Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

But the sacrifice was useless. The sudden whim for Radicalism at home, and revolution abroad, which seized British statesmen in the first frenzy of the Reform Bill, instead of punishing the revolt of the Belgians, suffered the dismemberment of the kingdom of the Netherlands; a measure of the most shortsighted policy, which has now placed Belgium in the most serious hazard of being absorbed by its all-swallowing neighbour France, on the first convulsion of the continent. But, as England has no inclination to disturb her neighbours, and is never guilty of that last atrocity of nations, breach of treaties; the great colony is still left in Dutch hands, and will be left, until some new folly compels its resumption.

Java is a noble island; singularly shaped, for its length is about four times its average breadth; six hundred miles by about one hundred and fifty. Its whole extent is fifty thousand square miles, or nearly the size of England. But its fertility of all kinds is incalculably superior. From its diversity of climate, it is obviously capable of raising European as well as tropical productions. Its climate, too, is healthful, notwithstanding the illfame of Batavia. Even there, the inhabitants have at length learned to prefer fields to swamps, and fresh air to the vapour of ditches; for the greater portion have either gone into the interior, or live in suburbs extending to considerable distances. In fact, the original fen-loving Hollander has passed away, and another generation has sprung up, which prefers health and long life even to dollars and dyspepsia. Yet, what is Java, to the islands almost within her view? To Sumatra, with her one hundred and sixty thousand square miles, and Borneo, with her two hundred and eighty-six thousand--almost a continent; and those vast territories not wild and barren plains, like the huge spaces of Australia, nor frozen for one half of the year, like our settlements in America, but overflowing with the richest vegetable products of the earth, covered with herds of the buffalo and other cattle, and sheeted with forests up to the summits of their ranges of mountains. What their mineral wealth may be, remains for European investigation; but gold has been found in their rivers, and from the various heights of their hills, we may fairly suppose them, in some instances at least, metalliferous.

Yet Java--of the same extent with England, produce almost spontaneous, without any endemic disease, and with the dissensions of the natives kept down by the Dutch authority--is calculated to have but nine millions of people, about less than half of the souls of England. So little does population depend upon plenty, climate, or even upon peace. The Dutch government appears to be honest, and the reverse of severe; its offices are well conducted, its salaries seem to be substantial and sufficient, and its general rule of the island appears to be directed to suppressing violence among the native tribes.

But the sudden impulse which now urges European enterprise to the extremities of the earth; which sends expeditions to invade the territories of the seal and the whale at the South Pole, and plants cities within the gales of the arctic snows, must at length turn to the golden islands of the Indian Ocean. There, new powers will be awakened, new vigour will take place of old stagnation, and those matchless portions of the globe will give their treasures to the full use of man.

As it was determined to refit the ship in Java, time was given for the curiosity of Mr Jukes and the officers to employ itself in examining the interior. After various difficulties, connected with official forms in passing through the different Dutch provinces,--in which, however, it is only justice to the governors to acknowledge, that in general they conducted themselves with much civility,--the party, consisting of four, at length set out. They found post-houses at every half dozen miles apart, with a good carriage-road; they passed by a succession of villages, through a flat country covered with rice and sugar-cane, interspersed with large belts of wood. But those were villages concealed by groves of fruit trees. On their way, they stopped to see a sugar manufactory--a Belgian partnership. The house was large and handsome, and the establishment complete. This is a new manufacture in Java. They were now running along the northern coast of the island, and after a drive of forty miles in six hours, they arrived at Passarouan, which they unexpectedly found to be a large town with several wide streets, Chinese houses in court yards, and European residences, having lawns and carriage drives. The native Javanese resided in separate quarters, each of which is surrounded by a fence of bamboo paling, or a wall. We should conceive these people to lead a primitive and pleasant life, for in those quarters the bamboo houses seemed to be scattered indiscriminately under the shade of bananas, cocoa nuts, and other fruit trees.

The Dutch residents or governors, appear also to be very much at their ease. The salary of the resident of Passarouan, though nominally but £1,500 a-year, amounts to £3,400 sterling besides, as it is the custom that each resident has a per centage on the coffee, sugar, tobacco, rice, &c., raised in his district. An income of this order, when we consider the cheapness of all the necessaries of life in the island, must be regarded as a very liberal provision.

They saw, as they passed through the rice fields, a curious but simple contrivance for preserving the growing crops from the flocks of sparrows. In the centre of the fields small sheds were erected on posts, from which strings with feathers radiated in every direction. A boy, or girl, was stationed in the shed to keep the strings in motion, in order to frighten away the birds.

On the road they passed a large market, crowded with people. They found rows of stalls or long sheds, in some of which European articles, such as cutlery and drapery, were offered for sale; in others were drugs, fruit, confectionery, or salt fish. The traffickers, too, seemed to be enjoying themselves, as some of the stalls had benches before them, on which sat people drinking coffee, and eating rice, hot sweet potatoes, fruit, and sweet-meats. Their next stage was a town named Probolingo, and they were again surprised at the extent of a place perfectly new to them. Broad roads with avenues of lofty trees intersected each other at right angles, bounded by the fences of the native Kampangs, or Javanese quarters, which looked like large orchards. There were also at intervals European houses of good size and appearance, each in its own grounds, with a carriage-drive under the trees. They found, also, the still rarer evidence of a comfortable condition of general intercourse,--a good hotel; of which the master, however, spoke "but little English." Our curiosity is left in doubt, whether his accomplishments were Dutch or Javanese.

