this stratagem would appear, he abandoned the velled. Juliana Metcalf was married to Mr. Peter idea, and determined to stay and brave it out. Shooter about a quarter of an hour since. The Piper, who had chosen to personate "Time," bridal train of carriages has been flambeaued to the employed most of the intervening hours in scruti-bridegroom's new house, where they are waiting to nizing his slender form, equipped in costume, before receive their guests."

a full-length mirror which hung in his bed-room, and in practising the feats he was to perform.

"Miss Juliana wedded to Peter!" gasped Piper, and fell fainting to the floor.

66

He had provided himself with a scythe, which, whatever destruction it might effect on the fragile, Seated at the further end of one of the spacious threatened little to the sturdy and corpulent, as it rooms, was the young bride, arrayed as Nourmawas not thicker than a bonnet-wire. That there hal, The Light of the Harem," blazing in all the might "be no mistaking him," as he said, "he had pride of beauty and jewels. By her side, sat the woven for himself a luxuriant wreath of―thyme-groom in a magnificent Eastern dress; and on which was to be placed upon his head." Number- either hand were arranged their attendants, attired less were the antics he executed. With his long in various and striking oriental costumes. Crowds arms extended under his artificial wings, he would continued to pour in, and among them the fair and first move slow-then fast-next with the utmost false Juliana had the unnatural satisfaction of berapidity-illustrative of the irregular movements holding numbers of her deluded victims, assembled (at least as they appear to mortals) of that invalua- to play a deceitful part-to hide their chagrin and ble, but much-abused treasure. Bearing in remem- disappointment. Never before had coquetry been brance that dancing generally made part of the practised on so extensive a scale; never was the diversions at fancy balls, he waltzed, gavotted and triumph of the coquette more complete. Yet galloped so furiously with the chairs, as scarcely to Dashwood and Piper were not there-she longed to leave them a leg to stand upon. The bolster, was enjoy the wounded vanity of the one, and to laugh Miss Juliana; and never in reality or imagination, at the fooleries of the other. Bands of music had that gay belle been so whirled about. The swelled the concert, and the dancing continued for appointed hour of nine at last struck; carriages some time, and still they came not-one, was rerattled over the pavements, and lights were seen ceding from the shores of R- as fast as a fastreaming from many an upper story, where num-vorable tide and engine of forty-horse-power could bers were engaged in the same important act-propel the steamer in which he had embarkeddressing for Mrs. Shooter's party. the other, was just recovering from the deathlike Dashwood, whose lodgings were a few doors trance into which the intelligence of Ketchum had from Piper's, had not yet left his room. This thrown him. Piper had assured himself of by having kept a look Though this long expected party had proved a out from his window, whence he watched the death-blow to the hopes of many who had thought transit of the beau;-his eagerness to be at the to reimburse themselves for their great expendiparty restrained by the determination of arriving at tures, from the fortune of Juliana, yet the majority the same instant with one of the fashionables. As of the company, who were females and married he stood thus quivering in every fibre, what was men, had no such feelings of disappointment to mar his surprise on seeing Dashwood issue from his the pleasure of being at Mrs. Shooter's party. In hotel, dressed in his usual habiliments; and his sur- the midst of the mirth, real and fictitious, a figure prise amounted to astonishment, on hearing him say rushed in. It was Piper, partly despoiled of his to his servant, "Are you sure that the boat departs fancy dress, bare-legged and bare-footed. so soon?" "There-take that-and that-and that!" he

"Yes, sir, it will leave in ten minutes," was the cried, frantically, throwing towards the bride first reply.

"Then I am with it," said Dashwood, springing into a carriage, which drove off in the direction of the river.

a pocket of billets, next a sprig of myrtle, and lastly a long tress of fair hair-"take them all, deceitful, cruel woman-you have worked me up to desperation-I don't know what I may do!"

"What can all this mean?" ejaculated Piper- "Time, must be taken by the forelock," said a horrible presentiment rushing through his brain- Tubman, who was there, dressed as an officer of the "I do believe there is to be no party after all." Inquisition; and seizing him by his wreath, and aided And as thoughts similar to this occurred, his room by others, Piper was thrust out of the doors amid the door was thrown open and Ketchum entered, burst-laughter of the company, in which the bride joined. ing with laughter. And where was Miss Peabody, all this while“Piper," he said, redoubling his mirth, "let me her dress quite prepared-not the most trivial artidivest you of your garland; but I must take care," cle omitted?-Among the list of wounded. added he, dodging, "Time, cuts down all, both great "I told you, my dear," said her mother, "not to

and small."" Huzza for Mrs. Shooter's party- be too cocksure, but to wait until you were invited— Mrs. Peter Shooter's party-the mystery is unra- but you would not listen to me."

