LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. Cambridge. The subject of the Seatonian Prize Poem for the present year is "Deborah." Mr. WADDINGTON, of Trinity, has been elected to the vacant Pitt Scholarship. Works nearly ready for Publication: Lectures on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, by the Rev. OLIVER LODGE, A. B. Curate of St. Margaret, Barking, Essex. A Letter to the Hon. and Right Rev. Henry Ryder, D. D. Lord Bishop of Gloucester, on the Admission into Holy Orders of Young Men holding (what are called) Evangelical Principles. By the Rev. RICHARD WARNER. Part VI. of NEAL'S Illustrated History of Westminster Abbey; completing the First Volume. The Civil and Constitutional History of Rome, from its Foundation to the Age of Augustus, 2 vols. 8vo. By HENRY BANKES, esq. M. P. Journey through Asia Minor, Armenia, and Koordistan. By Mr. MACDONALD KENNEir. A General Description of, and Directions for, the Coasts of Brasil, from Maranham, in the North, to Rio de Janeiro and Santos, in the South; accompanied with three large Charts of the Coast and Harbours, from the Surveys of Lieut. HEWETT, R. N. and others, obviating, from Original Observations, the errors of preceding Charts and Directions for these Coasts. A Life of JOHN HOWARD, the Philanthropist by JAMES BALDWIN BROWN, Esq. The Epicedium Wreath; or, Elegiac Tributes, sacred to the memory of the amiable and lamented Princess CHARLOTTE AUGUSTA, SHERIDAN, WHITBREAD, and SPENCER. By RICHARD HATT, Author of "The Hermit," &c. The Fourth and last Canto of CHILDE HAROLD," with other Poems and Notes. By Lord BYRON.-And" Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold." By JOHN HOBHOUSE, Esq. "Samor, Lord of the Bright City," a Poem; by Mr. MILMAN. The Literary Character, illustrated by the History of Men of Genius, drawn from their own feelings and confessions. By the Author of "Curiosities of Lite rature." An Essay on Spanish Literature; containing its history from its commencement in the twelfth century, to the present time; with an account of the best Writers, some critical remarks, and a history of the Spanish Drama; with Specimens of the Writers of different ages. The Third Edition, very considerably enlarged, of Facts and Observations on Liver Complaints, and those various and extensive derangements of the Constitution arising from Hepatic Obstruction, &c. By JOHN FAITHHORN, formerly Surgeon in the Honourable East India Company's service. Preparing for Publication: A very curious and interesting MS. of the celebrated Dr. WILLIAM KING, of St. Mary's, Oxford, which has lately been discovered, containing Anecdotes and Reminiscences of his own Times. A Volume of Sermons, in 8vo, by J. A Busfeild, D. D. Mr. VALPY's new and corrected Edition of the Delphin Classicks (see p. 254) will be in 8vo, and extend to 120 or 130 parts, each containing 672 pages; and twelve parts will be printed in the year. The Maps will be beautifully executed; and the Wood-cuts at present existing in the Delphin and Variorum Editions will also be inserted. The Notes in the best and latest Variorum Edition will be printed at the end of each Author; and the Various Readings placed under the Text. The best Indices will be adopted, and carefully collated with the text: the reference will be to the Book and Chapter, and not to the page, by which means the same Index will apply to all other Editions. The Delphin Interpretatio will be placed under the text. The Literaria Notitia from the Bipont Editions, continued to the present time, will be added to each Author. Travels in Egypt, Nubia, Holyland, Mount Libanon, and Cyprus; by Capt. LIGHT, of the Royal Artillery. 4to, with plates, including a View of Jerusalem. A Letter to a Country Surrogate, containing full Instructions as to the granting of Marriage Licences and the Laws relating thereto. By Mr. STOCKDALE HARDY, of Leicester. Mr. DICKINSON, Author of "A Practical Exposition of the Law relative to the Office and Duties of a Justice of the Peace, is about to publish "The Justice Law of the last Five Years." A Treatise on the Living Languages; containing, in a small compass, the necessary Rules for acquiring a knowledge of them, particularly of the Italian and Spanish; with a Treatise on the difficulties of Italian and Spanish Poetry. Sonnets and other Poems; by Mrs. DARK, of Calne. Night-mare Abbey ;" by the Author of "Headlong Hall." A COPY COPYRIGHT ACT. The Friends of Literature are under great obligations to Sir Egerton Brydges, for his endeavours to remove the grievance imposed by this Legislative Enactment. The details which the revived consideration of the subject in the House of Commons has brought forward, both with respect to the conduct of the several Libraries, and the oppressive operation of the Statute, must, we think, convince every impartial person of the grievance imposed, and of the impolicy of continuing it; and will, we trust, eventually produce, if not a total Repeal of the Act, at least a considerable modification of its severity. The following heads of individual Petitions presented to the House of Commons will convey a just notion of the hardships sustained by Publishers. Mr. W. Daniel states, that he has Drawings, and would have published another Work on the Architecture, Scenery, and Costume of India; but, as the 11 copies would have taken away 3301. in their value from his produce, he has declined the Publication, as well as another Work on India, of which the 11 copies would have been a loss of 132 guineas, and also a Publication of Plates on Southern Africa and Ceylon. Mr. W. B. Cooke states, that he is publishing "Delineations of the City of Pompeii," and that his loss by delivering 11 copies of this Work will be 2017. 