There were some English settlers in this neighbourhood; and some of the party drove out to visit the sugar establishment of Mr Etty--brother of the well-known artist--about three miles from the town. He was in England, but his sons came down in the evening to the hotel to offer their civilities. They had been out pig-shooting, and had enjoyed their sport, such as it is, for they had killed thirteen pigs. The party were invited to similar shooting for the next day.

On the next day they went; but an old carriage and a clumsy charioteer delayed them, and they arrived some three hours after their appointment. But etiquette does not seem to have been the order of the day, for the inviters had gone out to enjoy their pig-shooting by themselves. The invited were left to amuse themselves as they might until seven or eight o'clock, when the inviters returned, and the whole party sat down to dinner. At dinner, their talk was of tigers.

Whether Mr Jukes gives this incident in wrath, or simple recollection, we know not; but we surmise, that he and his friends would have been just as well pleased if the owners of the sugar establishment had not brought them out so far for nothing.

Next day they proceeded on their excursion, and found native civility on the alert every where. Some orders to this effect appeared to have been sent to the Dutch authorities. At the first post-house where they stopped, a man stepped forward with a tray of cups of tea, glasses of cocoa and water, and rice-cakes; and a large party were awaiting them with ponies. Each of them also found a man on horseback ready to attend him, and carry his gun and game-bag. A petty chief rode before them, and another with a small party brought up the rear, so that they formed quite a cavalcade. But the natives with their gaily-coloured dresses, blue and red coloured saddles, silver trappings to their horses, and ornamented creeses in their girdles, "quite cut out the Englishmen in appearance, with their dingy shooting-jackets and soiled trousers."

And here we may fairly ask the question, why those gentlemen should have appeared in "dingy shooting-jackets and soiled trousers?" This is not a question of dandyism. They were to appear before the authorities of another country, before the gentlemen of another nation. They were also to be presented to native gentlemen and rajahs, who have as quick an eye for the outward man as any people in the world. And while those showy costumes--even in so trifling a matter as the attendance on a shooting-party--exhibited the taste of the people in those matters, why should the Englishman exhibit his own, in dingy shooting-jackets and soiled trousers? In fact, in matters of this kind, a man in foreign countries, and especially in the military and naval service of his country, should recollect the effect of this beggarliness on the mind of strangers. The party must have been the objects of ridicule and contempt to the very peasants around them.

As they rose towards the hills, the country appeared to be in general richer and more picturesque. From the summit of the first ridge the country before them was gently undulating, interspersed with patches of wood, that looked like a wide-spread park, till at some miles distance it rose up the slopes of a volcanic mountain--the Lamongan. On the sides of this huge volcano, the woods became thicker and more continuous, till they reached the bare piles of ashes and cinders forming the upper cone.

The road then lay through coffee plantations. These were very pleasant-looking places. The coffee shrubs were planted in rows, with tall trees between each row to shelter the coffee from the sun. The alleys between the trees were carpeted by rich green turf, forming pleasant glades. The plantations were generally neatly fenced and often extensive; as much as twenty or thirty acres in one plot. Every now and then they passed on the roadside a noble tree, with wide-spread, drooping branches, a species of banyan tree, under which was often seen a bullock-waggon with its team.

All this was oriental and picturesque; but the scenery sometimes reminded them of spots in Devonshire, so green and fresh was all the vegetation, and so pleasant were the deep narrow lanes and sparkling brooks. Their halting-place for the day was a large and lofty bamboo-house on a raised terrace of brick, having a broad veranda all round, a large central saloon, and two or three good and well-furnished bed-rooms on each side. This veranda had the advantage also of a noble landscape. At the back, it looked down a steep bank to a beautiful circular lake about a quarter of a mile across, bordered by a thick belt of wood, and right over it at a few miles' distance, the stately cone of the Lamongan, upwards of four thousand feet high, with a wreath of white smoke curling from its summit.

To this feast of natural beauty was added the more substantial one of the table. In the veranda they found a table spread with a snow-white cloth, and all the conveniencies of plate, glass, and cutlery. A troop of willing servitors was in attendance, who covered the table with a smoking-hot breakfast, piles of rice curries, pillaus, and fruits, with tea and coffee. All this seemed to be done by enchantment; there was no host, no master of the house to trouble them with ceremony; the house and all that belonged to it seemed to be theirs as long as they chose to stay. Whose was the furniture, or who provided the entertainment, they knew not. In those comfortable quarters, they determined to halt for the next day, and try to get a little shooting.

