COPYRIGHT AND COPY WRONG. LETTER I. TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATHENÆUM : My dear Sir, I have read with much satisfaction the occasional exposures in your Journal of the glorious uncertainty of the Law of Copyright, and your repeated calls for its revision. It is high time, indeed, that some better system should be established; and I cannot but regret that the legislature of our own country, which patronizes the great cause of liberty all over the world, has not taken the lead in protecting the common rights of Literature. We have a national interest in each; and their lots ought not to be cast asunder. The French, Prussian, and American governments, however, have already got the start of us, and are concerting measures for suppressing those piracies, which have become, like the influenza, so alarmingly prevalent. It would appear, from the facts established, that an English book merely transpires in London, but is published in Paris, Brussels, or New York. 'Tis but to sail, and with to-morrow's sun Mr. Bulwer tells us of a literary gentleman, who felt himself under the necessity of occasionally going abroad to preserve his self-respect; and without some change, an author will equally be obliged to repair to another country to enjoy his circulation. As to the American reprints, I can personally corroborate your assertion, that heretofore a transatlantic bookseller "has taken five hundred copies of a single work," whereas he now orders none, or merely a solitary one, to set up from. This, I hope, is a matter as important as the little question of etiquette, which, according to Mr. Cooper, the fifty millions will have to adjust. Before, however, any international arrangements be entered into, it seems only consistent with common sense that we should begin at home, and first establish what copyright is in Britain, and provide for its protection from native pirates or Book-aneers. I have learned, therefore, with pleasure, that the state of the law is to be brought under the notice of Parliament by Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, who, from his legal experience and literary tastes, is so well qualified for the task. The grievances of authors have neither been loudly nor often urged on Lords or Commons; but their claims have long been lying on the library table, if not on the table of the House,-and methinks their wrongs have only to be properly stated to obtain redress. I augur for them at least a good hearing, for such seldom and low-toned appeals ought to find their way to organs as "deaf to clamor as the old citizen of Cheapside, who said that "the more noise there was in the street, the more he didn't hear it." In the meantime, as an author myself, as well as proprietor of copyrights in "a small way," I make bold to offer my own feelings and opinions on the subject, with some illustrations from what, although not a decidedly serious writer, I will call my experiences. And here I may appropriately plead my apology for taking on myself the cause of a fraternity of which I am so humble a member; but, in truth, this very position, which forbids vanity on my own account, favors my pride on that of others, and thus enables me to speak more becomingly of the deserts of my brethren, and the dignity of the craft. Like P. P. the Clerk of the Parish, who with a proper reverence for his calling, confessed an elevation of mind in only considering him. self as "a shred of the linen vestment of Aaron," I own to an inward exultation at being but a Precentor, as it were, in that worship, which numbers Shakspeare and Milton amongst its priests. Moreover, now that the rank of authors, and the nature and value of literary property, are about to be discussed, and I hope established for ever, it becomes the duty of every literary "Lite man--as much as of a Peer when his Order is in question-to assert his station, and stand up manfully for the rights, honors, and privileges of the Profession to which he belongs. The question is not a mere sordid one—it is not a simple inquiry in what way the emoluments of literature may be best secured to the author or proprietors of a work; on the contrary, it involves a principle of grave importance, not only to literary men, but to those who love letters,—and, I will presume to say, to society at large. It has a moral as well as commercial bearing; for the Legislature will not only have to decide directly, by a formal act, whether the literary interest is worthy of a place beside the shipping interest, the landed interest, the funded interest, the manufacturing, and other public interests, but also it will have indirectly to determine whether literary men belong to the privileged class,-the higher, lower, or middle class,-the working class,-productive or unproductive class,—or, in short, to any class at all.