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THE EIGHTH COMMAl^DMENT. 
 
THE 
 
 EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 CHARLES READS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 
 
 MDCCCJ-X. 
 
author's EDITIOJf. 
 
 University Preae, Cambridge t 
 Printed by ■Woicli, Bigelow, and Company. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Justice is the queen of the virtues, and the durable policy 
 of men and nations. 
 
 To urge on behalf of justice, that, in literary commerce, 
 and in all other trades and transactions, she pays best in the 
 long run, is to lower her ; for if she did not pay at all, our 
 arms ought to fly open to her, so good and beautiful a thing 
 she is. 
 
 Unluckily I have to plead for her, not to angels, but to 
 members of Parliament. 
 
 Now these are mixed men, and must be handled accord- 
 ingly. Some of them can rise to noble sentiments ; others 
 can rise, with a little shove from the feathered lever, to long- 
 sighted views of national interest ; and others can rise to 
 nothing ; they represent a large constituency. 
 
 Those two classes in Parliament and the nation will now 
 be invited to cleanse the country of an unwise iniquity. 
 
 Should the appeal fail, I shaU have to go on blushing for 
 the people I was bom among. 
 
 StUl I consent to fail, if I cannot convince my men of 
 honour that the act in question is unjust and perfidious, and 
 my men of sense that it is shallow, unstatesmanlikfe, and 
 impolitic. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 CAP. II. 
 
 FoK the last nine years we have been juggling an ally ; 
 the very one that ought to have been sacred from our 
 " tricks of trade." 
 
 For it is the first ally that has ever fought by our side 
 without sending us in a biU. Other nations have been our 
 mercenaries, but this is our brother in arms. 
 
 Our individual victims have been as ill selected as their 
 nation. The French dramatic authors are men, to defraud 
 whom is to disgrace oneself: first, because they are about 
 the most distinguished body in the entire world ; secondly, 
 because their public acts, recorded in British and other 
 journals, are very just, generous, and delicate. 
 
 The English are never unanimous in injustice. A few 
 remonstrating voices have been raised at intervals. 
 
 I myself have spoken a word or two, and done a thing or 
 two, and been bespattered with a calumny or two, and bled 
 a hundred pounds or two, in this sacred cause ; and, so far 
 as my personal narrative can aid the general argument, it 
 shall be forthcoming in its place. But grander figures shall 
 pass before your eyes. I am but an heir to their intelli- 
 gence, and their views of policy and right. 
 
 And here it is only fair to utter a warning that may per- 
 haps part me and half my readers on the spot. Loose 
 thinkers assume that a gentleman who writes fiction in his 
 novels must write fiction in his essays, and his records of 
 fact. Non sequitur. To import the charming defects of 
 fiction into History and Criticism would be to corrupt fair 
 Science, and offend rectitude and good sense. 
 
 My tubs must stand each on its own bottom. 
 
 All I can here promise my habitues is not to wash the 
 colour out of those true incidents I have to record. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 CAP. III. 
 
 CiviLXZATiON has many meters. 
 
 Criminal law learning to spare light offences against mo- 
 rality, and to net subtle vices. The other branch of juris- 
 prudence giving up the prejudice against " prevention," its 
 fullest and most beneficent remedy ; breaking a faggot of 
 fictions, and turning science. 
 
 Theology showing gleams of toleration, alias Christianity. 
 In medicine, the lancet setting ; soap and water dawning. 
 In criticism (so called), verses on Tarquin by a "Whig al- 
 lowed by a Tory print to be poetry. 
 
 Souled animals two hours at dinner instead of four. De- 
 cline of drunkenness in monarchs, prime ministers, chancel- 
 lors, bishops, and dignities in general. Mechanical inven- 
 tors no longer chastised ; often rewarded. 
 
 Advance of a Briton's literary property towards the se- 
 curity and sanctity that hedge his house, hovel, haystack, 
 and dunghill. 
 
 This last is a sure though indirect sign of progress. 
 
 Not that writers are a more important body than many 
 others ; but because it gives the State more trouble to keep 
 thieves off their productions than off other skilled labour- 
 ers' ; and also because it needs a superior intelligence to see 
 that ideas, and woven words, can be made property, and that 
 they must be, or else their authors outlawed, degraded, and 
 starved, and the community suffer in the end. Wherefore 
 those who can gauge the understandings of nations hailed as 
 an era in civilization the year 1851. For in that year the 
 chief nations of Europe agreed that intellectual property 
 should pass frontiers and sheets of water, yet still be prop- 
 erty. They protected each other's authors by an Inter- 
 national Copyright Act, putting them on a level with the 
 native author _/br a term of years. 
 
 It was a large act of equity and fraternity, and a step 
 towards that great human blessing still so distant, uniformity 
 of laws in civilized countries. 
 
8 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Such an act was too noble a thing to be openly opposed, 
 and far too noble not to be furtively resisted by some creep- 
 ing thing or other. Accordingly, the legislatures of France 
 and England undertook, and honestly intended, to protect 
 every class of authors upon suitable conditions : these in the 
 case of the dramatic author were somewhat severe and 
 harassing : but this added sanctity to the protection he was 
 to acquire ; for this kind of law is a special contract between 
 the legislature and the citizen interested. 
 
 Here we see the mind of the two legislatures. But pres- 
 ently was smuggled in a proviso that shines forth both in its 
 wording (a) and morality, the product of a distinct mind, 
 and an English mind, and a theatrical conscience, instead of 
 a legislative one. 
 
 The results are, — 
 
 1. A Statute divided against itself. 
 
 2. An Act, that aimed at international justice, degraded into 
 
 a feat of partiality and international injustice. 
 
 3. The French inventor robbed, and the English inventor 
 
 starved, to foster the most dishonest and the stupidest 
 of all the literary pirates, that filch under false colours, 
 from China to Peru. 
 
 This is no hasty conclusion. Words and acts of mine are 
 in print to show how reluctant I was to believe the protec- 
 tion sold so dear to the dramatist in the heart of the statute 
 is all juggled back in the proviso, together with the heavy 
 expenses the promised protection inveigles him into. 
 
 For years I kept saying there must be some difference 
 now-a-days between Legislation and Leger-de-main ; and 
 
 (a) The proviso runs thus : It is understood that the protection, stipu- 
 lated by the present article is not intended to prohibit fair imitations, or 
 adaptations of dramatic ivorks to the stage in England and France respec- 
 tively, but is only meant to prevent piratical translations. 
 