12s. He has compiled a Work on Southern Africa; but the 11 copies will take from him 1247.; also, another on the Thames, on which the 11 copies will be 871. 3s." Mr. Valpy states, that he is printing a complete edition of the "Delphin Classics;" the 11 copies will take away from him on this Work not less than 13001. Rev. Rogers Ruding states, that on his "Annals of the Coinage of Great Bri tain" the value of the 11 copies taken was 1547.; and that, if he attempts a second edition with any improvements which he cannot deliver separately, he must deliver 11 copies again. Mr. J. Britton states, that the delivery of 11 copies of "Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain;" "Fine Arts;" Salisbury, Norwich, Winchester, and York "Cathedrals," has taken from him 4717; and that his Work on Cathedral Antiquities has already cost in its expences 7,7731. 15s. 6d. and has only produced 6,4657. 8s. 9d.; so that it is a losing Work, and therefore the burthen of 11 copies was more severe. Mr. THOMAS FISHER states, that, previous to the passing of the Act, he had planned two Works, consisting chiefly of Prints, to be coloured by himself, which it was his intention, and is still his wish, to complete, by appropriate letter-press; that he cannot execute his design without subjecting himself to the loss of 11 copies, value 150%. out of 120, and while no profit yet exists; and that the Statutory protection for Copyright is not suitable or desirable for such Works as his. Messrs. Longman and Co. state, that the delivery of the 11 copies, from the time the Act passed in the year 1814, has actually cost them 3,0007. or nearly so. That, from the great burthen of the delivery, they have declined the publication of some expensive Works, and especially of Baron Humboldt's "New Description of Plants." Messrs. Cadell and Davies state, that the eleven copies of "Murphy's Arabian Antiquities of Spain," which was published at 40 guineas, would amount to 440 guineas at the selling price. They specify eight books, viz. "The Gallery of Portraits,""Lysons's Cornwall, Cumberland, Derby, and Britannia Depicta;" "Dr. Clarke's Travels," "Pennington's Lakes," and "Drake's Shakespeare;" on which, at the lowest wholesale price, the 1 copies amounted to 4381. 12s. Messrs. Lackington and Co. state, that, not anticipating such a demand, they had projected several valuable publications, to appear periodically, and had begun the publication before the Act passed; but, having been obliged to deliver the subsequent Numbers, their loss is the same as if they had delivered the whole complete. They specify four Works, on which the 11 copies amount to 2,1987. 14s. viz. on Dugdale's Monasticon, and St. Paul's, on "Portraits of Illustrious Personages," "History of Cheshire," and "Wood's Athenæ." Messrs. Rodwell and Martin state, that in "Views in Italy," and "Ruins of Pompeii," they sustained a loss of 1207. ; and that, in a Work by Edward Dodwell, Esq. which they are about to publish, illustrative of "Athens and Antient Greece," the Act will occasion an absolute charge upon them of nearly 3001. ; and they very properly notice the liberal conduct of the French Government, which remitted the heavy duty legally payable on the Drawings, &c. of the latter Work upon its entrance into their territory; and that Mr. Dodwell was pressed to publish it in Paris under the sanction of Government upon very advantageous terms, and free from the burthensome claim of any National Institutions upon the profits of his labour and talent. They all state their conviction, that the continuance of the delivery, without a modification, will injure Literature and the Arts; and all urge, that at least some portion of the price should be paid. The The following are the principal allegations in the Petition of Authors and Composers of Books. "Your Petitioners humbly submit, that, by the Common Law of this country, and by the decision of its highest Court of Judicature, as well as by the principles of natural equity, and by the ana logy of every other species of property, they would have had (if no Statute had passed on the subject) an exclusive right to the Copyright of their several Works, and to all the benefit and produce arising from these, as every other subject of these Kingdoms enjoys as to all his effects and possessions. to "Your Petitioners submit, that the equitable right of the said Libraries to these Copies is quite distinct from the right of Authors to their Copyright. The delivery of these Copies rests merely on the enactment of the Statutes on that subject, and is founded upon no previous right; for, as to the ancient contract alluded to, between Sir Thomas Bodley and the Stationers' Company in 1609, it was an engagement between those two contracting parties for reciprocal objects, then in view, which do not now subsist, and binding only themselves, and confined to only one of the said Libraries; but can by no construction of Law, or rule of equity, be justly extended to your Petitioners, and the Authors in modern times, who have no connexion either with the Bodleian Library or the Stationers' Company. Your Petitioners therefore submit, that this compulsory delivery is unjust in its principle, as it invades the great rules of law and policy, which assure every one the unmolested enjoyment of the produce of his labour and acquired property; and that it has this additional objection, that although every Publication is not under the same circumstance of