by the authority of the legislature, and neither turing tastes for the lofty and the pure, it has by the violation of oaths, nor by the machinery been Mr. Moxon's privilege to diffuse largely which the prosecutor has employed to render throughout this and other lands, and with them it odious at the cost of those whom he himself the sympathies which link the human heart to contends to be guiltless; but I have striven to nature and to God, and all classes of mankind convince you, that by a just application of that to each other! Reject then, in your justice, law, you may hold this publication of the the charge which imputes to such a man, that works of Shelley to be no crime. It has been by publishing this book, he has been guilty of fairly conceded that Mr. Moxon is a most re- blasphemy against the God whom he reveres ! spectable publisher; one who has done good Refuse to set the fatal precedent, which will service to the cause of poetry and wisdom; not only draw the fame of the illustrious dead and one who could not intentionally publish a into question before juries, without time to inblasphemous work, without treason to all the vestigate their merits; which may not only associations which honour his life. Beginning harass the first publishers of these works; but his career under the auspices of Rogers, the which will beset the course of every bookeldest of a great age of poets, and blessed with seller, every librarian, throughout the country, the continued support of that excellent person, with perpetual snares, and make our criminal who never broke by one unworthy line the courts the arenas for a savage warfare of charm of moral grace which pervades his literary prosecutions! Protect our noble literaworks, he has been associated with Lamb, ture from the alternative of being either corwhose kindness embraced all sects, all parties, rupted or enslaved! Terminate those anxieall classes, and whose genius shed new and ties which this charge, so unprovoked-so unpleasant lights on daily life; with Southey, the deserved-has now for months inflicted on the pure and childlike in heart; with Coleridge, defendant, and his friends, by that verdict of in the light of whose Christian philosophy Not Guilty, which will disappoint only those these indicted poems would assume their true who desire that cheap blasphemy should have character as mournful, yet salutary specimens free course; which the noblest, and purest, and of power developed imperfectly in this world; most pious of your own generation will rejoice and with Wordsworth, whose works so long in; and for which their posterity will honour neglected or scorned, but so long silently nur- and bless you!

SPEECH ON THE MOTION FOR LEAVE TO BRING IN A BILL TO AMEND THE LAW OF COPYRIGHT,

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, THURSDAY, MAY 18, 1837.

Mr. SPEAKER, In venturing to invite the at- | tention of the House to the state of the law affecting the property of men of letters in the results of their genius and industry, I feel that it is my duty to present their case as concisely as its nature will permit. While I believe that heir claims to some share in the consideration of the legislature will not be denied, I am aware that they appeal to feelings far different from those which are usually excited by the intellectual conflicts of this place; that the interest of their claim is not of that stirring kind which belongs to the busy present, but reflects back on the past, of which the passions are now silent, and stretches forward with speculation into the visionary future; and that the circumstances which impede their efforts and frustrate their reward, are best appreciated in the calmness of thought to which those efforts are akin. I shall therefore intrude as briefly as I can on the patience of the House, while I glance at the history of the evils of which they complain; suggest the principles on which I think them entitled to redress; and state the outlines of the remedies by which I propose to relieve them.

It is, indeed, time that literature should experience some of the blessings of legislation;

for hitherto, with the exception of the noble boon conferred on the acted drama by the bill of my honourable friend the member for Lincoln, it has received scarcely any thing but evil. If we should now simply repeal all the statutes which have been passed under the guise of encouraging learning, and leave it to be protected only by the principles of the common law, and the remedies which the common law could supply, I believe the relief would be welcome. It did not occur to our ancestors, that the right of deriving solid benefits from that which springs solely from within us-the right of property in that which the mind itself creates, and which, so far from exhausting the materials common to all men, or limiting their resources, enriches and expands them—a right of property which, by the happy peculiarity of its nature, can only be enjoyed by the proprietor in proportion as it blesses mankind-should be exempted from the protection which is extended to the ancient appropriation of the soil, and the rewards of commercial enterprise. By the common law of England, as solemnly expounded by a majority of seven to four of the judges in the case of "Donaldson v. Beckett," and as sustained by the additional opinion of Lord Mansfield, the author of an original wor

