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make nations vulnerable as much as they make them powerful, and in fact rather distribute their energies over the world than help them to strike a blow in any one quarter.

Finally, a change of political institutions in any country is no good reason for apprehending a disturbance of the equilibrium, although it be attended with zeal and even with proselytism in the country where the revolution breaks out. Every country which submits to a revolution must allow its neighbors to act their choice in regard to following its example; and if it be said that the political fever can be kept within its original bounds only by resistance or even by striking the first blow, the woes that befell Europe from such a course of treatment just after the French Revolution are sufficient proof of its folly.

We may be permitted, in closing our remarks, to felicitate our country in that neither its form of government, nor its position and neighborhood in the world, nor any conceivable aims of its own, will be likely to make questions touching a balance of power any thing more than historical speculations. Whether so vast a fabric will be solid enough to stand under the blows of time, it would be idle to affirm. But we may say with reason that a cluster of republics would be free from some of the causes of mutual jealousy which monarchies subsisting side by side would feel, since among the latter personal ambition would have greater scope; we can be sure, also, that there are no existing states in the world which would purposely pick a quarrel with us, when they must send their fleets and armies. across a thousand leagues of sea to decide it; we can be equally sure that no unions of remote and neighboring powers will seek to engage in serious wars against us; nor can we at present conceive of any such madness as would urge us out of our sphere to enter into the wars of the European world, or into any foreign wars. As for a balance of power, then, whether embracing only the States of this western continent, or taking up a yet wider room, we may assure ourselves that no such is likely to exist. A balance means danger from abroad, from a neighbor, and there are no neighbors for us to fear.

THEODORE D. WOOLSEY.

COPYRIGHTS AND PATENTS.

W

HETHER the right of property results from occupation or labor, or is solely the creation or operation of law, whatever its origin, whatever its incidence, property exists; and it is the business of law, in any civilized society, to protect its enjoyment. Nor is there any difference between real and personal property and literary or artistic property, or less need for the law to protect the right enjoyment of the one than of the other. Who labors harder than an author or an artist? The mind, the fountain of intellectual riches, the soil where the tree of knowledge grows, must first be replenished with the waters of learning, must first be enriched with things new and old. And that needs labor and expense, years of study and research, of hard toil and honest endeavor. The over-exertion of the brain to produce force is too often disastrous. And if it is arduous the taking in of knowledge, how hard its letting out! Yes, it was well said,

"With curious art the brain too finely wrought
Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought."

Books, the written impress of hard-conceived thoughts, are indeed intellectual property, the offsprings of our mind, understanding, diligence, and genius, the emanations of the noblest part of our being, the immortal children which often immortalize their fathers. And more than any other species of property, intellectual and artistic property needs the protection of the law for its enjoyment; for whatever else may be retained by possession, the products of the mind altogether elude the grasp. We may, indeed, keep our thoughts to ourselves. We may lay an embargo on a manuscript, and prevent it to be published by any

other person (Jefferys v. Boosey, 4 H. L. C., p. 815; Prince Albert v. Strange, 1 Mac. & Goi. 25; Duke of Queensberry v. Shebbeare, 2 Eden, 329). But deliver it to a publisher, allow it to be printed, and its pages are past recovery, thrown on the mercy of the wide, wide world, and exposed to abuse and piracy, the easy prey of greed or plagiarism.

What, then, is copyright? It is a public recognition of property; if not in our ideas themselves, at least in the peculiar form in which they are presented. It is the right, the exclusive right, to copy, print, engrave, photograph, translate, abridge, and multiply what we have ourselves produced by pen, pencil, or chisel. It is the right, not only to the possession of the original, but to the exclusive privilege of making copies of the same, without which the original itself would be comparatively of little avail. Separate, in fact, the right to the original manuscript from the right to reproduce it, by printing or otherwise, and who would give himself the trouble of writing a poem or a piece of music? Yes, the full, the sole right of copy is granted because deserved; and freely granted because its advantages are, in the end, proportioned to, though often falling immensely short of, the amount of instruction or delight any intellectual or artistic work has succeeded in producing. Lord Camden said, “Glory is the reward of science, and those who deserve it scorn all meaner views." But glory does not satisfy human wants; and an author, be he a Bacon, a Newton, a Milton, or a Locke, is, after all, a man-aye, too often a poor man.