At an early hour the following morning, the THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE. bridal party set out for Shooter-dale-the country

Have faded from the earth.
Yet still there is a toiling on
With weariness at heart,

As if all ties but one were gone
And that was ne'er to part.
The stars shine as they ever shone
Since they have had their birth;
But change, wherever I have gone,
Has passed upon the earth.”

"Tis even so-to one intent-
Above, beneath, around,
From every separate element,

Like answer have I found.

Yet, though man measureth his strength
In vain against earth's powers,
There is reserv'd for him at length
A loftier doom than ours.

This heaven and earth shall pass away-
So hath the sentence been-
But of the coming of that day

Hast thou no signal seen.

Yes! never more to be renewed,
The sun himself shall fade,

And one dark, silent solitude,
This universe be made.

The mighty stars shall not endure,

But one by one grow dim,

Yet thought and being be as sure

As now they are to Him."

F. H. E.

RIGHTS OF AUTHORS.

true elements, it reads-Is the laborer worthy of his hire or more succintly-'Shall he who arduosly and nobly toils, be allowed to reap the fruits of his industry? These are problems which ought to admit of easy solution. Yet the requisitions of naked justice are refused, evaded, shuffled off, from day to day and year to year, and each of us consoles himself with the idea that the responsibility and the wrong are not his. Thou canst not say I did it!'-This is a great mistake. In a republic, every man is responsible to God and his fellow men for all the unjust and injurious acts of the government, except those against which he has exerted his whole moral and constitutional power. When he has opposed a public wrong, manfully, ardently, and up to the extreme limit of his constitutional sphere of action, he stands absolved from all blame in regard to it. It is not his act. The responsibility rests alone upon those who have advocated and those who have failed to resist it. Such is the general principle. Let us now seek its bearing on the copy-right question.

Government is primarily instituted for two ends: first, to protect the persons of those living under it from violence and injury: secondly, to protect their property from the rapacity and villainy of the covetous and unprincipled. The first right, therefore, of a citizen under the law, is to be protected from personal injury; the second, that his property-the fruit of his own industry, or that of those who have given or bequeathed it to him-shall be fully The rights of authors-who cares for them? secured to his use and benefit. In a state of naWhat rights can authors claim? Are they not pre-ture, the will of the strongest is law, which it were destined to starvation and wretchedness through dangerous to question and fatal to resist. In that life, to be repaid by honor and fame to their uncon- state, few will plant fruit trees which any one may scious ashes? Are not the penury and contumely with impunity pull up for walking sticks or cut of their whole existence often recompensed by a down for fuel; none will plant corn which any world-wide renown and a lordly cenotaph? Are strong-armed passer-by may turn his horse into. not the tombs of the prophets reared by those The consequence is that neither tree nor corn is whose fathers killed them? Why, then, should auplanted, and men drag out a miserable existence thors talk of rights, and seem to claim exemption on a soil which might yield them abundance—tortured by famine, by destitution and misery of every But what use, says a careless reader, in heap-kind, in the midst of all the natural elements of ing bounties upon those who are improvident and plenty and happiness. To obtain that plenty and wasteful, to a proverb ?-Hold, sir! we plead not secure that happiness, it is primarily requisite that for mercy, but justice! Grant the ministrants to each individual shall be guaranteed the full and your intellectual gratification and improvement the undisturbed enjoyment of the products of his own simple reward of their labor, and then sneer at talent and toil-no matter of what character are their calamities if you may. But, so long as our those products, so long as he shall deem them laws are calculated to rob them of that reward, or valuable to himself. Originally, a sense of common to secure impunity to those who do, how shall necessity and common interest, induces a number we dare to reproach them with their misfortunes? of individuals to unite in some tacit or formal comThat our existing laws do so rob them, I shall now pact to act in concert against any injurer of the person, or depredator on the property, of any among them. The first steps in this important procedure An important question of national policy now may be calculated only for some immediate exidemands the attention of the American people-agency, but the end is the formation of a government. question not only involving in its settlement the Having established, as we trust, that the first rights of individuals, but testing directly the moral great end of government is the securing every sense of the nation. Reduced to its simple and person in the peaceful possession of whatever he

from the fate decreed them?

endeavor to demonstrate.

