declared an author's property to be perpetual in any work he might have written, the question had been brought upon appeal before the House of Lords, and the opinions of the judges taken. Five then declared their belief that, by the common law of England, the sole right of multiplying copies of any work was vested for ever in him, by the exercise of whose genius, faculties, or industry, such work had been produced; and that no enactment had yet been passed, of force to limit that estate in fee. Six, on the other hand, held that this perpetual property which undoubtedly existed at common law, had been reduced to a short term by an act passed in the reign of Queen Anne, and somewhat strangely entitled (if this were indeed its right construction) as for the encouragement of literature. Chief Justice Mansfield's opinion would have equalised these opposing judgments; but, though retaining it still as strongly as when it had decided the right in his own court, the highest tribunal of common law, he thought it becoming not then to repeat it. Lord Camden upon this moved and carried a reversal of Lord Mansfield's decision, by reversing the decree which had been founded upon it. The House of Lords thus declared the statute of Anne to have been a confiscation to the public use, after a certain brief term, of such rights of property in the fruits of his own labour and genius, as, up to the period of its enactment, an author had undoubtedly possessed. Lord Camden glorified this result for the sake of literature itself. For he held that genius was not intended for the benefit of the individual who possessed it, but for the universal benefit of the race; and believing Fame to be its sufficient reward, thought that all who deserved so divine a recompense, spurning delights and living laborious days, should scorn and reject every other. The real price which genius sets upon its labours, he fervently exclaimed, is Immortality; and posterity pays that. On the other hand, Mr. Justice Willes announced an opinion hardly less earnest in its tone, to the effect that he held it to be wise in every state to encourage men of letters, without precise regard to what the measure of their powers might be; and that the easiest and most equal way of doing it, was by securing to them the property of their own works. By that means, nobody contributed who was not willing; and though a good book might be run down, and a bad one cried up, for a time, yet sooner or later the reward would be fairly proportioned to the merit of the work. 'A writer's fame,' added this learned and upright judge, 'will not be the less, that he has bread; without being ' under the necessity, that he may get bread, of prostituting 'his pen to flattery or to party.' Such interest as society showed in the discussion, went wholly with the majestic sentiments of Camden. 'The 'very thought,' said Lord Chatham to Lord Shelburne, 'of coining literature into ready rhino! Why, it is as 'illiberal as it is illegal.' It is nevertheless probable that the reader who may have accompanied me through this narrative thus far, will think it not illiberal to put these rival and opposing doctrines to the practical test of the Life and Death it has recorded. To that they are now left; with such illustrative comment from the nature and the claims of Goldsmith's writings, and the peculiarities of his character, as already I have amply supplied. Let this alone be added. The debt which Lord Camden proclaimed due to genius (though, from his conduct on the only occasion when they met, he probably did not think it due to Goldsmith), has to this date been amply paid in the fame of the Vicar of Wakefield, the Citizen of the World, the Deserted Village, and the Traveller. Goldsmith died in the prime of his age and his powers, because his strength had been overtasked and his mind was ill at ease; but, by this, the world's enjoyment of what he left has been in no respect weakened or impaired. Nor was his lot upon the whole an unhappy one, for him or for us. Nature is vindicated in the sorrows of her favourite children; for a thousand enduring and elevating pleasures survive, to redeem their temporary sufferings. The acquisition of wealth, the purchase of tranquillity and worldly ease, so eagerly coveted and unscrupulously toiled for, are not themselves obtained without attendant losses; and not without much to soften the harshness of anxiety and poverty, to show what gains may be saved out of the greatest apparent disadvantage, and to render us all some solid assistance out of even his thriftless imprudent insolvent circumstances, had Goldsmith lived and died. He worthily did the work that was in him to do; proved himself in his garret a gentleman of nature; left the world no ungenerous bequest; and went his unknown way. Nor have posterity been backward to acknowledge the debt which his contemporaries left them to discharge; and it is with calm, unruffled, joyful aspect on the one hand, and with grateful, loving, eager admiration on the other, that the creditor and his debtors at length stand face to face. All this is to the world's honour as well as gain; which has yet to consider, notwithstanding, with a view to its own larger profit in both, if its debt to the man of genius might not earlier be discharged, and if the thorns that only become invisible beneath the laurel that overgrows his grave, should not rather, while he lives, be plucked away. It is not an act of parliament which can determine this; even though it were an act to restore to the man of letters the rights of which the legislature has thought fit to deprive him. The world must exercise those higher privileges which legislation follows and obeys, before the proper remedy can be found for literary wrongs. Mere wealth would not have supplied it in Goldsmith's day, and does not supply it now. It must flow from a higher sense than has at any period yet prevailed in England, of the duties and responsibilities assumed by the public writer; and of the social consideration and respect that their effectual discharge should have undisputed right to claim. The world will be greatly the gainer, when such time shall arrive; and when the biography of the man of genius shall no longer be a picture of the most harsh struggles and mean necessities to which man's life is subject, exhibited as in shameful contrast |