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No. 64.

THE ATHENEUM

AND

LITERARY CHRONICLE.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 1829.

THE UNIVERSITIES OF EUROPE AND

AMERICA.

But as I think, on further consideration, that the mode of composition the least professorial or essay-like, in short, the farthest from that of your contributor, will be the most agreeable, I shall simply furnish you with an account of one day, such as I commonly experience, and such as is [As it is important to the completion of our Cambridge usual among the more civilized, judicious, and

CAMBRIDGE.-No. III.

Sketches that we should offer a view of the social life of the University, we willingly give insertion to the following letter. Our readers will see, without our apprising them of the fact, that the picture is painted couleur de rose, and that it is no fair likeness of the general spirit and pursuits of the University. It will serve, however, as a useful set-off against the descriptions of mere dissipation and vulgarity which are to be found in novels and other popular books that profess to treat of Cambridge; and it will convince those of our readers who have been misled by them, that there does exist, even among the undergraduates, a class not wholly given to hunting, drinking, or mathematics.]ED.

Price 8d.

to his friends than to his mere acquaintances! However, I need not speak in detail of his qualities; mankind and futurity will hear of them. With him, according to the little diurnal plan I am describing, how often, beneath a dull grey sky and along

bare high-road, how often have I pursued, delightedly, a way which in his society scarcely seemed familiar or monotonous! There is a church-yard for instance, some three or four miles from Cambridge, whither we have sometimes walked together, and which, once or twice, has won even me into seriousness. I confess I can seldom see the world, or even a bit of it, without feeling inclined to laugh, but M

prominent members of the University. Having attended or avoided chapel, as the case may be, more frequently the latter, an hour is spent in a lecture-room, where the occupation of the more intellectual students is the drawing caricatures or the inditing epigrams. Breakfast follows; and this is an important business, not only as concerns the palate, digestion, and so forth, but as indica-church-yard has nothing to do with the world, There are ting the character of the whole man. any more than the bones beneath its sod with the The grey and who addict themselves to assemblages of a dozen bustle of the actual human race. To the Editor of the Athenæum. or a score hungry and loud-throated guests, who humble church on one side, and a grove of darkSIR,-In Nos. 58 and 60 of your work, you devote an hour and a half to mere eating, and leaved trees on the three others of the little cemehave published two papers on the University of spend the rest of the day in looking out of the try, exclude every ray of light that does not drop Cambridge. These articles are, I dare say, very window or playing billiards. I seldom breakfast upon it from the sky. interesting to the persons for whom they seem to alone, but never with more than five associates, have been intended,-metaphysicians, divines, and and those of the choicest for wit, accomplishments, schoolmasters, of whom there are, probably, not and temper, persons who will detect the strength above a few scores among your readers. They seem of a syllogism, though it appear in the festal garb to have been written by some ancient, crabbed, and of an illustration, and with whom controversy is book-minded' critic, thinking a great deal about just exciting enough to promote digestion, without Greek, logic, mathematics, and chapel-services, exhausting the energies which are to carry us and not considering at all what topies would be through the day. Then, for I feel that I am at a most likely to win the attention of the public in University, and scorn to employ the whole morngeneral. The writer appears to consider Cam-ing in boating or lounging, I become a solitary. bridge as a collection only of stone-walls and statutes, and says absolutely nothing of the body of students who form all the real life and importance of the University. Filling his mind for thirty or forty years, in some dim cellar or garret, with pedantry, cobwebs, and library dust, he seems completely to have forgotten the human companions of his youth; if, indeed, he be not, as I rather suspect, an ancient college menial, inditer of declamations, and copyist of impositions, such a one as he to whom I yesterday paid four shillings and sixpence for writing, in a villanous hand, one hundred lines of Virgil's Æneid,' b. iv., beginning Speluncam Dido, dux et Trojanus, eandem,' &c. If he be your correspondent, Mr. Editor, employ him not again. He is a dirty fellow, and over-fond of ale. I, Sir, who am now a junior Soph at Christ's, am persuaded that I can treat of Cambridge matters infinitely more agreeable to the world than those discussed by your hoary and ungentlemanly contributor. I will tell of the members of the University, not its laws; of chartered libertines,' not chartered institutions. And in my article, fathers shall read of their sons, tradesmen of their debtors, bishops of their candidates for ordination, attorneys of incipient barristers, old ladies of their heirs, and young ones of their loyers I will, in the words of a well-known member of my college, Let Euclid, rest and Archimedes pause,' and speak of those for whom the whole system criticised by your correspondent is designed, and not of the system itself. Not that I thereby in the least resign my right of contesting the ground assumed by him, and of showing that the present course of study is, at least, sufficiently trouble

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The writer is under an error in supposing that there are any young ladies in England foolish enough to interest themselves about those especial and very dull coxcombs, the members of the Universities. But Cambridge men are proverbially more conceited, and with less reason. than any others of earth'a nuppies or

If the weather permit, arm-in-arm with one friend, (and no more,) I sally forth into the humid plains of Cambridgeshire. The companion whom I delight to honour,

