1823.] The Rights of Dramatists. 563 



or, what has proved more likely, holds the manager his hopeless debtor 

 to that amount !* 



The present unjust state of the law annihilates the civil rights of the 

 author to his own -, he is forgotten by the legislature, and can hardly ex- 

 pect to be remembered by those to whose immediate interest he devotes 

 his labours. One instance, from fifty, of his forgetfulness, this utter 

 unconcern of those claims which, if the stage be anything, should be pre- 

 eminent, we will briefly relate. A dramatist presented a piece to an 

 establishment : the production was read, approved, and nothing remained 

 but to settle terms and the time of representation. The manager began 

 to enumerate the various expenses. " There must be two or three new 

 scenes three or four new dresses the expense of licensing." It ap- 

 peared that nothing else was to be provided for, when, by some extraor- 

 dinary providence, the claims of the originator of the drama flashed on 

 the mind of the manager, who added " Yes, and then there's the author's 

 fee r The author's fee ! Now we hold this little anecdote is illustrative 

 of the whole system of present management. The scenery is of course 

 the grand consideration then came, cequis passibus, the claims of the 

 tailor and decorator, the salaries for stars, the expense of copying parts, 

 licensing, &c. &c., and lastly, if thought of at all, the " fee" (delicate 

 word) for the author, for the man who puts all the other parts in motion. 

 A " fee," i. e. something for paper, pens, and ink.f 



Our hopes of an " equitable adjustment" of the rights of dramatists are 

 excited by a consideration of the spirit of the times, now happily awakened 

 to the remedying abuses, not only political, but personal. To obtain relief, 

 however, it is necessary to display the extent and bearing of an evil, to 

 force its consideration on the public mind, and, if other higher incentives 

 were wanting, to shame the legislature into tardy justice. We gather 

 new hope from the following announcement in our excellent contem- 

 porary, the Athenceum, of the 7th ult. : 



" It is, we hear, the intention of several literary men of eminence, to bring forward 

 a measure to secure genius the fruits which it produces, and make the regions of the 

 mind as much the property of the holder, as land is the property of the person who 

 purchases it. As the law now stands, an author has a right in his \vorksjbr twenty- 

 eight years : if he dies within that period, the right cannot be revived or renewed 

 for his descendants or heirs ; and all the fruits of his talents and industry go to the 

 enrichment of the world at large. It is not so with the proceeds of any other 

 kind of labour: the man of business secures his gains in gold or in land, and 

 bequeaths his all to whom he pleases ; while the man of genius, who embarks the 

 capital of his intellect in either verse or prose, has only a short-lived lease of what is 

 as much his own as land or houses can be. Had the widow and children of Bums, 

 for instance, inherited the property of his undying poems, they would have been 

 rich to-day, and been preserved from the misery to which some of them have been 

 subjected." 



* Mr. Wood, who played Masaniello, received thirty pounds per week. What has Mr. 

 Kenney, \v\\oproduced the drama, pocketed 1 Nil. 



t It would seem that managers, tutored by the system, estimated the value of a drama 

 according to the scale of the old lady of whom we have heard the following anecdote. Her s.m 

 had produced a drama, and having received for his labour the sum of five pounds, was loud in 

 his contempt of the amount. At this the darne, in true Israelitish spirit, inquired " Why, 

 how much did the paper cost?"" Paper why, perhaps a shilling." < Well, and how 

 much the pens and ink V Oh, pens and ink, why, perhaps sixpence." " Well, I 

 declare !" replied the matron, with managerial calculation, " here's a young man makes 

 four pounds eighteen and sixpence CLEAR PROFIT, and yet it isn't enough!" 





