day are of the most ample description; as, un-land, as long as Providence shall allow it to der the present laws regulating literary proper- exist.

ty, authors of ordinary talent have acquired both 'Another clause asserts "that the proposed fame and opulence." The petitioners, if they law would, if carried into effect, destroy all had looked with care no further than their own those useful and hitherto-considered necessary neighbourhood, could not have made this un-compilations for the instruction of the young, qualified assertion. The late Mr. Coleridge re- which have been so eminently useful in exciting sided many years among the Lakes, where his in the youthful mind a taste for literature and son now resides. It will hardly be disputed science." Now, so far from there being just that the father was a man of first-rate genius reason for apprehending this consequence, the and attainments. Fame, indeed, he acquired, direct contrary would ensue, inasmuch as, by but not till many years after he deserved it; extending the term of copyright, authors would but as to his opulence, if the income tax had be under less temptation to prevent copious ex continued till the day of his death, the collectors tracts being made from their works. For even of it would have had a sorry recompense for the supposing, which we are not warranted to do, trouble of calling upon him for his return. His that they would deem it injurious to their interson, whose powers and knowledge are the ad- ests during their lifetime, they would be more miration of all who know him, though not in- willing to put up with the loss, if the law alclined, perhaps, to dispute that gold may have lowed it to be possible, at least for their childabounded in the sands of Pactolus, will have no ren or grandchildren to derive an equivalent hesitation in affirming that, if he were to judge from their labours, when they themselves shall from his own experience only, the waters of be no more. Helicon can make no such boast. Has even 'Still confining our views to this neighbourMr. Southey, a most laborious writer, and one of hood, what is the fact? There is lying before high distinction, attained opulence" by his me a book entitled "Gleanings in Poetry," the works, or anything like it? Yet much the preface to which compilation is signed greatest part of these works would become pub- ard Batt," and dated "Friends' School, Lancaslic property instantly upon the death of the au- ter." This book extends with its notes to 612 thor, or within less than half-a-dozen years. pages, of which 25 are from the poems of Mr. And what, till very lately, have been the gains Wordsworth. Did Mr. Wordsworth ever comof another author who was born, educated, and plain of these extracts, which were made with has grown old in the neighbourhood of the peti- out application for his consent? Or did any tioners? The humblest of the band would blush other writer, from whom copious extracts are to hear them enumerated. I forbear to speak taken, utter such a complaint? Again-there of other highly-distinguished authors who have was lately published by Mr. Housman, of Lune honoured, or do honour, this beautiful country by choosing it for their residence. Not one of them but is too high-minded to repine; but the sense of justice is, I doubt not, sufficiently strong in them all to make them resent the denial to their posterity or their heirs of that moderate compensation which a rational view of their interests would lead them to aim at, and which the public might be ready to bestow.

66

Rich

Bank, near Lancaster, a Collection of Sonnets, from different authors, filling 300 pages, of which pages not less than 57 are from the same author. Did Mr. Wordsworth complain of this liberty being taken? On the contrary, when the editor informed Mr. Wordsworth that the publisher of his works had threatened him with an application to the Court of Chancery for an injunction, Mr. Wordsworth's immediate reply was that he found no fault whatever, and the thing was dropped. Now, the petitioners might have known this, for the fact was published in your paper at the time it happened, probably by the editor or some of his friends; and what is thus true of one individual, it may be confidently affirmed, would have been equally so, if a like liberty had been taken with the works of any other distinguished author, who resides, or has resided in this neighbourhood.

But the next clause of the petition implies that it would be unreasonable and unjust for authors to look for such posthumous remuneration, the words running thus:-" that every book, after its author has received from the public an equitable remuneration, becomes the property of the public, who, by affording such remuneration, have purchased it." An equitable remuneration. Here is the Gordian knot of the question, which the petitioners cut without ceremony. A more than adequate remuneration comes in the course of a season to thousands of works intended only for the season. But can the profit of one season, or ten seasons, or twenty-eight (the utmost term now allowed by law, unless when the author is still alive), be justly deemed a sufficient return for two works (I still confine myself to the productions of this neighbourhood) by Mr. Southey-his "Life of NelBook of the Church?" They are both of interest, eminently national; the one will animate our youth to heroic enterprise, strengthen their patriotism, and tend to form and fix their principles, as long as the English navy shall endure; and the other maintain an enlightened attachment to the Church of Eng-pleasing and instructing future generations,

