22 The Book-Trade. (Jury, 
articles which ensures a sale of extraordinary extent. We hear that 
some of these thieves sell their thefts to the extent of upwards of 
10,000 copies weekly. Another system of piracy, scarcely less inju- 
rious, and certainly as fraudulent, is the making large excerpts from 
books, and printing all the booty together in a separate volume. We 
have been surprised to see some works of this kind highly lauded,—as 
if a man deserved credit for the pillage of that which is good! 
But this is aminor matter altogether, and the remedy is plain and easy 
of access. We now proceed to suggest ameliorations to the other and 
greater evils which we have pointed out. 
We think, then, that the trade ought to unite in making early appli- 
cation to Parliament after its meeting, for a modification of the Copyright 
Act, and for a reduction of the duties on advertisements and on paper, 
together with a different mode of levying the latter. They have the 
whole recess before them, and we think their case such a strong one, 
their cause such a just one, that it needs, we are convinced, only to be 
duly brought forward to ensure its success. They have in their favour, 
on the first point, the Resolutions of the Committee which last considered 
the question, formed after the most thorough investigation and mature 
digestion of every part of the subject. The general sense of the com- 
munity is with them also—that sense of justice which, in all matters, 
must sway every disinterested mind. Nay, some persons whom we have 
spoken with on the subject, being but slenderly acquainted with the re- 
gulations of the trade individually, have expressed surprise, almost 
amounting to incredulity at what they have designated, as the robbery of 
the publisher and author under form of law. It is, indeed, most difficult 
to assign any principle of natural justice, from which so monstrous an 
exaction could have sprung. 
In the matter of the duties, the trade will have the advantage of 
dealing with a person of cultivation and polite acquirements, as well as of 
liberal principles of commercial policy. Mr. Robinson will view the ques- 
tion like a friend of letters and like a statesman, as well as like a mere 
financier. He must be aware that the high price of books in England 
is in great part owing to the imposts of which we complain. Copyright 
is to the full as highly paid in France as it is here, yet the cost ot books 
is one-half less. ‘The expense of paper and printing in France is about 
half what it is in this country; and the charge of advertising there is 
a mere trifle. The effect of this upon English books abroad is, in 
the first place, to check their circulation; and secondly, when their 
celebrity is such as to necessitate a foreign demand, to deprive the 
author of the reward of his merit, by causing a cheap reprint to be pro- 
duced on the spot. If the original books could be imported at a moderate 
price, this would not be, and the author would be benefited in propor- 
tion to the celebrity which his works conferred upon his country.* 
But to look at the question in a broader point of view. Is not the 
circulation of our language abroad a matter of the highest importance in 
a national sense, not merely as indulging national vanity, but of sterling 
advantage both in diplomacy and commerce? Has not France bene- 
fited incalculably by her language having become the general interna- 
* Since the above was written, we have chanced to see a prospectus for a reprint, in 
Paris, of Dr, Lingard’s History of England. The following passage so singularly 
coincides with what we have said on the subject, that we are tempted to transeribe it :— 
‘© Whether it be the result of our new political institutions, or the effeet of our 
national taste having become less exclusive and less disdainful of foreign literature, 