but his name is no

But my moralizations are not so profound as to merit being recorded; rather let me commemorate my return to college, and appearance in the hall at four o'clock. The dinner is not remarkably good, but is devoured as earnestly as if it were the master-piece of the Rocher de Concale. And now, Sir, comes one of those solemnities which are nearly peculiar to the Universities, namely, a wine-party. This is a collection of acquaintances for the purpose indicated by Greek (Eschylus or Demosthenes) delights me, the name, and, of course, cannot any where be or I sport with the Arabian maids, the genii of usual, save in situations which require public dinalgebra; or I read hour after hour the deep-ners, and exclude public deserts. But, Mr. Editor, toned page of Tacitus, and fancy that I am folding these parties are not merely distinguished from round me the white mantle with the purple hem, others by the fact, that the fruit and decanters are and calling upon the gods and heroes of old disposed of in a different apartment from the mutton Rome to defend against luxury and despotism the and turnips, but they are occasions for a display citadel of war, and law, and empire. of knowledge, fancy, humour, eloquence, friendliness, and every other estimable and delightful quality, such as the whole universe cannot afford, were it searched from Paris to Paramatta. Let me consider:-I received yesterday, at my rooms, Morton, the pleasant philosopher I have before mentioned; Williams, a blooming cynic, who, when he can be persuaded to talk, is in a splendid frenzy about political abuses; Bolton, the ugliest, most amusing, and most gentlemanly of scoffers; Wallace, with the eye of an eagle and the gentleness of a dove; and lastly, O! that I could bid come forth before your readers Trevor the very prince of imaginative dreaming, who lives in an airy world, and is kind and romantic among his earthly friends as any beneficent genie of fable. Now, suppose this combination of the most admirable dispositions and faculties (I say nothing of myself, except to solicit attention to the proverb noscitur a sociis) round a table embroidered with dishes of oranges, lemon-chips, grapes, French plums, olives, &c., and crowned by sparkling bottles of wine, and need I say more? Politics, poetry, society, the world, and the university, all and each debated by the prime spirits out of two thousand young men, and-made the occasion for an unrivalled display of wit and wisdom! Aristophanes, Shelley, Coleridge, Grammont, Pasta, and Ude, all canvassed, lauded, and illustrated with an exquisite and generous acuteness; and due punishment inflicted, by a few passing touches, on Daniel O'Connell, Lord Winchelsea, Jeremy Bentham, and the Vice-Chancellor !*

matter, knows as much of metaphysics and logic
as even your friend, who prates of Cambridge,
could require. He would puzzle Duns Scotus in
five minutes, and bring Aquinas into a contradic-
tion. He anatomises Locke with the boldest and
the nicest scalpel. But these are not, in my eyes,
his chief merits. He has indeed a subtlety of
intellect, which might suffice to break down a
universe into discordant atoms; but his plastic
imagination and harmonizing affections secure
the order and unity of his thoughts; and with a
system ten-thousand times larger and stronger
and more compact than those of the system-mon-
gers, he is so thoroughly and delightfully an
individual, you care so little for his opinions ex-
cept as developements of himself and his own
gentle and mighty heart, that paradoxes which
he never utters but with a smile of conscious ex-
travagance, could not possibly irritate the fiercest
disputants, even if they were enforced with all
the earnestness which accompanies in him every
serious expression of belief. Without, as far as
I know him, (and I have known him long and inti-
mately,) having ever done an action, uttered a
word, or entertained a thought, which was any
thing but amiable, generous, and honest, he is
the most nervous and shamefaced of human
beings; and with greater power of ideas, con-
ceptions, and words, than any young man I have
seen, he hesitates and stammers to express him-

* Of the University, I apprehend; not of this king

Such are the amusements, and such the triumphs, dear to the elect among the Cambridge students! In the evening, I, and the less noisy and vacant of my contemporaries, generally occupy ourselves in private. But when this is not the case, I sometimes betake myself to a large room at an inn, which is the arena for the debates of a large society. The meetings are held weekly. Suppose this to be Tuesday, the -th day of and behold the 'Union' in all its glory. A long, low room, with three or four rows of benches down the sides, and the President's chair at one end, exhibits a muster of perhaps two hundred members. Tables with candles stand in the centre, and the orators are generally congregated near them. After some minutes spent in private business, the President announces, that the question for this evening's discussion is, Ought the claims of the Roman Catholics to have been granted previous to the year 1808? The opener is at liberty to begin. (Order, order !) My friend Williams rises, with his eyes upon the ground, and his hands upon the ballotting-box. (Hear, hear, hear!)- Mr. President, I should not have proposed this question to the society, had I thought that it was commonly discussed elsewhere on the proper grounds. This question is, in fact, a contest hetween the people and the aristocratic monopolies, which scarcely even pretend to represent the people,' &c. &c., and so on for half an hour. Then rose Mr. Billingsgate, a soft-voiced young gentleman of large fortune, and a fellow-commoner; yet, though a fool, a favourite with the society. I protest, Sir, against the use of such expressions as those which have been expressed by the honourable gentleman. They are decidedly unconstitutional; I say, Sir, they are decidedly unconstitutional. I maintain, Sir, that the House of Commons does fully and fairly represent the people. By the people, I do not mean the rabble, but persons of birth, influence, fashion, and fortune. The glorious constitution, Sir, is composed of three powers, all exactly equal to each other, and yet no two of them superior to the third. I consider that the speech of the honourable gentleman was decidedly unconstitutional, and in favour of the bloody papists, and ought to have been interrupted from the chair. (Hear, hear, hear, and loud laughter.) Then am I seen to rise, or some other moderate, well-informed, and eloquent member, and the assembly is stilled into silent expectation. The discussion is restored to its proper path, the opposing arguments are admirably ballanced, and the whole question is settled in one rolling accumulated peroration.

An evening of this kind seldom terminates without a supper party, which, indeed, in ordinary circumstances, is no very rare occurrence at Cambridge, and which is sometimes the dullest and sometimes the pleasantest kind of entertainment I have ever experienced. Jokes, songs, and milk-punch are the great elements in these festivities. But I confess, with shame, that to me they have far less charm than an evening spent alone. The silent hours, the blazing fire, the crowded book-shelves, the two or three engravings that adorn my antique walls, the feeling of remoteness from the busy paths of human interests, from the spots which the habitual sympathies of previous life made holy,-all are favourable to meditation; and my narrow and humble cell has often become the theatre for a thousand delightful and splendid fancies. I have sat beside the fire for hours with the tea-kettle humming beside me on the hob,' and seen pass along the pale grey wall a glittering array of the wise, the powerful, the lovely, culled from every volume of the world's history,-patriarchs and princesses, Grecian generals, and Persian captives; the knights of the middle ages, and the ladies worshipped by the troubadours; and the broad uncertain wavering glare of my hearth has moulded and collected itself against the dark curtain of my window into shapes of beauty, all feminine, yet scarcely

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mortal, surrounded by symbols of wonderous en-
chantment, and in which the dark glories of
Asiatic eyes sparkle through vague halos of
splendour like those of the northern lights. These,
wild as they are, these are the visions which I
have enjoyed even at Cambridge. Speak who
will of lectures, and statutes, and articles, and
proctors, these are enjoyments which systems
cannot give, nor institutions take away.
Christ's College, Cambridge.