The naturalist, however, on this evening, employed himself more rationally than his companions. While they went out shooting, he took his hammer and went to the ravine, to learn something about the masses of lava and basalt which lay every where. The whole ground gave evidences of the existence of an ancient volcano. The circular lake seemed to have been a crater; its depth was said to be three hundred and ninety feet. But the noble proportions of the landscape still attracted the eye, and within the horizon shot up the pile of the Semmi,--the loftiest, most perfect, and most majestic-looking cone that they ever saw in Java, its height being twelve thousand two hundred and ninety-two feet--a greater elevation than that of the Peak of Teneriffe. Every thing was lovely in form and colour, and glittered in the hot sunshine, while a fine fresh breeze from the south tempered the heat, and gave it the feeling of a summer day at home.

Still, though all this seemed a land of magic, to those who probably had never thought of Java but as a place of pestilence, of burning soil, and scorching sunshine, it was not all fairy land. After dinner, at dusk, as Mr Jukes was strolling round the house smoking a cigar, a man with a long spear came up to him, and began to turn him back with an earnest speech, of which the only word he understood was _machan_; but it was an important one, and the point of the whole oration, for it is the Javanese for tiger.

Having recourse to one of the party as interpreter, he found that the spearman was begging of him not to walk in the dark, as tigers were abundant there; which, he emphatically assured them, eat men, and that they had even sometimes come into the house. In the veranda they found a guard of four spearmen, keeping watch for the same purpose. The Englishman thought that they were jesting, until he saw that none of the people themselves went a few yards beyond the house without a torch. One man going to bathe in the lake just below, another accompanied him with a torch. They also saw four men coming up the road with two large torches, who, they said, were returning from their work from the village hard by. They still thought their fears a little exaggerated; but on that very night a man was killed by a tiger at a village about two miles off, as he was going to his work before daylight with two others. His body was recovered the next day.

In the morning, the party went out to shoot any thing that came in their way. Their success, however, was limited to a pig, and a brace of jungle fowl. Some of the party saw tracks of tigers, but they attack nobody during the day; the night being their time for retaliation. Another division of their party coming home by a straight course across the country, and just before it got dark, found themselves on the borders of a district which had been mentioned to them as the most noted haunt of tigers in the whole country. Cocking their guns, however, they pushed through the grass, that rose often three feet above their heads, for about half a mile, not without a feeling of half hope, half fear, of the rush of a tiger through the jungle. From this nervous predicament, however, they escaped. Half an hour later they might have told a different story, or perhaps would have been left without the power of telling one. Their shot-pouches would have made but an indifferent defence against the charge of a supperless tiger; and the philosopher might have finished his earthly career in the retaliatory jaws of the lord of the jungle.

We recommend Java to all country gentlemen tired of time; they will have plenty of shooting of every kind there--the lion alone excepted; bears are in abundance and great ferocity; wild boars in droves: with the wild buffalo, the most dangerous of all animals to meet with, and far more dreaded by the natives than the tiger himself. The tiger is to be found every day throughout the year, and every where from twilight to sunrise. For the more _récherchés_ in shooting, there is the rhinoceros, the most capital of all sport, as it is called; for in nine instances out of ten he kills his man. Unless the sportsman hits him in the eye, double barrels are unavailing; his hide would turn off every thing but a cannon ball. If the shot is not imbedded in his brain, he dashes after the sportsman at once; escape then can only be by miracle, for unwieldy as he looks, he runs like a race-horse, rips up the fugitive with his horn, and finishes by trampling him into a mass of mortality that leaves not a feature distinguishable. Thus, field-sports are not altogether confined to gentlemen.

But for glories of this order, the amateur must travel to some distance; he must penetrate the deep and trackless forests of the southern Sultan, or ascend to the volcanic regions of the interior.

We now hasten to the close of these interesting volumes. The whole party seem to have been treated with remarkable civility, and to have been shown all kinds of strange things. Among the other curiosities, they were taken to visit the Sultan of Madura, a hospitable old man, who treated them like fellow sultans, paraded his guards for them, gave them a feast which seemed to be all but interminable, played the native fiddle for them, led his own royal orchestra with some skill, played _vingt-et-un_ with them, and finished by a species of _ombres Chinoises_, or shadowy drama, which lasted through the whole night. As the Englishmen began to droop, he exercised all the English which he possessed, to offer them "a glass of grog," which he evidently considered to be essential to English enjoyment; and after his visitors had retired to rest, he continued to sit out the play--which lasted the mortal measure of ten hours; a feat exceeding the endurance, though probably not the _ennui_, of a regular amateur of the Italian Opera. The populace, too, exhibited the same dramatic ardour, for they continued gazing, laughing, and shouting, with all the perseverance of their old sovereign.

The revenues of this chief are enormous, though they amount only to £8,000 sterling; but then we are to recollect that the wages of a Javanese workman are but five duits, or five-sixths of an English penny; and that for this he can "live very well." Man gets plantains and fruits for almost nothing. His clothing is made of a simple wrapper, and a day or two's cutting of bamboo gives him a very sufficient house. Let this be compared with the Irish peasant, shivering through three months of winter, and six months of wet, paying five pounds an acre for his swampy potatoes, and out of his holding paying tithe, tax, county rates, and all the other encumbrances of what the political economists call "a highly civilised state of society." We say "_vive le systéme féodal, vive la sauvagerie Javannaise_."

