enviable happiness I hint at? Assuredly not. The really good man is one to whom goodness is as natural as genius is to the genius, or strength to the strong man. With each, there can be no unhealty striving or straining. Nothing beyond the genuine and wholesome efforts of nature. It would be grevious that a good deed should be done, not from an innate love of such noble deed, but through mere compulsion and a sense of duty!

Surely it is because we are so un-natural, so unkind, so thoughtless, that so many of us may be called unhappy?

MAN.*

to be all that was decorous and "utterly respectable," he never concealed his sympathy with all Garibaldi's plans; and he has been honoured with one of the most priceless treasures of the time-Garibaldi's intimate and ardent friendship. For all this the public respect him. They see reflected on him some of the moral refulgence which radiates from the greatest man and purest patriot of this age, mingled with the more sober but not less grateful hue of modest and chivalrous devotion. They would willingly permit Colonel Chambers to presume a good deal on his association with Garibaldi, and had he shown himself a little conceited or presuming, nothing

In a country where the beaten track is so very much beaten as in England, eccentricity is not unwelcome, even if only innocent; but when generous and healthy, it is a redeeming trait amongst much that is common-place and sordid. The life of an English gentleman is so constrained, except in the narrow limits of social intercourse with his equals, that even the wearing of a peculiar hat, or abstinence from a necktie, is an act beyond the courage of most of us. The first impulse in the polite English mind is to suspect any one of a tinge of insanity who is at all different in pattern to his neighbours, especially if the variation be in the direction of enthusiasm. We have known a gentleman get the opprobrious epithet of "the glad man," only from becoming radiant as to his countenance and active as to his hands at philanthropic meetings; and but now the most rising politician of the Radical party has paid, amidst general indifference, a heavy penalty for no worse offence than a very moderate degree of democratic fanaticism. But when an enthusiasm is really wholesome, even Englishmen manage, after a little while, to get over this prejudice. As when, on a chilly day, an inveterate bather plunges almost alone into the sea, the dubious bystanders shudder at the shock he must experience, but, when he warms with his exertions, and betrays by the freedom of his motions the exhilaration which his bath produces, begin to envy the enjoyment they still lack the courage to take, so ordinary Englishmen watch first with contempt, then with doubt, and finally with wistfulness, the generous eccentricity into which any one of their number may be betrayed. If it should only happen that circumstances should make the particular eccentricity in which he indulges fashionable if marquises should betray it at railway stations-if ministerial or opposition leaders should rival each other in displaying it at Stafford House-if "the Duchess" should give a fête under its influence at Chiswick, and if the Prince of Wales should walk from Spring Gardens to Park Lane incognito, in order to prove that he too partakes the general feeling-then your once contemned eccentric becomes a lion; and our only objection is, that leonine honours are not good enough for one who has so creditably defied, in a good cause, the narrow prejudices of his class.

Colonel Chambers is, at this moment, exactly in the position we have indicated. He and his wife were devotees of Garibaldi, when it was a social eccentricity to have more than a newspaper acquaintance with him. They stayed a whole winter with "the General" at Caprera. Though Colonel Chambers was a county magistrate, and lived in Liverpool, and was, therefore, bound • Garibaldi and Italian Unity. By Lieutenant-Colonel Chambers.

London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1864.