E. B.

TWELVE YEARS' MILITARY ADVENTURE.

Twelve Years' Military Adventure in Three Quarters of
the Globe; or, Memoirs of an Officer who served in the
Armies of his Majesty and of the East India Com-
pany, between the years 1802 and 1814, in which are
contained the Campaigns of the Duke of Wellington in
India, and his last in Spain and the South of France.
2 vols. 8vo. Colburn. London, 1829.

high order. Neither are the descriptions of the Anglo-Indian camps,-the tanks, the hill-forts very modern: we, therefore, prefer taking some of the anecdotes, which, though we will not warrant them all to be spick-and-span, are at least new to us.

'An officer, whose stock of table-linen had been completely exhausted during the campaign—whether by wear and tear or accident I cannot say-had a few friends to dinner with him. The dinner being announced to the party, seated in the al fresco drawingroom of a camp, the table appeared spread with eatables, but without the usual covering of a cloth. The master, who perhaps gave himself but little trouble about these matters, or who probably relied upon his servant's capacity in the art of borrowing, or, at all events, on his ingenuity in framing an excuse, inquired, with an angry voice, why there was no table-cloth ? The answer was "Master not got;" with which reply, after apologising to his guests, he was compelled, for the present, to put up. The next morning he called

Or all that is most interesting to a philosophi-
cal inquirer in the circumstances of India and its
inhabitants, we know exceedingly little. The
structure of its society, in spite of the light that
has been thrown upon it by some very recent
writers, is still a great mystery; the degree to
which elements of national feeling exist among
the heterogeneous tribes which make up its in-
habitants, and the chance of these elements
ever working themselves into a real national ex-
istence, few seem able to determine; the ques-washerman, sar!" was the answer.
tion, whether we are co-operating in the amelio-
ration of its condition, and by what means we
could co-operate in it, is still litigated, with little
hope of an adjustment, between a host of dis-
putants, most of whom appear to possess a very
slight knowledge of the premises that must be
settled before it can be satisfactorily solved. But
though we have scarcely penetrated at all below
the surface in these investigations-that surface
has been explored with marvellous industry and
great success-there is no country in the world
of which we have so many vivid and brilliant
pictures-none of which the scenery has been
more visibly brought before our eyes and our
fancy, whose endless varieties of costume
and manners have been so minutely and grace-
fully sketched. We should be almost glad, if it
were possible, that the subject might be ex-
hausted, because there would be some additional
hope of wise men going resolutely down into those
deeper mines from which they hitherto have been
seduced by the glittering ore that lay scattered
on the upper earth,-but of this there are no
hopes; new labourers are daily coming into the
field, and we are so pleased with the treasures
they exhibit to us, even though, as is generally
the case, they are only old gems newly set, that
we have not the heart to tell them that we wish
they would go their ways and leave the ground to
their betters.

his servant, and rated him soundly, and perhaps beat
him, (for I lament to say that this was too much the
practice with European masters in India,) for exposing
his poverty to the company; desiring him, another
time, if similarly circumstanced, to say that all the
table-cloths were gone to the wash. Another day,
although the table appeared clothed in the proper man-
ner, the spoons, which had probably found their way to
the bazaar, perhaps to provide the very articles of which
the feast was composed, were absent, whether with or
without leave is immaterial. "Where are all the
spoons?" cried the apparently enraged master. "Gone
Roars of laughter
succeeded, and a tea-cup did duty for the soup-
ladle. The probable consequence of this unlucky
exposure of the domestic economy of the host,
namely, a sound drubbing to the poor maty-boy,
brings to my mind an anecdote, which, being in
a story-telling vein, I cannot resist the temptation
of introducing. It was related to me, with great
humour, by one of the principals in the transaction,
whose candour exceeded his fear of shame. He had
been in the habit of beating his servants, till one in
particular complained that he would have him before
Sir Henry Gwillam, then chief justice at Madras, who
had done all in his power to suppress the disgraceful
practice. Having a considerable balance to settle with
his maty-boy on the score of punishment, but fearing
the presence of witnesses, the master called him one day
into a bungalow at the bottom of his garden, at some
distance from his house. "Now," said he, as he shut
the door and put the key in his pocket, you'll com-
plain to Sir Henry Gwillam, will you? There is no
body near to bear witness to what you may say, and,
with the blessing of God, I'll give it you well.”—
'Master, sure nobody near?" asked the Indian.—
“Yes, yes, I've taken good care of that."
"Then I
give master one good beating." And forthwith the
maty-boy proceeded to put his threat into execution,
till the master, being the weaker of the two, was com-
pelled to cry mercy; which being at length granted,
and the door opened with at least as much alacrity as
it was closed, Maotoo decamped without beat of drum,

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"This circumstance reminds me also of a story which was told of Captain Grose of the Madras army, who The Twelve Years' Military Adventure,' as was killed at the siege of Seringapatam. He was son was to be expected, does not reveal many pecu- of Grose the antiquary, whose talents he inherited. He liarities of India with which we were previously was remarkable for his wit and humour, and his meunacquainted, but it mixes up the old descriptions mory is still cherished by all the lovers of fun who and familiar objects (and these, old as they are, knew him. Having had occasion to make some comare given with great spirit and freshness) with munication to head-quarters, he was received much in the usual manner by one of the understrappers, who personal anecdotes, often very entertaining, and told him that no verbal communications could be rewhich throw an air of originality over the book,ceived, but that what he had to say must be sent that no mere description can possess. The through the medium of an official letter. He happened, author having, as he informs us, been devoted, as some days afterwards, to have a party dining with him, the greatest dunce of his family, to the infernal and among others were a few members of the staff. In gods, i. e. a military life, (an assertion which is the midst of the dinner a jack-ass came running among either highly complimentary to his brethren, or the tent-ropes, exerting his vocal organs in a manner else proves him to have profited greatly by his by no means pleasing to the company. Grose immesubsequent advantages, as his mode of writing diately rose, and thus addressed the intruder : is that of a clever and well-educated officer,) "I presume, sir, you come from head-quarters. I obtained a cadetship for the artillery in the engi- receive no verbal communications whatever, sir. If neers in the Company's service; and after spend-you have any thing to say to me, sir, I beg you will ing a reasonable time at Woolwich, set out for commit it to paper.' his destination. Of course, the first part of the volume is common-place. To say any thing original respecting the voyage; the cuddytable, the arrival at Madras,-the Indian woman market, &c., &c., would require genius of a