The recognition of literary property is a matter of comparatively modern date. The monopoly granted to the Stationers' Company, the restraining powers placed in the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the decrees of the Star Chambers, though of the nature of a monopoly, were intended rather as a check to indiscriminate printing and publication than with a view to favor either author or publisher. When the press was still but a recent invention, the state deemed it proper to prevent or restrain its possible licentiousness by keeping it under its control, and by requiring that no book shall be printed with

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out a license of the state and the consent of the owner. the right of the king to grant the sole privilege of printing was questioned, and that abuse ended with all the manifold abuses

of those days of arbitrary government. Long, long after that time the Stationers' Company pretended to possess the sole authority to print almanacs and prognostications of all kinds ; but they, too, found that it would not be submitted to. When a Mr. Carnan, a bookseller in St. Paul's Church Yard, in 1755, began to print almanacs without any license or permission, the Stationers' Company opposed the intrusion, and brought the case before the courts (Stationers' Company v. Carnan, 2 Bla. Rep. 1004). The position assumed by the company was ingenious, if not convincing. They pleaded their privilege on the ground that the printing of such almanacs was a trust inherent in the Crown, and delegated by the Crown to the company; that it stood upon the same footing as the right of printing acts of Parliament; that it related to the religion of the country, as all festivals and fasts are regulated by the almanacs; and that the regulation of time was in all countries a matter of state. But such reasonings could not avail, and the courts decided that the Crown had no prerogative on the subject, and that the monopoly of the almanacs was not tenable. Still the rights of the Stationers' Company on the books they printed remained; and they endeavored by special ordinances to protect the rights of its members, and to seek for penalties against the violation of the same. Thus early were injunctions sought for and obtained against the reprinting of the "Whole Duty of Man," and Nelson's "Festivals and Feasts," and Milton's "Paradise Lost."

The right of the sovereign, as head of the church, to grant a patent for the printing of the Bible is still exercised in England on behalf of the Queen's printer and the universities; and it would be difficult to say whether the claim is made as one of prerogative right or expediency, for while the exclusive right of printing the translation of the Bible is founded partly upon prerogative and partly upon purchase, in practice it is defended on the ground of securing the correct printing of the Bible. A committee of the House of Commons in 1859 inquired into the condition of the Queen's printer's patent, which expired in 1860, but the Crown renewed the patent during pleasure. the question should be reconsidered in connection with the revised translation now in progress, wherein the revisers and the publishers have doubtless acquired a copyright, the argu

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ment must be, what is the best interest of the entire community, of the whole English-speaking people, in the matter? Should the Bible continue to be held as the private property of the sovereign or of the universities, or as the common property of the nation? It is difficult to conceive of the maintenance of private copyright in the Bible. Hitherto, the question presented itself as one of printing rather than of copyright, for the number of readers was far too small to admit of any payment to writers. The first said to have received any compensation for copyright or for the right of copying was Dr. Hammond, for his annotations on the New Testament; but what he received must have been a very small sum. In those days of utter darkness, Milton sold the copyright of his " Paradise Lost" for the miserable pittance of five pounds. In truth, inferior authors were then doomed to starve or beg, and the more fortunate trusted on favor and patronage. As soon, however, as a reading public began to show itself, copyright became a question of interest; and it was found necessary to decide whether or not, according to the common law of England, authors did enjoy a perpetual copyright in their works. The point not being free from doubt, the act of Queen Anne was passed in 1709 (8 Anne, c. 19), professedly for the encouragement of learning, which secured to authors a copyright-that is, the sole right of printing their works for fourteen years, with another term of fourteen years, if living, at the expiration of the first; making in all twenty-eight years at most. Still, long after the passing of this statute a custom was carefully observed among publishers not to interfere with one another's lapsed copyright, and thus practically a kind of perpetual copyright was recognized. So much was the practice adhered to, that the Court of Chancery continued to grant injunctions for the protection of copyright seventy or even one hundred years old. But it was not to be expected that every one would abide by such an honorable understanding; and the question came to be decided, in the case of a reprint of "Thomson's Seasons," how far had the right of authors been affected by the statute of Anne. Had they still a copyright at common law, or a natural right against piracy of their works after the expiration of the fourteen years granted by the statute? Or had they bartered a natural perpetual right

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