No

Of making books there is no end, and in making books there is no conscience. Men write, "not because they have something to say, but because they wish to say something;" and even with a tolerably good excuse for making a book, and an abundance of materials, would-be authors are content to shovel into the literary world masses of crude print which as much deserve to be called books as a rough hewn block of marble deserves to be called a statue. Surely Colonel Chambers' subject, the simplicity and unity of the character and career he sought to describe, should have inspired him with purer literary taste. man should take up his pen to chronicle great deeds or limn a noble nature, without skill in some degree proportioned to his theme, or at least sufficiently equal to it to avoid the miserable slip-slop and scissors-work of the lowest class of book-makers. But to Colonel Chambers the name of Garibaldi has been an excuse for negligence, instead of an incentive to excellence. He has simply done for Garibaldi what Mr. J. W. Cole did for Charles Kean-he has pitchforked together, not always in chronological order, the praises of newspapers, the compliments of magnates, the details of popular receptions and demonstrations. What was small enough in the secretary of a petted artiste is inexcusably inconsistent and unworthy in the confidant of a great actor in the mightiest European changes of the present age; but if Colonel Chambers has done more than this for Garibaldi, it is almost completely lost in the loose heap of materials which he has thrown to the public, without an attempt to put it into architectural shape-without even cementing it together by anything more than the merest connecting slip-slop, which, unhappily, is least obnoxious when weakest and most devoid of purpose.

There are some who will say, Why should n't Colonel Chambers publish a book of newspaper cuttings and extracts from other works, if he chooses to do so, since the public are not obliged to buy it? It is sufficient to reply to this, that while it still remains to be proved that a man has a right to do as he likes with his own, it has never yet been even pretended that he can do as he lists with that which is other people's. Moreover, people buy books without first reading them, and on a certain understanding, established by long and wholesome usage, that what a man publishes as his own is his own at the very least in style, and that while he may use the works of others to illustrate his, he will not present the public with that which, without substantial variation, they may find as conveniently elsewhere. When the English secretary of Garibaldi thinks it worth while to write, and Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. to produce, in all the glory of red cloth, thick paper, and good type, an expensive work on

the hero's life, we do not want to be told that "it was correctly stated at the time in the Daily Telegraph," or that "the Examiner gave the following complete explanation of the situation," or that "the Times' correspondent conveys the best picture"-whatever that may mean in English "of the scene in the Chamber." We expect to hear what Colonel Chambers himself has to say that has not been said before, and if he either does not say anything original, or shrouds what he does say in a mass of second-hand surplusage, we may justly declare ourselves injured. In the latter case, indeed, he himself is even more a sufferer in reputation; for only very literary or very dull people will wade through a dreary octavo in the vague hope of coming across a page or two somewhere that has not appeared before, and the majority will roughly conclude he has nothing to say because he has said so much.

Colonel Chambers' preface is enough to condemn his book, on more grounds than one. "From information obtained," says the gallant author in police phraseology, during a residence in Italy, he became convinced that there was "much unknown in the history of Garibaldi." This, then, is the measure of the necessity of the work. Does it justify the production of a large half-guinea book, only containing as much new matter as would have gone in a pamphlet? Colonel Chambers says a great deal of this 66 unknown matter has reference to the affair of Aspromonte, the true story of which he declares he for the first time gives to the world. Now the affair of Aspromonte is sufficiently recent, and, popularly speaking, obscure, to justify the publication of a succinct narrative of it, espe cially with the benefit of Garibaldi's suggestions; but the "true story of Aspromonte" only occupies, though fully told, a single chapter of about forty pages, and beyond the emphasis laid on the fact that Garibaldi did not wish his men to fire, and a rather strong assertion on Garibaldi's behalf that had he chosen to fire he could have crushed the Bersaglieri, it contains nothing even ostensibly new.

The preface continues rather innocently to say that the book narrates Garibaldi's services from 1859 to 1863, whereas no previous history has come later than the beginning of 1861. Why did not Colonel Chambers simply continue the narrative from the point at which his predecessors dropt it? But the gallant colonel's candour goes even further, for he says that "the history having been already fully described"-we should say written-"by others, the author has made frequent extracts from," &c., which he certainly has done with a freedom even this confession only faintly foreshadowed. Now, is not this equivalent to saying in a new history of the decline and fall of Rome, "the story has already been so well told by another author that I have made frequent extracts from Gibbon?" The preface affords another example of Colonel Chambers' coolness-if he is anything like this under fire he must be a jewel of a field-officer. He writes that while the work was at press he went to Italy, and has but lately returned. "This must be an apology for any inaccuracies. Must it? On what compulsion? Did the public insist on Colonel Chambers publishing his book by a certain day? No doubt it was convenient for him and his publishers to have it out just in time for Garibaldi's visit, but the public never even demanded that it should be published at all; much less that it should come out with such haste as to contain numerous specimens of almost every sort of typographical inaccuracy. When we find inverted commas continually missed, wrong words italicised, Cialdini called Cialdina, Farini confused with Farina, and the latter spoken of