 "Adaptation " is an English word, and represents an English practice 
 of two hundred years. " Appropriation," in the French version of the 
 statute, is an attempt to translate this word, and an unsuccessful one. 
 So is "imitations faites de bonne foi" an attempt to render that other 
 piece of " thieves' Latin " into honest French : but the attempt has 
 failed, and the law stands worded somewhat differently in the two lan- 
 guages. So that a dramatic inventor might win in France a suit versus 
 imitatorem that he would lose in England, and the contradictory ver- 
 dicts rest on the same sentence of the same statute. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 9 
 
 that difference must be all in favour of justice, broad policy, 
 and national honour. I am undeceived; and so shall the 
 public be, and those British senators, who in 1851 were 
 earwigged (a) by the smallest dunces of the century into poi- 
 soning their own fair child, and making a fool of me, and 
 the French authors, and themselves. The best way to re- 
 move the scales from others' eyes must be to relate in order 
 how they have been torn from mine, explaining by the way 
 the immortal principles involved in this passage of my life. 
 Ay, immortal. Actions small in size are sometimes in prin- 
 ciple and policy wide and lasting as the world. 
 
 These comments will carry me into " Literary Statesman- 
 ship," and now and then into " Criticism." 
 
 How diiferently my cotemporaries and I understand these 
 noble sciences will be sure to come out by and by. I will 
 just premise that there is, " me judice," but one road to truth 
 in literature, or any human thing ; viz., the method of the 
 Naturalist and the Jurist ; and that I propose to import their 
 method into " Literary Statesmanship " and " Criticism," so 
 far as my shallow learning permits. Every general position 
 advanced in this piece is the fruit of investigation, and wiU 
 be sustained by legal, or else by quasi-legal evidence. By 
 this latter term applied to so wide a field as a writer's, is 
 meant the highest class of evidence attainable on any given 
 point ; or, to use general terms, direct evidence of such a 
 stamp as, could it pass the forms of their respective courts, 
 would weigh with Prussian, French, English, or American 
 judges, deciding property or life. These are great stakes : 
 but Truth is never a small one ; and, in matters of literary 
 judgment, she has too long been left to the mercy of tradi- 
 tion and assertion, and guess-work variously disguised, while 
 theft at the bar can insist on pure evidence, and suits at Nisi 
 Prius, that end in 40s., are sifted with the gathered science 
 of centuries. 
 
 This is all right : so that must be all wrong if Truth, 
 per se, is worth a straw. 
 
 Evidence then will follow each statement marked *, surely, 
 but sometimes slowly, narrative intercepting. 
 
 (a) This is a vqlgar, but invaluable word. It is applied when public 
 men listen to private parties creeping to their ear on the sly. Earwigs 
 should be shrunk from. Convictions bawl. 'T is interests whisper. 
 
10 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Therefore, should a tenet with a * startle you, don't reject 
 it, nor admit it, but entertain it under protest till its proofs 
 arrive. 
 
 The * that comes a Paradox may go a Truism. 
 
 CAP. IV. 
 
 Either a treaty between two nations binds every indi- 
 vidual of each nation, or no individual in either nation. 
 
 Since there is no third alternative, decide between those 
 two! 
 
 You have decided as I decided in 1851. 
 
 True patriots stand to a bad bargaui made by their repre- 
 sentatives, rather than discredit their nation in foreign eyes. 
 
 But the bargain of 1851 is a fair one ; for it is an even 
 one. 
 
 "When a strong nation dictates unequal terms to a weak, 
 or a subtle outwits a credulous, the treaty talks thus : "Tou 
 shall give me A, and I will give you what I choose ; " or 
 thus : " You shall give me A, B, and C, and I '11 give you D, 
 E, and F." Here sly selection peeps. 
 
 But when it says, " You, and you, and you shall give me 
 A, B, and C : and I 'U give you, and you, and you A, B, and 
 C, one might as well try to tarnish the sun in heaven as dis- 
 parage the leading principle of such a treaty. 
 
 The voice is the voice of Equity, and the words are, 
 " Give and take ! " 
 
 Equitable between people and people, the Treaty of 1851 
 was also just between man and man. It removed a relic of 
 sordid partiality from the laws of Europe. I will explain. 
 
 An author, in the opinion of the public (unless its acts 
 and arguments are no clue to its impressions), is 
 
 {The Popular idea of an Author.) 
 A disembodied spirit, solidified at intervals to pay taxes 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. H 
 
 and tradesmen, returning to aether when the funds are to be 
 acquired, without which, tradesmen (a) and taxes cannot be 
 paid. As a debtor, flesh and blood ; and to be clapped in 
 prison with comments on his bad management : as a cred- 
 itor, soul : and if he won't let those who live by him cheat 
 him and starve him into debt, you sigh, and down goes an- 
 other of your bright illusions. " Oh, hollow world ! " is now 
 the cry ; " this poet was the idol of our fancy and our heart : 
 we worshipped him : so deep, so sincere was our veneration, 
 that we were for swindling him into the workhouse, and his 
 wife and children for his sake; and the hollow impostor 
 says (J) ' he '11 see us hanged before he '11 let us.' " (Short 
 metre). 
 
 But Law is not a romantic rogue, nor a sentimental 
 butcher ; and in the eye of the Law an author is 
 
 Not a tax-payitig vapor, nor an embodied debtor, spirit 
 creditor, nor any lusus naturcB whatever, but simply a skilled 
 labourer employed in producing. 
 
 His production becomes his sole property, not because he 
 is an author, nor because he is a workman, but because he 
 is a workman who has bought all his materials, viz., writing- 
 paper, pens, ink, education, knowledge, and has done all the 
 labour of the production, and not compounded his title to it 
 for wages. 
 
 Now from this, its universal creed of labour and property, 
 European law had excluded one human creature, the for- 
 eign author. 
 
 Here is a glimpse of the defunct theory at work. 
 
 An author with 2000 (c) hours' labour creates an intel- 
 
 (a) These ninnies pester one for coin. Blind to their true interest, 
 they won't take a bright idea in exchange for a leg of mutton, or a 
 shirt. 
 
 (6) The poet who vented so coarse an octosyllabic was perhaps 
 thinking of those great geniuses and benefactors of mankind, whom 
 their cotemporaries have driven into the jail, the madhouse, and the 
 grave, by merely acting on the notion that jackdaws live on grain, 
 nightingales and their broods, on air. 
 
 The name is legion of martyrs so murdered, and, what is worse, de- 
 graded. 
 
 (c ) Few books tempt another nation to print them, that have not 
 taken more hours than that. 
 
12 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 lectual production. * It is saleable per se, though muddle- 
 heads have assumed as a self-evident truth that it is not.* 
 
 But it is more saleable when harnessed to a distinct prop- 
 erty of a miscellaneous kind, comprising paper, print, print- 
 ers' ink, binding, etc. These are produced, not, like the 
 other property, by one hand, but by fifty hands, working an 
 aggregate of say 1600 hours, and compounding their fifty 
 titles for wages. 
 
