LITMIR.BIZ

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capability was never more fully realised by the laws of a sixpenny club, than by the great charter of American liberties. It is a thing written on paper, and may be thrust into the breeches, or hung up on the wall, as best suits the notions of its worshipper, and his manner of exhibiting respect. Now the law of copyright is not here, as you suppose, a mere matter of statute; nor is the doctrine that an author has no perpetual property in what his intellect creates, a simple decision of courts. It is a part of the constitution, which empowers the national Congress "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." An American writer has remarked, that its equivalent would have been the concession of a power to promote the fisheries, by allowing to fishermen a limited number of the cod-fish and herrings which they take on a Newfoundland fog-bank. Here then, you will say, is a fundamental obstruction to literary justice in America! But your hasty conclusion will show that you have thought but little on written constitutions. I agree with the Count de Maistre, that such instruments are of all things the most slippery. What is easier than for Congress to evade its restriction, and make the limited time exactly the years of Methusaleh! Such a limit would be about as good as "to one's heirs for ever." But there is yet another facility in written constitutions: "a breath unmakes them, as a breath has made." In America, a constitution is as easily overhauled, new-ribbed, and launched again, as ever a sloop-of-war was dry-docked and new-coppered. Here, for instance, is the great "Empire State" of New York, with a constitution hardly a year old! The stripling who has just attained his majority, has actually survived the whole life of its predecessor; and he who lives half as long again, will see the new one superannuated and going the way of all written constitutions. The late constitution of this State was in many respects a noble one; but its successor plays the mischief with every thing; and I have heard an old freeholder complain that he hardly knows whether he has a house, a wife, or a head on his shoulders; so radically has the revolution affected whatever is social and civil. This will show you that there is, after all, no necessary perpetuity in the present condition of things; and so I come to the statute, which is the only just cause of complaint.

      The English origin of the law is very apparent. It retains some features of the old statute of Queen Anne, with others of 54 Geo. III., which has lately been made so familiar in parliamentary reports. It secures authors in their property for a term of twenty-eight years, and provides for renewing this security for half that period, upon a renewal of entry. One copy of every work thus protected, must be deposited with the Clerk of the United States' Court for the District where it is entered; and by a late enactment, the author must contribute another copy to the library of "the Smithsonian Institute," – that unmeaning benevolence of an unfortunate scion of the Northumberland family, which is already beginning to be regarded as a folly, and which one would think might have been made to subserve the interests of authors, rather than furnish another occasion for the exercise of legislative ingenuity, in adding to their many annoyances. The other important features of the Act are the penalty for piracy, and the restriction of protection to citizens and residents; in other words, the punishment of piracy in certain cases, and its license in others. Thus the same Act is dainty of rights, if the craft swim in rivers and bays, but hands over to the black flag whatever is found on the highway of nations. Persons pirating a copyright work are liable to a forfeiture of every copy in their keeping, whether of their own manufacture or otherwise; and besides this, to a fine of one dollar a sheet upon the same, of which one moiety goes to the author, and the residue to the government. Why should it be culpable to steal from a resident, and laudable to do the same thing with a stranger? If a foreign mechanic exports his goods, they are as safe in New York, as the wealth of John Jacob Astor; but no kind of mercy is shown to the product of a foreigner's brain – than which one would think nothing but his soul should be more sacred among all Christian men. On the contrary – not content with leaving him unprotected, there is in the tariff an express provision for the encouragement of plunder. No one pretends that the revenue of the United States requires the tax of ten per cent. ad valorem, upon all importations of "books printed, magazines, pamphlets, and illustrated newspapers, bound or unbound;" yet, such are the terms of the tariff of 1846, and it was designed expressly to prevent importations, and encourage the piratical, manufacture of such things at home. I say so, because it is notorious, and has been exposed by American writers themselves.

      Now, let us see how "Napper Tandy" is likely to fare under regulations like these! Can it be possible, you will say, that the Model Republic cherishes designs so predatory; and is there no other explanation of a law which seems so outrageous? There are laws, I am aware, which are by no means what they seem, and British law is the last to dispense with a concession so important. I have, therefore, put this American statute into every light that seemed likely to show it to better advantage, and I confess there is one view of the subject, which, as being myself a resident, it gives me pleasure to suggest. Is it not conceivable, after all, that the original purpose of the statute was merely to extend, to exactly such worthies as the author of "Napper Tandy," a polite invitation to a literary sojourn in America? You know how many British authors, with no such inducements, have preferred Italy to their native land; and why should not this country, at least in the partial eyes of its own legislators, be worthy of a share of their company? The suggestion is equally complimentary to the law-givers, and to those whose society is thus held at a premium. It is true, that, excepting Will Cobbett, few English writers of eminence have taken the hospitable hint; but who could have foreseen this result, when so many of the literary race are perpetually sighing for lodges in the wilderness, and dwellings in the desert! Monsieur Dumas might indeed be reluctant to accept the flattering overtures of a country which is known to cherish such antipathies to his great ancestor Ham, and all that interesting family; and is quite, excusable for preferring the persecutions of French courts of justice, to the patronage which American law would more fully accord to his books than to his person; but why should not you, my dear Godfrey, become as original in your manner of life, as I am sure you will be in the productions of your genius? Why should you not court a "boundless contiguity of shade," and issue your immortal works from the depths of a Pennsylvanian forest, as gracefully as Lord Byron sent forth his from the more vulgarised retirement of Tuscany? Residing here, you could hold the sons of rapine at bay, enjoying at once your American harvests, and the golden remittances of your publishers in England. But the crowning consideration is this, that should you undertake the protection of your darling Maga, an arrangement with Mr Blackwood, and the publication of "Napper Tandy" in his incomparable pages, would seal the fate of the counterfeit, and forcibly recall to the mind of Reprint & Co. the sigh of Othello over his lost occupation. You stare – but it follows, by demonstration —

      "For the intent and purpose of the law,

      Hath full relation to the penalty."

      You enter "Napper Tandy" in the "Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York." The next number of Blackwood comes out with your first chapter, which Reprint unguardedly produces in his fac simile. Don't you see, my dear fellow, that if you ever hooked a gudgeon, you have as certainly caught the republisher? You seize ten thousand copies in his warehouse, just as they are about to be distributed over the land. On each copy, he must pay, in addition to his forfeiture, one dollar a sheet; that is to say, ten thousand dollars for your first chapter; of which, after the government has gone snacks, one thousand guineas are your guarantee for the interest which the Republic takes in her invited guests; and (to the dismay of piracy,)

      "The law allows it, and the court awards."

      Mr Blackwood will doubtless take care that your work shall not be completed too fast: and as long as the interminable "Napper Tandy" continues, the press of the fac-simile must stand still. Meanwhile, you commence a legitimate reprint, under the genuine Ebony arms, and reign as a kind of lord-lieutenant, under his ambrosial majesty, Christopher the Great. The stereotype plates of Maga reach you every month, and the American public discern the difference between a true fac-simile and a cunning counterfeit. Instead of the sham tête-de-Buchanan, they see the very "trick of Cœur-de-lion's face;" and finding themselves as little taxed for the original, as ever they were for the humbug, vote you a public benefactor, and send a round-robin to Congress demanding the instantaneous enactment of a universal copyright law, if not the grant of a gold medal to the beneficent Godfrey. I anticipate, however, your reply. Ten thousand

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