One half of the Sultan's revenue arises from a singular source--the sale of birds' nests, which are found in the rocks, and which the Chinese purchase as a restorative. The Chinese, a remarkably gross and voluptuous people, are the greatest quacks on earth, and are continually attempting to reinstate by medicine, what they have ruined by excess. But soup is pleasant physic, and they boil these birds' nests into soup, in full reliance on the miracle.

The Englishmen tasted some of this soup, among the luxuries of the Sultan's table, and highly approved of it; but its merits depended on many capital ingredients, the birds' nests merely acting as a sort of connective, an isinglass to the whole. It is probable that their whole virtue is in the fashion.

In looking at the future, through all the mists which beset the vision of man, it seems scarcely possible to doubt that these regions are intended for a vast and vigorous change. It may not be a European change. Society may not be cast into the furnace, as it has been by those struggles, wars, and revolutions, which were essential to the working of the iron temperament of Europe. But Providence, if we may so speak without irreverence, evidently delights in the variety, multitude, and novelty of its highest expedients. If no two great portions of the physical world are like in form, climate, product, and even in the colouring of their skies, why are we to insist on uniformity in government, in human feeling, or in those national impulses which shape society? The throne, the constitution, and the laws of England, noble advances as they are to the perfection of the social system, may be unfit for the man sitting under his palm tree within the tropics, the navigator in the summer seas of the Indian Ocean, or even for the rude vigour and roving enterprise of Australia. But we have no fears of the failure of that glorious and beneficent Cycle, by which happiness seems revolving, by whatever slow degree, through every race of mankind. There is but one thing which is indispensable among all, and that one thing is, the only nation on earth qualified to give Christianity; and we, with no presumptuous glance, but with no hesitating belief, regard the almost boundless colonial empire of England as conferred upon our island for the express purpose of spreading pure religion through the various regions of the globe. With all our sense of the caution necessary in struggling against the rude prejudices of the barbarian, and with no inferior sense of the caution necessary in the admixture of human conceptions, with the will of Him who "walketh in clouds;" with all our regret for the extravagance of enthusiasm, and all our conviction of the evil which is daily done to truth by the rashness of conjecture, we yet believe that a time is approaching, when the elements of society will be, at least, partially dissolved, for the sake of their replacement in higher purity and power; when the general frame of dominion throughout the world, will be, at least, dislocated, that it may be renewed in higher activity and beauty; and when a world in which a new obedience, a new integrity, a new beneficence to man, and a new homage to heaven, will be the characteristics, shall be formed to vindicate the justice of Providence, and complete the happiness of man.

Then we shall see the original powers of those neglected nations brightened, enlarged, and elevated into forms and uses, of which they themselves have been unconscious since their birth. Then shall we see governments on principles adapted to the nature of the dweller in the Asiatic plains, of the hunter of the everlasting Himmalaya, and the navigator of the waveless Pacific; calling out the native faculties of those vast divisions of mankind, raising, the natural products of inexhaustible soils, whose fertility is now buried in their bosom, and sharing with the nations of the earth the countless mineral treasures which have been locked up in their hills since the Creation; the whole being poured out, to meet the new demands, increase the new engagements, and stimulate the new animation of the increasing millions of mankind.

The observations made by Mr Jukes on the mental effect of the southern climates of Asia, are striking, but they are the same which have been made for thousands of years. The European is not made for those climates. Carrying with him, in his first adventure, his original energy of mind and frame, he is astonished to see the land tenanted by human beings who are content with mere existence. The bold climber of the hills,--the daring mariner,--the intelligent and delighted inquirer into all the wonders of earth and ocean, sees himself surrounded by men lying on sofas, living only to eat, and careless of the whole brilliant profusion which tissues the ground, or fills the forest, or variegates the shore.

But the second generation inevitably feels the influence, and the son of the sinewy and susceptible European becomes the languid, self-satisfied, and voluptuous Oriental.

In fact, the two races are totally different. The Asiatic has some noble qualities. The Creator has not altogether effaced his own image in any region of human habitancy. He has fancy, keenness of conception, desperate but unwilling bravery, scientific faculties, and a quiet delight in the richness of his own lovely islands and pyramidal mountains.

But, to the European alone is allotted the master quality of energy; and by that gift he drives the world before him. This resistless quality he perhaps owes chiefly to his sullen skies and rugged soils. Even in the East, the man of the desert, the son of the storm and the snow, has always been the conqueror of India. The Osmanli sultans were forced to raise the boldest of their battalions among the Christians of the north of Greece. And we shall yet see the Australian sweeping before him the indolence of the Birman and the Javanese. This he will owe to the sterility of his fields and the half European blasts of his more salubrious and stringent atmosphere. The maxim of Montesquieu, that "poverty always conquers wealth," solves but half the problem. The true solution is, that the poverty of the soil compels the exertion of a vigour, which severity of climate alone can generate among a people. For three hundred years the population of Jutland and Denmark almost annually swept the southern shores of Europe itself. The Norman was invincible on land. Even the great barbarian invasions which broke down the Roman empire, were the work of nerves hardened in the forest and in the desert. The same causes have made the storm-beaten Englishman lord of India. But India will never be a British colony. It will never be, like America, a land of Englishmen. The second generation will be Indians, while Australia will be the southern England. This is evidently the law of a Will above man.

