of demand, have made their way slowly into general circulation; yet he may be permitted to state a fact bearing obviously upon the Bill for the extension of the term of copyright now before your honourable House; that within the last four years these works have brought the author a larger pecuniary emolument than during the whole of the preceding years in which they have been before the public. This advantage would have in a great measure been lost to his family had he died a few years since.

That your petitioner ventures to submit to your honourable House his conviction that the duration of copyright, as the law now stands, is far from being co-extensive with the claims of natural affection: a hardship which will be still more apparent when the condition of distinguished authors is viewed in contrast with that of men who rise to eminence in other professions or employments, whereby they not only acquire wealth, but have patronage at command, or obtain the means of forming family establishments in business, which enable them to provide at once for their descendants, or for others who have claims upon them. He also trusts that to the wisdom of the House it will appear that the law-while it fails to pay due regard to the reasonable claims of natural affection-is also at variance, in an unwarrantable degree, with the principles that govern the right of property in all other matters (mechanical inventions and chemical discoveries only excepted), between which, however, and works in several of the highest departments of literature, there is in quality, circumstance, mode of operation, and oftentimes in origin, a broad line of distinction, as was shown when the subject in the preceding session was under the consideration of Parliament.

That in answer to the objection that the proposed measure would check the circulation of books, it may be urged, first, that to a great majority of publications the measure would be indifferent, they being adequately protected by the law as it

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now is; that the works which it would affect, though comparatively few, must be presumed to be of superior merit, and therefore to be those that most deserve or require the aid which the Bill proposes; further, that from the daily increase of readers, through the spread of education, and the growing wealth of the community, it must become more and more the interest of the holders of the copyright to sell at a low price, and to prepare editions suitable to the means of different classes of society, and that consequently the apprehension of a prolonged privilege being injurious to the people is entitled to little or no regard.

That it is highly desirable that the printing of works should be under the control of their authors' representatives, however long those works may have been before the public, in order to secure copies correctly printed, and to preclude the sending forth books without the author's recent or last editions or emendations, by those publishers who are ready to seize upon expiring copyrights.

[In a MS. copy of this petition, transcribed by Mrs. Wordsworth, evidently at the dictation of her husband, the following was inserted at this place :

And not less important is this prolongation of copyright needful for preventing the republication of such productions as the mature judgment of their authors may have rejected, and which unconscientious publishers may push into sale by advertising their own edition as the only complete one of a deceased author's writings.']

That finally (and to this, above all, your petitioner respectfully entreats the attention of your honourable House) the Bill has for its main object to relieve men of letters from the thraldom of being forced to court the living generation to aid them in rising above degraded taste and slavish prejudice, and to encourage them to rely upon their own impulses, or to leave them with less excuse if they should fail to do so.

That your petitioner, therefore, implores your honourable House that the Bill before it for extending the term of copyright may pass into a law; a prayer which he makes in full faith that in this, as in all other cases, justice is capable of working out its own expediency."*

The following was Carlyle's petition :—

"To the Honourable the Commons in England of Parliament assembled, the petition of Thomas Carlyle, a Writer of Books,

Humbly sheweth,

That your petitioner has written certain Books, being incited thereto by various innocent or laudable considerations, chiefly by the thought that said books might in the end be found to be worth something.

That your petitioner had not the happiness to receive from Mr. Thomas Tegg, or any Publisher, Republisher, Printer, Bookseller, Book-buyer, or other the like man or body of men, any encouragement or countenance in writing of said books, or to discern any chance of receiving such; but wrote them by effort of his own, and the favour of Heaven.

That all useful labour is worthy of recompense; that all honest labour is worthy of the chance of recompense; that the giving and assuring to each man what recompense his labour has actually merited may be said to be the business of all Legislation, Polity, Government, and Social Arrangement whatsoever among men; a business indispensable to attempt, impossible to accomplish accurately, difficult to accomplish without inaccuracies that become enormous, insupportable,

* Three Speeches delivered in the House of Commons in favour of a Measure for an Extension of Copyright, by T. N. Talfourd, Serjeant-at-Law. To which are added the Petitions in favour of the Bill, and Remarks on the present state of the Copyright Question. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. 1840.

J

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and the parent of Social Confusions which never altogether end.

That your petitioner does not undertake to say what recompense in money this labour of his may deserve; whether it deserves any recompense in money, or whether money in any quantity could hire him to do the like.

That the law does at least protect all persons in selling the production of their labour at what they can get for it, in all market-places, to all lengths of time. Much more than this the law does to many, but so much it does to all, and less than this to none.

That your petitioner cannot discover himself to have done unlawfully in this his said labour of writing books, or to have become criminal, or have forfeited the law's protection thereby. Contrariwise, your petitioner believes firmly that he is innocent in said labour; that if he be found in the long-run to have written a genuine enduring book, his merit therein, and desert towards England, and English and other men, will be considerable, not easily estimable in money; that, on the other hand, if his book proves false or ephemeral, he and it will be abolished and forgotten, and no harm done.

That, in this manner, your petitioner plays no unfair game against the world; his stake being life itself, so to speak (for the penalty is death by starvation), and the world's stake nothing till it sees the dice thrown; so that in any case the world cannot lose.

That in the happy and long-doubtful event of the game's going in his favour, your petitioner submits that the small winnings thereof do belong to him or his, and that no other mortal has justly either part or lot in them at all, now, henceforth, or forever.

May it therefore please your Honourable House to protect him in said happy and long-doubtful event; and (by passing your Copyright Bill) forbid all Thomas Teggs and other

extraneous persons, entirely unconcerned in this adventure of his, to steal from him his small winnings, for a space of sixty years at shortest. After sixty years, unless your Honourable House provide otherwise, they may begin to steal.

And your petitioner will ever pray,

THOMAS CARLYLE.”

A letter from Serjeant Talfourd to Wordsworth, dated from the Temple, 22d November 1837, refers both to his own Bill on Copyright, and to a project for publishing his friend's Poems connected with the Continental Tour of 1820, along with Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal of that tour :

"MY DEAR SIR,-I am greatly obliged and honoured by your letter, which will be of great service to me in the event of a serious opposition to my Bill. I have given notice of a motion for leave to introduce it on 14th December, which I expect to be granted without the necessity of my exhausting my resources by making a speech, and without discussion. The second reading—on which I presume any opposition the followers of Mr. Tegg may design will be given-cannot take place till after Christmas. I think it will be very useful, if Mr. Southey will, when sufficiently recovered from his loss, use his influence with his Parliamentary friends to support it.

I am sure your admirers-now happily embracing all who love English poetry for its own sake-will see with unmingled pleasure the republication of your poems in the setting of Miss Wordsworth's work; and I trust no doubt on the subject will prevent us from seeing the pieces we have loved for themselves rendered more interesting by such an association.

Trusting we shall soon hear of your entire restoration to health, and receive the best and happiest proofs of your being in healthiest spirits,—I remain, my dear Sir, ever most truly yours, T. N. TALFOURD."