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Shortly after our author's entering it, the army was joined by no less a person than General Wellesley with the Mysore detachment. Our author, who had good means of information, gives a very favourable version of the story about that

officer's conduct at Seringapatam, of which so much more than is necessary has been said already. The notion of the transaction having displayed any cowardice, seems completely refuted by his view of it.

Our author's picture does not want the dark touches which so powerfully diversify the Indian landscape :

fate he was ignorant, till he saw his corpse extended on the ground. The shock to his feelings, and the scene that followed, may be better conceived than described. This, I believe, was his only remaining brother of a large family who had all fallen in their country's cause. It has not been the fault of Sir Colin that he has survived to wear his well-earned laurels. He was but a subaltern at the storm of the pettah of Ahmednaghur, where his distinguished gallantry attract

'From the time we quitted Poonah all signs of culti-ing the notice of the General, he made him his brigadewhile I am but a half-pay Captain. major. Sir Colin is now Major-general and K.C.B., "Fortune de la guerre!" as the French say. But he is the last man I would envy. He is a good fellow, and long may he live to be an honour to his profession! As a set-off to this affecting circumstance, I must describe a ludicrous scene which occurred about the same time, and which for a moment caused a ray of hilarity to cheer the gloom of the battle-field. A surgeon, whose bandages had been exhausted by the number of patients, espying one of the enemy's horsemen lying, as he supposed, dead on the ground, with a fine long girdle of cotton cloth round his waist, seized the end of it, and, rolling over the body, began to loose the folds. Just as he had nearly accomplished his purpose, up sprang the their heels on opposite tacks, to the infinite amusement dead man, and away ran the doctor, both taking to of the bystanders. This extraordinary instance of a doctor bringing a man to life, so opposite to the usual practice of the faculty, became the subject of a caricature; while the story, as may be supposed, long clung

vation ceased. The villages were mostly deserted, and such of the inhabitants as remained were exposed to all the horrors of famine. These forlorn wretches, of whom some, perhaps, had refused to emigrate, from an obstinate attachment to the soil of their birth, while others had lingered in hope till they had not strength to move, might be seen hovering round their dismantled dwellings in different degrees of exexhaustion, from the first cravings of hunger to the later and more passive dejection of long privation. But still, amidst all this wretchedness, there was nothing of violence in their despair. The victims seemed to await the approach of death with patience and resignation, if not with apathy. Whether this was energies having gradually sunk with their corporeal the natural consequence of their situation, their mental strength, or whether it proceeded from the character of the meek Hindoo,' I cannot pretend to decide; but this silent wretchedness gave, if possible, an additional gloom to a scene already truly heart-rending. This patience under suffering, this composure, and even sang froid, within the jaws of death, are prominent characteristics of the Hindoo, and ought, indeed, to put to shame those among their conquerors, who, boasting higher attributes of courage and virtue, pretend to look down upon them with contempt. No one meets death with less apparent dread than the Hindoo; and when imbued with a sense of honour, as among the military casts, no one can display more heroism. I have repeatedly seen them refuse quarter, when the European would have courted mercy even in chains. Wherefore, then, are we always victorious in our contests with them? It cannot proceed, in every instance, from superiority in the art of war, for bodies of troops must sometimes clash in such a way that discipline can avail neither party. The truth lies in this, that the courage of the Hindoo is of a passive nature, while that of the European is active; the former being inert, has only its own weight to give it power, the latter has activity to increase its momentum.

to this unfortunate son of Galen, who afterwards went by the name of "the resurrection doctor."-Vol. i. pp. 79-81.

The next extract contains an extraordinary instance of coolness and wisdom displayed by the Duke of Wellington:

