in the Register of the Stationers' Company, and enacted that all Printers should reserve three copies of every newly-printed book; one for his Majesty's library, and one for each of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. This Act expired on the 9th of May, 1679. It was afterwards revived, but finally expired in 1694.

In the 8th year of Anne, an Act was made for the encouragement of learning, by which the author, or his assignee, possesses an exclusive copy-right for fourteen years, and is enabled to recover penalties for the invasion of his property; and if the author should survive that term, the same privileges extend to fourteen years more: and of all newly-printed books, by this statute, nine copies of each are given to the six Universities of England and Scotland, and the Libraries of his Majesty, Sion College, and the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh; and lest books should be sold at too high a price, the Act contains a provisionary clause, vesting a power in certain persons therein named, to regulate the same according to their judgment.'

By an Act for the suppression of Seditious Societies, made in the Sist of George III. c. 79. §. 29., one copy of every book printed is to be deposited with the printer.

By an Act of the 41st of George III. c. 107., the author is compelled to give two additional copies to Trinity College, and the King's Inns in Dublin.

By these several Acts, the author is now deprived of twelve copies of every book he prints.

After various Star-chamber regulations for printing, and charters granted to a body of Booksellers, to guard against the disseminating heretical, schismatical, blasphemous, seditious, and treasonable books, an Act was passed in the 13th and 14th years of the reign of Charles the Second, to continue in force for two years only, to compel all Printers to enter the works they printed in the Register of the Stationers' Company. This Licensing

2

This last clause, thirty years afterwards, being found to be wholly useless, was repealed in the 12th of George II. c. 36.

2 The first charter of the Stationers' Company originally comprehended 97 persons, who were Booksellers, Stationers, Printers, or persons connected with these occupations. It was granted in the year 1556, and it recited that the

Act invested the Stationers' Company with great power, and gave them a complete monopoly of the whole trade, with all its ramifications, of printing and bookselling, and the importation of foreign literature, and for which, in return, they were to act as watchful agents for the Crown, to protect it from slander and detraction, and to give three copies of every book they published, as specified in the Act. The author here is entirely left out of the question; nor, indeed, can it be said that his interest was much involved in it. The Act itself was only to last two years. Literature was not then a trade. Genius was put of Ettle value as a saleable commodity, and the whole of this kind of property was in the hands of the Booksellers; the small donation, therefore, of three copies of every work they printed, was a very inconsiderable equivalent for the great advantages which were given to them by the Act.

From this time the names of Milton, Dryden, and Newton, produced a new era in literature and science, and literary property became more and more an object of consideration to the trader, though it remained of little importance to the author.

The ultimate sale of the copy-right of the Paradise Lost to Milton's widow, in 1680, produced no more than eight pounds; and in 1698, Jacob Touson paid Dryden for his verses 27. 13s. 9d. per hundred and the author's copy-right was then secured to him or his assignee at common law, or was supposed to be so. The Bookseller, however, complained, and had reason to complain, that his property was invaded by adventurers, without principle and without property, and that by common law they were not provided with the means of punishing the offenders, nor of remunerating themselves for the injury they sustained under this impression, they petitioned Parliament in the 8th of Anne, to remedy this evil. In one of their cases is the following statement: "By common law, a bookseller can recover no more costs than he can prove, damage: but it is impossible for him to prove the tenth,

grant was made to prevent the renewal of great and detestable heresies. It authorised the members of the Company to search for books, &c. and though the Crown had no right over the trade of printing, it was ordered, “ that no man should exercise the mystery of printing unless he was of the Stationers' Company, or had a licence.”

nay, perhaps the hundredth, part of the damage he suffers; because a thousand counterfeit copies may be dispersed into as many different hands all over the kingdom, and he not be able to prove the sale of ten. Besides, the defendant is always a pauper, and so the plaintiff must lose his costs of suit (no man of substance having been known to offend in this particular, nor will any ever appear in it); therefore the only remedy by the common law, is to confine a beggar to the rules of the King's Bench or Fleet; and there he will continue the evil practice with impunity. We, therefore, pray that CONFISCATION of counterfeit copies be one of the penalties to be inflicted on offenders."

This is part of the prayer set forth by the members of the Stationers' Company, and its object is clear; and under color of giving encouragement to learned men to compose and write useful books, an Act was obtained which required the entry of every book in the Register of the Stationers' Company, to enable the proprietor of such book to claim the benefits of the statute, and from that entry, if the book was afterwards reprinted without the consent of the true owner, the offender was to forfeit one penny per sheet, for every sheet found in his possession, half the penalty to the king, and the other half to the informer, and to destroy and make waste-paper of the whole of the impression.