notes of all preceding editions. Some doubts having at length arisen, the question of the operation of the statute was, in 1760, raised by a sort of amicable suit, "Tonson v. Collins," respecting the "Spectator," in which the Court of Common Pleas inclined to the plaintiff, but before giving judgment discovered that the proceeding was collusive, and refused to pronounce any decision. In 1766 an action was brought, "Miller v. Taylor," for pirating "Thomson's Seasons," in the Court of King's Bench, before whom it was elaborately argued, and which, in 1769, gave judgment in favour of the subsisting copyright; Lord Mansfield, Mr. Justice Willes, and Mr. Justice Aston, holding that copyright was perpetual by the common law, and not limited by the statute, except as to penalties, and Mr. Justice Yates dissenting from them. In 1774 the question was brought before the House of Lords, when eleven judges delivered their opinions upon it-six of whom thought the copyright limited, while five held it perpetual; and Lord Mansfield, who would have made the numbers equal, retaining his opinion, but expressing none. By this bare majority-against the strong opinion of the chief justice of England-was it decided that the statute of Anne has substituted a short term in copyright for an estate in fee, and the rights of authors were delivered up to the mercy of succeeding parliaments!

had FOR EVER the sole right of multiplying co- | the "Paradise Lost:" and in 1752 to the pies, and a remedy by action, incident to every same poem, with a life of the author, and the right, against any one who should infringe it. The jurisdiction of the Star Chamber, while it restrained the freedom of the press, at the same time incidentally preserved the copyright from violation; and this was one of the pleas urged for the power of licensing; for Milton, in his immortal pleading for unlicensed printing, states, as one of the glosses of his opponents, "the just retaining by each man of his several copy, which God forbid should be gainsaid." In the special verdict in "Miller v. Taylor," (1769,) it was found as a fact, "that before the reign of Queen Anne, it was usual to purchase from authors the perpetual copyright of their books, and to assign the same from hand to hand for valuable considerations, and to make them the subject of family settlements." In truth, the claim of the author to perpetual copyright was never disputed, until literature had received a fatal present in the first act of parliament "For its encouragement"-the 8th Anne, c. 19, passed in 1709; in which the mischief lurked, unsuspected, for many years before it was called into action to limit the rights it professed, and it was probably intended, to secure. By that act, the sole right of printing and reprinting their works was recognised in authors for the term of fourteen years, and, if they should be living at its close, for another period of the same duration, and piracy was made punishable during those periods by the forfeiture of the books illegally published, and of a penny for every sheet in the offender's custody-one-half to the use of the queen's majesty the other halfpenny, not to the poor author, whose poverty the sum might seem to befit, but to the informer; and the condition of enjoying these summary remedies, was the en-bling the two universities in England, the four try of the work at Stationers' Hall. This act, "For the encouragement of learning," which, like the priest in the fable, while it vouchsafes the blessing denies the farthing, also confers a power of the Archbishop of Canterbury and other great functionaries to regulate the prices of books, which was rejected by the Lords, restored on conference with the Commons, and repealed in the following reign; and also confers on learning the benefit of a forced contribution of nine copies of every work, on the best paper, for the use of certain libraries. Except in this last particular, the act seems to have remained a dead letter down to the year 1760, no one, as far as I can trace, having thought it worth while to sue for its halfpennies, and no one having suggested that its effect had been silently to restrict the common-law right of authors to the term during which its remedies were to operate. So far was this construction from being suspected, that in this interval of fifty years the Court of Chancery repeatedly interfered by injunction to restrain the piracy of books in which the statutable copyright had long expired. This protection was extended in 1735 to "The Whole Duty of Man," the first assignment of which had been made seventyeight years before; in the same year to the "Miscellanies of Pope and Swift;" in 1736 to "Nelson's Festivals and Fasts;" in 1739 to