expence, circulation, or importance, yet the compulsory delivery is imposed without discrimination on all. "Your Petitioners believe that it operates materially to the injury of Authors, and to the discouragement of future publications. Your Petitioners cannot change the established custom of the Printing profession, of charging for printing any number less than two hundred and fifty the price of printing two hundred and fifty; and therefore to print eleven Copies beyond any regular number incurs the charge of printing two hundred and fifty; and to deliver eleven Copies out of the regular number printed of any Work is a subtraction from your Petitioners and their assigns of the whole trade sale price of those eleven Copies when the impression sells ; and if the impression should not sell, yet your Petitioners are aggrieved by the loss of the amount of the paper and printing of so many copies. And your Petitioners submit, that if this amount be in some cases not large, yet it is considerable in the aggregate of the whole quantity demanded; and no rule of any country has made the amount of any property the measure or the standard of The right and justice respecting it. smallest quantity of value is protected to every one as much as the greatest. This legal right is the same whatever be the pecuniary amount, and all penal codes for the preservation of property are founded on this natural principle, so essential to the general welfare of society. "As far as your Petitioners can judge, the delivery of these Copies also operates to injure the sale of many books. It not only takes away the eleven Libraries as purchasers of those which they demand, but, by the books being deposited in so many Public Libraries in the three great Metropolitan Cities, and the principal Universities and Libraries of these Kingdoms, it enables a great many individuals to gratify their curiosity without purchasing the Publication; and such numbers are satisfied with a temporary perusal of Works daily issuing from the press, that your Petitioners believe that the sale of several useful Publications has been greatly lessened. "Your Petitioners are also satisfied that it makes the Booksellers more averse to undertake the publication of expensive and important Works. The price of the eleven Copies taken away now becomes a material object of their calculation; and some have, on that account, declined the risk of publishing. "The delivery also leads the Booksellers to diminish the compensation to Authors for their Copyright in works whose popularity is not certain, which is the case with most, and especially books of labour and expence; and, as far as it operates to increase the price, it tends thereby to injure the sale. It prevents Authors from receiving from their Booksellers so many Copies as they wish to give to their friends; and therefore it is a deduction of so much from the general produce and benefit of Literature, which are already sufficiently uncertain, and in the great majority of instances exceedingly scanty. "Your Petitioners are therefore decidedly of opinion, that the continuation of the demand and delivery of these Copies, without some modification, will discourage the future composition and publication of Works. Many valuable Works are every year composed, of great importance importance to Science and Learning, which, from their expensive nature, cannot be published unless Booksellers can be found who will undertake the risk of publication; but your Petitioners are informed that the necessity of delivering these Copies has occasioned some Booksellers to decline the publication of some useful Works where sale was precarious. Many Authors are now projecting expensive Works, which the burthen of delivery prevents them from undertaking; and your Petitioners are satisfied that it will operate hereafter to prevent such Works from being undertaken at all. "Your Petitioners humbly submit, that in this great commercial and wealthy country, reputation alone cannot be a sufficient stimulus to Authors to compose or publish valuable Works, and more especially those which involve much expence. The affluence of the country operates not only to make the annual expenditure for subsistence considerable, but also to enhance the charges of every publication. "The same prosperity of the country leading to costly habits of living, prevents men of literary reputation from holding the same rank in this country which it obtains in some others. Justice also to the family who have to derive their nurture and respectability from the paternal labours, compels the parent to devote some portion of his attention to pecuniary considerations. Hence an Author can rarely write for fame alone -and every subtraction from his profit, and every measure that will diminish his ardour to prepare, and the readiness of Booksellers to publish his Work, (especially as so many require such large sums to be expended and risqued upon them) is an injury not only to Authors, but to Literature itself. "Your Petitioners have been surprized to find, by the returns of the List of Publications entered at Stationers' Hall, which has been laid on the table of this Honourable House, that Copies of all that have been entered have been indiscriminately demanded by the said eleven Libraries-with the single exception that two of them, and two of them only, namely, the Advocates' Library, and Trinity College, Dublin, have not demanded Musick and Novels. Your Petitioners have remarked this fact with astonishment and regret; that all the promiscuous medley of modern Publications should be incorporated with the important