 Now the in-Justinians of Europe held that when an edi- 
 tion of a foreign author was printed, papered, and bound in 
 a country, all those fifty labourers, and all their 1600 hours, 
 ought to be paid as usual, but not one of the 2000 hours of 
 the isolated labourer who had produced the most precious 
 half of the allied property. To narrow the fallacy to one of 
 its points, the French journeyman printers in an English 
 printing-house were to be paid for helping to reprint their 
 countryman's work, but not he for creating it, and making it 
 worth reprinting. 
 
 Thus you see it was not the foreigner qua foreigner these 
 self-deceivers outlawed, but an old and favourite victim, the 
 author. 
 
 So tight did they cling to this partiality, that * even when 
 they admitted the foreign mechanical inventor to patent 
 rights, they still refused the kindred rights to his elder 
 brother, the literary inventor.* 
 
 This last stroke was " a curiosity of legislation " without a 
 parallel. 
 
 One nation, to its immortal honour, disowned this blind 
 partiality. 
 
 So early as 1810, France, governed by the great legis- 
 lator modern history has to show against the four or five 
 renowned names of antiquity, took the foreign author under 
 the wing of Justice, and gave him the legal status of the 
 foreign carpenter, printer, and other skilled labourers. 
 
 (Forty years ahead ! (a) Is no gratitude or kindly feel- 
 
 (o) If you look upon our international statutes of 1838 and 1844 as 
 bona, fide statutes, you can reduce the above figure to 28. But stat- 
 utes, the sole and manifest object of which is to spin words and do 
 nothing, are compositions, not real acts of legislation. Those two 
 sham statutes never put a shilling into any foreign author's pocket. 
 Nor were they ever intended to. Newgate thieves and literary pirates 
 are not to be restrained by buzz, buzz, buzz, even when buzz, buzz, 
 buzz, is printed among the statutes of the realm. 
 
THK EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 13 
 
 ing due to that noble nation for this ? Clearly none — from 
 hogs; but surely some from authors. Well, the time is 
 come for English writers to show whether they are authors 
 or hogs.) 
 
 Unfortunately international equity is a see-saw ; one leg- 
 islature can sit and wait on it, but one cannot work it. 
 
 French subjects very properly declined to buy of foreign- 
 ers who went on taking from them without buying ; and so 
 up to 1851 France and England took gratis from each oth- 
 er's authors whatever intellectual productions seemed worth 
 taking. This was " exchange of commodities " in its primi- 
 tive form — a la Cherokee. 
 
 I myself played my part under this unjust equity. I 
 took from French dramatists the following works, produced 
 before the treaty : — 
 
 1. A close version of "La Bataille des Dames," which I 
 
 called "The Ladies' Duel" (a). 
 
 2. An abridged version of " Angelo." 
 
 3. « Village Tale," an adaptation from « Claudie." (G. 
 
 Sand.) 
 
 4. " Art," an adaptation of « Tiridate." 
 
 5. " Courier of Lyons." A free version. 
 
 And, at the very time when the treaty came out, I was on 
 the point of taking the drama of " Le Chateau de Grantier." 
 Nor did I resign that intention ; I only varied the mode. 
 For the object of this treaty was not to prevent foreign au- 
 thors' ideas from being taken, but stolen. Before the treaty 
 they could not be stolen, for they were not property ; nor 
 could they be purchased ; for the foreign author could not 
 sell : he could not give me any undeprivable possession of 
 his work in England, in return for his undeprivable posses- 
 sion of my money in France. 
 
 But the treaty created two things, a new morality, and 
 new powers ; on the one hand it dissolved equity of mutual 
 pillage, and founded the higher equity of mutual purchase : 
 on the other hand it offered the honest plagiarist that which 
 he never had obtained under the old system, and could 
 never obtain by theft — property. 
 
 (a) It was christened in the theatre " The Ladies' Battle." 
 
14 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 " Chateau Grantier " was a fine drama, is a fine drama, 
 will be a fine drama ; and though it could not now be appro- 
 priated malgr6 the author, by any man of honour or delicacy 
 or respect for his nation, it could clearly be had for money : 
 what can't? I wrote a line then to its author and pro- 
 prietor, Monsieur Auguste Maquet, and requested an in- 
 terview, to deal for the commodity in the spirit of the 
 new treaty. 
 
 But Monsieur Maquet has so many titles to esteem, that 
 to introduce him merely as " a writer with whom Mr. C. 
 Reade has done a small stroke of business on the square," 
 would be as false in history as a narrow definition is in sci- 
 ence. Permit me then a slight sketch of him. 
 
 Auguste Maquet was born in the Rue Quincampoix, Sep- 
 tember 13, 1813. 
 
 He had a good father, who knew the value of education, 
 and made him learn at home the lessons he had to say at 
 school. 
 
 There was but one difficulty. Auguste was passionately 
 fond of reading. It is a taste which might, perhaps, by an 
 adroit and undignified tutor be reconciled with education; 
 but the simpler course is to curb it. 
 
 Maquet's father, observing him to be distracted from the 
 Muse of Grammar by his thirst for such trifles as biography, 
 history, romance, and drama, came to his aid one day, and 
 led him, with kind and encouraging admonitions, to a tran- 
 quil spot where he could concentrate his genius on a single 
 production of the human mind. 
 
 The retreat was a pigeon-house; the companion-book a 
 Latin grammar. 
 
 Leaving these two to blend, Maquet senior retired. By 
 one of those perverse anomalies that are so common, the 
 amateur of grammar had a private library, the shelves of 
 which were loaded with delightful books on every imagina- 
 ble subject — except grammar. This treasure-house was 
 close to the dove-cot. So our young hawk used to emerge,* 
 fill his talons with romances and plays, then flutter back and 
 devour them, palpitating with fear and delight. 
 
 After a while his sire discovered this, and once more be- 
 friended his solid studies. 
 
 He padlocked the pigeon-house, falcon included. 
 
 Thus debarred unwholesome food, the omnivorous one fell 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 15 
 
 beak and talons upon the rudiments of two languages now 
 no more, and devoured them with avidity, but no relish. 
 The fair sex saw, pitied, and interfered with its usual ad- 
 dress. A bell-rope hung from an upper story, and nearly 
 touched the aperture of the dove-cot. Maquet's little sister 
 used to draw up this rope and fasten interesting books into 
 the bight ; then lower them to the hungry captive. 
 
 These two dug a fearful hole in the library. 
 
 But one day the French authors, descending rashly, actu- 
 ally went and knocked at Maquet senior's window on the 
 road. He looked out and saw them gravely settle on the 
 Greek temple : a furtive hand came out ; they went in. 
 
 Maquet senior followed them (not by the same route), 
 and remonstrated kindly, but firmly. 
 
 When he came out he removed the padlock, and his son 
 abstained from the library — you understand. 
 
 Chased from the Rue Quincampoix by filial affection and 
 respect, contraband literature returned full gallop in the Col- 
 lege of Charlemagne. Here it was the young Maquet said 
 the lessons he learned at home, and he came thither letter 
 perfect ; so much so that, whilst the others were studying, 
 he found time to write a romance, furtively, under the eye 
 of the professors. 
 
