Fate of in than most men, and their path is constantly impeded by the most bitter and obstinate prejudices.

ventors.

Lord Dudley.

Priestley.

Hargraves.

Arkwright.

Two centuries ago, Edward, Lord Dudley, the inventor of that process of smelting iron ore with pit coal, which has conferred on his country such incalculable wealth, and has placed the mightiest of all implements in the hands of her industry, was assaulted by a mob, and the fruit of his toils violently torn from him. He died a ruined man.

Little more than half a century ago, the pure and large-minded Priestley, "the father of pneumatic chemistry," as he has been aptly called, was similarly assaulted. He escaped with his life, but his home was set fire to, and his unpublished manuscripts perished in the flames.

About the same period James Hargraves-the inventor of a machine which in its ultimate results has changed the face of entire counties, giving riches for poverty, and inducing improvements which will never stop, until the excessive labour of the hands gives place to the salutary labour of the brain, and inert power becomes everywhere the unerring instrument of the enlightened mind-was compelled to flee from his birth-place, and to take refuge in a distant county. And when at a subsequent period, his unremitting labour seemed at last to promise him some degree of reward, a formal association, was organized against him, for the express purpose of preventing, by the strength of combined capital, his enjoyment of the fruits of his own inventions. He died in obscurity and distress, but his inven

tions came into universal use.

Arkwright* followed with his important improvements

• As Mr. Arkwright was afterwards Sir Richard, it might be thoughtlessly imagined that he was knighted for his public services: this would be a great mistake, he was knighted for carrying up an address on a birthday in the season of his prosperity.

in the same manufacture. Fearing the fate of his predecessors, he too left his native county, and after almost incredible exertions, succeeded in establishing himself in trade in Nottingham, and afterwards in Derbyshire. Having obtained a patent, he and his partners expended £12,000 before any profit was made. An association was formed to make a common purse for the purpose of attacking this patent also, and succeeded: the patent was cancelled on the ground of technical deficiency, although its substantial novelty, its great merits and national importance were generally acknowledged. Injuries to buildings and machinery were likewise inflicted on the unfortunate inventor to the amount of thousands* by a mob of a lower grade. He submitted his case to parliament, but without avail.

But Arkwright was ultimately prosperous in trade, and amassed a large fortune as a cotton manufacturer, though not larger than that made by many others, in consequence of his invention and by copying his method, who themselves never invented anything.

Samuel Crumpton, who combined the inventions of Crumpton. Arkwright and Hargraves in his "mule," was less fortunate; like Hargraves he was ruined in his circumstances, and languished in poverty during a long life, in the very heart of that district which the practice of his inventions has raised from insignificance into importance and wealth. The tardy pittance of reward which reached him in the evening of his life came too late to save him from the consequence of his being an inventor.

Undeterred by the fate of so many of his prede- Watt. cessors, James Watt, perceiving the mighty powers, yet latent in the "fire-engine" (the name by which the

* See the case of Mr. Richard Arkwright, printed for the consideration of Parliament, in 1782.

Woolf.

very imperfect steam-engine then in use was known) devoted himself to its improvement, and nobly did he succeed. Of the STEAM-ENGINE, as we now know it, he was substantially the inventor, the Columbus of that new world of practical science, in which each passing day discovers fresh and inexhaustible treasures.

Fortunately for Watt, he met with a patron possessed of great wealth and extensive influence, so that when his turn came, the money which backed him defeated the money opposed to him, and his patent was maintained, although all the rules laid down and the practice pursued in similar cases dictated its repeal. Nay, the formal and technical objections against it were much stronger than those upon which many patents had been declared void. The expenditure of an immense sum of money saved it. Still Mr. Watt might have died a pauper, had not a fresh and still more enormous expenditure obtained a renewal of the patent by Act of Parliament for twenty-five years more. And after all, this very prolongation of the exclusive right benefited the public more than it benefited Mr. Watt, by enabling him to improve his invention. He himself expressed his opinion on the protection accorded to the inventor, by stating that he had "suffered so much pain and anxiety from the lawsuits on his patent for the steam-engine, that nothing would induce him ever to take out a patent again." His predecessors, Savery and Newcomen, were severe losers by their inventions; his worthy successor, Mr. Woolf, whose further improvements* effected a saving of coal in the consumption of the engine which a competent judge has declared to be equivalent to the whole profit of all the deep mining

* His main improvement consisted in working the engines by high . pressure steam acting expansively. See Mr. Farey's admirable account of the steam-engine.

carried on in Cornwall, (the very existence of which, therefore, depends upon it,) has not only received no reward, but has also been a great loser, the profits of the last four years of his patent having been less than the losses sustained during the first year. Cases of a

similar kind are too numerous to mention.

Time has passed on. The iron smelted by the process of Lord Dudley has been fashioned into the steamengine of Watt, and made the moving power of the mighty machinery of Hargraves, and Arkwright, and Crumpton. Chemistry has afforded its powerful aid, and improvement has followed upon improvement. But have the claims of the successors of this honorable band of public benefactors-I say not to the encouragement but to the equitable protection of our laws-been attended to? Surely the recollection of inventions such as these, ruining (for the most part) those who made them, but now working in harmonious and beautiful concurrence, and diffusing blessings throughout the land, must have roused the public and the legislative mind to something like large and comprehensive views? Let the records of our parliament and our courts of law answer the question:

Copyright is still designated "a monopoly against the public." Patents are still held to be "fair plunder;" senators still regard them as grants springing out of the royal prerogative. It is still to be the law that a man shall have no right to his undoubted invention, unless he have three hundred pounds in his pocket to pay fees for claiming it, and twice or thrice that sum to pay law costs, at the outset, should any man choose to infringe it; and a clever and well-informed man, writing upon a public question, gravely asserts that "an author or inventor asks a boon of society when he seeks by right queslegal power to prevent individuals doing what it was perfectly competent for them to do by their own natural

The Copy

tion,ut sup.

means, thereby creating an artificial property;" and the writer takes the same occasion to mention that he is engaged on a work "upon the causes of the progressive improvement of society."*

All this however may be amended. Such amendment has been prayed for in petition after petition, and in remonstrance after remonstrance. Among the signatures to these petitions or to these remonstrances are to be found the names of Southey, and Wordsworth, and Bulwer, and Lockhart, and Campbell;—and of Faraday, and Babbage, and Lardner, and Birkbeck. Will such men plead in vain?

But amendment to be effectual must include the provision of a national fund, as well as for rewarding those whom mere protection, with the best of guarantees, may yet leave unrewarded, as for purchasing† such valuable inventions as the owners may be willing to give up freely to the public.

We have too long been satisfied with saying to the inventor-" Produce us the pure gold from the mine, and we will give you (on your paying well for it) a chance of getting all you can for fourteen years, provided always no man stronger than you shall come and forcibly hinder you-of that you must take your chance."

Let us now try the policy of saying-" Show us the place where you say the gold is, and convince us by good reason that it is probably there, and we will come and help you to dig it out; you shall then have all you can get for a definite period, and we will secure you in the peaceable possession of your gains. You must however pay us for our labour. But if, unfortu

* Assuredly if this work be characterized by no larger view than that quoted in the text, no future writer on the same subject will be likely to mention it as one of those causes. But inconsistency is quite common enough to make us hope and believe much better things of Mr. Mudie's work.

† A better term might perhaps have been found.