son" and his

To conclude. The objections against the proposed bill rest upon the presumption that it would tend to check the circulation of literature, and by so doing would prove injurious to the public. Strong reasons have been given above for believing that these fears are groundless, and that such an extension of copyright would cause the reprinting of many good works, which otherwise, to give back the petitioners their own words, would nearly remain a "dead letter." But what we want in these times, and are likely to want still more, is not the circulation of books, but of good books, and above all, the production of works, the authors of which look beyond the passing day, and are desirous of

time of the year, without the labour of tillage, without the expense of seed or manure, without the payment of rent or taxes. Every acre of those seas is far more productive of wholesome, palatable, and nutritious food than the same quantity of the richest land; they are fields which, perpetually "white to harvest," require only the labourer's willing hand to reap that never-failing crop which the bounty of Providence has kindly bestowed. Had it not been ascertained by actual experiment, it would have been considered as fabulous to assign to the female cod from three to four millions of eggs.'

Now there cannot be a question that the proposed bill would greatly strengthen such desire. A conscientious author, who had a family to maintain, and a prospect of descendants, would regard the additional labour bestowed upon any considerable work he might have in hand, in the light of an insurance of money upon his own life for the benefit of his issue; and he would be animated in his efforts accordingly, and would cheerfully undergo present privations for such future recompense. Deny it to him, and you unfeelingly leave a weight upon his spirits, which must deaden his exertions; or you force him to turn his faculties (unless he is unjust to those whom both nature and law require that So said we (Q. R., vol. ix., p. 266) fivehe should provide for) to inferior employments. and-twenty years ago;-but our statements And lastly, you violate a fundamental right, by have seldom, we believe, been found extraleaving that species of property which has the

highest claim to protection, with the least share Vagant, and in this case the result of subseof it; for as to the analogy, which has been quent experiments is that nine millions of ova elsewhere much dwelt upon, between literary are comprised occasionally in the roe of one property and mechanical inventions and chemi- codfish. cal discoveries, it is, as might be shown in a few words, altogether fallacious.

'I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,

'A. B.'

Nor is it from the deeps alone that this plentiful harvest may be secured.

6

'The law of Nature,' says Mr. Yarrell, which obliges mackerel and many others to visit the shallower water of the shores at a particular season, appears to be one of those wise and beautiful provisions of the Creator by which not only is the species perpetuated with the greatest certainty, but a large portion of the parent ani

ART. VII.-1. Report from the Select Com-mals are thus brought within the reach of man, mittee on British Channel Fisheries; with Minutes of Evidence and Appendix. 1833.

2. A Treatise on the Management of Freshwater Fish, with a View to making them a Source of Profit to Landed Proprietors. By Gottlieb Boccius. London. 8vo.

1841.

who, but for the action of this law, would be deprived of many of those species most valuable to him as food. For the mackerel dispersed over the immense surface of the deep, no effective fishery could be carried ou; but approaching roving along the coast collected in inmense the shore as they do from all directions, and shoals, millions are caught, which yet form but a very small portion compared with the myriads that escape.'

BUTCHERS' meat has risen of late considerably in price, and it is still rising. HouseThe harvest, then, is every where ready. keepers are now paying 9d. or 10d. a pound, But where are the labourers to gather it where last year they paid 6d. or 7d. The in? It is with us an old subject of lamenScotch and Irish steam-vessels unremittingly tation, that the Celtic tribes still retain pour their living freight upon the banks of those prejudices against fish and fishing the Thames in addition to the contributions which almost characterized the unciviliz that the railroads are constantly dispatching ed ancient Grecian; and true it is that to the London shambles; yet the gigantic they cannot be easily made deep seametropolis has stomach for them all; and, fishers: but the difficulty, though great, like Vathek's Giaour,' incessantly mutters is far from an impossibility, and we hope 'more-more!'-In truth, were it not for the the time will yet arrive when the Irish supplies that steam regularly contributes in peasant will diligently search for treasure aid of those which formerly fed the great where he will be sure to find it. city, its flesh-markets, now that it is grown But we shall look in vain for this desigreater than the greatest, would, so to speak, rable change of character, to any great not be furnished at all; and as it is, the poor extent at least, till there is such a steady people do not think of meat as they did two demand for the article as will insure a con. or three years ago. This is a bad state of stant and lucrative employment for the things; and in looking for a remedy we na-poor, and a satisfactory return for the inturally turn first to the ocean which embraces vestment of capital. by the rich. Now our isles; there, indeed, is fish, with the exception of some of the more common kinds, such as sprats, her

A harvest ripe for the gathering at every

VOL. LXIX.