 The production of a work of modem art under these con- 
 ditions has its peculiar difficulties, especially if the composi- 
 tion is on a large scale. I have often seen a stanza or a 
 caricature thrown off with effect in such places ; but an im- 
 mortal painting with really faithful likenesses of the tutors 
 and professors, or a romance in three volumes, is liable to 
 interruption, the motive of which may be childish, but the 
 effect conclusive. 
 
 To avert physical accidents from the MS. during its intel- 
 lectual progress, Maquet was obliged to have a coUaborateur; 
 he chose one admirably qualified, by his desk having a pat- 
 ent lock. 
 
 All went clandestine and sweet, till the joint production 
 approached its climax : but then, as none but the virtuous 
 can agree long, these conspirators fell out. 
 
 The romance turned on the adventures of three friends, 
 whom Maquet had hitherto spared, not from genuine be- 
 nignity, but because a premature decease in so small a band 
 would have mutilated the story : a tripod can't spare a leg. 
 
IQ THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 But now their hour was come. When, lo and behold, col- 
 laborateur interposed with 
 
 " Homicide point ne sera.'' 
 
 CoUaborateur was one of those tame writers (of whom I 
 am one) who fall in love with dramatis person*, and hate 
 to shed the poor things' bloods. After a long argument, 
 which roused their ire, and confirmed their separate views, 
 says Maquet — 
 
 (a) " Eh bien, soit : partageons le diff^rend ! que Nicanor 
 vive et soit heureux! Quant h Petrus, j'exige sa mort. 
 Eeste Jehan : nous allons, si tu veux, le tirer k la courte 
 paille." 
 
 Genius has no luck. The mild boy drew the long straw ; 
 and Maquet, by the stern laws of collaboration, had to assist, 
 with gloomy eye and aching heart, at two weddings, and 
 even to hint at two numerous progenies. This done, he fell 
 upon the wretched Pierre, and, by George, sir, he not only 
 killed him now, but roasted and ate him ; brought on a troop 
 of cannibals who did the business in a turn of the spit. 
 
 Naughty little boy ! 
 
 However, there are excuses. He was but thirteen : had 
 never experienced what men feel at being roasted and 
 eaten ; and was irritated to fury by the escape of Jehan 
 and Nicanor. ' 
 
 This vent cooled the romance fever, and was naturally 
 succeeded by a lucid interval, in which he gained the first 
 Greek prize at the College. (Rhetoric.) 
 
 He bound the laurel on his brows, and began a comic 
 romance in ten volumes. This time he chose for a coUabo- 
 rateur a boy who wrote a beautiful hand, and aspired but to 
 copy and conceal. 
 
 But too little intelligence in a literary accomplice is as 
 dangerous as too much. One day the associated caligrapher 
 found a passage under his pen droller to his mind than 
 Rabelais or Scarron, and forgetting that he was copying on 
 the edge of a volcano, burst out into a howl of laughter, 
 amidst surrounding tranquillity. 
 
 (a) " Well then ; let ns sjilit the difference ! Let Nicanor live and 
 be happy. But I am determined Pierre shall die. There is Jehan left. 
 We will draw for him if you like." 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 17 
 
 ibi omnis, 
 Effusus labor, etc. 
 
 There was a general pounce of professors, and the MS. 
 was nailed. 
 
 The copyist was fast coining to grief, when Aristides 
 reared himself, and claimed the undivided dishonour of the 
 invention. 
 
 It was accorded ungrudgingly, and he was invited to re- 
 tire to the bosom of his family for the preSent. 
 
 That family did not open its arms to him on this occasion, 
 and poor Auguste, mortified and penitent, averted his eyes 
 from his century, beat his soul into a pickaxe, and mined the 
 ancients with sombre fuiy. 
 
 And now came a new psychological phenomenon. In the 
 intervals of classical toil Auguste no longer wrote or read 
 romances. 
 
 He fell into reveries. Sat motionless an hour at a time ; 
 cheek pale, brow knit, eye vague, body limp. 
 
 His worthy father endured a seated statue of " pale-eyed 
 Contemplation " in his house a good while ; but at last it 
 wore out his patience. Like that theatrical manager who 
 insisted on the key-bugle playing on all the same during his 
 " rest" he spurred the contemplative one — " Mon ami, je 
 t'en conjure, travaille serieusement, utilement ! Songe des 
 k present k te faire un avenir. II n'y a rien au monde qui 
 me soit plus antipathique qu'un paresseux." 
 
 In my quality of writer of fiction may I intrude a difier- 
 ent interpretation ? Auguste's fits of lassitude and reverie 
 were, I think, the natural consequence of a severe struggle 
 between duty and inclination, in which inclination was de- 
 feated ; but not eradicated. A woman, whom good sense or 
 principle forces to resign a man she loves, shows just like 
 Auguste ; not one diagnostic diflfers : and there are a few 
 men in every nation who love an art as some women can 
 love a man there is something wrong about. A less worthy 
 youth would have indulged his tastes on the sly, and been 
 jolly as a sandboy coram Patre. 
 
 Tn one of these remonstrances something was said which 
 hurt the sensibility or touched the conscience of Auguste, 
 and what does the poor boy do but go off to his old tutor, 
 and offer to aid him in instructing the junior collegians for a 
 bare maintenance, and the usual fees. The offer was warmly 
 2 
 
18 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 accepted, and the dreamer earned his own bread from that 
 hour. 
 
 But as he neared the Eue Quincampoix, he walked slower, 
 for, though proud, he was sad ; and might not even this look 
 like revolt ? 
 
 It was not so read. The father saw his own manly char- 
 acter reflected in his son, whom he had thought his opposite ; 
 and gave him his esteem. 
 
 Teaching others he taught himself; and venting his ro- 
 mance seems to have agreed with his classical studies bet- 
 ter than bridling it. He wrote plays (a) with Gautier and 
 Gerard de Nerval, and passed Bachelor of Arts in the Uni- 
 versity (Bachelier es Lettres). 
 
 Previous to this there was an episode. 
 
 One morning he went out shooting in Paris, A.D. 1830. 
 Whether he shot for the crown, or the people, or gave them 
 each a barrel in turn, I don't know ; and shall not inquire : 
 for this going out shooting in the streets ("la chasse en 
 viUe," eh ?) was not among the serious pursuits of " the 
 young Frenchman jadis." 
 
 Soon after his baccah/wreat, a Latin prize poem gained 
 him the further degree of Licenci^ es Lettres, with great 
 ^clat ; and being now a student for his Doctor's degree, he 
 set to and wrote a pretty little romance in verse (" Alejo 
 Peres "), and published it, and a host of fugitive pieces, in 
 the periodicals. He signed none with his name, for an Uni- 
 versity is a jealous mistress. 
 
