Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1866-06-23 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

THE RIGHTS OF LITERATURE.  THE Fourth Estate, which within the last fifty years has become such a mighty power, has perhaps been more disinterested in the exercise ;A its rights than any other constituted body in the kingdom. Identifying itself, with the universal interests of society, it has Oen content to share things in common, and has never sought to claim exclusive privileges. Indeed, till Seijeant Talfourd (who was himself a member of the gentle craft who write more from the promptings of a noble spirit within than from a thirst of gain), brought forward his Bill for amending the law of copyright, the literary man was little better than a mere hack, giving birth to ideas to enrich others and to his own impoverishment. For him there was no protection. An inventor could procure a patent—the mechanic could obtain the profits of his machine; but the man of hard toil and thought, who had spent his best years in producing a monument of intellect and industry, found no recompense for his drudgery, but too frequently found himself reduced to want while wealthy publishers were feasting upon his brains. His position was well illustrated by Moore, who thus truthfully and musically sang—  4. In the woodo of the North there are insects which prey On the brain of the e 1 till its very List sig ; Oh. Genius, thy patrons, more cruel than they, First feed on thy brains and then lesve thee to die."  Men like Hood, Carlyle, and Dickens, who were and are known to be more ready to give than to strike a bargain with publishers and the public, felt themselves much injured by the unscrupulous manner in which they were treated by dishonest booksellers, and did ther best to second the laudable efforts of Serjeant Talfourd in amending the copyright law. Authors are now acknowledged as belonging to the family of mankind; and if they are not allowed to possess privileges, they are permitted to enjoy to some extent their own property, as well as other people. The author's thought is his own—it is his to keep, sell, or dispose of in any way he may think fit, and he who prints his book without his leave is regarded by the law as a pirate. But desirous as the Legislature may be to protect the literary man, his rights and property are of such a peculiar nature, that it is difficult in some cases to grant him the protection he absolutely requires. You can secure him an interest in his book for a certain term of years, but you know not how to prevent his property being undermined or rendered valueless by a knave, who, having no ideas of his own, presumes to take those of another, and dress them up in an uncouth garb for the entertainment of a sight-seeing public to the great detriment of the unfortunate author who has been subjected to this pillage. To attempt an improvement in the law in this respect was the object of Lord Lyttelton, and one could hardly suppose that the House of Peers, which insists so strongly upon the maintenance of its hereditary rights and landed interests, would have felt it incumbent upon it to oppose a measure of justice ; but, strange to say, though lords can feel sympathetically for each other, when baronial and territorial rights are in question, they seem to entertain but little regard for the rights of literary men, and rejected Lord Lyttelton's proposition for simply giving to an author the liberty of Baying whether his work should be dramatized or not, by a vote of eighty-nine to eleven. Should a railway company require a yard of ground, or undermine a wall belonging to a peer, it must remunerate the owner or pay for damage; but when a scribbling hack purloins the most beautiful thoughts of an author, takes the very name of his book and characters, and murders it only by the addition of his own nonsensical trash, there is no redress. The work is distorted, produced before the public in patched-up attire, a thing of shreds and tatters, is perhaps hissed off the stage, and the author is injured and degraded. Surely this is a state of things that ought not to exist in a land of learning, and we trust that hereafter the House of Commons may deal a little more tenderly with the interests of authors than the House of Lords has done.