We must congratulate Mr Jukes on the value of his publication. Scientific without being abstruse, and picturesque without being extravagant, he has made his volumes a striking and graceful addition to our knowledge of countries, highly interesting in themselves, and, assuming hourly importance in the eyes of the people of England.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] _Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H. M. S. Fly; in Torres Strait, New Guinea, and other Islands of the Eastern Archipelago._ By J.B.JUKES, Naturalist to the Expedition. 2 Vols. Boone, London.

_AMERICAN COPYRIGHT._

_New York, August, 1847._

My Dear Godfrey,--I am sorry to begin my letter with an apology, but I feel that one is due for the very unsatisfactory manner in which, on a former occasion, I answered your grave inquiries about the pirates who thrive on the plunder of Maga. The jocular vein which I incontinently struck and perseveringly followed up, led me very wide of your mark, and I was obliged to leave you quite unsatisfied on another point, about which, for one who is not an author, you seem to be singularly excited. To waive my astonishment at the _Benthamism_ of the phrase, pray what is "International Copyright" to Godfrey, that he should weep for such a Hecuba? I should have been as little surprised, had you asked me to inquire the opinion of the Indians as to the best regimen for infants. A veritable author, suffering by wholesale American rapine, would have commanded my sympathies, and I should have replied instinctively, in that tone of consideration which is always due to dignified misfortune; but when you, with your rod and gun, soberly popped me a query in which I could not see that either widgeon or gudgeon were particularly concerned, I confess I feared you were quizzing me, and was fairly off my guard. Forgive me that I was so slow to appreciate the true state of the case. It has only very lately occurred to me that both you and I are somewhat changed since we placed the _summum bonum_ in Waltonian idleness, and that you have very possibly renounced fly-fishing, and settled down into a literary incubation, likely to bless the world with a brood of booklings. With this consideration, I now again address you, intending to preserve that propriety of thought and speech, which on the subject of literary property, I feel due to the future Great Unknown of Southern Britain. You observe that I take it for granted, you will affect the anonymous; and I would venture to add my counsel to your choice of a course so judicious. You have no idea how great an inconvenience you would suffer, should Godfrey Hall be turned prematurely into another Abbotsford--an event which is certain, should you allow the secret of your new character to transpire. Your comparative nearness to the metropolis would greatly facilitate the irruption of bores; especially as there would probably be a branch railway chartered forthwith, for the express purpose of setting down company at the nearest possible point of access to your venerable gateway. Besides, even you have too much regard to the land of Kit North, to entertain any desire to see its most attractive shrine of pilgrimage too suddenly eclipsed; and why should you court such an exposure of popular fickleness, when about to become yourself "the comet of a season," and to go through that brilliant perihelion, in which, reversing the feat of Horace with his _lofty head_, you will sweep away all other stars with a swinge of your luminous _caudality_? Yes, Godfrey--spare your own feelings, and treat us to another Great Unknown! I am sure such will be your determination, and so I will simply subjoin the hope that nothing will interfere with the speedy completion of your maiden effort--"NAPPER TANDY; or, 'TIS FIFTY YEARS SINCE." Don't startle at my naming your hero, and suggesting your plot; for though I will venture to say that I have hit the nail on the head, I assure you it is only a happy surmise. You must know that nothing could be so interesting as a recurrence to the exciting epoch of Ninety-eight; and why should not the sister kingdom have its romance, as well as the land of the Scots? I have always thought that Stuart rising very much overrated--a mere scratch to what happened in Ireland. Kilmarnock was a poor-spirited fellow compared with Emmet; and though there were many better men than Balmerino among the United Irishmen, it would be hard to find a worse one than Lord Lovat. I suspect, therefore, that besides your design, I have actually discovered your title page; though it is barely possible that the melancholy fate of Wolfe Tone, with the indistinct tone of ferocity that is perceptible in his name, may have suggested the compellation of that unfortunate gentleman, as more significant of the wolfish atrocities with which your tale will necessarily abound. Whatever be the name, make haste with the book, and do not wait ten years in order to have another "Sixty Years Since." You must see that congruity requires the semi-centenary, and that Sir Walter was a full decennium behind-hand. The demise of O'Connell at this interesting juncture, must be regarded as a coincidence every way satisfactory, whether we consider the fulness of his fame, the conclusion of an era, or the interests of your forthcoming work. It has prepared public sympathy, and tuned the strings upon which you call successfully play for the next quarter of an age; and I hazard little in arguing that your literary nativity will be accomplished under the ascendant of the most favourable planet.

Regarding you, then, as what you will speedily become--a successful adventurer, with a whole navy of American corsairs in chase of your literary cargo--the question takes this shape:--How does the American law of copyright affect you as a British author, and what can be done to save "Napper Tandy"? To answer you properly, let me first expound the law itself, which, for your special benefit, I have taken pains to examine.