as Larina-even the hero himself described as Graibaldiand a great number of other blunders equally gross,—we can only advise Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. to have a good reader of the press, a precaution not easily dispensed with in any publishing house, but which is especially essential where amateur writers bring out large books in a hurry while absent in Italy.

Only those who have hunted for needles in the bran of a colossal pincussion can appreciate the wearisomeness of trying to find anything really new in this ill-arranged or unarranged volume. Having gone carefully through it, we might hint to our readers on what pages they might hope to increase their information, but this would seem dogmatic and pretentious; we have preferred to deal with Colonel Chambers' work simply as a literary production. But it has produced one or two impressions upon our mind, to which our readers are welcome if they are disposed to take them at second hand.

The first is, that Garibaldi has never been, as many people imagine, at the orders of Mazzini. Colonel Chambers proves, more incidentally than formally, that they have ever been very distinct in their views; that they have always had distinct followings; and that, though mutually intelligent and helpful, they have, in every sense, acted independently. The first thing Garibaldi did, when he met the king, at Naples, was to assure him that what had been said about his being under the influence of Mazzini and his friends was "a mere calumny."

Another impression the book has given us is that of a degree of querulousness on the part of Garibaldi. He is too noble ever to allow personal grievances to affect his conduct, but he evidently suffers the recollection of them to dwell in his mind, somewhat unheroically, and to tinge his intercourse with his friends. Of course his brave deeds for Italy were so great and so successful that he and his men had a moral right to the highest consideration, and there was something petty in the way in which Piedmontese officials of various grades endeavoured to wound and degrade both him and them; but it was unphilosophical in Garibaldi not to perceive that these men could not escape from the conditions of their being, and, some from good and some from unworthy motives, but all from the necessities of their position, were certain to act as they did.

Garibaldi is very remarkable for the clearness of his beliefs, and the practical way in which he acquiesces, despite those beliefs, in necessities. Thus he asserts that there was no real danger to the French and Italian forces in the Quadrilateral; but he quietly withdrew when the Treaty of Villafranca was made. Even the Aspromonte expedition, though so determinedly resolved on, was started on the express understanding that, however treated, his men were not to fire on Italian soldiers. The most remarkable passage in this book affords proof that even Garibaldi can be " convenient," and is capable of seeing small political obligations as clearly as less uncompromising politicians. The passage is as follows :—

"One day Garibaldi was asked how he could really speak of the king in the terms of actual admiration which he often used; he answered, 'In the first place I have seen the king fight for Italy. In the second, in speaking of a monarch, it is usually supposed that it is the kingly office which is implied. This, in England and Italy, guarded as it always ought to be by the responsibility of ministers the people, ought to approach perfection. Thirdly, when I was an answerable for the acts of the Government to Parliament elected by exile and earned my bread as a tutor, I had to teach that the Egyp tians were the first people who rightly understood the rules of govern

ment, they never blamed their kings, but praised their virtues, loading at the same time with imprecations those of their ministers who gave them ill counsels and suppressed and disguised the truth. In

Egypt the plan answered well.'"

