1832,] [ 559 ] 



THE RIGHTS OF DRAMATISTS. 



WERE we asked what profession promised, with the greatest shew of 

 succes, to form a practical philosopher we should, on the instant, make 

 reply, " the calling of an English dramatist." There is, in his case, such 

 a fine adaptation of the means to the end, that we cannot conceive how, 

 especially if he be very successful, the dramatist can avoid becoming a first- 

 form scholar in the academy of the stoics. The daily lessons set for him 

 to con are decked with that " consummate flower" of wisdom, patience j they 

 preach to him meekness under indigence, continual labour with scanty 

 and uncertain reward j quiescence under open spoliation ; satisfaction to 

 see others garner the harvest he has sown ; with at least the glorious 

 certainty of that noble indigence lauded by philosophers and practiced 

 by the saints poverty, stark- naked poverty, with grey hairs j an old age 

 exulting in its forlornness ! If, after these goodly lessons, whipt into him 

 with daily birch, be become no philosopher, then is all stoicism the fraud 

 of knaves, and even patience but a word of two syllables/ But we are con- 

 vinced of the efficacy of the system. English dramatists are stoics, and 

 not in a speculative sense, but in the hard, practical meaning of the term 

 time has hallowed their claim to the proud distinction ; it is consecrated to 

 them by the base coats of their prime, and the tatlers of their old age ; not 

 only endured without complaint, but enjoyed as " their charter." 



English dramatists are philosophers. They have been subjected to the 

 whims and caprice of those whose professional lives depended on the men 

 they have slighted and have they complained ? No ! They have had 

 their dearest property plucked from them they have had their golden 

 thoughts minted only to be dropped into the purses of other people, Have 

 they murmured at the violence ? No ! They have died, " like rats in holes 

 and corners." They have left their children to the tender guardianship of 

 overseers and churchwardens and has indignation stirred the thin blood 

 of the fraternity ? No ! Ergo English dramatists are philosophers. 



Our attention has been newly turned to this pacific sect, by a pamphlet * 

 recently published. We have sufficiently descanted on the monopoly of 

 the drama ; as public journalists, with a true love for the letters of our 

 country 5 as politicians, calling for the equal security of property to all men ; 

 it behoves us, especially at the present juncture, to speak of the rights, we 

 should say the wrongs, of dramatic literature. 



The pamphlet before us (from which we borrow several facts) is valu- 

 able, as presenting a careful digest of the French laws applicable to dra- 

 matic literary property. On the 13th of January, 1791, a law was 

 passed in France, which enacted that the works of living authors could not 

 be represented on any stage in the kingdom, without the written consent 

 of the author. A transgression of this law to be punished by confis- 

 cation of the entire receipts of the house for the benefit of the writer. In 

 the same year, it was also decreed that the dramatist's share of the profits 

 should not be liable to seizure for the debts contracted by managers. f 



* On Theatrical Emancipation, and the Rights of Dramatic Authors . By Thomas James 

 Thackeray, Esq. C. Chappie. 



t " Who would believe, (says a French writer,) that in matters of literary property, 

 England, whose laws are daily offered to us as models, is at this day as barbarous as we were 

 in Fiance sixty years ago. It is there held as a matter of course, that the piece of an author, 

 when printed, can be played by all the managers of theatres in the three kingdoms, without 



