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Lesley Grat Meryon THE ALDINE MAGAZINE OF Biography, Bibliography, Criticism, and the Arts. MR. SERJEANT TALFOURD AND THE NEW REGARDING it as equally useless and unjust -valueless to the author and injurious to the bookseller-we disapproved the principle of Mr. Serjeant Talfourd's New Copyright Bill, as brought forward in the parliamentary session of 1838. Moreover, we disapproved the spirit of the Bill, because it appeared to partake largely of the nature of a job; of a job which, under the pretence of improving the position of the literary class in general, was not in reality calculated to benefit one individual in five hundred. Further, whilst it affected to protect the author, and to promote and extend his interest, it, by an intended ex post facto operation, was so constructed as to engender differences between authors and their publishers, and grossly to violate the interest of the latter. We consider it to be quite as expedient, and quite as just, that a bookseller should be protected in the possession of his vested rights, as that the author should be protected in the possession of his property against the selfishness or dishonesty of an overreaching bookseller. evident: not one book in fifty can hope for an immortality of more than eight-andtwenty years. Even Sir Walter Scott's works, had they rested upon their intrinsic merit for their popularity, would never have attained the height at which, pro tempore, they stand. However, they are rapidly descending to their just level. It was perfectly natural, and even laudable, on the part of Mr. Serjeant Talfourd— himself a poet, and the associate of Poetsthe friend of Southey, Wordsworth, Lamb, Coleridge, Godwin, Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Procter, and Sheridan Knowles, &c.—that he should be desirous of promoting the interests of literature and of literary men. It is for his attempt to legislate in favour of the few, without benefitting the many, and for his giving an ex post facto character to the operation of his last year's Bill, that we feel disposed to blame him. However, Mr. Talfourd has derived advantage from experience; and, in his Bill of the present session-an abstract of which we gave at page 189 he has wisely abandoned the ex It appeared to us last year-and our post facto clauses. By this abandonment, opinion upon the subject has not undergone Mr. Tegg's brutum fulmen of the 20th of the slightest change-that, in the great ma- February, levelled against those clauses, fell jority of instances, it could import little to to the ground. On the 27th of that month an author, or to an author's posterity, whe- Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, on moving the sether the term of copyright should continue cond reading of the Bill, delivered a very at twenty-eight, or should be extended to able speech; and, on a division, the second sixty years. Probably, in ninety-nine cases reading was carried by 73 votes against 37. out of a hundred, the author assigns his That the measure should have been opposed copyright in perpetuity to the bookseller, by such mockery of argument as that which for a valuable consideration, or the two con- was adduced by the Solicitor General in tracting parties agree to hold the copyright favour of "cheap literature”—that it should conjointly and share the profits of sale. In have been opposed by men of such intellecthis view, where is the publisher who would tual calibre as Messrs. Hume, Baines, Wargive, or would be justified in giving, six- burton, &c.-were amongst the strongest pence more for the assignment of a copy-proofs presumptive that could be offered of right of sixty years' duration, than for one of twenty-eight years? The case is selfVOL. I. APRIL, 1839. its genuine importance. For our own parts, we have only to say, that, if the few can be R benefitted without injury to the mass, in Heaven's name let the Bill be passed. It may operate as a salutary stimulant to many, whilst, to one in a million, it may produce a princely reward. We do not believe that either printers, booksellers, bookbinders, paper-makers, type-founders, or any other trade or class connected with the bookselling and printing business, will be injured, to the extent of a shilling, by the passing of the Bill. On the contrary, such is the increasing love of reading—such the increasing thirst for literary and scientific knowledge— | that we firmly hope, and as firmly believe, that, for many a long year to come, the advancement of literature and the arts, and of every profession and trade connected with literature and the arts, will exhibit the most gratifying aspect. It has often, and as truly as often, been said, that " quantity deteriorates quality." And never was the truth of this position more forcibly exemplified than by the overwhelming masses of waste paper, which, under the false designation of" cheap literature," have been hurled upon us within the last twelve or fifteen years. Within that period the Society for the Diffusion of Useful (?) Knowledge has inflicted more injury upon genuine literature and art, upon their professors, and upon the public at large, than will be repaired in a century to come. The Society has inflicted the injury complained of, not only by its own multiplication and spread of inferior works at a low (not at a cheap) price, but by exciting a spirit of emulation amongst individuals to produce works of a still lower grade, to enable them to compete, in the market, with the would-be monopolists. By these means just such approximations have been made, at a low price, to the appearance of excellence, as have sufficed to preclude the production and sale of works of a high order of literary merit. Precisely the same remarks apply to the productions of the graphic art. The judgment and taste of the majority of purchasers are not yet sufficiently correct and refined to appreciate the difference in value between a print, the engraving of which may have cost a hundred guineas, and one for which not more than sixty may have been paid; consequently, as the latter may be sold with more advantage to the proprietor for six or eight shillings than the former can for ten or twelve, it is clear that the low priced (not the cheap) print will obtain preference with the multitude. We believe that Mr. Serjeant Talfourd's abandonment of the ex post facto clauses of his Bill for the protection and extension of copyright has perfectly satisfied the respectable booksellers and publishers. Not so, however, those who, like obscene birds, watch for the moment of an expiring copyright, to pounce upon it as their legal (not moral) prey. Mr. Tegg, or some person assuming his name (we should be glad, for Mr. Tegg's sake, to find the signature a forgery) has put forth a letter upon the subject of copyright, and upon the immense remuneration derived by literary men from their labours. If Mr. Tegg be not the author of this letter it is incumbent on him to disavow it; if he be-we are sorry for the writer; for a mass of error and misrepresentation more gross it was never our fate to encounter. To many of the items, confused and mystified as they are in Mr. Tegg's statement, we could, and would, give the most express contradiction, were it not that, by so doing, we should violate private confidence. To say nothing of the unfairness, and (we speak advisedly) untruth of Mr. Tegg's assertions respecting editorial payment, in reference to the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews, and Blackwood's and the New Monthly Magazines, let us glance for a moment at some of his modern instances." We are told that for Fox's "Fragments of English History," Lord Holland received 5000 guineas; that, for that very infamous and utterly talentless production, the "Life and Times of George IV." Lady C. Bury obtained 1000 guineas; that Bulwer received from 12001. to 1500l. a-piece for his novels; that Marryat's novels produced him from 1000l. to 12001. each; and that for Mrs. Trollope's Factory Boy" the sum of 18007. has been paid!!! If a bookseller did give 5000 guineas for Fox's book, it must have been on account of the author's name, and most lamentably must he have burnt his fingers by the purchase. Without a name the work would not have been worth a moiety of 5000 shillings; and even with a name, it was in a short time to be bought at the common stalls for little more than the price of waste paper. We believe Mr. Colburn to be much too good a general to have given Lady C. B. 1000 guineas for the copyright of the “ Life and Times of George IV." Did that unfortunate lady ever produce a work, of any description, worth 500l. to a bookseller? |