 Spite of this precaution, his " crime de Podsie " oozed out, 
 and the five veteran professors that assembled in the Sor- 
 bonne (like our judges in Banco), to hear him read his 
 thesis, and admit him or refuse him Doctor, eyed him ascant 
 from under their square caps, as he bowed to them, MS. in 
 hand. 
 
 Moreover, Hugo and Dumas had just raised the standard 
 of the romantic school ; the classical school was up in arms ; 
 and forty thousand dunces, who were neither romantic nor 
 classical, decided in a moment which of these two beautiful 
 things ought to be eradicated for the sake of one vile thinw, 
 — Monotony. 
 
 (a) One of these, "Lara," was accepted with enthusiasm by the 
 " UJo'on," and buried in a drawer; whence, they say, the authors 
 emulating the manager's indifference, have never condescended to 
 draw it. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 19 
 
 Hence a civil war in Literature, and Universities in a 
 state of siege. 
 
 The suspected one read a brilliant discourse, reflecting 
 t\e very sentiments of his judges, and was carrying all be- 
 fore him, when suddenly, in the middle of a suspicious sen- 
 timent, came a phrase branded " ROMANTIC," in capitals. 
 
 The would-be doctor was insinuating that apologue need 
 not be presented bare of ornament. 
 
 " Que serait la fable, sans cette po^sie qui nous enchante ? 
 voile diaphane, qui, sans cacher la r^alitd, lui jette un reflet 
 16ger qui I'anime et la colore, comme un frais tissu rose 
 semble donner la vie k une statue de marbre." 
 
 Oh ! oh ! " frais tissu rose," cried the square caps, and 
 burst out laughing. 
 
 " Frais tissu rose est bien trouvd," said the president, with 
 sly irony. 
 
 The young man blushed, and appealed to his tormentors ; 
 began to defend his phrase modestly. 
 
 " J'ai pu me tromper, mais enfin, suivant mon sys- 
 tfeme . . ." 
 
 " Ah ! vous avez done un systeme, vous ? " cried the 
 president, coarsely, interrupting him. 
 
 " Pourquoi pas. Monsieur ? " retorted Maquet haughtily ; 
 " vous avez bien le v6tre ! " 
 
 This was a " coup de Jamac ; " for the president hap- 
 pened to be a system-monger ; a personage nowise rare in 
 France. 
 
 Having shut up' his judge, he rolled up his manuscript, 
 and there was no getting him to read another word. 
 
 In excuse of this, which looks like temper, I must remark 
 that he was young, and justly oflfended. In his country po- 
 liteness mingles in all the relations of life. " Frais tissu 
 rose " may be a little eccentric for aught I know, or a little 
 petit-mattre, or it may not ; at any rate it is French. But 
 to interrupt (couper la parole k) a laurelled scholar with, 
 " Ah ! vous avez done un systeme, vous ? " is not French. 
 
 Probably the old gentleman saw down to his merit all the 
 time, and only meant to tease him a bit, to take the gloss off 
 him. At all events they appointed him a Professor of Rhet- 
 oric soon after. The viper turned on them, and made rhet- 
 oric interesting; he illustrated each point and each topic 
 
',20 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 with a wealth of classical anecdotes, gilt romantic : he flung 
 so rosy a tissue round the grand but dustyish skeleton, an- 
 tiquity, that his pupils sat thrilled instead of yawning, and 
 cast uneasy glances at the clock, hitherto their best frien^. 
 In short, he lectured as Cicero or Quintilian would have lec- 
 tured in modern Paris, which naturally disgusted the admir- 
 ers of Cicero and Quintilian. So they watched for him like 
 cats, and luck befriended them. They detected a single 
 false quantity in a piece of verse, the elegance of which was 
 not disputed. He had made " i " in " Mibus " long ; a mere 
 slip of memory the more pardonable, as it might very well 
 have been long, to distinguish its nominative from " fides," 
 faith. 
 
 With this handle they put another mortal affront on him. 
 
 " La cruche qui va souvent k I'eau finit par — se remplir." 
 
 Maquet had now had as much cold water thrown on him 
 as flesh and blood could stand ; so he flung back one drop of 
 ink. 
 
 History caught it as it fell, and here it is. 
 
 " MONSIEOR, 
 
 " L'Universit^ est une mere bien dure pour ses enfants. 
 Je vais demander k la litt^rature ce qui I'Universite me re- 
 fuse ; gloire et profit. 
 
 " L'avenir prouvera si j'ai eu tort ou raison." 
 
 And so he dismissed himself from the professariat, and 
 became what we call at our Universities " a private tutor." 
 His family, sympathizing with him, opened its arms. He 
 responded by dining with them every day, and giving a daily 
 lesson to his brothers, per contra. 
 
 His whole family now underwent him with a resignation 
 that other families should try and imitate. 
 
 A genius in a family is a dispensation: it is idle to 
 deny it. 
 
 " Darnm. Sed levius fit patienti& 
 Quicquid corrigere est nefas." 
 
 And it would be " nefas " to ungenius our geniuses. Earth 
 is not overrun with them as it is with insects. 
 
 Maquet had five or six MS. plays in his desk. One of 
 them, entitled " Un Soir de Carnaval," was proposed to a 
 manager. Monsieur Antenor Joly, and by him admired and 
 declined, according to the formula. Gerard, Maquet's friend 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 21 
 
 took it to Dumas. Dumas liked it, waved his magic pen 
 over it, called it " Bathilde," and sent it to a manager, who 
 accepted " Bathilde" with zeal. The manager was Monsieur 
 Antenor Joly. " Bathilde " was played with success. 
 
 His next trifle was " Le Chapeau Gris Perle," a story 
 produced in the "Journal de Paris," now called "Le Pays;" 
 and after that we find him on " Figaro." 
 
 He wrote a dramatic story, called " Le Bonhomme Bu- 
 vat," and sent it to the " Presse." Editor kept it a month, 
 then declined it. 
 
 As Maquet paced the Boulevards smarting, he met Du- 
 mas, who asked him if he had nothing by him. " I have 
 only the ' Bonhomme Buvat,' " said Maquet, sorrowfully. 
 . Dumas pricked up his ears. " That is a good title," said 
 he. " Come, tell me something about your 'Bonhomme.'" 
 
 Auguste glowed, and poured out a part of his story. 
 
 " That will do : send me the MS.," said Dumas. " I am 
 off to Italy to-night." 
 
 Dumas took the " Bonhomme " with him, worked on him, 
 and in a few weeks the " Bonhomme " came out, and charmed 
 all Europe as "The Chevalier d'Harmental." Meantime the 
 fertile Maquet produced " La Charabre d'Asile," " Deux Mots 
 sur un Mur," "Le Beau d'Angennes," and "Madame de Li- 
 miers." For the third time, hazard united him with Dumas 
 in "Antony," and then was established on a grand scale that 
 intellectual alliance to which the world owes the most bril- 
 liant romances of the century. 
 