may justly regard as his own, we proceed now to mit. It proves precisely what we are laboring to a minuter analysis. The farmer produces corn; establish-viz: that literary property is subject to the founder iron-ware; the mechanic boots, hats, the same general laws as all other property, and furniture, or whatever article may be in his par- implies exactly the same rights. The Boydens ticular line. Are not these, until disposed of, the may hire the Astor House for a year, or a term of absolute property of their respective producers ? years; I may hire an apartment in it for a night, Most certainly. Who ever doubted it but the or a lifetime; but the right accruing to the owner wildest reveller in agrarian fantasies! To deny from the process of construction at his charge this, is to deny all rights of property whatever. remains unaffected, or is only confirmed. So I But no man in the social state produces solely for may purchase a copy of 'Astoria,' and justly exhis own use; some of his products each expects ercise all the rights which that purchase was into exchange for a portion of those of other produ- tended or expected on either hand to give me. cers, as he shall deem conducive to his advantage But if I use that copy to print an edition from it, and comfort. But this does not, cannot, in any I commit an act unjust and perfidious-not conway interfere with his right. A man may employ templated in the sale of the copy to me, and in his time wholly in the production of articles of violation of morality and amity. It is just as which he can make no use whatever except to sell though I had hired a room in the Astor House for them to others, and yet his right to them, until transferred, is perfect. You may prove that the producer is totally ignorant of the value of an article he has constructed—that it has no value, except in the fancy or false estimate of others-and no man a right to pirate an edition from it. As yet his right remains wholly unimpared. The thing belongs absolutely to the maker, until he chooses to divest himself of it.

the night, and at once proceeded to deface and defile it in every way possible. The slightest consideration must convince every reflecting mind, that the mere act of purchasing a copy can give

well might it be contended that the holder of a good bank-note, became by such possession entitled to manufacture and issue counterfeits of it to any extent. The well-understood intent of the seller would in any case govern the right of the

We are now ready to advance a step. Mankind have intellectual desires and necessities, as well as physical. To gratify these is proper and laudable; buyer. The author, or the purchaser of the copyhe who permanently ministers to their satisfaction, right from him, in selling me a copy, has by no is as much entitled to recompense as though he means intended to perfect or vitiate his naturally sought to live by raising grain. In either case, exclusive right to publish and sell copies. That the amount of remuneration remains to be fixed still stands on its original and impregnable ground by contract, but the right to demand and receive of production-the same which secures to every such remuneration of those who enjoy the benefits one else the just and full reward of his own indusof the labor, is palpable-undeniable-settled. A. try. Need one word be added with respect to the has sold his neighbor B. five bushels of corn, while absolute right of the case? Who can own anything B. has been teaching A.'s child or children to read. if Washington Irving (or the purchaser of the copyIn either case, the one has an indubitable claim on right from him) does not justly own "Knickerthe other for the current or stipulated value of bocker's History of New York ?" what he has furnished. The mere intellectual labor may be worth more or less than the physical, but whatever it is worth is as truly due the teacher as the value of the corn is the farmer.

Our

We maintain, then, that the whole subject of copy-right is treated wrongly by our legislators— or rather, that it should not be treated at all. present law is just as though a legislature should We have labored thus far to prove analytically, enact that no one should steal water-melons, except what the naked sense of justice inherent in every one should grow three feet from the hill whence unperverted heart ought to teach intuitively-viz. the vine started,-in which case it should be lawful that the author of a poem, a history, or a scien- plunder. The consequences of such legislation tific treatise, is just as clearly and completely the need not be portrayed. Equally immoral and misowner of his work as he would be of a windmill, taken is that policy which governs our laws enacted if he had spent the same time in constructing one. ostensibly for the protection and security of literary Can there be any doubt on this point? Is there property, but in effect for its subversion. There room for a cavil? If the Astor House in New should be no copy-right law at all—but the proviYork is (or was) John Jacob Astor's, is (or was) sions of the common law should be construed to pronot 'Astoria,' just as truly Washington Irving's? tect, in accordance with their spirit, the rights of If James Fenimore Cooper has a clear right to the authors precisely as they do those of producers mansion and estate left him by his father, has he and property-holders in general. Then if any not a right as indefeasible to "The Pilot," and publisher wishes to print an edition of any work, "The Last of the Mohicans," if he has not sold American or foreign, let him obtain the consent of them? To say that these rights may be alienated, the author, his heirs or assigns; and if the priviis to say just what we are more than willing to ad- lege be worth anything, let him pay for it. If any

one prefer piracy, let him be punished like any | America is concerned, and the law stands tamely other man who ventures to convey' what belongs by and winks at the robbery.-Shame! Shame! to his neighbor. This is the way in which the copy-right question should be settled.