16

among

them more

rings, and mackerel, is looked upon by | days and consisting principally of fish, all classes at present as a luxury, and not whilst those for flesh-days are no more as a necessary of life, as it once was. In than fifty-eight. In the Rolls of Provi sone of our inland counties the peasantry sions expended by Sir John Nevile of know not the taste of fresh sea-fish, their Chete, Knight, on occasion of the mar ideas upon the subject being for the most riage of Roger Rockley with his daughter part limited to the flavour of red herring, Elizabeth Nevile 'the 14th of January, in which, by the way, is the 17th yeare of the reigne of our Sovefrequently used as a sovereign remedy to raigne Lord King Henry VIII,' we find restore the healthy function of digestion the following bill of fare:--to their horned cattle, than as a solace for their own palates; or, as they say-for a cow that has lost her quid. To bring this back they administer a portion of red herring, and mostly find that the power of chewing the cud is restored to the animal. But if the taste of fresh fish is unknown to the poor in some central localities, they too commonly despise it on the sea-coast. A duke does not scorn a dish of crimped skate, yet we have seen those fish thrown from the seine and left to decay on the shore in the west of England as worthless, when some of the neighbouring poor wanted a dinner.*

For Frydays and Saturdays. First, leich brayne.* Item, frometye pot. tage. Item, whole ling. Item, great goils Item, great salt eels. [jowls] of salt sammon. Item, great salt sturgeon goils. Item, fresh ling. Item, fresh turbut. Item, great pike. Item, great goils of fresh sammon. Item, great ruds. Item, baken turbuts. Item, tarts.

'Second Course.-Martens to pottage. Item, a great fresh sturgeon goil. Item, fresh eel roasted. Item, great brett. Item, sammon chines broil'd. Item, roasted eels. Item, roasted lampreys. Item, roasted lamprons. Item, great burbutts. Item, sammon baken. Item, fresh eel baken. Item, fresh lampreys baken. Item, clear jilly. Item, gingerbread.' Again, at the Lammas assizes, in the 20th year of Henry the Eighth, the same Sir John Nevile provided thus for

Friday and Saturday.

dine [Aberdeen ling.] Salt sammon (20s. '3 couple of great ling. 40 couple of heberworth.) Fresh sammon and great (31. 6s. Sd.) 6 great pike. 80 pickerings. 300 great breams. 40 tenches. 80 touling eels and brevet eels, and 15 ruds. A firkin of sturgeon. In fresh seals, 13s. 4d. 8 seame of fresh fish. 2 bretts'

Time was when fish formed a great part of the diet of the people of this country, and when religious observances lent their aid to enforce a system which operated beneficially both on body and mind. Abstinence from flesh on certain days and at certain seasons was rigidly prescribed by the Roman Catholic ritual; and it seems to have been considered almost an article of faith, the breach of which was unpardonable. When Cardinal Wolsey was dy- the only flesh among these items being ing at Leicester Abbey, 'after he had eat- that of the seal, which, from its amphibien of a cullace made of chicken a spoon-ous nature, was one of those mammiferfull or two, at the laste quoth he, "Where- ous animals which the church allowed to of was this cullace made?" 66 'Forsothe, be eaten on fast-days. sir, of a chicken." "Why," quoth he, All this, be it remembered, was at a pe"it is fasting day!" (being St. Andrew's riod when our gentry lived almost entireEven). "What though it be?" quoth his ly in the open air as long as daylight lastconfessor, "ye be excused by reason of ed, and sometimes longer, liking better your sickness." "Yea," quoth he, "what to hear the lark sing than the mouse though? I will eate no more." Then was squeak.' The fish fare did not prove inhe in confession the space of an hour.'t sufficient for people who led that healthy In The Forme of Cury compiled about life; but how beneficial would it be with 1390 by the chief master cooks of our sec- our lazier habits! Sumptuary laws are ond Richard, whose merit as the 'best now out of the question; but if we were and ryallest vyand' of all Christian kings all obliged to keep the old fasts, none but is duly set forth, there are no less than invalids-and not many of them—would twenty-five receipts for dressing fish-to say nothing of Furmente with Porpeys and Porpeys in brothe, &c., for the porpoise is a mammal, and no true fish. Again, the Servicium de Piscibus (1381) gives thirtythree formule for dishes applicable to fish

