1829. } Literary Property. G09 
thousand and sixty-five pounds thirteen shillings and sixpence ; and, 
another, Daniel’s Oriental Scenery, actually amounted to two thousand 
three hundred and ten pounds. Mr. Turner shrewdly observed, that in 
each one of these cases the tax was as complete an invasion on individual 
property as would be an enactment that a silversmith should give to 
these public bodies eleven silver candlesticks. Had he alluded to 
candlesticks of gold instead of silver, and those, too, of a pretty massive 
character, we suspect, in these two instances, he would scarcely have 
been guilty of exaggeration. 
It is the object of Mr. Maugham’s work to place this miserable con- 
dition of the jurisprudence of our literature once more before the public ; 
and most heartily do we wish his book the success it deserves. The 
first part is devoted to an elucidation of the history, and comprises a 
complete compendium, of the existing state of our laws of literary 
property, including the Fine Arts under that term. The second is a 
disquisition on their principles. The latter is again divided into an 
examination of the objections which have been urged to a perpetuity in 
copyright, and the arguments on which the library tax is supported ; 
and both display an ingenious exposure of the various fallacies with 
which sophistry has contrived to mystify this simple question. We select 
a few of the more important. 
Whenever a pretext is wanting for the injustice thus done to the 
literary labourer, there is none more often resorted to than one which 
comes wearing the smiling air of a compliment. Authors, it is said, 
require no extension of copyright: beings of an ethereal mould, they 
look down with as much contempt on gold as would Cobbett on a bit of 
the filthy rag signed by a Bank Director, and stamped with the number 
one thousand. “ Glory is the reward of science, and those who deserve 
it scorn all meaner views.” Now, grand as all this would sound if put 
into heroics, as a fact from which to deduce a principle of legislation, it 
has one unlucky drawback, and that is, that it is not true. Unfortu- 
nately for authors, they are destitute neither of stomachs or gastric 
juices ; and they have legs and other parts which require to be covered ; 
nor is it so pleasant in these days of luxury and splendour—days in 
which it may be said of all the world, like the people in the fable of the 
Abeilles :—* on s’habille au-dessus de sa qualité pour étre estimé plus 
qu’on n’est par la multitude,’—to be forced to walk the streets in 
ragged breeches—like Johnson, to remain at home for a pair of shoes— 
or, with Polyglot, to have to lie in bed for want of a shirt. But, to 
be serious, a more preposterous piece of declamation never escaped 
the lips of man; and we are glad to find it so ably grappled with by 
Mr. Maugham. After alluding to the absurdity of pronouncing men 
“mean,” simply because they desire to be paid for their services, he goes 
on to observe— 
“ There is yet another class of men, the most numerous of all, who are not 
actuated by any single predominant motive, to whom neither glory, nor gain, 
are master passions; but who are influenced by mixed motives, and who 
would bestow greater exertions, if their social, as well as selfish feelings, were 
equally gratified. Why should we not use all the means which justice per- 
mits, to excite men to the exertion of their best faculties ? 
“ He who can, by his works, obtain not only the prospect of future fame, 
but the substantial advantage of immediate recompense, with a provision for 
his family after his death, will labour with greater diligence than those who 
are incited only by the desire of posthumous renown. 
M.M. New Serics—Vou. VII. No. 42. 41 