Until this decision, the copyright vested in the universities had only shared the protection which it was supposed had existed for all, and in fact their copyright was gone. But they immediately resorted to the legislature and obtained an act, 15 George III., c. 63, "For ena

universities of Scotland, and the several colleges of Eton, Westminster, and Winchester, to hold in perpetuity the copyright in books given or bequeathed to them for the advancement of learning and the purposes of education; and the like privilege was, by 41 George III., c. 107, extended to Trinity College, Dublin. With the immunities thus conferred on the universities, or rather with this exemption from the wrong incidentally inflicted on individuals, I have no intention to interfere; neither do I seek to relieve literature from the obligation, recently lightened by the just consideration of parliament, of supplying the principal universities with copies of all works at the author's charge. I only seek to apply the terms of the statute, which recites that the purposes of those who bequeathed copyright to the universities for the advancement of learning would be frustrated unless the exclusive right of printing and reprinting such books be secured in perpetuity, to support the claim of individuals to some extended interest in their own. I only ask that some of the benefits enjoyed by the venerable nurseries of learning and of genius should attend the works of those whose youth they have inspired and fostered, and of those also who, although fortune has denied to them that inestimable blessing, look with reverence upon the great institutions of

their country, and feel themselves in that reverence not wholly strangers to the great body of associations they nourish.

The next act, 41 George III., c. 107, passed immediately after the Union, did little besides including Ireland in the general law of copyright; conferring on Trinity College, Dublin, the privilege of English universities; prohibiting the importation of books from abroad which had been originally printed in the United Kingdom; and increasing the penalty on piracies from 1d. to 3d. per sheet. But in the year 1814, by the statute of 54 George III., c. 156, which is the principal subsisting act on the subject of literary copyright, reciting "That it would afford further encouragement to literature, if the duration of copyright were further extended," enlarges it to the absolute term of twenty-eight years; and if the author shall survive that time, secures it to him for the remainder of his life. Since then the legislature has extended its protection to two classes of composition which before were left in a condition to invite piracy-to the actual drama, by the measure of 3 William IV., c. 15, and to lectures, by 5 and 6 William IV., c. 65-and has, by an act of last session, lightened the load of one of the blessings conferred by the legislature, by reducing the copies which authors are privileged to render to five; but the term of twenty-eight years, with the possible reversion beyond that time for life, is all authors have yet obtained in return for that inheritance of which the statute of Anne incidentally deprived them.

registered in like manner in a form also to be given by the act; that such transfer shall be proved by a similar copy; and that in neither case shall any stamp be requisite.

At present great uncertainty prevails as to the original right of property in papers supplied to periodical works or written at the instance of a bookseller, and as to the right of engraving from original pictures. However desirable it may be that these questions should be settled, it is impossible to interfere with the existing relations of booksellers and authors, or of patrons of art and artists. Neither, for the future, do I propose to lay down any rule as to the rights which shall originally be expressed or implied between the parties themselves; but that the right of copy shall be registered as to such books, pictures or engravings, only with the consent of both expressed in writing, and when this is done shall be absolute in the party registered as owner. At present, an engraver or publisher, who has given a large sum for permission to engrave a picture, and expended his money or labour in the plate, may be met by unexcepted competition, for which he has no remedy. By making the registration not the condition of the right itself, but of the remedy by action or otherwise, the independence of contracting parties will be preserved, and this evil avoided for the future. A competent tribunal will still be wanting; its establishment is beyond the scope of my intention or my power; but I feel that complete justice will not be done to Literature and Art until a mode shall be devised for This limitation of the ancient rights of au- a cheap and summary vindication of their inthorship has not been compensated by uni-juries before some parties better qualified to formity in the details of the law, by simplicity in the modes of proving the right or of transferring it, or by the cheapness or adequacy of the remedies. The penal clauses have proved wholly worthless. Engravings, etchings, maps, and charts, which are regulated by other statutes, are secured to the author for twentyeight years, but not, like books, for the contingent term of life. Instead of the registration at Stationers' Hall, which has been holden not necessary to the right of action, the work must bear the date and the name of the proprietor; but no provision is made in either case for cheap transfer. Now, I propose to render the law of copyright uniform, as to all books and works of art; to secure to the proprietor the same term in each; to give one plan of registration and one mode of transfer. As the stationer's company have long enjoyed the control over the registration of books, I do not propose to take it from them, if they are willing to retain it with the increased trouble, compensated by the increased fees which their officer will be entitled to receive. I propose that, before any proceeding can be adopted for the violation of copyright, the author, or his assignee, shall deposit a copy of the work, whether book or engraving, and cause an entry to be made in the form to be given in the act of the proprietorship of the work, whether absolute or limited; and that a copy of such entry, signed by the officer, shall be admitted in all courts as primâ facie evidence of the property. I propose that any transfer should be

determine it than judges who have passed their lives in the laborious study of the law, or jurors who are surrounded with the cares of business, and, except by accident, little acquainted with the subjects presented to them for decision.