 " Les Trois Mousquetaires ;" " La Eeine Margot;" "Une 
 Fille du Regent ; " " La Guerre des Femmes ;'" " Monte 
 Christo " (pyramid of romance) ; (a) " Vingt Ans Apres ; " 
 "La Dame de Monsoreau;" " Le Chevalier de Maison- 
 Eouge ; " " Les Quarante-Cinq ; " " Les M^moires d'un 
 M^dicin ; " " La Tulipe Noire ; " all these great stories were 
 
 (a) This phenomenon astoanded costive writers, and set them utter- 
 ing, hy way of solution, old wives' fables, that tuined the wonder into 
 an impossibility. The account the authors themselves gave was the 
 only credible one. These worl«s were flunp off by even collaboration 
 of two most inventive and rapid writers. Some of the work was writ- 
 ten in almost less time than a single hand could have transcribed 
 it. I believe they still show at Tronville, in a fisherman's cottage, the 
 chamber and table where the pair wrote the first four volumes of 
 " Monte Christo " in sixteen days. 
 
22 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 poured upon the public with a rapidity that has scarce a 
 parallel in the history of letters. 
 
 Protected by a copyright law, *which is no stricter than 
 ours, but is enforced by loyal and able tribunals that rise to 
 the moral and intellectual level of the law,* the collabora- 
 teurs placed most of these great stories on the stage, and 
 reaped a double harvest (a) of glory and profit. 
 
 Alas ! another trial was in store for him who had fought 
 up so bravely. 
 
 Dumas, if I understand it rightly, used to treat with the 
 publishers and managers, and settle with his collaborateur. 
 Dumas fell into arrears with him, arrears which, if his heart 
 alone had been to be consulted, would have been paid to the 
 centime ; but unfortunately he had other creditors, who in- 
 terposed with legal powers. 
 
 In short, the situation was so desperate, that Maquet had 
 no course open but to withdraw from the connection ; he did 
 so, leaving one hundred and thirty thousand francs behind 
 him ; say £ 5,200. 
 
 Do you know what a loss in four figures means when it 
 falls upon an aiUhor ? 
 
 It means — " Begin the world again ! " 
 
 Many have lost heart, and thrown themselves away, or at 
 least have flung up in despair the great and hard game of 
 literature, and taken to the little and easy one, on a less 
 blow than this. 
 
 But this was a steel pen : not a goose-quill. 
 
 At thirty-eight years of age he began a fresh cai'eer. In 
 1851 he produced, with Monsieur Jules Lacroix, the poetic 
 drama, " Valeria," (6) and by himself the fine drama of 
 " Chateau Grantier." 
 
 Such was the character, and such had been the life or 
 campaign of the writer with whom " La perfide Albion," in 
 
 (a) Had they been English dramatists, some heartless and unprinci- 
 pled vagabond would have swindled them out of that right in every 
 inatance : as Mr. Dickens, Sir E. Balwer, and other masters have beea 
 pillaged, and as Messrs. Shepherd and Creswick, of the Surrey The- 
 atre, and Mr. Conquest of the Grecian, have robbed me of my dramatic 
 property in " It is Never too late to Mend." 
 
 (i) This play met with singular success in London ; was played four 
 times in succession at the St. James's Theatre, in July, 1851. It is the 
 play in which Mademoiselle Rachel personated two sisters, a queen and 
 a courtesan. 
 

 -.''-s£» 
 
 
 A. MAQUET. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 25 
 
 my person, now sought an interview, to treat for « Le Cha- 
 teau de Grantier." 
 
 I was received by Monsieur Maquet at his house near the 
 Boulevard du Temple. 
 
 _ I had to open the conference. I acknowledged the obliga- 
 tions of the English theatre to French authors, and expressed 
 myself willing and even desirous to inaugurate that fairer 
 interchange, which the new treaty rendered possible, and 
 proper. 
 
 My sentiments have not varied an iota since that day, and 
 what I said to Maquet in vile French, I have said over and 
 over again to my own countrymen in some of the best Eng- 
 lish going ; I mean by the best, the plainest. 
 
 Yet not one of my countrymen has shown one symptom 
 of understanding me. But this Frenchman understood me 
 " h demi mot." He approved, but was not in the least sur- 
 prised at my sentiments, and we went to business. 
 
 I made him two proposals ; half the English proceeds of 
 my version of " Le Ch3,teau Grantier," or a sum down and 
 a per centage on my receipts after reimbursement of that 
 sum. He chose the latter proposition. 
 
 Here some delicate female, or some canting pettifogger (for 
 to rob an author the extremes of nature will meet), cries 
 out, " How disgusting ! how vulgar! two poesy-gilt vapours 
 chaffering for a glorious production of the mind ! " 
 
 Would it have been less vulgar to steal it than to buy it ? 
 
 In commerce international, especially literary, common 
 honesty is too rare to be vulgar. 
 
 * " Grattez un romanesque, vous trouverez un coquin ! " * 
 
 However, there was mighty little chaffering in this case. 
 
 The writers of fiction, I mean of that kind, in which you 
 can tell by the language whether it is a countess speaking or 
 a washerwoman, have a great intellectual gift, the power of 
 putting themselves in another's place ; and nothing facilitates 
 equity, conciliates jarring interests, and puts business on 
 rails, like this single talent. I went to Maquet, because I 
 had said to myself, "If you had written ' Le Chateau Gran- 
 tier,' would you prefer to sell it, or be robbed of it ? " And 
 he was not behind me in talent, as you may suppose : he put 
 himself in my place. 
 
 " We will attach a clause to this agreement," said he, " to 
 
26 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 the effect that, should no English theatre play the piece in 
 two years from this date, half the sum you pay me now shall 
 be returned to you." 
 
 I said, "I thought there was no necessity for such a 
 clause ; I had friends in management, and relied on {he 
 merit of the piece." But the older writer insisted on giving 
 me the benefit of his experience. 
 
 " The drama is remarkably successful here," said he, and, 
 I venture to think, might be so in England, as it is founded 
 upon nature and not upon manners ; but managers are some- 
 times capricious, sometimes mistaken." And he added the 
 clause. 
 
 The next day I paid him the sum proposed, — forty 
 pounds. 
 
 On receiving it he once more put himself in my place. 
 
 " Had you not better send me this from England ? " said 
 he. " Paris offers many pleasures to a stranger, and I should 
 be sorry to curtail yours." 
 
 I appreciated the offer, but insisted on completing the 
 business then and there. To tell the honest truth, in those 
 days I had not always forty pounds in my pocket, and, if I 
 had spent it in Paris, might not have found it waiting for me 
 in Loudon. 
 
 There were passages in "Le ChS.teau Grantier'' not 
 playable in England. I had to write an original act, and to 
 reconstruct, condense, and alter, two of the French acts. 
 