Yet, the man who could thus "boo," on grounds of policy, to a king, seems always to have been perfectly incapable of fairly judging constitutional ministers. His diplomatic faithfulness to Victor Emmanuel, his continual failure to appreciate Cavour's obedience to political exigencies, and the innocent way in which he walked at Aspromonte into the trap Rattazzi laid for him, present three curious views of his character. Another remark. able fact and the last for which we shall at present confess ourselves indebted to Colonel Chambers-is, that the the efforts of Garibaldi in Sicily and Italy were as undesigned as their brilliant success was unexpected. "I never advised this Sicilian movement," wrote Garibaldi, at the time, “but since these brethren of ours are fight ing, I deemed it my duty to go to the rescue. There is much, of course, that is interesting in Colonel Chambers' book, and his enthusiasm is every way admirable; but the truth about his literary accomplishments is painful to speak. His gushingness is profuse and effeminate. Of this the following is a really ludicrous specimen. Speaking of the death of Prince Albert, the

Colonel writes :

"Who did not hope when the electric wire flashed across Europe the mournful intelligence of the 14th of December, 1861, when the grief of an entire nation was only exceeded by the grief of the widowed Queen, that at so touching a proof of the perfect sympathy which exists, and can only exist between a free people and a constitu

tional sovereign, true on each side to themselves and each other, the despots of Europe, seeing the love, the happiness, and even the power lost to them, might have relented? Alas! it was not so! like the King of Egypt in the olden times, they hardened their hearts and are doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord." There is no alternative but to pronounce the author of such "whirling words " as these fatuously credulous and visionary, or insincerely thoughtless; and either horn of the dilemma is fatal to the pretentions of a political historian.

Indeed Colonel Chambers wholly lacks the discrimination essential to the worthy performance of such a work as he has undertaken. He evinces a sad lack of logic, a most childish exactingness in his comments on the dealings of other nations with Italy, and a general inability to comprehend political questions except in the sometimes misguiding light which shines from off the altar of his hero worship. It is really puerile in a pretentious volume on the political condition of Italy to ask that "it may not be forgotten that the great city of Manchester, within our own time, was not represented in the Imperial Parliament;" that "two noble lords did all in their power to prevent the formation of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway;" and that "a hundred other trifles tend to prove that once England, as well as Italy, contained a party like that of old Piedmont." But for a passage to make one shiver, take the following on the cession of Nice and Savoy :

66

"Mr. Dicey, in his able Memoirs of Count Cavour, admits that it is difficult to aquit Cavour of virtual dishonesty towards Italy, and towards the ceded provinces. The common English justification is, that necessity knows no law, and that Cavour, knowing that Italy was in the power of France, had no choice except to accede to any demands of the French Government. This justification is more simple than satisfactory; it is by no means clear that there was such an absolute necessity of yielding to France. France could not make war against Sardinia in order to annex Savoy and Nice; and, short of making war, there was no way by which the annexation could be political crime, as it is commonly represented to have been, it would

effected without Sardinia's consent. If, then, the cession was a

seem that nothing but absolute necessity could excuse it."

This paragraph is equally disconnected, flippant, and illogical, the last sentence being utterly inconsequent and stupid; but pass that over and seize its meaning, which is only dimly visible, and how unbounded must be our indigstatesman as Cavour thus ignobly and coarsely condemned! nation at seeing the policy of such a noble and patriotic How infantile it is in any one, whether it be Garibaldi or Colonel Chambers, to see nothing in his and the king's painful sacrifice of the most ancient possession of the Piedmontese dynasty but a useless, easily-avoidable, and wanton surrender of the national honour! How absurd to ignore the fact that though France could not fight Piedmont for Savoy, she could easily have robbed Italy of its new life! How unjust to forget that as soon as Cavour felt Italy was strong he showed how little he was devoted France so virulently hated! And how blind not to see to France by persisting in the policy of annexation which that the party really responsible for the cession of Nice for Italian freedom, looked on apathetically while Italy and Savoy was England, who, though she now takes credit etiquette to send Mr. Elliot to Garibaldi, begging him, was despoiled, and actually broke through diplomatic

ad misericordiam, not to strike for Venice!

essential qualities of a historian as this volume proves For a gentleman so easily misled, and so devoid of the Colonel Chambers to be, but who yet possessed facts which it was right to publish, and which the public, from their reverence for the source whence he derived them, would read with eagerness, there was only one wise course. He should have printed simply and without parade what he had to tell, more in the guise of materials for skilled literary hands than in that of a matured and important work. If each man would write only what the world wants of him, there would be less arrant bookmaking, there would be fewer hollow literary reputations, and it would be possible to keep oneself moderately conversant with cotemporary books.

LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG.
How have I offended thee?

What is it makes that sweet_mouth say,
That you but 66 a little" love me-

Tell, oh! tell me, dearest pray?
Think'st thou that this heart 's not true?
What is it that I've done that's wrong?
Cruel, pouting maiden, if you

Love me little, love me long.

For a time if you pursue

That little love you bear to me,
I shall be beloved by you,

And brimful of ecstasy.
Oh! the bliss that is in store,

If you'll listen to my song;
Maiden, I will ask no more,

Love me little, love me long.

A PRE-RAPHAELITE PICTURE. WHEN those three good men and true, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, and Ford Maddox Brown, were bold enough to exhibit three pictures, over which had been spent much valuable time, and were dissimilar to any style of existing art, they laid the foundation of their own greatness, and were the practical exponents of a new

school of painting. Long before the advent of this new school, there had been one crying out in a wilderness of art; but though the combination of his words were but a succession of beautiful pictures, no man regarded him, and he was looked upon as being very clever but very eccentric. He had been for years condemning the then slattern art; he had grumbled at the very loose way she put her things on, and the dirty manner in which she kept her skin. He complained at the careless manner of her followers, and thought that anything that was worth doing at all was worth doing well. We have been led into this slight art-digression by way of atoning for the title of the paper. We call the picture of which we are about to speak a Pre-Raphaelite, simply from the fact that it is finished perfectly in every respect, and is conspicuous by being thus perfect amidst imperfections.

We have lately had paying us a visit Mr. Alfred Wigan, a gentleman who is, perhaps, the most perfect English master of the art he has undertaken that has yet appeared. During his short stay in Liverpool he played a part which is essentially his own, and is so perfect a conception that an uncommon occurrence-the actor's individuality is lost in the character he is pourtraying. No one can have seen Mr. Wigan in Achille Talma Dufard without being struck with its realisticness. You feel astonished to see the old Frenchman upon his first entering bow in recognition of the applause which greets the artiste. The makeup is a perfect master-piece; that brown coat is reality; those trousers and boots are irreproachable in their peculiar way. The great charm of the make-up is its great truthfulness-nothing is exaggerated; and the wearer of them might have been their original possessor, and brought them to their present state of decay in his own service. Every tone, word, and gesture of the wearer of these clothes is in unison with the garments. The piece in which this character occurs is a slight impossibility, taken from the French, having been Anglicised in several different ways. This version, "The First Night," is a fair specimen of the original and of the other translation. The plot is lively and exaggerated, while the attendant incidents are rather overdrawn. An old French actor has a daughter he wishes to bring before the public, which he tries to do through the influence of the reigning prima donna; this failing, he insinuates himself into the manager's presence, and "tickles" him. The star, through caprice, throws up her post, and the manager, glad to get anybody, agrees to engage Dufard's daughter. But it is a new piece, and the author's consent has to be obtained, which, through the medium of "tickling," is accomplished. This tickling is a phrase of the old actor's, and consists in flat tering the individual addressed on his most vulnerable point. The author's consent has been got, and the audience are introduced behind the scenes on the night of performance. There is the old actor, and his daughter dressed á la Norma, everything is ready, when the prima donna, having changed her mind, makes her appearance on the stage. "Tickling" now is of no avail, strategy has to be brought into requisition; and Dufard rings up the curtain, while his daughter rushes on to the stage, and makes a "decided hit."

