voyages, they were highly censurable for not having taken counsel's opinion.'

The decision in the House of Lords in 1774 defeated the booksellers, and made it plain that copyright in this country was the creature of Statute and that consequently the term of its duration could only be defined and (if need be) altered by the will of the Legislature expressed in an Act of Parliament. On that footing the matter must now for ever rest. Perpetual copyright is an absurdity, unless indeed authors were content to have their works entailed upon them and their heirs for ever so as to make an out and out sale of them impossible. Nor would perpetual copyright put a penny on to the market value of a novel or a poem composed to-day. Lord Beaconsfield, in one of his delightful letters to his sister, tells a tale of Washington Irving demanding of John Murray a large price for one of his new books: Murray murmured, Irving talked of posterity ' and the badness of the public taste; Murray said that ' authors who wrote for posterity must publish on their own ' account.' Posterity is a splendid dream, a glorious hope, to fit yourself for its perusal is a high endeavour, but there is no money in it, and that indeed is its supreme excellence.

The first Copyright Statute that ever appeared anywhere is our own-the 8th of Anne, c. 19. Swift is said to have drafted the original Bill, but tradition reports it was much cut about in committee. That it was a booksellers' and not an authors' Bill is quite plain. The old licensing Acts had expired finally in 1694, and the booksellers were left without those summary processes which protected their rights to their registered copies,' and had nothing to fall back upon but the doubtful issues of actions at law, for a remedy in Chancery had not then occurred to anybody as possible. In 1703, in 1706, and again in 1709, the booksellers petitioned Parliament to protect their 'copies,' and, in their own exaggerated language, 'to secure their families from ruin.' They got their answer in the Statute of Anne, which recites that printers, booksellers, and other persons had, of late, frequently taken the liberty of printing, reprinting, and publishing books and other writings without the consent of the authors or proprietors, to their very great detriment, and too often to the ruin of them and their families.'

There is an unreal ring about this recital, which, however, is remarkable for the introduction for the first time into matters of this kind of the word' author.' After the recital come the terms of years during which protection was

VOL. CXCI. NO. CCCXCI.

L

granted. In the case of new books, the Act provided that authors and their assigns should have the sole right of printing for a term of fourteen years from the date of publication, and that if the author should be still alive at the end of that term another term of fourteen years should be added on. In a word, there was a maximum term of twenty-eight years and a minimum term of fourteen years. For old books there was a term granted of twenty-one years from April 10, 1710.

In exchange for these terms of years the booksellers got the summary processes in which their souls delighted, whilst the interests of that amusing figment of the legislators' fancy, the British Public, were supposed to be consulted by the insertion of a most elaborate provision enabling anybody who considered himself aggrieved by the high price at which any book was published to appeal to the Lord Chancellor, the Bishop of London, and many other dignitaries, to fix a fair price. The Statute of Anne remained the law of the land for nearly a century, but during the whole of that time no member of the public sought to fix the fair price of a book. It has been otherwise in the case of rents in Ireland.

In 1801 and in 1814 the law was altered, and in accordance with the new provisions the duration of copyright became the term of the author's life or twenty-eight years from the date of first publication, whichever was the longer.

So the matter stood in 1842 when the Statute (5 and 6 Vic. c. 45) which is still in force became law.

In the discussion that preceded the Act of 1842 distinguished men took part. Carlyle preferred a petition to Parliament on his own account and in his own peculiar style. Dickens took the question very much to heart. Talfourd advocated a great extension of the period of protection with a lofty if somewhat florid eloquence. On the other side were Philistine Members of Parliament, of whom Mr. Coroner Wakley may be taken as an example, who talked sad nonsense about the necessity for cheap books and the right of the people to have the products of other men's brains for nothing. Readers of Nicholas Nickleby' who remember Mr. Gregsbury, M.P., will not require any further notice to be taken of Mr. Wakley, M.P., yet it may well be that when the new Copyright Bill comes on for discussion in the House of Commons it will be found that we have still our Wakleys among us. The part played by Macaulay in these discussions, though it irritated some enthusiasts, was sensible enough. He was for a reasonable term of years. He pre

sented his case after that heightened fashion of his which was natural to him. He perhaps expanded his facts. His story of a grandson of Richardson's, who would never have permitted the republication of 'Clarissa,' rests upon no surer foundation than the statement in a funeral sermon that this grandson (only one of many), being an Evangelical clergyman, had once humorously owned to never having read his grandfather's works-a damaging admission no doubt, but one which we fear could truthfully be made by many grandchildren of distinguished authors. But though Macaulay's embellishments and embroidery may not stand a matter-offact investigation, his argument carried conviction with it, and put the question of copyright on a basis from which it can never be disturbed.