 The writers of my" own country were now to be consid- 
 ered : lest, therefore, any other adapter should set to work 
 upon the " Chateau," I wrote, while ray adaptation was in 
 progress, to an agent in London, and he advertised in the 
 " Times " that the drama had been made English property 
 under the treaty. 
 
 I did not myself return home until the spring ; nor did I 
 see the English papers during my absence. What follows is 
 the result of recent researches, and may give a temporary 
 pleasure to those readers, who care for the honour of the 
 country even in so low a matter as the fine arts. 
 
 Every great act of national probity and long-sighted policy 
 hurts a clique or two, or seems to hurt them (a), and their 
 
 (a) Sometimes even these cliques find out it only thwarted their short- 
 sighted views of interest, not their real and permanent interest. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 27 
 
 organs in the press resist the public good with more zeal 
 than blushes. 
 
 Yet this treaty, though it met with some open dissentients 
 in, the German, Belgian, and Italian papers, encountered 
 none in the English press, at all events at this period. My 
 myrmidons and I have searched the files too closely to be 
 mistaken. We have detected a dead ignoble silence in the 
 more pompous and sordid pretenders to literature ; but the 
 weeklies and the journals do not share their want of sym- 
 pathy with the immortal part of letters. Many of these, 
 speak out, and all that do speak support the treaty ; and on 
 grounds, and in terms that do them honour. 
 
 Some of these prints are my personal enemies ; heaven 
 knows why ; I don't ; and I am sure they don't. However, 
 it will give me more real pleasure to be just to them than 
 they will ever derive from being unjust to me. 
 
 The sincere inquirer into our national sentiments, as dis- 
 tinct from those of unpatriotic cliques, should begin by read- 
 ing Lord Campbell's noble judgment, delivered in Boosey v. 
 Jefferys this very year, 1851, and the comments of the press. 
 Lord Campbell's judgment, so favourable to foreigners, 
 was acquiesced in by all those able judges that sat with him in 
 this case, viz., Patteson, Maule, Coleridge, Cresswell, and 
 TaJfourd ; to whom, and to the memories of such of them as 
 have since joined " the company of just men made perfect," 
 be honour in this and every land where " stranger " is a sa- 
 cred name, and justice is even handed between man and 
 man, as well as between native and native. 
 
 Besides the cotemporaneous comments on Boosey v. Jef- 
 ferys, I have discovered several notices on international 
 copyright scattered about the period of the treaty. As I 
 have not hunted ex parte, but to learn the truth ; and as the 
 following are all the notices I have fallen in with, I feel quite 
 sure we have here the voice of the daily and weekly press 
 upon the general question : — 
 
 " The Examiner," 1851 : — Nov. 29. 1852 : — Jan. 24 ; 
 Sept. 4 ; Oct. 30. 
 
 " The Leader," 1851 : — Nov. 15 ; Nov. 29. 
 
 « Sunday Times," Dec. 7, 1851. 
 
 « The Era," Dec. 7, 1851. 
 
 "The Critic," March 15, 1851 ; Feb. 2, 1852. 
 
 " The Times," 1851 : — Nov. 19, page 5, column 6 ; Nov. 
 
28 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 26, page 4, column 3 ; item, page 8, column 6 ; Dec. 1, page 
 4, column 6. 
 
 « The Illustrated London News," 1851 : — May 24. 
 
 « The Literary Gazette," 1851 : — May 24 ; July 5 ; Nov. 
 15; Nov. 22; Dec. 13. [The last three are not in your 
 Index, " Literary Gazette."] 
 
 " The Athenseum," 1851 : — Jan. 18 ; March 15 and 29 ; 
 June 7 ; Aug. 2 ; Sept. 20 ; Nov. 22. 
 
 « The Art Journal," Sept. 1851 ; Nov. 1851. 
 
 « The New York Literary World," cited by « Critic," 
 March 1851. 
 
 " The Edinburgh Review," not a word. " The Christian 
 Observer," 0. "The Dublin Review," 0. "The British 
 Quarterly," 0. " The London and Westminster," 0. " The 
 Dublin University," 0. "Blackwood's Magazine," 0. "Era- 
 ser's Magazine," 0. " New Monthly Magazine," 0. "North 
 British," 0. " Eclectic Review," 0. " The Quarterly Re- 
 view," 0. A bead-roll of empty skulls. 
 
 "The Literary Gazette," 
 
 Nov. 15, 1851, was the first to announce the treaty in 
 England, and published a short summary of its five main 
 articles : observed that — 
 
 " This is the first time England and France have entered into 
 such a treaty, and that the best thanks of both nations are due to 
 the governments of both nations for having, in spite of many ob- 
 stacles, concluded it : hopes that Belgium and the United States 
 will follow so good an example, and reminds them they are now 
 in a minority of two : declares it to be for the advantage, both of 
 authors and publishers. ' But the parties who will be principally 
 affected will be dramatists and translators : henceforth they must 
 pay a toll to the authors whose works they take. En revanche, 
 their translations will be protected. To be sure, dramatic transla- 
 tors and managers will perhaps grumble at the toll, seeing that the 
 protection will scarcely be worth a straw, as the same piece is sel- 
 dom produced at two (a) theatres. But really it is but simple 
 justice they should give the Frenchmen, whose pieces they borrow, 
 a portion of their gains.' " 
 
 (a) Quite a mistake. The same piece is invariahly produced at many 
 houses, if it draws monn/ at one ; and if it does not, it is no more worth 
 stealing than buying j the author's fee being a mere drop of water in 
 the nightly expenses of an English theatre. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 29 
 
 Dec. 13. Prints a letter from Cologne, of date Dec. 10, 
 by an impartial observer of piracy, and what it ends in. 
 
 This is a piece of legal evidence, furnished not by a man 
 with a theory, but by a mere gossiping observer of things as 
 they are. In literary researches it is not every day one can 
 fall in with evidence so pure. 
 
 " The news of a literary convention between England and 
 France, which reached our newspapers first through your journal, 
 made a strong impression. They (the Prussian publishers) cast 
 their longing eyes at the translation clause. And in justice it 
 cannot be denied that translations from English books have be- 
 come a nuisance to all parties concerned. I know this sounds 
 strange ; (a) but, if you have patience for a short explanation, you 
 will readily assent to my pronunciamento. 
 
 " About thirty years ago the first translations from English were 
 brought to the German market. The Waverley Novels were ex- 
 tensively circulated, and read with avidity by all classes. Next 
 came Bulwer, and after him Dickens, and other writers. Eival 
 editions of the same works sprang up by the half-dozen; the 
 profits decreased, and the publishers were obliged to cut down 
 the pay of the translators. I know that a translation-monger at 
 Grimm pays about 61. for a three-volume novel. 
 