Sce Q. R. vol. lvii., p. 369. + Cavendish's Life of Wolsey.

·

be the worse for the regimen. Let any one who is not in a course of strong out door exercise, and is beginning to be hipped, as the phrase goes, confine himself to fish two days in the week, and he will soon find that he has a much clearer head, and

This seems to have been a jelly composed of cream, isinglass, and other gentle ingredients.

a much lighter heart. There is no article of food that requires less extensive preparation. The pot, the gridiron, the frying-pan, and the oven, may be brought to bear upon these sapid esculents, as well as the best mounted batterie de cuisine; though upon no viands can the latter be more effectually directed. The Cuisinier des Cuisiniers has nearly a hundred excellent receipts for fish. How seldom are fish-soups or cold fish seen on our tables! yet the former are excellent; and what is better than slices of a fine salmon fried, as Jewesses only now fry them, served cold? In the 'Expenditure of the Lord Steward of the Royal Household for 1840," given in the Times of last October, we have the following items:

We are sorry for the poor hawkers of London, but still it is to the railroads we must look in great measure for carrying a taste for fish into the central counties, and thus assisting to create that steady demand which will, in our opinion, produce a constant and adequate supply, and restore fish to the regular place on English tables which it once occupied. Neither ought we to forget that railways may bring fish up as well as carry fish down. And, in truth, we believe there would be no great want of fish on the Londoner's board, if the supply to the metropolis were but fairly used.

The Select Committee of 1833 say they

have examined the clerk of the fish-market at Billingsgate, and some salesmen and fishmong ers who frequent it, in reference to the present state of the supply of fish to that market, and the regulations under which the market is conducted; with a view to ascertain whether any improper monopoly or regulations exist affecting the supply of the market, or tending either to increase the price of fish to the consumer, or to lessen the fair profits of the fisherinen; but your Committee do not feel that they have fully investigated the subject, although from the evidence which has incidentally come before them it has not appeared that any such monopoly or injurious regulations exist, either in the mode of supplying the market or in the sale of fish.

'It appears, however, to your Committee to be desirable that a more efficient remedy should be provided to enable the clerk of the market to prevent the sale of fish in an improper state; there being now no other remedy than the forfeiture of the fish, and the expensive and dilatory proceeding by indictment. Your Committee therefore recommend that a clause should be inserted in any Bill which may be introduced upon this subject, inflicting a pecuniary penalty for this offence, recoverable by summary proceeding before a magistrate.'

There is a general complaint prevalent in London and its environs, that fish is not so plentiful, and consequently not so cheap, as it was wont to be some two or three years since, although no reason can be assigned for the cause of this falling off; nevertheless, the circumstance will admit of an explanation. There are many persons who are in the habit of buying up large stocks of fish at Billingsgate daily, and of exporting them into the interior of the country, where they meet with a ready and advantageous sale. This expedient is greatly facilitated by means of railway conveyance, and vans may be seen in regular attendance at the Gate, waiting to take in the supplies of fish, which are promptly despatched by the various trains to the more central towns and districts of England. This circumstance tends most materially to affect the poor industrious market-women who are in the habit of hawking their wares about the different parts of the metropolis and its sub-profitable point, taking care that there urbs for sale.-Times, 15th October, 1841.