The enemy were formed on an extensive plain in front of the village of Argaum; their infantry, to the amount of about 10,000, in the centre, with about forty pieces of cannon in the intervals of the battalions, and their cavalry, which was numerous, on the wings. There was, about half a mile in front of the centre of their position, a village, towards which the right column of infantry, composed of the General's own division, was directed, and in front of which it was intended that the line should be formed. With this view our column was to pass by a road to the left of the village, and, as soon as that was cleared, it was to wheel and take ground to the right. But, scarcely had Numberless were the spectacles of woe which we the leading platoon gained the end of the village, when witnessed at this period. One in particular has been so the enemy opened at once all their guns on it, from the deeply imprinted on my memory, that centuries of life distance of about 1000 yards, and being well directed, would not efface it. Being detached one day on duty most of the shot took effect in the head of the column. to some distance from the camp, and returning home The bullock-drivers attached to some field-pieces, late, having outstripped my escort, I was unfortunate which, as usual, moved near the head of the brigade, enough to lose my way. Night overtook me in this becoming alarmed at this unexpected salute, and unpleasant predicament, when, finding myself near one dreading, perhaps, a second Assaye, lost their preof those forlorn villages, I rode up to it to inquire my sence of mind, and of course the management of road. The moon had just risen, and showed me a their cattle, which instantly turned round, and ran group of famished wretches seated under the walls of headlong into the midst of the platoons just behind the village, surrounded by the mortal remains of those them, and threw them into confusion. The troops who, happily for them, had already preceded their com- coming up in the rear of these, not knowing the immediate cause of this confusion, and feeling severely rades in the agonies of death, and whose earthly sufferings were closed. As I approached, packs of jackals, the effect of the enemy's lobbing shot, became alarmed. preying on the wasted bodies of the latter even before A panic seized them; and two battalions of sepoys, the eyes of the helpless survivors, ran howling away at with the infantry piquets, actually turned tail, and the sound of my horse's feet-their instinct teaching hastened to seek shelter behind the village. The them that I was a different kind of being from those General, who was then close to the spot under a tree scarcely living wretches whom they viewed more with giving orders to the brigadiers, perceiving what had greediness than fear-while the vulture, rising reluct- happened, immediately stepped out in front, hoping by antly from his bloody banquet, flapped his broad wings his presence to restore the confidence of the troops; in anger, and joined the wild chorus with discordant but, seeing that this did not produce the desired effect, cries. The moon's pale light shed a suitably mournful he mounted his horse, and rode up to the retreating tint over such a scene. Viewed in its silvery beams, battalions; when, instead of losing his temper, upbraid the dark bloodless countenances of the melancholy ing them, and endeavouring to force them back to the group assumed a hue perfectly unearthly, and which I spot from which they had fled, as most people would can only compare to that in which the prince of dark-have done, he quietly ordered the officers to lead their ness is painted by the imagination of youth; while men under cover of the village, and then to rally and their sunken eyes, hollow stomachs, and emaciated get them into order as quickly as possible. This being frames, spoke the extremity of their wretchedness. I done, he put the column again in motion, and leading addressed a few words to them; but the only answer I these very same runaways round the other side of the obtained was a sigh, accompanied with a mournful village, formed them on the very spot he originally inshake of the head, betokening the want of strength tended them to occupy, the remainder of the column even to give utterance to speech.'-Vol. ii. pp. 145 following, and prolonging the line to the right.'—Vol. i. pp. 196-199. -148.

The battle of Assaye is well described. We quote some of the incidents attending its conclusion.

At this spot I witnessed a scene which I shall not easily forget. I was riding among the bodies of the poor 74th along with Captain (now Sir Colin) Campbell, who had a brother in that regiment, of whose

We have quoted at considerable length from this volume; but at this season, when the publishers are chiefly engaged in discharging their volleys of small shot as a preparation for the commencement of the campaign, an entertaining book is rather a rarity, and we shall therefore return next week to the second volume.

LAWS OF LITERARY PROPERTY.

A Treatise on the Laws of Literary Property, including the Piracy and Transfer of Copyright, with A Historical View and Disquisitions on the Principles and Effects of the Law. By Robert Maugham, Secretary to the Law Institution. 8vo. Longman and Co. London, 1828.

Ir would be difficult to name a law, either of nature or of man, so little susceptible, in respect to principle, of satisfactory justification to the mind of the inquirer, not fully persuaded that throughout the civilised world, in sanctioning and 'whatever is is best,' as that which has obtained regulating rights to property. If order be the end and aim of legislation, and if this ORDER signify a something more comprehensive and grand than the mere retaining of things in the state into which they have emerged from the chaos of barbarism,-if it imply, by not the least allowable of fictions, the wisest arrangement deviseable by human reason for securing to mankind, in general, the fullest and most equal partifacts daily occur to suggest to the speculative cipation, compatible with their mundane condition, in the bounties of the Creator, how many mind, the suspicion that the laws which regulate the distribution and possession of those gifts of Providence, on which the comfort and well-being of men depends, proceed on an erroneous principle! Should the suspicions so excited lead to more profound investigation, should an attempt be made to probe the sore which spreads its baneful effects throughout the system,-would the examiner be fairly taxed with ignorance or credulity, if he paused for a moment, in the belief that he had found the object of his search, on beholding the idle, the unproductive, and the dissolute enjoying, or rather wasting, the fruits due to the toil and brow-sweat of others,-on perceiving the produce of one soil removed as soon as gathered, to enrich individual dwellers in other lands already overburthened with wealth, while the miserable natives of the country of its growth, and for whose use that country should seem to have been endowed with its fertility, drag on a miserable existence in privation and wretchedness? Would a being, more accustomed to the contemplation of the bounteous dispensations of Providence than to the selfish and grovelling devices of man by which they are perverted, deserve ridicule for his simplicity, if, on perceiving these abuses, he rested for a moment from his inquiries, in the persuasion that he had touched the rankling substance, that he had discovered this manifest counteraction of the designs of nature to be the result, in a great measure, of the system of laws which invests a man with the perpetual possession, the right of disposition, and even of transmission on death, of whatever he once enjoys? We take possession of an ownerless plot of ground; we till it, we scatter it with seed, and while we await the harvest, it is but justice certainly that we should be protected from invasion by others of the fruits of our industry. But the produce once collected, on what principle do we pretend to retain, against other claimants, the possession of the soil itself?

Having used it once to our profit, we assume the right of appropriating it to ourselves for ever,— to hold it against all the world. Such is the principle of occupancy; and on this flimsy foundation is it that the superstructure of human laws regarding the rights of property is avowedly erected. Weak, however, as is the principle, it has become sanctified; successions of ages and of nations have adopted it, or acquiesced in it, and even were a change desirable, it is no longer practicable. Nor are we sure but that it is in appearance rather than in reality that the system is objectionable, or that in any but extraordinary cases, and connected with other circumstances, The all-providing it operates to an evil end. bounty of nature has dealt blessings mere variously than to limit them to the possession of acres and mansions, of garnered stores, of jewels Such treasures as these and precious stones.

