APPENDIX TO CHRONICLE. 



303 



Borry this question should come to 

 be argued in a court of law ; but 

 unless there was in the nature of 

 the bet, any thing of an immoral 

 or impolitic tendency, it was a legal 

 contract, andraustbesupported. He 

 would not declare what relief might 

 be obtained elsewhere under all the 

 circumstances ; but as the defendant 

 went on paying for three years, the 

 fact of the contract seemed to be 

 clearly established, and the jury had 

 certainly gone beyond their pro- 

 vince in finding for the defendant. 

 The case was again brought un- 

 der consideration before the Court 

 of King's Bench on June 11 and 

 12. After the counsel had held 

 their arguments respecting the na- 

 ture of the contract, and the inte- 

 rest of the parties in the event 

 which was its subject. Lord Ellen- 

 borough said, that although the 

 court might differ as to the grounds 

 of their opinion, they all concurred 

 that no new trial ought to be 

 granted in this case. The objec- 

 tion to this wager was its tendency 

 to produce public mischief. At a 

 time when the enemy's threats of 

 invasion were annual, and depre- 

 cated weekly in every church, could 

 it be said thai in the event of Buona- 

 parte's landing, the interest of 365 

 guineas per ann. to preserve his life 

 was too remote ? Besides, one 

 great object of the nation ought to 

 be to obviate the suspicion of at- 

 tempting the assassination of Buo- 

 naparte, with which it had (he 

 hoped unjustly) been charged; and 

 to prevent a war of assassination, 

 with which any attempt of that 

 kind would not fail to be revenged. 

 He could not say that the verdict 

 for the defendant was proper on 

 the ground that the bet was not 

 deliberately entered into ; but look- 



ing into all the circumstances of 

 the conversation upon which this 

 contract was founded, and the con- 

 tract itself, he thought the rule for 

 a new trial ought to be discharged. 

 The other three judges deliver- 

 ed a similar opinion, and the rule 

 was accordingly discharged. 



Literary Property. — In the Court 

 of Session at Edinburgh, on the 

 2nd of March, a cause was tried of 

 considerable importance to literary 

 property, in the case, Cadell and 

 Davies v. Robertson. 



Mr. Creech bought the copy- 

 right of Burns's Poems, which were 

 first published in 1786; and as 

 Burns died in 1796, the copyright 

 expired, of course, in fourteen years 

 from the date of their first publica- 

 tion. In 1793, a new edition of 

 Burns's Poems was published, with 

 some additional poems which had 

 never before appeared. These last, 

 however, were not entered in Sta- 

 tioners' Hall. In the year 1800, 

 another edition of Burns's works 

 was published by Mr. Creech of 

 Edinburgh, and Messrs. Cadell and 

 Davies, London, with a life of the 

 author prefixed, by Dr. Currie. 

 This edition included the additional 

 poems, first published in 1793, but 

 was not entered in Stationers* 

 Hall. 



In 1802, when the exclusive 

 privilege had expired, Mr. J. Ro- 

 bertson, bookseller, Edinburgh, 

 published a small edition of the 

 Poems of Burns, in which he in- 

 cluded some of those new poems 

 by the author, in 1793; upon which 

 Messrs. Cadell and Davies, and 

 Mr. Creech, applied by bill of sus- 

 pension, for an interdict, and at 

 the same time raised an action 

 against Mr. Robertson, concluding 



not 