This provision was to continue in force for twenty-one years for all books already published, and for fourteen years for all that were in future to be published; and if the author should survive the latter term, then he or his assignee was entitled to fourteen years more; but for this latter fourteen years, the statute makes no provision, by penalty or otherwise, to secure the property to the owner. For the advantages this Act was supposed to confer on the booksellers, they were to give nine copies to three public libraries, and the six universities of England and Scotland.

This was the sense of the Act, always so understood, as well by the universities, as by authors and booksellers; and upon this ground the Act of the 41st Geo. 3. gave two copies to the King's Inns and Trinity College, Dublin, that they might have the same privileges and rights as the English and Scots universities. The sixth section

Bur. 2318.

of the Act, most unequivocally implies this interpretation of the statute of Anne.

"VI. Provided also, and be it further enacted, That from and after the passing of this Act, in addition to the nine copies now required by law, to be delivered to the warehouse-keeper of the said Company of Stationers, of each and every book and books, which shall be entered in the register-book of the said Company; one other copy shall be in like ananner delivered for the use of the Library of the said College of the Holy Trinity of Dublin, and also one other copy for the use of the Library of the Society of the King's luns, Dublin, by the printer or printers of all and every such book and books, as shall hereafter be printed and published, and the title to the copy-right whereof shall be entered in the said register-book of the said company; and that the said college, and the said society, shall have the like remedies for enforcing the delivery of the said copies; and that all proprietors, booksellers, and printers, and the warehouse-keeper of the said company, shall be liable to the like penalties for making default in delivering the said copies for the use of the said college, and the said society, as are now in force with respect to the delivering or making default in delivering the nine copies now required by law to be delivered in manner aforesaid.”

By this Act it is evident that, if books were not entered in the register-book of the Stationers' Company, no claim by the English universities was supposed to exist, which was clearly founded upon this plain reason, that if a book was not entered, it could claim no benefit under the statute, and with this impression of its interest and meauing, it was always an affair of calculation by the author or bookseller, whether nine copies were more, or less, than equivalent to the risk of the work's being pirated; and if the risk was thought to be less, it was not entered: this was the case with respect to two of the most expensive works ever published in this country,-Boydell's Shakspeare, and Macklin's Bible: it was thought by the proprietors of these works, that the protection offered to them by the Act of Anne, was not equivalent to the nine copies, and therefore these works were not entered at the Stationers' Hall; neither did

141 Geo. III. c. 107. § 6.

the universities take any exception to this discretionary power, in these, or in any other similar instances, from the passing the Act of Anne, 1709, till the year 1810, when the University of Cambridge tried their claim against Walker, for a copy of Fox's History of James II. and obtained a verdict on the letter of the statute.

This is a brief statement of what the Stationers' Company supposed they had obtained by the Act of Anne, and the extent of what they believed the Parliament intended to grant, so far as concerned the protection of their property, and their remedy by law; nor was it till the year 1774, in the case of Donaldsons and Becket, sixty-six years afterwards, that the booksellers discovered that this Act, which was meant to protect their property, in reality took it away.

From the decision in the House of Lords, which took place upon this occasion, nine judges out of twelve decided that the author's property in his own productions was more valuable before the statute of the 8th of Anne than since: in other words, the statute of the 8th of Anne abridged his right, so that from the misconception of the nature of this Act, as by subsequent interpretation it has been understood, the author had his right taken away, and his property given away at the same time, and without receiving any compensation. Aud it ought to be remembered, that the property thus given away, is not imaginary and evanescent.

As early,as the establishment of the Stationers' Company, there are records entered upon their books, which show their belief of the existence of a common-law principle which gave to the owners of intellectual property as entire and exclusive a right as could be possessed by manual labor or by purchase.

In the year 1559, persons were fined for printing other men's COPIES, and in 1573, there are entries which take notice of the sale of the Copy, and the price.

In 1582, there are entries of an express proviso, “that if it be found any other has right to any of the copies, then the licence, touching such of the copies so belonging to another, shall be void.”

A decree of the Star-Chamber, in 1637, expressly supposed a copy-right to exist otherwise than by patent, order, or entry in the Register of the Stationers' Company, which could only be by

1 Vide Bur. p. 2313.