will be held in their due and moderate estimation, either for his own sake or for that of others, by him who has felt and reflected how closely and completely substantial happiness is contained within the individual nucleus-how limited the range within which its component parts are included-who considers that these are intense in proportion as they are concentrated-that like the wire-drawn metal, the farther they are made to extend, the weaker are they, and more liable to rupture. A hundred caparisoned barbs, the chosen of Arabia, may await their owner's will in the vaulted hippodrome, but unless he would emulate the feats of a Ducrow, he can bestride at once but a single steed; nor even then is the delight in the swiftness of the fleetest courser comparable to the excitement of a mountain walk. The dainty board may present service after service, yet has each individual but a single appetite to satiate; and from authority it is averred, that at the table provided by the most sumptuous of Christian monarchs for the officers of his guard, and towards which, according to the lamentations of Hume, (Joseph, not David,) such extravagant draughts are made on the public purse, the simple slice of sirloin, and the humble earth-apple, are preferred to the most elaborate delicacies which the foreign skill and exquisite taste of an Ude can supply the opulent Islamite may possess his harem, and be surrounded by his Greek and Circassian Sultanas, by the rarest beauties of Europe

and Asia, all emulous of his favours, yet even for the successor of 'The Prophet,' will the affection of the soul refuse to divide itself:-a mere night of

love is his, cold and freezing in proportion to the number and brilliancy of the stars that shine, a night unconscious of the genial heat of a sole vivifying luminary, extinguishing all other minor lights; and who that has felt the flood of passion flowing in one full, undivided torrent, would consent to have it dribbled over his heart in streamlets? But to take part in the councils of our native land, to stand conspicuous before the world, to raise the voice of comfort and protection to the oppressed and fallen among nations, to encourage and support people and classes of people struggling for their rights and liberties, be the usurpation that of a single despot, or of a mass of their fellow-citizens, to be conscious of an influence over the destinies of the universe-this, it must be owned, is a noble prerogative. It is the prerogative, however, of talent and not of wealth; and acres, and farms, and stock, are impotent to bestow it: and far better is it to crouch in a corner and die unseen, to invoke the aid of the friendly extinguisher to conceal our fluttering, than to shine forth only to expose our folly, to be a mark for ridicule to point the finger at. Let occupancy, then, continue to be the honoured principle of the laws of property; but let us not be charged with interested or levelling motives in speculating on its soundness in a literary, and, we trust, a philosophical journal, however justly we might be denounced for holding the same doctrine in a meeting of wild sons of Erin, or to an assemblage of Mus

covite serfs.

It must be allowed, moreover, that there are objects of property to which the principle of occupancy is applied with a greater show of reason than to landed possessions. The laborious miner penetrates into the bowels of the earth, he burrows in the rocky mountain, he foregoes the blessings of light, he toils in positions the most painful and distorted, and, by hard and persevering labour with mattock and chisel, extracts a morsel of precious ore from the veins of the stony mass into which he has wormed himself. The metal so obtained is a fair object of property: it has more the character of the harvest of the cultivator, of the fruits drawn from the soil, than of the soil itself. The value of the labour bestowed in the acquisition is not separable from the intrinsic worth of the substance itself, and he by whose foresight, energy and toil the treasure has

been brought into use, is with justice protected in the enjoyment or disposition of it. Cases of conversion, also, where substances have undergone a peculiar fashion and alteration by the hand of man, are instances in which the principle of occupancy is partially, at least if not perfectly, applicable. Others might be named, but we pass them over in order the sooner to arrive at a case in which the title is higher than occupancy, and inherent in the very nature of the object.

If we acquiesce in the law which gives land for if we admit the title conferred by mere conversion ever to him who first turned the soil with his spade, or acquisition of an article on which another might have executed the same operation, what should be our course in the case in which the object, the title of which is in question, is a man's own pure production from beginning to end-the matter of his own creation, which, but for him, never would, never could, have been? Surely, if there can exist an exclusive right to the possession of any one object, it is that which has proceeded entirely from a man's self, the issue of his own brain, his intellectual offspring. Sure, if in any thing, in this is contained an unqualified and indisputable principle on which to found a right of property wholly indefeasible. Yet such is our legislative consistency that while we confirm, by our usages and our statutes, the title to those objects, the original right to which rests on a questionable principle, we divest those which have inherent in them all the requisite qualities to become the lawful object of exclusive possession of such their properties; we rob them from the legitimate owners, and distribute them to the public. Such is the operation of the laws which now regulate literary property.

The injustice of these laws it is the purpose of the work, the title of which is placed at the head of this article, to expose. The author feels and writes both as a lawyer and a man of letters, and appeals to the public for a revision and alteration of the statutes and decisions which deprive the literary man of the title to his own works after the short term of eight-and-twenty years, while the enjoyment of other species of property, which are held by claims far more questionable, are secured in perpetuity. He demands the legislative interposition to redress the wrong committed by foriner laws, on the ground, not only of justice, but of expediency and self-interest, by the broad and pointed argument, that the public have an equally strong interest and a positive duty, in promoting the general adoption of just principles,each man being individually concerned in enforcing and upholding that which is right and just, since the mischief that is done to his neighbour to-day, may be perpetrated on himself tomorrow,' This argument, ad hominem, dispenses with the necessity of any further excuse for obtruding a legal subject on our lay readers, and for detaining them for a short time longer with the analysis, from the book of Mr. Maugham, of the ancient and present state of the laws affecting literary property, and an exposure of the manner in which, under the profession and pretext of protection and encouragement, the most just rights by which property can be held, have been in

vaded and curtailed.

Copyright is one of that class of objects of property, which has grown up with the developement of the human faculties, and the progress of civilization. It is one of those new subjects for the exercise of jurisprudence, applied to which the principles of private justice, moral fitness, and public convenience, are held to make common law, without a precedent; in which, in fact, the right existed ab origine, however recently the occasion for asserting it may have occurred. Consequently, no early precedent of the suing for a remedy against invasion of copyright is to be found. Nor is this a matter for surprise. In those times in which to read was so scarce an attainment, that the preservation to society of a

man endowed with that rare accomplishment was an object of such paramount importance, that the course of the law, in his case, was diverted; that the very circumstance which aggravated the guilt of the accused,—unless, indeed, according to a modern doctrine, the tendency of learning was to promote the disposition to crime, and therefore, an offence was more venial in an informed than in an ignorant transgressor,—were allowed as a reason for a relaxation of the law in his favour.