* rary men," says Mr. Bulwer, "have not with us any fixed and settled position as men of letters." We have, like Mr. Cooper's American lady, no precedence. We are, in fact, nobodies. Our place, in turf language, is nowhere. Like certain birds and beasts of difficult classification, we go without any at all. We have no more caste than the Pariahs. We are on a par-according as we are scientific, theologic, imaginative, dramatic, poetic, historic, instructive, or amusing-with quack doctors, street-preachers, strollers, ballad-singers, hawkers of last dying speeches, Punch-and-Judies, conjorers, tumblers, and other "divarting vagabonds." We are as the Jews in the East, the Africans in the West, or the gipsies anywhere. We belong to those to whom nothing can belong. I have even misgivingsheaven help us—if an author have a parish! I have serious doubts if a work be a qualification for the workhouse! The law apparently cannot forget, or forgive, that Homer was a vagrant, Shakspeare a deer-stealer, Milton a rebel. Our very cracks tell against us in the statute; Poor Stoneblind, Bill the Poacher, and Radical Jack have been the ruin of our gang. We have neither character to lose nor property to protect. We * At a guess, I should say we were classed, in opposition to a certain literary sect, as Inutilitarians are by law-outlaws, undeserving of civil rights. We may be robbed, libelled, outraged with impunity, being at the same time liable, for such offences, to all the rigor of the code. I will not adduce, as I could do, a long catalogue of the victims of this system which seems to have been drawn up by the "Lord of Misrule," and sanctioned by the "Abbot of Unreason." I will select, as Sterne took his captive, a single author. To add to the parallel, behold him in a prison! He is sentenced to remain there during the monarch's pleasure, to stand three times in the pillory, and to be amerced besides in the heavy sum of two hundred marks. The sufferer of this threefold punishment is one rather deserving of a triple crown, as a man, as an author, and as an example of that rare commercial integrity which does not feel discharged of its debts, though creditors have accepted a composition, till it has paid them in full. It is a literary offence—a libel, or presumed libel, which has incurred the severity of the law; but the same power that oppresses him, refuses or neglects to support him in the protection of his literary character and his literary rights. His just fame is depreciated by public slanderers, and his honest, honorable earnings are forestalled by pirates. Of one of his performances no less than twelve surreptitious editions are printed, and 80,000 copies are disposed of at a cheap rate in the streets of London. I am writing no fiction, though of one of fiction's greatest masters. captive is for he can never die—that captive author is Scott's, Johnson's, Blair's, Marmontel's, Lamb's, Chalmers's, Beattie'sgood witnesses to character these!-every Englishman's, Britain's, America's, Germany's, France's, Spain's, Italy's, Arabia's; all the world's DANIEL DE FOE! That Since the age of the author of Robinson Crusoe, the law has doubtless altered in complexion, but not in character, towards his race. It no longer pillories an author who writes to the distaste, or like poor Daniel, above the comprehension of the Pow. ers that be, because it no longer pillories any one; but the imprisonment and the fines remain in force. The title of a book is, in legal phrase, the worst title there is. Literary property is the lowest in the market. It is declared by law worth only so many years' purchase, after which the private right be comes common; and in the meantime, the estate being notoriously infested with poachers, is as remarkably unprotected by game laws. An author's winged thoughts, though laid, hatched, bred, and fed within his own domain, are less his property than is the bird of passage that of the lord of the manor, on whose soil it may happen to alight. An author cannot employ an armed keeper to protect his preserves; he cannot apply to a pindar to arrest the animals that trespass on his grounds;nay, he cannot even call in a common constable to protect his purse on the King's highway! I have had thoughts myself of seeking the aid of a policeman, but counsel, learned in the law, have dissuaded me from such a course; there was no way of defending myself from the petty thief but by picking my own pocket! Thus I have been compelled to see my own name attached to catchpenny works, none of mine, hawked about by placard-men in the street; I, who detest the puffing system, have apparently been guilty of the gross forwardness of walking the pavement by proxy for admirers, like the dog Bashaw! I have been made, nominally, to ply at stage-coach windows with my wares, like Isaac Jacobs with his cheap pencils, and Jacob Isaacs with his cheap pen-knives, to cut them with :—and without redress, for, whether I had placed myself in the hands of the law, or taken the law in my own hands, as any bumpkin in a barn knows, there is nothing to be thrashed out of a man of straw. Now, with all humility, if my poor name be any recommendation of a book, I conceive I am entitled to reserve it for my own benefit. What says the proverb ?" When your name is up you may lie abed;" but what says the law?—at least, if the owner of the name be an author. Why, that any one may steal his bed from under him and sell it; that is to say, his reputation, and the revenue which it may bring. In the meantime, for other street frauds there is a summary process: the vender of a flash watch, or a razor made to sell, though he appropriates no maker's name, is seized without ceremony by A 1, carried before B 2, and committed to C 3, as regularly as a child goes through its alphabet and numeration. They have defrauded the public, forsooth, and the public has its prompt remedy; but for the literary |