The first scene with The Honourable Bertie is as clever as anything in the part; but it is not till the interview with the prima donna that the most truthful points in the conception are brought to light. How gallant is the old fellow when Arabella says she is unhappy! How the mere repeating of the word supernumerary," when told that the daughter for

whom he has been sacrificing everything can be engaged as one of the supernumeraries in the ballet, is almost an epic-the narrative of hope depressed for a time, of insulted dignity. Sacré tonnerre! it was bad enough to say this of his child, but when told that the situation of check-taker is a respectable retreat for an old actor, it is too much; and the forced calmness with which he speaks of having lived for his profession, and being ready to die for it, almost brings tears to his eyes. This making him a check-taker seems to stick in his throat, for, when counter plotting against Arabella, he concludes "she would make me a check-taker."

The interview with the Manager is another piece of consummate acting-perfect in detail, and without being at all overdone. The manner in which he "tickles" by flattery, and creates an importance for himself and child by allusions to a supposed "cousin, the editor," are perpect touches of nature rendered by a master-hand. The strange inconsistency of seeing the chief character descend. ing into the orchestra and taking his place as one of the musicians, is palliated by the intense naturalness thrown into it by Mr. Wigan.

It would take far more time than we have at our disposal were we to epitomise the various points of the performance. The "tickling" the author, the discomforting Fitzurse, the fighting against every difficulty to procure his daughter's appearance, are all rendered by a master hand. Some of the bits are the choicest comedy; others the broadest farce confined within the limits of probability; and others, again, the chastest, deepest tragedy. The chastest tragedy; for, after all, is not the province of tragedy to excite the deepest sympa. thies in the human breast? Is it not more affecting to hear how the old actor has spent the last sixpence in purchasing wine for his daughter, and to see the way in which he reserves it all for her-far more touching than seeing two parties in long-forgotten garments lunging at each other with hoop-iron Toledos? When people are getting too knowing to tolerate the incongruities and inconsistencies of the old five-act tragedies, and are becoming partial to their antitheses, break-down dances and leg shows, it is refreshing to witness such a perfect and masterly performance as that of Mr. Wigan in "The First Night." It will be seen that we have taken it for granted that the reader is familiar with the plot of the piece; anybody reading, however, the acting edition must not confound it with this artist's version; it is as far removed from it as can possibly be conceived. The book contains the skeleton groundwork of a part, in indifferent broken English, which Mr. Wigan has built his reading upon. Any ordinary actor would, by giving the part as written, be merely playing the ordinary absurdity-a stage Frenchman. Mr. Wigan, as Dufard, appears to be neglecting his own language and struggling with English, for the purpose of making himself understood, while every gesture corresponds.

This really great artist attempted another great piece of character painting during his visit to Liverpool, which displayed, however, a slight want of finish. It was, however, an intellectual and carefully carried out piece of acting, but not so perfect or pleasing as the one we have drawn attention to. In conclusion, we would say, long may the stage possess so finished an actor, and society so true a gentleman, as Alfred Wigan.

Printed and Published for the Proprietors, by ALFRED WHITTY, of 8, Catharine Street, and 18, Cable Street, in the Parish of Liverpool.

No. 4.-VOL. I.

THE PATENT LAWS.

