ciple, founded on facts which are incapable of controversy, and never have been denied on either side. I am sure you have done all that can be done to procure attendance, and most successfully; we muster well; several members came to town on purpose for the last day fixed, but to remain dinnerless all night on the very day in all the week for dinners is too much to hope, except from such staunch friends as Inglis, Mahon, and Gladstone, who never fail. And then, our oppoWarburton is in his place,'

nents never dine.

Infelix.

sedet æternumque sedebit

I only wonder they have never beaten us; and believe they might have done so on Wednesday, if they had not preferred the Fabian policy.

I am very sorry to find we have no hope of seeing you here this season. Should we travel northwards in the autumn it will go hard if we do not take one glance of sweet Rydal Lake, with its Poet, and ours, and mankind's. At present my heart is very heavy, for I am going to take my dear little boy to Eton to-morrow, and having never parted with a child, find it very hard; and yet I am so busy I cannot indulge my feeling, which frets me more than is right. I must read a portion of The Excursion before I go to bed, and draw composure and support from the pure and the lasting.-With kind remembrances to Mrs. Wordsworth, ever gratefully and truly T. N. TALFOURD."

yours,

Wordsworth to Lord Mahon.

"MY DEAR LORD MAHON,-Many thanks for your second letter, and the extracts from Lord John Russell's to you. Public opinion having the power which it has at present, and is likely to have, I think with you that there is no likelihood of an attempt being made to hold back from republication any

valuable work whatever.

Besides, Serjeant Talfourd's Bill provided against that, in a clause which, if there had been any defect in its construction, might without difficulty have been improved.

I replied briefly to the three objections which you will find in the enclosed extract from a letter Sir R. Peel was so obliging as to write to me, the only one I ever had from him on the subject; but, in an interview with which he honoured me last summer, we had a pretty long conversation upon it, and it is remarkable that then he did not revert to any of those objections, but dwelt in general terms upon the evils of monopoly, and in particular he deprecated the mischief which might arise from confining the circulation of improved processes in science-he instanced arithmetic-to the books through which they had been first made known. I must own I thought this rather an out-of-the-way apprehension, for how would it be done?

No combination of booksellers could now be so blind or perverse as not to be aware that, education and a taste for reading having spread so widely, and its being certain that they will spread more and more, their interest would be less promoted by selling at a low price to multitudes than at a high one to a few; and there is in this consideration a sufficient answer to all the vague things that have been dinned into our ears on monopoly.

The observation you have made upon your present aim not precluding future improvements reconciles me to what I cannot but think an imperfect, though a prudent, measure.

In regard to posthumous works, which are often kept back that the author may bestow more labour upon them, and are therefore, if they be good, entitled to especial regard, I may be allowed to say that a boon of two years (if that be granted) in addition to twenty-eight, which the present law secures, is not

VOL. III.

Ꮓ

an acquisition worth thinking about. Let us, however, be thankful for what we can get, and be assured, my dear Lord Mahon, that I am duly sensible of the obligations Literature is under to you for undertaking a Bill which is sure to meet with vexatious opposition from many persons unworthy of the seats they hold in the House of Commons, and but a lax support from many others, who may have no objections either to the principles or details of your measure. I have the honour to be, faithfully your Lordship's, WM. WORDSWORTH.

Rydal Mount, March 3d 1841."

Another correspondent, whose name has not been preserved, wrote thus to Wordsworth on the subject:

"SIR,-It appears to me that the only persons really interested in the Copyright Act are the Authors and Publishers, and that the gist of the question is, Are the latter still to be allowed to retain the lion's share? The statement made as to the relative prices at which various works have at different times been sold (having in regard the correctness, the form, and the manner of getting up) has in truth little relation to the existence of a copyright or not, but to the rule of all trade,-the demand.

As well, and with as much justice, the public might complain of the relative exorbitant price paid for the few iron tanks made for the use of the Navy, when the rivet-holes were bored by hand. The tanks were found to answer the intended purpose of keeping the water sweet, and were then contracted for by the hundred. It now became worth while to invent and construct machinery to bore the rivet-holes (some hundreds in each tank) by steam-power, and the expense was not onefortieth what it was by hand. A commensurate reduction of price took place, and what said the manufacturer? I have less profit on each tank, but that is more than compensated to me by the increased demand; I sell a greater number. It is the same with books.

To the petitions presented to Parliament by the devils and compositors I attach just the same importance as I should to petitions from slaves begging to be allowed to remain in slavery. They have done but as their task-masters bid them. The assertion that the carrying of the Copyright Bill will diminish the number, and increase the price of books, is similar to that made during the debate on the abolition of the slave trade, viz. that by doing away with slavery we should increase the price of sugar to such an extent that we should very soon have no sugar at all.

I have not a doubt it will prove equally true in respect to books as it has done to sugar.

'It is pretty,' as Pepys says, to see that the undisputed possession of land for twenty years gives good title to it for But the undisputed possession of a copyright for twentyeight years only entitles the owner to have it taken from him.

ever.

If this principle be a just one, I should like to know how you are to deny that the man who has held property for a longer period ought not to be deprived of it to-morrow."

I have thought it best not to break the continuity of these letters from eminent men on the question of copyright by any remarks, explanatory or critical; but as Mr. Gladstone, in kindly sending me Wordsworth's letters to him, after reperusing his own letters to the poet,—which by a happy accident I had found, and was able to forward to him,-has added some things, both as to his opinion of Wordsworth, and his present views on the question of copyright, extracts from these addenda may be give now. Of the poet, Mr. Gladstone writes :

“Hawarden, June 10/87. Wordsworth used to come to me when I lived as a young man in the Albany, and my recollections of him are very pleasing. His simplicity, kindness, and freedom from the worldly type, mark their general character."

66 'June 13/87. As to copyright, looking to all the interests involved, I now think the method of Talfourd and the present law faulty, and capable of being replaced by one better for all parties."

"June 17/87.

I was an eager supporter of Serjeant Talfourd, but have long since altered my view, and am of opinion that a more free system of copyright than the present one is possible, and would be more advantageous to the authors, the trade, and the public."

The following fragment found amongst Wordsworth's papers, referring to Time as the only infallible judge as to the value of Literary works, may fitly close this chapter:

It seems, therefore, only to remain for me, with the view of strengthening a cause so just, to point to and bring forth a few facts which tend to show that of good and great literature-which it is to be presumed we would all wish to see rise up among us-Time is the only infallible judge. Time considered for the future, and not as a fresh and light-footed stripling of a year, or a few lustrums, but with his accustomed grey locks, his wrinkled brow, his hour-glass in one hand, his destructive scythe in the other. I would also add to these insignia a sort of Pilgrim's bottle attached to the old man's body, from which he might water in his progress such of the young plants about him as he knows are destined for immortality. But printers, and publishers, and cold-blooded doctrinaires will think I am betraying the cause by taking this flight, and I must descend.

The fate and fortune of books is in many respects most remarkable. Some that on their first appearance have been. extolled in Courts and by Universities and Academies, have quickly forfeited that kind of favour without ever making their way to the public, or deserving to do so. Others have