Accordingly, the instances of the interference of the law with the fruits of intellectual labour, either for their protection or restraint, are not traceable to a period farther back than a century after the invention of printing. The first occasion of this interference, while it recognised the right, made an infraction on the liberty, of authors. This was the charter granted to the Company of Stationers by Philip and Mary, in the year 1556, propagawhen, for the purpose of preventing the tion of the Reformation, and suppressing what those pious sovereigns were pleased to consider seditious and heretical books, a law was made which gave to that society the exclusive right of printing books. This was followed, in subsequent years, by several acts of the Star Chamber, for the regulation of the press, and the prohibition of printing or importing books by other persons than those entitled to the exclusive right.

In 1641, and after the abolition of the Star

Chamber, the power of regulating the press by proclamation and decrees was annulled; but Parliament made an ordinance which prohibited printing without the consent of the owner of the copyright, unless the book were first licensed and entered in the register of the Stationers' Company. The Licensing Act of 13 and 14 Charles II., cap. 133, prohibits the printing or importing of any book entered in the register book of the Stationers' Company, without the consent of the owner. This act, continued by subsequent statutes, expired in 1679. It was revived by 1 James II., cap. 7, and continued by 4 William and Mary, cap. 24, and finally expired in 1694.

Up to this period, therefore, and subsequently, the property in copyright was recognised as a common law right; that right itself had been given by no statute, yet the improvement of several of the statutes required that ownership should be proved. As property, it was consequently enjoyed; sales of copyright in perpetuity by authors were common; and there were instances in which the property in those copies was made the subject of family settlements for the provision of wives and children.

Such was the state of the law of literary property until the year 1710, the 8th of Anne, when Learning,' by which it was enacted, that authors the Act was passed For the Encouragement of their rights should have the sole right and liberty and the persons to whom they had disposed of of printing works for a term of fourteen years, to commence from the first publishing the same, and no longer; and that after the expiration of ing or disposing of copies should return to the the first term of fourteen years, the right of printauthors, if they were then living, for another term of fourteen years. This has proved a most important statute, since it formed the commencement of an era in the law of literary property; and all the subsequent discussions which the subject has undergone in courts of justice have turned on its construction. From 1710 until 1775, and until the decision by the House of Lords of the case of Millar v. Taylor, a suit instituted in 1796, on the subject of the publication of Thomson's Seasons,' it was considered that the act of Anne had not affected the common law right. The judgment of the Lords, however, established a different doctrine, and put the question out of all dispute; it closed all doors to a revival except in the form of an application for legislative enactment. Of the proceedings in this interesting case, the author of the work gives the following abstract:

'In the year 1769, the subject was discussed at great

length with respect to Thomson's Seasons,' in the celebrated case of Millar v. Taylor.

'The counsel for the plaintiff insisted "that there was a real property remaining in authors after publication of their works; and that they only, or those who claim under them, have a right to multiply the copies of such, their literary property, at their pleasure for sale." And they likewise insisted, "that this right is a common law right, which always has existed, and does still exist, independent of, and not taken away by,

the statute of Anne."

'On the other side, the counsel for the defendant denied that any such property remained in the author after the publication of his work, and they treated the pretensions of a common law right to it as mere fancy and imagination, void of any ground or foundation.

They insisted that if an original author publishes his work, he sells it to the public; and the purchaser of every book or copy has a right to make what use of it he pleases, and may multiply each book or copy to what quantity he pleases.

They also contended that the act of Anne vests the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies during the times therein limited, but only during that limited time, and under the terms prescribed by the act.

'There was a difference of opinion in the Court. Lord Mansfield and Judges Aston and Willes were in favour of the plaintiff's copyright, and Judge Yates was alone against it. Judgment was of course given according to the opinion of the majority.

'Some years after this decision the question came before the House of Lords, upon an appeal from a decree of the Court of Chancery, founded on the judgment given in the Court of King's Bench in Millar v. Taylor, and it was ordered by the House, on the 9th of February, 1774, that the judges be directed to deliver their opinions upon the following questions:

1. Whether at common law, an author of any book or literary composition had the sole right of first printing and publishing the same for sale; and might bring an action against any person who printed, published, Of eleven judges, there were eight to three in favour

and sold the same without his consent?

of the right at common law.

2. If the author had such right originally, did the law take it away upon his printing and publishing such book or literary composition; and might any person afterwards reprint and sell for his own benefit such book or literary composition, against the will of the author?

There were seven to four of the judges who held that the printing and publishing did not deprive the author of the right.

And is

3. If such action would have lain at common law, is it taken away by the statute of 8th Anne? an author by the said statute precluded from every remedy, except on the foundation of the said statute, and on the terms and conditions prescribed thereby?

On this question there were only five judges who were of opinion that the action at common law was not taken away by the statute, and there were six of the opposite opinion.

It was well known that Lord Mansfield adhered to his opinion, and therefore concurred with the eight upon the first question; with the seven upon the second, and with the five upon the third (which in the latter case would have made the votes equal.) But it being very unusual, from reasons of delicacy, for a Peer to support his own judgment upon an appeal to the House of Lords, he did not speak.