But the main object of the bill which I contemplate is-I will not use those words of ill omen, "the further advancement of learning," but-for additional justice to learning, by the further extension of time during which authors shall enjoy the direct pecuniary benefit immediately flowing from the sale of their own works.

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 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

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?

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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 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 womanshould 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 coloured 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 for ever 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 recognise as his-is published for the gain of others than his children-that his death is illustrated There is something, sir, peculiarly unjust by the forfeiture of their birthright? What in bounding the term of an author's property justice is there in this? Do we reward our by his natural life, if he should survive so heroes thus? Did we tell our Marlboroughs, short a period as twenty-eight years. It deour Nelsons, our Wellingtons, that glory was nies to age and experience the probable reward their reward, that they fought for posterity, it permits to youth-to youth, sufficiently full and that posterity would pay them? We leave of hope and joy, to slight his promises. It them to no such cold and uncertain requital; gives a bounty to haste, and informs the labowe do not even leave them merely to enjoy rious student, who would wear away his the spoils of their victories, which we deny strength to complete some work which "the to the author; we concentrate a nation's ho- world will not willingly let die," that the more nest feeling of gratitude and pride into the of his life he devotes to its perfection, the form of an endowment, and teach other ages more limited shall be his interest in its fruits. what we thought, and what they ought to think, It stops the progress of remuneration at the of their deeds, by the substantial memorials moment it is most needed, and when the beof our praise. Were our Shakspeare and Mil-nignity of Nature would extract from her last ton 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 victoriesif we allowed to their descendants, not the tax assessed by present gratitude, and charged on

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 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-because the elder literature of our own country is a free mine of wealth to the bookseller and of delight to ourselves, that we are unable to understand the claim of our contemporaries to a beneficial interest in their works. Because genius by a genial necessity communicates so much, we cannot conceive it as retaining any thing for its possessor. There is a sense, indeed, in which the poets "on earth have made us heirs of truth and pure delight in heavenly lays ;" and it is because of the greatness of this very boon-because their thoughts become our thoughts, and their phrases unconsciously enrich our daily language-because their works, harmonious by the law of their own nature, suggest to us the rules of composition by which their imitators should be guided-because to them we can resort, and "in our golden urns draw light," that we cannot fancy them apart from ourselves, or admit that they have any property except in our praise. And our gratitude is shown not only in leaving their descendants without portion in the pecuniary benefits derived from their works, but in permitting their fame to be frittered away in abridgments, and polluted by base intermixtures, and denying to their children even the cold privilege of watching over and protecting it!

calamity a means of support and comfort to survivors. At the season when the author's name is invested with the solemn interest of mortality-when his eccentricities or frailties excite a smile or a sneer no longer-when the last seal is set upon his earthly course, and