A turtle is not a fish; it is a reptile; and, therefore, we dare say nothing more of it here than that Professor Owen has lately discovered a inultitude

The wording of the first of these paragraphs is cautious enough. It will not be denied that the bulk of the fish sent to this great town is so consigned that it gets into comparatively few hands, or that the dealers place their own value upon the article, regulating the supply of cod, &c., from the well-boats and store-boats lying near Gravesend, and feeding the market with the stock there accumulated to the

shall never be such a glut as to lower the price desirable for the dealer. Nor is this the worst of it. Quantities of salmon are held back till the ice has no more

of fossil species at Sheppey, and not a single anthro-Power over the decomposing animal subpolite among the lot! Turtle without aldermen stance, and the fish are spoiled. Then ecms a strange dispensation; but so says the Pro-step in the authorities to prevent the sale; and scores of putrid salmon are thrown

fessor.

1. The interference of French fishermen.

2. The quantity of foreign-caught fish sold in London. And

into the Thames, where they may be seen since the peace of 1815, and more rapid. and smelt floating about for hours. There ly during the ten years immediately preis no want of display of civic indignation ceding the investigation; that the capital when unwholesome meat or fish---the lat- employed did not yield a profitable reter often no worse than a Parisian eats turn; that the number of vessels and with a relish--is offered for sale; though boats, as well as of men and boys, was much such an exposure might, we incline to be- diminished; and that the fishermen's lieve, be safely left to the senses of the families, who formerly paid rates and purchasers; but not a word is uttered taxes, were then, in a greater or less decondemnatory of this enormous and wick- gree, dependent upon the poor-rates. ed destruction of excellent food. We have Among the causes which, in the opinion had again and again special committees of the Committee, had tended materially on British fisheries, and we hope that some to produce this depression, were :active Member will take up the more limited inquiry relative to the consumption of what is actually supplied. A searching investigation as to the state of fishmarkets, with their apparatus of middlemen or fish-salesmen, &c. &c., and the practices of fishmongers, would disclose curi- As to the first of these points, the ous facts. Some of the tricks of the trade Committee rely upon evidence that for a are shown up in the article above referred long time past, and up to the period of to*---those unpunishable tricks by which their labours, large fleets of fishermen the public are robbed and starved in the from Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe, &c., had midst of plenty---whilst a hungry boy is been accustomed to work off the Kent sent to take his trial for stealing a loaf. and Sussex coasts, often within half a Let any Member of Parliament move for league of the shore, and occasionally an accurate return of the quantity of fish thrown into the Thames at Billingsgate, and below that market, during the last five years--if he can get it---by way of a beginning.

1

3. The decrease and scarcity of fish in the Channel.

much nearer; and in the bays and shallow waters, in which it is particularly necessary for the preservation of the brood of fish that such as frequent those waters, during the breeding season, should Why should there be any restriction at not be disturbed, nor their young destroyall? What would be thought of a set of ed. It appeared that the French fishinglaws passed to regulate graziers and mar- vessels had greatly increased since the ket gardeners in the sale of their produce, peace; there being, at the date of the or to control wholesale grocers or cheese- Report, three hundred sailing out of Boumongers in the disposition of their goods? logne alone; and that they were more Look at the last census. Hear the cry of numerous, and of a much larger tonnage, the multitude for food. These are not than those employed by our countrymen times to abuse God's gifts. If there must upon that coast, being generally manned be laws to fetter the diffusion of what with double or triple the number of men, might again be considered a general ne- and furnished with nets and fishing-gear cessary of life, let them not be such as of a description superior to those of our those under which our municipal authori- people. In consequence of this superities raise a hue and cry against the sale ority on the part of the French, it was of bad fish, whilst the monopoly that averred that the English fishermen, keeps it up till it is bad is tolerated. ing in constant competition with their The Committee of 1833 owed its ap- rivals, had sustained so great injury, and pointment to petitions from various pla- such frequent loss and damage of their ces complaining of distress in our Chan- nets, &c., especially in the herring and nel Fisheries; and the Committee, after mackerel seasons, that they had not only an inquiry which took in the coast from been unable to earn a livelihood as they Yarmouth to the Land's End, report- used to do by their trade, but had, in ed that they found this large portion of some instances, been wholly ruined, or our fisheries, and the various interests had withdrawn altogether from the occuwith which they were connected, to be generally in a declining state; that they appeared to have been gradually sinking

Q. R. vol. ix., pp. 277 et seq.

i

com

pation; whilst the French fishermen, continuing upon our coast, and sometimes not returning into their own ports during the whole period of the seasons last above mentioned, made a constant prac