1829.] Literary Property. 615 
“ The law in its present state is a disgrace to the country. It is an ano- 
maly in our legislative system. Let men of letters be placed, at least, on 
equal terms with the commonest artizan. We think the tax on the ‘ raw 
material’ of paper might be diminished ; but if that cannot be done, surely 
the manufactured article of books should be free from impost. Every prin- 
ciple of political economy demands it, and the more especially, when it is 
recollected that the tax is not imposed for the benefit of the state or the com- 
munity, but in favour only of chartered bodies, whose wealth and immunities 
are already sufficiently abundant. 
“If our literature be equal to that of the continental states, let us imitate 
their example: let us cease to injure, and really encourage those to whom we 
are indebted for our eminence. If it be inferior, let us lose no time in remov-~ 
ing every impediment from its way, and introducing every means that can 
facilitate its improvement, and promote its rise: let not Great Britain be the 
country in which literary property is burthened more oppressively, in a six- 
fold degree, than any other nation of ‘the civilized world; rather let her 
abolish the imposition altogether, and surpass even the republics of the new 
world, as she undoubtedly might the monarchies of the old.” pp. 206-7. 
CLASSICAL CORRECTIONS: No. I. 
Ty a neat little cottage, some five miles from town, 
Lived a pretty young maiden, by name Daphne Brown, 
Like a butterfly, pretty and airy: 
In a village hard by lived a medical prig, 
With a rubicund nose, and a full-bottomed wig— 
Apollo, the apothecary. 
He, being crop-sick of his bachelor life, 
Resolved, in his old days, to look for a wife— 
(Nota bene—Thank Heaven, I’m not married) : 
He envied his neighbours their curly-poled brats, 
(All swarming, as if in a village of Pats), 
And sighed that so long he had tarried. 
Having heard of fair Daphne, the village coquette, 
As women to splendour were never blind yet, 
He resolved with his grandeur to strike her ; 
So he bought a new buggy, where, girt in a wreath, 
Were his arms, pills and pestle—this motto beneath— 
« Ego opifer per orbem dicor.” 
To the village he drove, sought young Daphne’s old sire, 
Counted gold by rouleaus, and bank notes by the quire, 
And promised the old buck a share in’t, 
If his daughter he’d give—for the amorous fool 
Thought of young ladies’ hearts and affections the rule 
Apparently rests with a parent. 
