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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 reseptacle, in which even the rubbish of the press should be depocited, 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 5007. 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 Mu'seum. 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, certaiuly,' 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.

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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 num

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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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simply

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simply this: upon what principle, with what justice, or under what pretext of public good, are men of letters deprived of a perpetual property in the produce of their own labours, when all other persons enjoy it as their indefeasible right-a right beyond the power of any earthly authority to take away? Is it because their labour is so light, the endowments which it requires so common,—the attainments so cheaply and easily acquired, and the present remuneration so adequate, so ample, and so certain ?

The last descendants of Milton died in poverty. The descendants of Shakspeare are living in poverty and in the lowest rank of life. Is this just to the individuals? Is it grateful to the memory of those who are the pride and boast of their country? Is it honourable or becoming to us as a nation, holding (the better part of us assuredly, and the majority affecting to hold) the names of Shakspeare and Milton in veneration? To have placed the descendants of these men in respectability and comfort-in that sphere of life where, with a full provision for our natural wants, free scope is given for the growth of our intellectual and immortal part, simple justice was all that was required,—only that they should have possessed the perpetual copyright of their ancestors' works,-only that they should not have been deprived of their proper and natural inheritance.

It has been stated in evidence, that copyright, in three cases out of four, is of no value a few years after publication: at the end of fourteen years scarcely in one case out of fifty, or even out of a hundred. Books of great immediate popularity have their run and come to a dead stop. The hardship is upon those which win their way slowly and difficultly-but keep the field at last. And it will not appear wonderful that this should generally have been the case with books of the highest merit, if we consider what obstacles to the success of a work may be opposed by the circumstances and obscurity of the author, when he presents himself as a candidate for fame, by the humour or the fashion of the times, the taste of the public, (more likely to be erroneous than right at all times,) and the incompetence or personal malevolence of some unprincipled critic who may take upon himself to guide the public opinion; and who, if he feels in his own heart that the fame of the man whom he hates is invulnerable, endeavours the more desperately to wound him in his fortunes. And if the copyright (as by the existing law) is to depart from the author's family at his death, or at the end of twenty-eight years from the first publication of his work, if he dies before the expiration of that term, his representatives, in such a case, are deprived of the property just when it is beginning to prove a valuable inheritance.

The decision which time pronounces upon the reputation of authors, and upon the permanent rank which they are to hold, is

unerring

unerring and final. Restore to them that perpetuity in the copyright of their works, of which the law has deprived them, and the reward of literary labour will ultimately be in just proportion to its deserts. If no inconvenience to literature arises from the perpetuity which has been restored to the Universities, (and it is not pretended that any has arisen,) neither is there any to be apprehended from restoring the same common and natural right to individuals who stand more in need of it.

However slight the hope may be of obtaining any speedy redress for this injustice, there is some satisfaction in thus solemnly protesting against it; and believing as we do, that if society continues to advance, no injustice will long be permitted to exist after it is clearly understood, we cannot but believe that a time must come when the wrongs of literature will be acknowledged, and the literary men of other generations be delivered from the hardship to which their predecessors have been subjected by no act or error of their own.

ART. XI.-A Voyage of Discovery, made under the order of the Admiralty, in His Majesty's Ships Isabella and Alexander, for the purpose of Exploring Baffin's Bay, and inquiring into the probability of a North-west Passage. By John Ross, K. S. Captain R. N. 4to. pp. 438. Thirty-two coloured Plates, Maps, Charts, &c. London. 1819.

THE lively interest we have taken in discussing the question of

a northern communication between the waters of the Pacific and the Atlantic, and the sanguine expectations which we had formed, on no slight grounds, as we thought, of the speedy solution of this problem, (the most interesting as well as the most important which yet remains in geographical discovery,) will sufciently account for the disappointment we experience, in common with the rest of the world, at the total failure of the two Expeditions which had so much excited the attention of Europe, and which bade so fair to set at rest the long agitated question of the existence or non-existence of a North-west Passage, and the practicability of an approach to the North Pole.

The failure of the Polar Expedition was owing to one of those accidents, to which all sea voyages are liable, more especially when to the ordinary sea-risk is superadded that of a navigation among fields and masses of ice. Of that of the other we hardly know in what terms to speak, or how to account for it. We have the story before us, such as it is, told by the officer most interested in making it good, because his reputation is materially concerned in the decision which is likely to be passed upon it by the intelligent part of

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the public; for our own parts we cannot conscientiously pronounce it any otherwise than unsatisfactory. If however we are disappointed, we are by no means discouraged; on the contrary, our conviction of the existence of a communication between Baffin's Bay and the Polar Sea, and between that and the Pacific, so far from being in the smallest degree shaken by any thing that Captain Ross has done, is considerably strengthened by what he has omitted to do. In support of this opinion we shall not, on the present occasion, have recourse to either argument or hypothesis; but by confining ourselves strictly to the actual facts and circumstances of the voyage, as detailed in the narrative before us, be able (so, at least, we trust) to shew, to the satisfaction of every unprejudiced mind, that the discovery of a passage out of Baffin's Bay was never attempted by Captain Ross but once, and then abandoned at the very moment which afforded the brightest prospect of success; abandoned too in a manner so wholly unaccountable, that we know of no parallel in the history of voyages of discovery, unless it be in that of Captain Middleton, when he returned from Repulse Bay and the frozen strait, with a report contradicted by his own officers, and condemned by public opinion. But he was not condemned unheard; neither shall Captain Ross be censured in our pages but on the fullest and fairest investigation of his case as stated by himself: to this he cannot object; having come before the public, he must be content to undergo the usual ordeal. We beg to assure him however that, in analysing his proceedings, we are actuated solely by a sense of duty, and a strong feeling of the importance of the service he was expected to perform, unmixed with a single particle of personal hostility; for we are most willing to think him, what the late Sir George Hope (who recommended him for the enterprize) considered him to be, an active and zealous officer in the ordinary duties of his profession: at the same time however he must excuse us for believing that, in accepting the command of a Voyage of Discovery, he had not given due consideration to the nature of his qualifications. It is a service for which all officers, however brave and intelligent they may be, are not equally qualified; it requires a peculiar tact, an inquisitive and persevering pursuit after details of fact not always interesting, a contempt of danger, and an enthusiasm not to be damped by ordinary difficulties. But let us proceed to the voy

age.

On the 18th of April, 1818, the Isabella and Alexander, having completed their equipments, dropped down the Thames, and arrived, on the 30th, at Lerwick in Shetland. Here the observatory and several of the instruments were landed and set up, and a series of observations was made on the seconds' pendulum, on the incli

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