It was finally decided, that an action could not be maintained for pirating a copyright after the expiration of the time mentioned in the statute.'-pp. 30-32. Immediately after this decision by the House of Lords in its judicial capacity, and in the same year, an act was obtained enabling the two universities in England, the four universities in Scotland, and the several colleges of Eton, Westminster and Winchester, to hold in perpetuity their copyright in books,-a glaring and most partial inconsistency, for which it would be difficult to assign a fair reason, and which, in its operation, is attended by the anomaly, that the copywright of a work which in the author existed only for twenty-eight years, if purchased by either of the bodies mentioned, becomes a right in perpetuity. The act of 41 Geo. III. made on occasion of the union with Ireland, merely en

acted alterations in the remedies for the in-
fraction of the law, and we may therefore pass
over its clauses to the notice of the act of the
54 Geo. III. c. 156, in which the provisions of
the former are embodied, and in which the law as
at present in operation is contained. This act in-
creases the term of copyright in a work to
twenty-eight years certain from the time of publi-
cation, and for so long after the expiration of
that term as the author shall survive. He is re-
quired to enter his book at Stationers'-hall;
the neglect so to do subjecting him to a penalty
provided by the act, but not affecting his copy-
right. The penalties for piracy under this act
are, liability to an action, to be brought in any
court of record, for damages, and to double the
costs of suit; the forfeiture of the book so pirated,
damasked and made waste; and a penalty of three-
pence for every sheet, one moiety to the King,
the other to the informer. By a decision of the
Court of King's Bench constructive of this sta-
tute, an author, on the sale of his copyright, to
entitle himself to the reversion of his right,
should he survive the term, must make an ex-
press stipulation to that effect with his publisher; if
he neglect so to do, the sale is considered a gene-
ral assignment of all his interest.

Such is the substance of the law affecting lite-
rary property as it stands at present. By the act
of 8th Anne, or by the construction put upon it,
authors have been deprived of the right in per-
petuity, which there is no doubt they previously
possessed over their literary productions. Whe
ther it were the intention of the framers of that act
to work this wrong on the objects whom they
professed to favour, has been and still is doubted;
and, in the work of Mr. Maugham, the point is
argued, and the negative proposition is maintained
on very strong grounds. We shall not follow him
in his reasoning on this head. The question, in a
legal point of view, has been effectually set at rest
by the decision of the House of Lords already
referred to, and by the recognition, by subsequent
acts of Parliament, of the validity of that decision.
Nothing but a new legislative enactment can now
remedy the evil, the injustice of which is obvious.
It is powerfully exposed by our author; and we
agree with him in anticipating, from the increasing
liberality of the times and of Parliament, a more
enlarged view of the subject, and a redress of the
grievance. Should such a desired object be ob-
tained, Mr. Maugham may certainly have the sa-
tisfaction of reflecting on the share he has taken
in promoting it.

Our space will not allow us to accompany the learned author in his just and sensible advocacy of the cause of men of letters, on the subject of another crying grievance to which they are subject, that of the University-tax, of which an alteration is the more called for, as it cuts like a two-edged sword, both ways, especially in its operation on works of value, since it not only takes eleven copies from the author, but deprives him of the sale of eleven; so that he may be said, in fact, to be taxed to the amount of twenty-two copies, although the law expresses but eleven.

case,

The law, with regard to engravings, naturally forms a branch of the subject of Mr. Maugham's work. The several acts of Parliament by which the artists of that class are protected, have assimilated the law of this species of ingenious production to that on the copyright of books, with the exception of the remedies for infraction. A however, is now agitating the higher regions of art, which the law has not anticipated. Has the possessor, it is demanded, of a work of art, the right to have it engraved without the consent or emolument of the original artist, whose work it is? If not, can the heirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds (e. g.) supposing no lapse of time or other circumstance stood in the ways require, at the hands of a possessor of a work by that master, the sum which a printseller would be willing to give for the privilege of having it engraved and published? With

these queries for the exercise of the acumen of our legal readers, we take our leave of this subject, not however, without recommending the work of Mr. Maugham as a manual to legislators, literary men, and artists; and expressing our sense of the obligation the two latter classes are under to him for the clear and satisfactory manner in which he has set before them the laws by

which their labours are affected, and the zeal and

talent with which he has advocated their interests.

RANK AND TALENT.

Rank and Talent; a Novel. By the Author of Truckleborough Hall. 3 Vols. Colburn. London, 1828.

If there be any truth in proverbs, we ought to feel no very friendly dispositions toward the author of Rank and Talent,' for he clearly practices a branch-and we are afraid we must acknowledge a superior branch-of our own craft. He is, to all intents and purposes, a reviewer,-but a reviewer not of productions, but of producersnot of books, but of men. To dissect and furnish analyses, brief or copious as may suit his humour, or that of his bookseller, of the beings with whom he converses-to give a catalogue of all the novelties which issue from the press of fashion, whether in the form of some quarto country squire, or some wide-margined duodecimo prig of the city, to note where these have any pretensions to originality, or where they are only new editions of approved classics; in fine, to give witty and pointed criticisms upon these compositions which shall answer firstly and chiefly the great object of showing off the talent of the critic; and secondarily, the smaller object of giving the reader some notion of the thing criticised, this is the apropriate business of the class of traders to which our author belongs. Generally speaking, we apprehend that the laws which govern the two divisions of the trade are the same; or, at any rate, we may form a fair guess about those which prevail in one, from those which are admitted to prevail in the other; but then to avow what these laws are, might be construed into a violation of the articles of our apprenticeship, into a shameful promulgation of mysteries, which our brethren have always thought it for the interest of the public not to divulge. Thus much, however, the scrutinizing intellect of the present age has discovered respecting our peculiarities, and thus much, therefore, we may without offence acknowledge,―that a reviewer is utterly incapable of writing the book which he reviews,-that a reviewer is not to be trusted even when his accounts of books are apparently the most fair and reasonable, because he exhibits that in fragments which can only be judged of as a whole,and lastly, that the reviewers of books are, nevertheless, a clever, hard-working race of men, and ought to be encouraged. To apply these principles: we apprehend our man-reviewer could never compose a man; that is to say, bring before our imaginations a real embodied individual-that his examination of human motives in detail is not

to be confided in as a creed of human nature, because it is extremely probable that in the rude process of analysis some of the most delicate (which are often some of the most potential) ingredients have been lost sight of, and because it is quite certain that all analysis must destroy that principle of cohesion between the parts, which, be it what it may, does unquestionably give to each part in combination a different character from that which it possesses when separated; and lastly, that the man-reviewer is, nevertheless-if his functions be not misunderstood, and he be not employed to do work for which he is incompetent -a very useful and meritorious person.

The author of 'Rank and Talent' is evidently a very clever man, and his novel, in our judgment, would be insulted by comparison with almost any of the fashionable novels. Neverthe

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