The Act of 1842 bears touching witness in its preamble to the solemnity of the Legislature, always prone to magnify its office: Whereas it is expedient to amend the law re'lating to copyright and to afford greater encouragement to the production of literary works of lasting benefit to the 'world.' In order to accomplish this lofty purpose the Act gave the author, whom it did not venture to define, and his assigns, the longer of the two following terms--the author's life plus seven years, or forty-two years from the date of first publication. The protected term therefore cannot be shorter than forty-two years, but it may endure for the author's life and seven years after.

With all deference to the legislators of 1842, this double reckoning is irrational. The date of publication ought never to be considered in any possible event. As the law now stands, an author's books cease to be protected at different dates-the early works and editions coming on the open market at a time when the later works and corrected editions are still protected. As has lately been pointed out, anybody can now print Robert Browning's Pauline,' but the Ring and the Book' will not be free property till 1911, whilst Asolando' is protected till 1931.

There is general agreement on this head. The New Copyright Law when it comes must provide one period of protection, namely, the author's life plus a term of years, unless indeed life were disregarded altogether and a term of years simply granted. This latter would obviously be the fairer arrangement. Why should Keble have a longer term than Keats simply because Keats died in less than one year after Lamia, Isabella, and other Poems' whilst Keble

survived the publication of 'The Christian Year' for nearly four decades ?

How long should this term be?

In considering this question we naturally look abroad.

In France, prior to the Revolution, authors had no rights at all, only privileges; but in the very throes of the Revolution, namely, on the 19th of July, 1793, the National Convention conferred upon all authors, artists and composers, painters and designers, irrespective of nationality, the exclusive right to sell and distribute their works in the territories of the Republic during their lives and for ten years afterwards. By subsequent legislation this ten years has grown into fifty. In Russia the law is now the same as in France.

In Germany authors suffered many things at the hands of many princes. To have anything like a protected market an author had to obtain privileges' from some thirty or forty sovereigns, and indeed it was not until 1870 that there was or could be any general law conferring a legislative protection upon books and works of art. books and works of art. As the law now stands, in Germany the protected period covers the life of the author plus thirty years.

In Spain by a law of 1879 the period of protection is the author's life plus 80 years.

In Italy, copyright lasts during the author's life or a term of forty years, whichever shall be the longer, and at the end of the longer of these terms another term of forty years begins, during which term the author's books can be published on terms of payment of a royalty. In the United States of America copyright lasts for twenty-eight years and then for a further term of fourteen years if at the end of the twenty-eight years the author or any widow or child of his be living. In Mexico copyright is perpetual.

These examples are sufficient to show that when we come to overhaul our own law we have a margin of choice, and it may well be that the discussion which must then take place will reveal some remarkable differences of opinion.

Up to this point we have been travelling along the old lines, as familiar to Dr. Johnson as to Macaulay. But since 1842 new ideas have been born, and new markets opened out. New industries have arisen, and new ambitions and greeds are stirred and excited. The growth of a huge Englishreading public in America and our own colonies, the newspaper press and the magazines, ocean telegraphy, have all influenced the position of writers, editors, and pro

prietors, and have enormously widened the horizons of the book market.

Europe has risen to the occasion. In the matter of literary property, if in no other, we are a happy family; for, with the exceptions of Russia and Holland, all the important European States are members of the Convention of Berne, and constitute one great union for the protection of the rights of authors. It really is a sublime conception; but it is more than a conception, for this union protects the European author against unauthorised editions and unauthorised translations, and if he be a dramatist-as who would not be if he could?—against unauthorised representations of his play. We now see one common law relating to works of literature and art prevailing in Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, to name no other states. This dates from the year 1886, and is an epoch in the history of authors. When we say one common law, we do not mean that the details of the law of copyright are the same in all the signatory states, but that each signatory state allows to the foreign author whatever measure of protection is allowed by the state to which the foreign author in question owes allegiance.

The Convention of Berne is perhaps sublimer in conception than lucrative in practice. Man is an animal that speaks but one tongue and does not greatly care for translations. Boswell's Life of Johnson' has never been translated into any foreign language, though Dr. Birkbeck Hill has just discovered an abridgement of it in Russ. From a commercial point of view, and in these latter days the commercial side of literature is not overlooked by its votaries, America and the colonies are for English authors the really valuable markets. Great was the rejoicing in literary circles' in Great Britain when our cousins across the water abandoned their piratical practices, and conferred upon all foreign authors who first printed their books in the States the same periods of protection as those enjoyed by American citizens. We often wonder how much solid gold this alteration of the law of the United States has put into the pockets of the British author. In the cases of two or three popular novelists (chiefly of the female sex) we do not doubt the results are satisfactory, but for the majority of authors the conversion of America (though a moral triumph) has not been followed by cash payments of any very startling kind.

With regard to our colonies some odd things have happened. The Act of 1842 was an imperial statute, and