416 THE LAW OF COPYRIGHT. 



published views, aad misappropriation of his labours. Soon after its 

 publication, however, we received a letter from the defendant, Professor 

 Nicholas, protesting against the article in question, in which, as he sa3-s, 

 " with no purpose to injure, I am quite sure, but doubtless out of zeal 

 for justice and literary honor, you do me and a book which I recently 

 published ('The Pedigree of the English People'), a great injustice. 

 That book and its author, I am happy to tell you, have been fully 

 vindicated before the High Court of Appeal in Chancery." Dr. 

 Nicholas further adds : " From what quarter you got the ex parte 

 statement of facts on which you rely, I do not know; but it was clearly 

 a quarter wholly unworthy of reliance. Y ou have, however, based your 

 remarks upon the facts given you, and taken Vice-Chancellor James's 

 judgment as just and final; whereas, as now proved, it was neither the 

 one nor the other. That judgment was at once declared, by all men 

 acquainted with the two books, and capable of understanding the 

 question, as absurdly unfair; and while you were making use of it in 

 Canada to bring down upon the temporary victim a greater weight of 

 odium, I was engaged here in vindicating, before the Lord Chancellor 

 and Lord Justice Giffard, my own rights as an author, and collaterally 

 your right to priority in the very matters in which you claim priority 

 in your article of November last. As you will see from the pamphlet I 

 send by this post,* the Vice-Chancellor's judgment has been dismissed 

 without hesitation, and the merits of my book, as an honest and 

 independent production, properly vindicated. If you glance at the 

 pamphlet, although the discussion is necessarily condensed and incom- 

 plete, I think that you will see that the decree did me a gratuitous 

 irijury ; and I trust that you will also see, on consideration, that the 

 Canadian Journal, which has assisted in augmenting that injury, will 

 only act fairly by making fully known to its readers the other side of 

 the question." 



The Canadian Journal cannot be justly accused of going beyond 

 its legitimate province, in giving publicity to a judgment of the English 

 Vice-Chancellor on an important question of literary copyright, in 

 whicli its own contributors had special claims and rights involved; 

 nor can we, with propriety, be charged as having " taken the Vice- 

 Chancellor's judgment as just and final." Its finality was a question 



* An Examination of Vice-Chancellor James's Judgment," with an account of its dismissal 

 by the Court of Appeal in Chancery, in the case of the book entitled " The Pedegree of the 

 English People," by Thomas Nicholas, M.A., Ph. D., P. G. S. 