You are doubtless aware that the constitution of this republic is one which answers the great test proposed by Tom Paine, who imagined it to be of the essence of a free constitution that it should be capable of being _put into the pocket_! That splendid capability was never more fully realised by the laws of a sixpenny club, than by the great charter of American liberties. It is a thing written on paper, and may be thrust into the breeches, or hung up on the wall, as best suits the notions of its worshipper, and his manner of exhibiting respect. Now the law of copyright is not here, as you suppose, a mere matter of statute; nor is the doctrine that an author has no perpetual property in what his intellect creates, a simple decision of courts. It is a part of the constitution, which empowers the national Congress "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing _for limited times_, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." An American writer has remarked, that its equivalent would have been the concession of a power to _promote_ the fisheries, by allowing to fishermen a _limited number_ of the cod-fish and herrings which they take on a Newfoundland fog-bank. Here then, you will say, is a fundamental obstruction to literary justice in America! But your hasty conclusion will show that you have thought but little on written constitutions. I agree with the Count de Maistre, that such instruments are of all things the most slippery. What is easier than for Congress to evade its restriction, and make the _limited time_ exactly the years of Methusaleh! Such a limit would be about as good as "to one's heirs for ever." But there is yet another facility in written constitutions: "a breath unmakes them, as a breath has made." In America, a constitution is as easily overhauled, new-ribbed, and launched again, as ever a sloop-of-war was dry-docked and new-coppered. Here, for instance, is the great "Empire State" of New York, with a constitution hardly a year old! The stripling who has just attained his majority, has actually survived the whole life of its predecessor; and he who lives half as long again, will see the new one superannuated and going the way of all written constitutions. The late constitution of this State was in many respects a noble one; but its successor plays the mischief with every thing; and I have heard an old freeholder complain that he hardly knows whether he has a house, a wife, or a head on his shoulders; so radically has the revolution affected whatever is social and civil. This will show you that there is, after all, no necessary perpetuity in the present condition of things; and so I come to the statute, which is the only just cause of complaint.

The English origin of the law is very apparent. It retains some features of the old statute of Queen Anne, with others of 54 Geo. III., which has lately been made so familiar in parliamentary reports. It secures authors in their property for a term of twenty-eight years, and provides for renewing this security for half that period, upon a renewal of entry. One copy of every work thus protected, must be deposited with the Clerk of the United States' Court for the District where it is entered; and by a late enactment, the author must contribute another copy to the library of "the Smithsonian Institute,"--that unmeaning benevolence of an unfortunate scion of the Northumberland family, which is already beginning to be regarded as a folly, and which one would think might have been made to subserve the interests of authors, rather than furnish another occasion for the exercise of legislative ingenuity, in adding to their many annoyances. The other important features of the Act are the penalty for piracy, and the restriction of protection to citizens and residents; in other words, the punishment of piracy in certain cases, and its license in others. Thus the same Act is dainty of rights, if the craft swim in rivers and bays, but hands over to the black flag whatever is found on the highway of nations. Persons pirating a copyright work are liable to a forfeiture of every copy in their keeping, whether of their own manufacture or otherwise; and besides this, to a fine of one dollar a sheet upon the same, of which one moiety goes to the author, and the residue to the government. Why should it be culpable to steal from a resident, and laudable to do the same thing with a stranger? If a foreign mechanic exports his goods, they are as safe in New York, as the wealth of John Jacob Astor; but no kind of mercy is shown to the product of a foreigner's brain--than which one would think nothing but his soul should be more sacred among all Christian men. On the contrary--not content with leaving him unprotected, there is in the tariff an express provision for the encouragement of plunder. No one pretends that the revenue of the United States requires the tax of ten per cent. _ad valorem_, upon all importations of "books printed, magazines, pamphlets, and illustrated newspapers, bound or unbound;" yet, such are the terms of the tariff of 1846, and it was designed expressly to prevent importations, and encourage the piratical, manufacture of such things at home. I say so, because it is notorious, and has been exposed by American writers themselves.