There is, we fear, little hope that full justice will be done by our legislators at present; but we But we have begun at the wrong end, and must are not without hope that the country may be awaprobably go on as we have begun. Instead of kened to the necessity of doing something. We protecting an author under common-law provisions insist on some action which will put the protection in the possession and use of his works, just as we of the author in the enjoyment of the fruit of his protect a farmer in the possession of the horse own labor, on the true ground of general right, and he has reared and trained-punishing the plun- not on that of special favor. But, as the point of derer of the one as of the other, inflexibly, sig-greatest moment, we ask at any rate such a modinally, universally-we graciously extend to the fication of the copy-right law, as will extend to foauthor the inestimable privilege of enjoying a part reign authors the partial protection now accorded of the fruits of his labor for a few years! We tell to our own. Our laws, whether in dispensing jushim that, during those years and within a narrow tice or stimulating well-directed talent, should know section of the earth's surface, his production may no difference of country. In every point of view, have a chance to bring bread to his children and the establishment of International copy-right would comfort to his usually humble home; but, out of be beneficial. If an English book be a good one, those bounds, it shall be a waif and an outlaw-any the author richly deserves whatever recompense its one may appropriate it with impunity. The natural tendency of this law against justice is, like that of all bad laws, grossly pernicious, regarded in the light of policy only. By telling an author that his right to the fruits of his own labor (not of the printer's and book-binder's-they are protected) shall accrue to him only within his own country are mainly most pestiferous trash, corrupting the and for a brief term of years, we morally constrain him to write trash for the hour, instead of instruction for all ages, and to humor the prejudices and self-conceit, however gross and pernicious, of the people among whom his lot happens to be cast. He cannot write for mankind and all time, like a Newton or a Wordsworth, unless he is prepared to encounter a life of uncheered toil and privation in Our law, as it stands, inflicts the most cruel the service of those who deny him the reward of wrong on American authors. Great Britain has his labor. One in a thousand may do so; the re- been accustomed to protect foreign equally with mainder become the mere Marryats and Ainsworths native authors; but our systematic piracy has of the hour-and who has a right to complain? Surely not the community, which has done all in its power to produce this very result.

republication here might bring him, if protected; if bad, copy-right will greatly limit, if not prevent its dissemination. If foreign novel-writers, as a class, are doing good in this country, they have a right to reap the natural reward of their labors; but if, as we most devoutly believe, their writings

morals, debilitating the intellects, and perverting the manners of our rising generation, then a copyright which would increase their price and keep twothirds of them out of the market, would be a great public benefit. We care not whether they are pronounced good or bad-the argument for international copy-right is in either case irresistible.

forced her into a new attitude. Now she protects the authors of those countries only, which extend the same justice to hers.-Of course, ours are not Sound policy, then, concurs with strict justice included, and their writings produce them not a in the requisition that an author's productions be dollar out of their own country. But even here, treated just like those of other men-their use and their works are met at all points by the stolen and benefit secured to him by law, not only in his own wretchedly got-up (pirated) editions of their Bricountry, but wherever they may be read. Maei- tish rivals, and almost driven out of what should zel's Automaton, or any body's puppet-show, comes be their own market. The American volume may across the Atlantic, and who deems it free plun- be good in every sense, but then it costs a dollar; der?-but Mrs. Hemans' poems and Nicholas Nick- while the British (stolen) one is so manufactured elby come to us-and though the American copy-as to sell for a few shillings. The consequence is right, if protected by the law, is worth thousands precisely what might be expected. The latter yet they are left to the mercy of those who show may be a miserable farrago of inane absurdity about no mercy; to the honesty of those who are just as Lord Zany, the Countess of Frippery, and so forth, honest as the laws compel them to be, and would which few can care to read and none ought tolaugh at the idea of being more so. Their publish- but then, it is wondrous cheap!—and there are ers pocket half the booty and allow the public the few who can distinguish a good book from a bad residue; and the author is turned off without a far- one at sight, to many who know right well the difthing! Who can defend this? If a single copy ference between dollars and shillings. The British were stolen from the English publisher, our laws author enjoys the honor of being plundered and would mete out summary justice to the culprit; read; the American is not so directly robbed, but but the English author is stripped naked, so far as the result is the same--he starves.