The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TUE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

RIGHTS OF AUTHORS.
(From the Times.)
The time has at length arrived when the legiti-
mate rights of authors who use the English lan-
guage in the composition of their works are about
to be recognised on either side of the Atlantic. The
solution of this question did not involve any great
difficulty in theory or in detail ; it simply required
a little exertion of common policy, common sense,
and, above all, common honesty. We have never
urged the matter with any great affectation of zeal,
not because we did not sympathise with the victims
of the fraud, but because we were profoundly con-
vinced of the inutility of remonstrance. We were
well aware that a time must come, and it has come
at last, when men of letters in the United States
would feel the wholesale system of literary piracy
tell against themselves with terrible effect. The
statement may be permitted without involving any
disparagement of those illustrious names which al-
ready adorn the literary Pantheon of the United
States, but it was scarcely possible for American
authors, when placed under commercial disadvan-
tage, to carry on a successful contest against their
English contemporaries. Why should travellers
on the railroads of the United States pay two dol-
lars for the productions even of Prescott, Bancroft,
Bryan, or Washington Irving, when they could '
purchase for half or a quarter of the sum the works
of Grote, Macaulay, Byron, or Dickens ? All that
an American publisher required for his stock in
trade consisted of a few reams of dirty paper, a few
forms of bad type, and consummate disregard of
the rights of authors. His MS. came to hand with-
out the delays or annoyance of negotiation—with-
out the expenditure of a single cent. We are, of
course, fully aware of all the shifts to which authors
.and owners of copyright have hapt recourse for the pro-
tection of their property, but all was go—
long as the New York publishers chose to persist
in their evil courses—in other words, so long as
their acts received countenance from the Govern-
ment
and population of the States, it was impossi-
ble for English authors or their assignees to stem
the stream. The arguments in favour of the pirati-
cal act were just such as would find favour with
the rough go-ahead population of a new country.
In the first place, there was the feeling of spoiling
the Amalekites, and of driving a sharp bargain,
which was something. Then the question might
be asked, why should they pay at the rate of one
shilling a number for one of Mr. Dickens's monthly
numbers, when one of their own publishers would
serve them up a dirty reprint of the same matter
at about one quarter of the cost ? How was the
English author hurt because the American reader
was benefitted 7 Why take science and literature
out of the ordinary categories of commerce ? Poetry
and breadstuffs, astronomy and molasses, are, after
all, much the same thing in the eyes of a commer-
cial man. Or, even granting that English authors
might in some degree not exactly be injured, but
might not receive the same full measure of benefit
as though they had enjoyed the run of the Ameri-
can markets,—what then ? The English might
surely make reprisals on the literature of the United
States, and so matters would get straight in the
long run. Throughout the long and frequent dis-
cussions that have taken place upon this subject,
we cannot call to mind that the disputants on the
side of the Union have ever used arguments more
pertinent than those mentioned above. They did
not foresee that a time might come when the case
would not simply be as though a Highland gentle-
man should filch his neighbour's trousers, and com-
placently invite him to reprisal. It has now as-
sumed other proportions. The poor man is setting
up as a gentleman himself, and finds himself
brought into competition with the possessors of in-
herited fortunes, who meet him at every turn upon
his own ground, without any necessity for paying
tax or quit-rent, or any other of the fiscal burdens
against which he is called upon to contend.
This, in point of fact, has been the result of what
cannot be considered in any other light than as an
act of great national dishonesty. The works of
American authors have been smothered under the
works of English authors in the American markets.
The first could fix a price upon their productions
—the second were as castaways upon the sea-board
of the United States. Their property was in the
hands of the " wreckers." They were without
remedy or redress. But, not only did this whole-
sale system of piracy most injuriously affect the
interests of living American authors, but it had a
tendency to dwarf down the original literature of
the United States to the most servile copyism, and
to check the development of the national mind. If
citizens of the great republic made up their minds
to grow corn and smuggle science—to export cot-
ton and import literature—why, they must abide
by the consequences of their own act. Growers of
corn and exporters of cotton they must remain to
the end of the chapter. No doubt they would
drive a more thriving trade in the enumerated
articles the more completely they rivetted their
attention to the production of raw produce alone ;
but if it was their wish to rise in the scale of
nations—to rise as nations have risen which have
given birth to great philosophers, and poets, and
historians—then every measure which could encour-
age original thought and original taste—taste pure
and racy of the soil—was worthy of their serious
attention. Certainly the act of overlaying Ameri-
can genius by English genius was not a very wise
measure in this direction. American literature
has already paid a heavy penalty for this act
of intellectual cowardice, not to say of moral
turpitude. Take the essayists, and poets, and
novelists of the United States powerful and
exquisite as many of their compositions un-
doubtedly are, and see if their thought and diction
do not run in English mould. We find in them,
no doubt, many allusions to freedom, to the glory
of their future, and so forth, which are the natural
consequence of the extraordinary history and posi-
tion of their country ; but we do not find origi-
nality of thought as we find it in the literature of
Germany, or France, or Italy, as compared with
our own. Nor can we for a moment permit it to be
be said that no such originality is to be looked for
because American and English authors use the
same language, study the same models, and are of a
common descent. We reply, English literature at
the Elizabethan era is one thing, English literature
in the reign of Anne quite another. In the begin-
ning of the present century and throughout the
Regency the literary productions ofthe period differ
widely in sentiment and opinion from those of the
present day. Now we have a right to expect that
an author who is brought up the citizen of a re-
public should write in a different tone from the
subject of a mixed monarchy ; and that a New
York novelist should regard the world in a different
point of view from his London contemporary.
Illustrious, we repeat it, as are the names of the
American authors which we have already cited, we
tell them that they have not thrown off English
swaddling-clothes. As English authors they might
occupy a distinguished place in English literature,
but they have not yet made proof of nationality.
When that one work lately reached us which
smacked so strongly of American feeling and opi-
nion, how it ran through Europe like wildfire !
Well, then, there is to be a treaty at last upon
this subject, by which English and American
authors are to enjoy equal privileges of copyright,
respectively, in England and in the United States.
It will be a bright spot in the history of the late
Daniel Webster that his biographer will have to
record, that nearly his last act before the illness
which terminated fatally was the execution of that
treaty. He and Mr. Crampton signed for their
respective Governments. The treaty was trans-
mitted to England for approval, which it received
as a matter of course, and has now been sent back
to America, where it formally remains once more
under the consideration of Mr. Everett and Mr.
Crampton. In point of fact, it does but await the
ratification of the Senate, the body which, in
America, is constitutionally charged with the duty
of final sanction in such matters. We look for-
ward with the greatest satisfaction to the moment
when the treaty will become law, not only because
the measure will act most beneficially on the inte-
rests of English authors—for it is no light matter
to enlargetheir public by a population of 25,000,000
which contains quite the English average of read-
ers—but because we are unfeignedly
of opinion
that the cause of literature and science--in other
words, the cause of intellectual progress in the
United States—will derive the greatest advantage
from this tardy act of justice. We doubt not that
as brilliant and glorious a destiny awaits the United
States in these respects as in all others. Lot
American authors feel assured that we shall be the
first to glory in their success.

CORPORATION OF LONDON.
(From the Morning Herald.)
When a few days ago we referred to the pro-
posal of the Times to incorporate the whole of this
vast metropolis into one gigantic municipality—
framed upon the model of the Municipal Corpora-
tion Act—we were, our readers may remember,
disposed to treat the matter as a jest. We re-
garded, in truth, the proposition pn.s intesui only