works that were formerly deposited in these Libraries, and should there be open to the perusal of the most distinguished and most lively youthful minds of this Em 4 pire, whose judgments have to be cor-. rectly formed, and should be there transmitted with all their sanction to posterity, seems to your Petitioners to be incompatible with the objects and policy of those venerable Institutions. If they be demanded and not deposited, then Authors and Publishers are burthened unnecessarily; and if all be deposited and read, your Petitioners think that if it be recollected how many multifarious theories, speculations, discussions, and doubts, are daily arising in society, and daily investigated in public by the press; an indiscriminate demand, and compulsory delivery, of every publication must tend to lead the impressible minds of the educating youth (who cannot yet have attained that solid judgment which time alone can create) to imbibe and nourish whatever spirit of change, desire of novelty, or projects of innovation, the conversations and incidents of the day may excite. Without this delivery no publication is purchased until it is wanted, and the expense of the purchase diminishes curiosity. But the delivery brings before the eyes of the educating youth of this country, and their instructors, books that they would not have else noticed, and perhaps not have heard of- books often highly useful and important in themselves, but not advantageous to the young and inexperienced mind. "Your Petitioners respectfully submit that it is of the highest importance to the interest of our venerable Universities, and the other valuable seats of knowledge and learning, that the utmost harmony of feeling should be established and perpetuated between these respected institutions and the intelligent minds that now abound, and are increasing in the British community. "Your Petitioners feel that this promiscuous demand and delivery tends to diminish this desirable harmony, because it creates a sense of grievance on the one side, unmitigated by any perception of a public good resulting from its continuance; and your Petitioners are informed, that in no Country of Europe, nor in America, are so many copies taken from Authors and Publishers as by the enactment above mentioned, although in those countries much larger editions are printed and sold than can be disposed of in this Kingdom. Books are also printed abroad at so much less expence than in Great Britain, that your Petitioners are apprehensive many will be lost to this Nation by being printed and circulated exclusively elsewhere." -[Signed by SIXTY-FIVE AUTHORS of the first respectability] SE Mr. URBAN, SELECT POETRY. March 14. I WISH to be informed, through your interesting and instructive Miscellany, whether the Poems of Buchanan have been either partially or entirely translated. The following Lines are so beautiful, and pointed, that I have been induced to give them a poetical garb.How far I have succeeded in the attempt, your numerous Readers must decide; but, thinking that such a gem should not be left to sparkle in obscurity, I offer both the original and the translation to your notice. It is to be found in that part of his Poems bearing the title of "Hendecasyllabon." J. M. JONES. Adamas in cordis effigiem sculptus, annuloque insertus, quem MARIA Scotorum Regina ad ELIZABETHAM Anglorum Reginam misit anno 1564. NON me materies facit superbum, Upon a Diamond Heart, set in a Ring, which As candid, spotless, fair, and bright, As pure as rays of purest light; In guileless look and constancy, In all but hardness, both agree.*> Tho' to such semblance I am wrought, Still more auspicious is my lot; As late I saw her parting smile Brighten that face devoid of guile, Ne'er such fond hopes could I maintain As thus to view her like again. Blest powers, could I the lot but gain Both hearts with adamant to chain, Which jealous envy, hate, nor age, May never loose, nor disengage, Than all the precious gems more blest, Then should I shine on beauty's breast A brighter and a lovelier guest, As I'm more hard than all confest. J. M. JONES, Stamford-street. THE DEATH OF THE FELON. By a young Lady, the Daughter of a CountyChaplain in the Eastern District. IT is a calm and holy dread That lingers round the dying bed: No tear is shed; the accents close That pray'd the parting soul's repose; And not a sigh, nor passing breath, May break the solemn pause of death. Oh! far unlike the mortal strife That marks the Felon's close of life! No faithful Wife and Children press To catch his look of tenderness: But gazing crowds throng near the place Of Death's dark scene, and dire disgrace, And point, with self-approving eye, To Guilt in life's extremity. But mark that look of calm despair! Paternal hope is blighted there; And the poor Mother's grief is wild, That weeps, but dares not own her Child. The wretched Widow turns, to hide The tears that down her cheek would glide, If the proud stranger passing by Should mark with scorn her streaming eye. His Children hide the drooping head Within some lone and humble shed; And there conceal the blush of shame That crimsons at a Father's name. Nor these alone the ills that wait The guilty Felon's awful state: Cut off in pride of early bloom, The destin'd victim of the tomb; Robb'd at one stroke, of health and life; Torn from his Children, Friends, and Wife, The Captive Wretch must now deplore The peace which he can know no more. At that lone hour when mortals rest, With peaceful, soothing, slumbers blest; The Prisoner wakes to weep, and pray That Heaven would close his wint❜ry day Ere |