remarkable as the surface of the country, abounding in mountainous elevations, seems to invite their construction. All the remains now existing, rise from natural or artificial mounds. They are, in truth, the remains of a people skilled in architecture, sculpture, drawing and, doubtless, other cognate but more perishable arts. These, with the refinement and cultivation inseparable from them, grew up wild and beautiful, without models and without masters, in a land far off from the seats of the ancient kingdoms of the world. Mr. Stephens attributes the construction of these edifices to the people who inhabited the country at the time of its invasion by the Spaniards. Either they or their not very distant progenitors reared them. Their present ruin and desolation may have been occasioned by these invaders. It is well known, that in the city of Mexico, every house was razed to the ground,--every temple destroyed, every fort dismantled,-idols overthrown, palaces burned, and the people and their princes reduced into common slavery. The mournful lament of the good Las Casas, over the distress and misery of the poor defenceless Indian, will be remembered. The people, and the land, suffered a worse scourge than Heaven, in its anger, ever inflicted. We understand that Mr. Stephens has returned to Mexico, for the purpose of continuing his researches. We hope that his past success is but the 'happy prologue to the swelling act of the imperial theme,' the discovery of that mysterious city, seen from the topmost range of the Cordilleras, of unconquered, unvisited, and unsought aboriginal inhabi tants. ART. IX.-CRITICAL NOTICES. 1. On International Copyright, in a Letter to the Hon. William C. Preston, Senator of the United States. Suum Cuique. By FRANCIS LIEBER. Wiley & Putnam, Broadway, New-York, and Paternoster Row, London. 1840. It is rather late in the day to notice Professor Lieber's pamphlet, but the importance of the subject, which has not yet been acted upon by our government as it should have been, will justify us, we trust, in the eyes of our readers. It is scarcely necessary to say, that the author of this pamphlet is not a Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Letters, and that a little more attention to the rules of Blair, and of other elementary works on composition, would make him a better writer than he now is. His style is friged, jejune, angular, thorny and indigestible. His sentences march into the columns they occupy, one after another, like undisciplined militia-men, without grace or order, and arrayed in as checkered a costume as Fallstaff's men on a training day.' We might pardon those characteristics of style which are inseparable from the constitution of mind and general tone of thinking, if our Professor, who has condescended to enlighten the reading public of England and America on the subject of books and bookmaking, only wrote English, the language he has selected as the vehicle of his speculations. We are sorry, owing to the position he occupies as a Professor in one of our Colleges, that we cannot award to him this measure of literary excellence. We have no doubt that Professor Lieber, since he has been in our country, has used every possible exertion to learn our language, and it is exceedingly unfortunate, as he is ambitious of literary laurels, that he should have failed in the effort, unless he regards as laurels, such phrases as the following: 'That law which springs up spontaneously from out the intercourse of the people.' p. 14. We have never heard of a spontaneous law before, and that may account for our ignorance of the fact, that any law springs from out the intercourse of the people. We are not ignorant, however, that the following sentence has more force in it than tasteful embellishment: "Whatever a man righteously or lawfully produces by his own hands, and with his own sweat, is his." p. 15. This is true. No one can doubt that the pamphlet before us is Professor Lieber's, even though the perspiration might not have stood on his forehead in the course of his elaboration of it. It is righteously' his, and ‘lawfully' too, if the law would only give it to him, which, as the law, it seems, has à will of its own, it may be persuaded to do without great reluctance, under the circumstances. There is no other meaning to the word of owning." p. 16. Of and owning are two words in our language, the one a preposition, and the other a participle, and to blend them together and make one word of them, is obviously a confounding of the parts of speech. Again: “If there exists any species of property, not made by government, but existing by its own spontaneous right, and which requires to be acknowledged by way of protection on the part of government, it is literary property." p. 17. If there exists: It is a rule of grammar,-to say nothing of rhetoric,-that the subjunctive mode should follow the conjunction, if. "If," then," there exist;" but we fancy there does not exist "any species of property existing by its own spontaneous right.” It must be first proved, that there is such a thing as a spontaneous right. Where shall we look for it in rerum natura? Where shall we find it, either in the world or out of it? It is a