Now, let us see how "Napper Tandy" is likely to fare under regulations like these! Can it be possible, you will say, that the Model Republic cherishes designs so predatory; and is there no other explanation of a law which seems so outrageous? There are laws, I am aware, which are by no means what they seem, and British law is the last to dispense with a concession so important. I have, therefore, put this American statute into every light that seemed likely to show it to better advantage, and I confess there is one view of the subject, which, as being myself a resident, it gives me pleasure to suggest. Is it not conceivable, after all, that the original purpose of the statute was merely to extend, to exactly such worthies as the author of "Napper Tandy," a polite invitation to a literary sojourn in America? You know how many British authors, with no such inducements, have preferred Italy to their native land; and why should not this country, at least in the partial eyes of its own legislators, be worthy of a share of their company? The suggestion is equally complimentary to the law-givers, and to those whose society is thus held at a premium. It is true, that, excepting Will Cobbett, few English writers of eminence have taken the hospitable hint; but who could have foreseen this result, when so many of the literary race are perpetually sighing for lodges in the wilderness, and dwellings in the desert! Monsieur Dumas might indeed be reluctant to accept the flattering overtures of a country which is known to cherish such antipathies to his great ancestor Ham, and all that interesting family; and is quite, excusable for preferring the persecutions of French courts of justice, to the patronage which American law would more fully accord to his books than to his person; but why should not you, my dear Godfrey, become as original in your manner of life, as I am sure you will be in the productions of your genius? Why should you not court a "boundless contiguity of shade," and issue your immortal works from the depths of a Pennsylvanian forest, as gracefully as Lord Byron sent forth his from the more vulgarised retirement of Tuscany? Residing here, you could hold the sons of rapine at bay, enjoying at once your American harvests, and the golden remittances of your publishers in England. But the crowning consideration is this, that should you undertake the protection of your darling Maga, an arrangement with Mr Blackwood, and the publication of "Napper Tandy" in his incomparable pages, would seal the fate of the counterfeit, and forcibly recall to the mind of Reprint & Co. the sigh of Othello over his lost occupation. You stare--but it follows, by demonstration--

"For the intent and purpose of the law,
Hath full relation to the penalty."

You enter "Napper Tandy" in the "Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New York." The next number of _Blackwood_ comes out with your first chapter, which Reprint unguardedly produces in his _fac simile_. Don't you see, my dear fellow, that if you ever hooked a gudgeon, you have as certainly caught the republisher? You seize ten thousand copies in his warehouse, just as they are about to be distributed over the land. On each copy, he must pay, in addition to his forfeiture, one dollar a sheet; that is to say, ten thousand dollars for your first chapter; of which, after the government has gone snacks, one thousand guineas are your guarantee for the interest which the Republic takes in her invited guests; and (to the dismay of piracy,)

"The law allows it, and the court awards."

Mr Blackwood will doubtless take care that your work shall not be completed too fast: and as long as the interminable "Napper Tandy" continues, the press of the fac-simile must stand still. Meanwhile, you commence a legitimate reprint, under the genuine Ebony arms, and reign as a kind of lord-lieutenant, under his ambrosial majesty, Christopher the Great. The stereotype plates of Maga reach you every month, and the American public discern the difference between a true fac-simile and a cunning counterfeit. Instead of the sham _tête-de-Buchanan_, they see the very "trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;" and finding themselves as little taxed for the original, as ever they were for the humbug, vote you a public benefactor, and send a round-robin to Congress demanding the instantaneous enactment of a universal copyright law, if not the grant of a gold medal to the beneficent Godfrey. I anticipate, however, your reply. Ten thousand copyrights would not tempt you to pass more than three months in the year away from your Kentish comforts and cousins! Very well--then perish dreams of lord-lieutenancy; and learn the inevitable fate of your neglected literary offspring. The same day that Import and Profits advertise their London copies of "Napper Tandy," at five dollars a volume, any number of shirtless little vagabonds will be crying it in a pamphlet edition from Astor House to Wall Street, and through all the thoroughfares, for a currency shilling. I wish you might see your own degradation, as I shall be forced to behold that of my friend. Think of an illustrated edition coming out, under the auspices of Napper Tandy M'Dermot, Esq., in which that namesake of your hero undertakes to give your biography, and describes you as the occupant of a garret, in the receipt of wages from government, for manufacturing false representations of characters inestimably dear to patriots, and odious to tyrants only! Think of that person actually taking out a copyright for his edition of your own book, on the grounds of his thus doing for your character the very thing which he reprobates as your detestable trade; and so enjoying for no very "limited time," the enormous profits of the "standard American edition" of your outcast work. Permit me to add, significantly--

"The fault, dear Godfrey, is not in the laws,
But in yourself, if you are pirated!"

However, if you seriously ask me whether there is no chance of an alteration in the laws, even should you persist in refusing the invitation to America, I will candidly answer, that the progress of civilisation is probably independent even of you, and may very likely win the honours which would be yours, had you the boldness which fortune delights to favour. If you think me too sanguine, you can possibly obtain an interview with Mr Dickens, and qualify my representations by the discouraging views he will give you. They say here, that he came out to America on purpose to dun brother Jonathan, and it is still spoken of with surprise, that though shrewdly invited to dinner, he was not deterred from presenting his bill at the table. The slight misunderstanding to which such a manoeuvre very naturally gave rise, may have seemed to justify his doubts, as they did to check the good intentions of his entertainers, with regard to the speedy adjustment of grievances; yet I think I am not mistaken in believing that popular sentiment in this country is just now setting strongly in favour of a community of copyright between America and Great Britain.