his works assume their place among the clas- fortune-not seeking his triumph in the tem sics of his country, your law declares that his pest of the passions, but in the serenity which works shall become your property, and you lies above them-whose works shall be scoffed requite him by seizing the patrimony of his at-whose name made a by-word-and yet children. We blame the errors and excesses who shall persevere in his high and holy of genius, and we leave them-justly leave course, gradually impressing thoughtful minds them-for the most part, to the consequences with the sense of truth made visible in the of their strangely blended nature. But if ge- severest forms of beauty, until he shall create nius, in assertion of its diviner alliances, pro- the taste by which he shall be appreciated— duces large returns when the earthly course influence, one after another, the master-spirits of its frail possessor is past, why is the pub- of his age-be felt pervading every part of the lic to insult his descendants with their alms national literature, softening, raising, and enand their pity? What right have we to moral-riching it; and when at last he shall find his ize over the excesses of a Burns, and insult confidence in his own aspirations justified, his memory by charitable honours, while we and the name which once was the scorn adare taking the benefit of his premature death, mitted to be the glory of his age-he shall look in the expiration of his copyright and the forward to the close of his earthly career, as vaunted cheapness of his works? Or, to ad- the event that shall consecrate his fame and vert to a case in which the highest intellec- deprive his children of the opening harvest he tual powers were associated with the noblest is beginning to reap. As soon as his copymoral excellence, what right have we to take right becomes valuable, it is gone! This is no credit to ourselves for a paltry and ineffectual imaginary case-I refer to one who "in this subscription to rescue Abbotsford for the fa- setting part of time" has opened a vein of the mily of its great author, (Abbotsford, his ro- deepest sentiment and thought before unknown mance in stone and mortar, but not more indi- -who has supplied the noblest antidote to the vidually his than those hundred fabrics, not freezing effects of the scientific spirit of the made with hands, which he has raised, and age-who, while he has detected that poetry peopled for the delight of mankind,) while we which is the essence of the greatest things, insist on appropriating now the profits of his has cast a glory around the lowliest conditions earlier poems, and anticipate the time when, of humanity, and traced out the subtle links in a few years, his novels will be ours without by which they are connected with the highest rent-charge to enjoy-and any one's to copy, to emasculate, and to garble? This is the case of one whom kings and people delighted to honour. But look on another picture-that of a man of genius and integrity, who has received all the insult and injury from his contemporaries, and obtains nothing from posterity but a name. Look at Daniel De Foe; recollect him pilloried, bankrupt, wearing away his life to pay his creditors in full, and dying in the struggle!-and his works live, imitated, corrupted, yet casting off the stains, not by protection of law, but by their own pure essence. Had every school-boy, whose young imagination has been prompted by his great work, and whose heart has learned to throb in the strange, yet familiar, solitude he created, given even the halfpenny of the statute of Anne, there would have been no want of a provision for his children, no need of a subscription for a statue to his memory!

of one whose name will now find an echo, not only in the heart of the secluded student, but in that of the busiest of those who are fevered by political controversy-of William Wordsworth. Ought we not to requite such a poet, while yet we may, for the injustice of our boyhood? For those works which are now insensibly quoted by our most popular writers, the spirit of which now mingles with our intellectual atmosphere, he probably has not received through the long life he has devoted to his art, until lately, as much as the same labour, with moderate talent, might justly produce in a single year. Shall the law, whose term has been amply sufficient to his scorners, now afford him no protection, because he has outlasted their scoffs-because his fame has been fostered amidst the storms, and is now the growth of years!

There is only one other consideration to which I will advert, as connected with this The term allowed by the existing law is subject-the expedience and justice of accuriously adapted to encourage the lightest knowledging the rights of foreigners to copyworks, and to leave the noblest unprotected. right in this country, and of claiming it from Its little span is ample for authors who seek them for ourselves in return. If at this time only to amuse; who, to beguile the time, look it were clear that our law afforded no proteclike the time;" who lend to frivolity or corruption to foreigners, first publishing in other tion " lighter wings to fly;" who sparkle, countries, there would be great difficulty in blaze, and expire. These may delight for a dealing with this question for ourselves, and season-glisten as the fire-flies on the heaving we might feel bound to leave it to negotiation sea of public opinion-the airy proofs of the to give and to obtain reciprocal benefits. But intellectual activity of the age-yet surely it if a recent decision on the subject of musical is not just to legislate for those alone, and deny copyright is to be regarded as correct, the all reward to that literature which aspires to principle of international copyright is already endure. Let us suppose an author, of true acknowledged here, and there is little for us to original genius, disgusted with the inane phra- do in order that we may be enabled to claim its seology which had usurped the place of poetry, recognition from foreign states. It has been and devoting himself from youth to its service; decided by a judge conversant with the busidisdaining the gauds which attract the care- ness and with the elegancies of life to a degree less, and unskilled in the moving accidents of unusual with an eminent lawyer-by one who