spontaneous thought, we imagine, of Professor Lieber's genius. If there be a spontaneous right, and a spontaneous law too, as our Professor insists, then let the right and the law, of their own accord, and by their own sovereign will and pleasure, settle this great question about literary property, wherever and whenever they choose to do so. Why trouble the American Congress about the matter? And why perplex the pamphlet buyers in Paternoster Row respecting a thing, in which they have no possible manner of concern? If law and right are free agents, and will not attend to their duty, let Professor Lieber address his arguments to them; perhaps they may be convinced; let him touch their consciences; perhaps they may be awakened to a sense of their wrong doings, and, like penitent sinners, may try to do better in future. Again: "Does the author, who asks protection against such injury, claim any thing more but what every human being has a right to claim?" p. 52. Once more: "Is this a state of things, as two gentlemen would like to exist between them?" p. 53. We think that is such a sentence as they would not like to utter, in conversation or print, if they had ever read Lowth. We had sincerely hoped that these, and such like phrases, which occur in the Professor's pamphlet, were typographical blunders, and looked, but in vain, to see them corrected in a table of errata. The pamphlet is printed in the very best style of the American press, and, as far as the mechanical execution is concerned, it could not have been better done. We do not deny that it contains some well written sentences, and even paragraphs, but these, we are compelled to say, are exceptions to the general character of the composition. Professor Lieber quotes from the Austrian publishers, whom, we suppose, he translated, as follows: <"The book is no intellectual, independent thing.... it is a piece of manufacture upon paper, with signs of thoughts printed upon it. It contains no thoughts"(sic!); "these must be presumed to be in the head of the intelligent reader. It is an article of trade, which we obtain for money; every government, however, has the duty to stem the unavoidable export of national capital," (here VOL. I.—NO. 1. 32 we have the old, beautiful theory of the balance of trade,) "to encourage the domestic manufacture of goods first produced in foreign countries" (sic!), “and by no means to impede the industry of its own citizens, for the enrichment of foreign manufacturers." (sic!)' pp. 27, 28. We do not know whether or not government has the duty to stem. That, of course, is a question of political casuistry, but we very much fear that the Professor was unwell, when he translated the above passage, and threw in so often the adverb, 'sic!' with an exclamation point after it, by way of commentary. It seems to us to savour very much of dyspepsia, or the hiccoughs. It reminds us exceedingly of a rhyme or two which we heard in our childhood: "Then let the cannakin” (hiccough!) “clink, clink! A soldier's a man, (hiccough!) and man's life's but a span, Shakspeare. We are averse to Latin quotations, unless they are introduced with great judgment and good taste, for they sometimes constitute the only claims which writers have to literature. But this (sic!) is not a quotation, but an original idea of Professor Lieber, and, as it is clothed in a dead and learned language, we will translate it for the benefit of those of our readers who are not versed in the classics. The word 'sic" then, is Latin, beyond a doubt, and, in the English tongue, it signifies so, and nothing more nor less. A parenthesis being drawn around it, and an exclamation point placed after it, in order to give it point and excite amazement, it will stand thus: (so!). In its English dress, it is a word often used by jockeys, in calming a restive horse. They pat the horse on the neck, and in a caressing and soft tone, say, "So! Nero. So! so!" and the word acts like a charm upon the furious beast. In like manner, our Professor seems to regard the passage from the Austrian publishers in the light of a hard-trotting, unbroken colt, of good bottom, whom he has mounted, in order to exhibit his horsemanship, and, as Fanny rears and plunges, the Professor pats her on the neck, and cries, "So! so! Fanny. Sic! sic!" But Fanny plunges still, not knowing that she carries a Professor proudly on her back, and, we fear the vicious nag, notwithstanding his expostulations and caresses, may unhorse him at last, to the soiling of his inexpressibles and his literary laurels. The sacred Nine, however, forbid so lamentable a catastrophe! We are not aware that Professor Lieber, in the production before us, has shed any additional light upon the long agitated subject of literary property, and the rights and claims of authors. He has, it is true, embodied most of the facts and arguments which may be employed to prove the justice and necessity of a radical change in our legislation, on the subject of copyright, and, if his views had been expressed in a style less clumsy and artificial, and more luminous, they would have been better appreciated, and would have produced greater effect. There can be no doubt that we have done England most foul wrong in |