As a mere question of ethics, it can hardly be expected that while doctors disagree, the popular conscience should be much disturbed by the flagrancy of the present laws; yet it is only justice to the tone of moral feeling which characterises what may fairly be called society in America, to say that it is correct, if not even generous. The leading periodicals, which may be taken as an index of the opinions of educated men in general, have always been true to principle in the discussion of this matter. The _New York Review_, which, during a brief but honourable career was regarded as speaking the high-toned sentiments of American churchmen, contained an elaborate article, as early as in 1839, in which the conduct of Congress, reference to the famous "British Authors' petition," was severely rebuked, and criticised as scandalously unprincipled and disgraceful. About the same time, under cover of its provincial blue and yellow, the _North American_, or, as Mr Cooper calls it, the _East American_ came out in defence of justice as toweringly as even Maga herself. The "British Authors' petition" had been fiercely opposed by a "Boston booksellers' memorial," which, among other things addressed to the lowest passions of the mob, argued against a copyright law, that it would prevent them from altering and interpolating English books, to accommodate republican tastes! Hear then how the Boston reviewers--who in spite of that snobbish sectarian air of perkiness and pretension which is usually ascribed to them, can now and then do things very handsomely--pounce upon their townsmen's morality. "We cannot help expressing our surprise," say they,[2] "that the strange and dishonourable ground assumed in that memorial, has not been more pointedly reprobated. We can only account for the adoption of such a document at all, by a body of respectable men, on the supposition that its piratical doctrine, respecting literary property, escaped the notice of the convention; ... for in our view, the doctrine to which those respectable gentlemen seemed to give their public support, was one to be mentioned, not in the company of honest men, _but only in the society of footpads, housebreakers, and pickpockets_." In an earlier number of the same work[3]--which was lashed by the _New York Review_ for its astounding ignorance of the most celebrated letters of Junius, and for quoting a judicial opinion of Lord Kaimes's as a speech in the House of Lords--the reviewer, whose blundering intrepidity is only saved from the ridiculous by the honesty of his attempt, comes down on a nobler quarry, and thwacks the memory of Lord Camden as if he had been another Thersites. Sir Joseph Yates gets a sound drubbing from the same sturdy avenger of literary property, for his share in the celebrated case of Millar _versus_ Taylor, as given in Burrow's Reports.[4] I have been pleased too with the succinct decision of a writer[5] who has produced an elaborate work on political ethics, in which he lays it down that "the right of property in a book seems to be clearer and more easily to be deduced from absolute principle than any other." Except among the most ultra and radical of theorists, I have met with nothing in American society, but a most hearty subscription to such views as these: but, alas!--said one in conversation upon this subject,--it is nothing that we think right, nor would it be much to bring the people to agree with us, unless something shall force it upon our demagogues.

Public opinion is not always sovereign in America, as the remark of my friend implies. It is curious to see how often a written constitution deprives a people of the very privileges it was intended to perpetuate and secure; and how the practical working of the American constitution is frequently the very reverse of its design. By the constitutional provisions, it would seem apparent, for instance, that the president of this confederacy must always be the choice of a majority of the nation's wisest men, themselves the free choice of the majority of the people. Yet here I have lived under three successive presidents, General Harrison, Mr Tyler, and Mr Polk, not one of them succeeding by the _free choice_ of any one, and Mr Tyler against the suffrages of all. The undefiled patriotism which is the hypothesis of the constitution, does not exist; party, which it seems hardly to anticipate, carries every thing; and parties are ruled by cabals. Thus the greatest national measures, instead of originating with the people, and taking shape in the hands of their servants, are begotten in closets and conclaves, dictated to time-servers and adventurers, and forced on the people, they cannot tell how--but in the name of democracy and freedom. Yet, after all, public opinion is important, because when even demagogues are inclined to do right, it is fatal to their action if public opinion be wrong. For this reason, it may be well for you to understand how far public opinion has advanced with regard to our question. Its progress has been slow, but I believe always in the right direction. Things promised well, when the Oregon dispute became the occasion of an unnatural animosity against Great Britain, and every measure which she was supposed to approve. In the hurly-burly of wind and dust that was blown up under that passing cloud, it is not to be wondered that Dickens and copyright were as completely forgotten as orthography, etymology, syntax and prosody, and whatever else goes to the art of using language correctly. A strip of land that would not purchase the copyright of an almanac, became the subject of the fiercest congressional interest; and the rights of authors, and with them the noblest relations of the republic to the other estates of the world, for the time were wholly lost sight of. "Copyright" then passed into a watchword with some of those underlings of literature, who thought to ride into favour as Cobden has been carried into fortune, by taking the tide at its ebb and ("like little wanton boys that swim on bladders") invoking the flood, as if their yelping and outcries would bring the turn any sooner. A copyright club was got up, it is said by a mere clique in this city, to which, from the mere justice of its proposed ends, large numbers of respectable men, throughout the country, gave in their nominal adhesion. I am not aware that it has accomplished any other result than to favour some ambitious young gentlemen in acquiring the autographs of eminent persons abroad, with whom they opened an officious correspondence; for it has been very generally voted a humbug, and has served to disgust many with the very sound of "copyright," which has thus been degraded into harmony with the scream of "Repeal" and "Free Trade." For awhile, none joined the vociferation, according to my informant, but persons whose stake in literary property was about as deep as the grievances of others in England under the income-tax, or the impost on wheel-carriages, hair-powder, and coats-of-arms.