THE consideration of important subjects is frequently encumbered with unnecessary complication, from the difficulty of seeing the simple nucleus of cause through the circumambient fog of effects; and there is no better instance of this than the great question of Patent-right. Divest the subject of its influence upon revenue, the progress of trade, and international policy, and you arrive at a bare fact from which to start any theories you find suitable; but this bare fact is one which governs the whole question "The labourer is worthy of his hire." Before the first patent was granted, in 1591, an inventor kept his processes secret from the same motive, and with as much justice, as he guarded his coffers. His invention was his own, and no man might rightly rob him of it. Servants and pupils were bound over not to reveal the secrets and mysteries of their masters' trade or calling, and we see the remains of this pledge retained in the form of indenture still in use. Time, however, revealed that even apprentices could be dishonest in company with the rest of the world, and the law stepped in to assist the mastermind in holding his own. The same morality that held good in the sixteenth century should hold good now; and no amount of special pleading can argue the truth out of the grand fact, that a man has a right to the benefit of his own invention. It may, however, be true also that the public have a natural claim to participate in this benefit, if they maintain the equilibrium of social rights by offering a full equivalent. The main principle of share or not share has nothing whatever to do with the secondary difficulty of assessing the value of an invention, which must always depend very much upon the same laws as other valuations. First establish that a patent is real property, and the market price will reveal itself spontaneously. To illustrate the simple view of the question, suppose a probable case. Two or three men cast on a desert island might perhaps consider that everything they had should be common property; and if one found out a better way of catching fish than the others, he should only catch more fish for the general store, and not eat the extra supply himself. There is surely no necessity to prove that the others have no absolute right to any fish at all except what they catch for themselves; but the mutual dependence upon each other, under the circumstances, would lead ordinary men to consider it proper to share all that should turn up in any way. If, however, a second man brings down more game than the other, and a third makes bread in a superior manner, it might easily occur that the fisherman would exchange spoil with the sportsman, and both with the baker. This brings us at once to the establishment of trade, and the overwrought questions of various natural endowments and universal dependence of individuals in the general community. What is true of three men in this case does not cease to be so when there

PRICE 2D.

are three thousand times three: an increase of numbers merely brings about a difficulty in exchanging the fish, or game, or loaves, which is got over by the ancient institution called a market. In the case of inventions, it is exactly as it is with fish: if they are put into the market unwatched, they run great risk of being stolen. So much for the rights of inventors, and now for their protection. The question of security was, perhaps, simple enough for the first month or two, when the infant patent list could be carried in a man's mind, and you could learn at once if your neighbour had invented and secured your new pet scheme; but overwhelming numbers, similarity and confusion of titles, and expiration of dates, render it quite hopeless to expect a perfect, or even a moderately useful, index ever being published; and there is, therefore, little chance of finding out how far your patent may have been anticipated. The system may be faulty, but the principle is not. School-boys adopt it every day when they cry out, "Who speaks first for this?" Priority of possession is, in fact, almost the only natural law for the allotment of man's occupation of the earth. Natives have the best right to the soil; and in this, as in all other cases, possession is nine points of the law.

If it be asked what constitutes a good patent, we must reply in one word—novelty. The first step in obtaining letters patent is usually to consult an agent, who assists, or ought to assist, in drawing up a short declaration, stating that the intended patentee is bonâ fide the inventor, and that the invention is a novelty. A short description or title is inserted, which must possess the two antagonist properties of clear definition, to prevent infringement, and comprehensive elasticity, to bear any improved interpretation or addition which may be found desirable in elaborating the final specification, which need not be sent in for six months after the first declaration has been registered. This method is intended to give inventors a means of at once registering a discovery for security, and allow six months for experiment or complete description. Many schemes are, therefore, registered, which turn out in the six months to be not worth patenting. The plan is, therefore, in many respects a good one, since it acts as a means of selection. The cost of a patent is really about thirty pounds, but the agent's charges usually run it up to fifty, sometimes more. Of this sum, ten pounds is paid at first for registration; and, on the completion of the patent, the inventor receives an absurd lump of yellow wax, about eight inches in diameter and an inch thick, with the royal arms on one side and a lady on horseback on the other; the piece of vellum to which this is attached being the Royal Letters Patent, granting him the sole use of his invention for three years. At the expiration of this term he can renew it for seven years, by paying a hundred pounds-and so on for other extended periods; but there is a limit beyond which he cannot retain it, so that no discussion upon monopoly can be started with propriety,