 " These works, got up in a hurry, and printed with bad type on 
 wretched paper, are completely flooding the market ; and, as they 
 are much cheaper than original works, they are a serious obstacle 
 to our national literature. Thus much for our share in the mis- 
 eries of free trade (6) in translations. 
 
 " Now for yours. There are able men in Germany, who, were 
 it made worth their while, could and would put the master-works 
 of your novelists and historians into a decent German garb. But 
 under the present system these men are elbowed out of the field. 
 The worst is, the publishers are killing one another." 
 
 He then shows that they are beginning to be afraid to lay 
 out their money in translation, since, if successful, half a 
 dozen other publishers come out with rival translations, and 
 tear the speculation to rags. 
 
 (a) Not to me, my naive friend, nor to any man who has really 
 studied copyright and piracy. 
 
 (b) This is a foolish and inapplicable phrase. Free trade is free buy- 
 ing and selling, not free stealing. 
 
 The English don't steal the Swedish grower's corn, any more than 
 they did before free trade. So opposite are the two ideas, that, in the 
 very treaty which gives the Frenchman intellectual property in Eng- 
 land, you will find preparations made to lighten the Custom-house 
 dues on French books. Vide 15th Victoria, chap. 12, sec. 12. 
 
30 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 The letter ends with these words — 
 
 " Hence it is that some of your best works remain untrans- 
 lated." 
 
 [A century of cant smashed by this line.] 
 
 " AtHENjEUM." 
 
 Aug. 2, 1851 : — 
 
 " M. de Lamartine, convinced that the protection of literary 
 property, both nationally and internationally, is a most legitimate 
 and desirable object, makes an appeal to English honour and hon- 
 esty against any piracy of his ' History of the Restoration.' 
 
 " When questions of this kind are before us, it is never unsea- 
 sonable, even at the price of repetition, to refer to the noble atti- 
 tude taken by the publishers of Paris, when they proposed to 
 disregard the power an unfair law placed in their hands, of pirat- 
 ing foreign books." 
 
 The reviewer then expresses his hope, for the credit of 
 English business, that no London publisher will pirate M. 
 Lamartine's work. 
 
 Sept. 20 : — 
 
 " It is with great regret we hear of the complaints made by the 
 ' Cercle de la Libraire ' against the booksellers of England. The 
 ' Cercle,' we are told, was desirous of delegating some of its mem- 
 bers to concert the conditions of this question with the principal 
 publishers of London ; but Monsieur Pagnerre, its president, found 
 the English publishers more or less indifferent, excepting some of 
 them to the question as it regards America. ' To the moral bear- 
 ings of the question,' says our informant, ' they appeared tolera- 
 bly callous.' " 
 
 Nov. 22. Four columns on the treaty. 
 
 "By the fourth article, dranjatic authors obtain similar rights; ' 
 but, to make his reservation legal, the author is bound to produce 
 the translation of his work withm three months of the date of its 
 registry. This is one of the ticklish points of the convention ; the 
 Paris theatre standing in much the same relation to the London 
 playwright as the English author does to the reading public of 
 America, or the French author to the Berliners. 
 
 " In case of reclamation, it is provided that the question, whether 
 the reproduction of a dramatic work at a foreign theatre is an 
 imitation or a piracy, shall be decided by the legal tribunals ; a 
 point that will, we suspect, often present phases of extreme diffi- 
 culty to the pundits of the bench." 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 3I 
 
 Noticing the advance of international morality, the article 
 states that neither American authors, nor American pub- 
 lishers in general, share the dishonesty of American states- 
 men towards foreign authors. 
 
 A Golden Anecdote. 
 
 "A short time ago, a French dramatist having vainly 
 attempted to get a seat at a Belgian theatre (a), where one 
 of his plays was attracting crowds, requested to speak to the 
 manager ; and mentioned his name, never doubting that his 
 being the author of the piece about to be acted would secure 
 his admission to the house." 
 
 " Very likely," was the cynical reply, " but we know 
 nothing of authors here." 
 
 [I gather that the author had to pay the thief for a sight 
 of his work being stolen, and sold to the public. I have 
 done the same thing in England, three distinct times ; viz., 
 paid the pirate for a sight of the theft of my property, and 
 its destruction too.] 
 
 The article concludes, by stating that one of the principal 
 pirates and senators of Brussels had just laid a balance-sheet 
 before his accomplices, that proved piracy was not thriving. 
 
 "The Critic," 
 
 March 15, 1851, cites with approval a column from "The 
 New York Literary World," in which that paper warmly 
 advocates copyright between the United States and Great 
 Britain, and tells us that American authors are unanimous 
 in its favour, and have urged it again and again in book, 
 pamphlet, and newspaper, and by memorial and petition : 
 also that a club had been organized with this view, with Mr. 
 Bryant for its president. 
 
 The American article concludes by urging the friends of 
 copyright to memorialize the Cabinet in Washington and 
 
 (a) I wish somebody would raise Canting Camden from the grave 
 and rub his nose into this piece of evidence. Canting Camden was the 
 great apostle of " Iniquity to Authors " in the last century. He held, 
 inter alia, that the more an author should be outlawed, and robbed of 
 the proceeds of his labour, the more he would be revered. 
 
32 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Downing Street cotemporaneously to propose an interna- 
 tional treaty to the legislatures of each country. 
 
 The " Critic," Feb. 2, 1852, commenting on the provisions 
 of the treaty, and referring to a previous notice, says : — 
 
 " It will be seen they fully support our argument for the im- 
 mediate formation of an Authors' and Publishers' Protection 
 Society." 
 
 "Rem acu tetigit." [Ten years' experience has shown 
 me the sagacity of " The Critic's " remark.] 
 
 " Examiner.'' 
 
 Nov. 29, 1851 : — 
 
 " The distinction between what is piracy, and what is adapta- 
 tion or imitation, becomes highly important. The treaty says that 
 legislation and judicial decision in each country must determine 
 it; but it will never do to have the legislation on such subjects' 
 differ in the two countries. 
 
 " The great result to be kept in view by all men of all coun- 
 tries, who have an interest in this question (and what civilized or 
 educated man has not ?), is the identity and universality of one 
 law in so important (a) a matter." 
 
 "The Illustrated London News." 
 
 Weekly circulation 120,000 copies, at &d. Has an admir- 
 able leader on international copyright. May 24, 1851 : — 
 
 " A great deal yet remains to be done. There is no concert 
 among the nations of the world to do justice to each other, and 
 to the genius which is the advantage and the ornament of them 
 all." 
 
 The paper then complains of the iniquity perpetrated on 
 the French authors throughout Europe (France excepted) 
 by the Belgian press, and reproaches the three greatest na- 
 tions in the world with their want of large policy. 
 
 " Whatever has been done has been local and partial. But 
 
 (a) Bravo ! " Examiner." There are just two men in this island 
 that have seen that; you and I. And much I fear no British states- 
 man will disturb our monopoly of this idea, till another fifty years 
 have been wasted fiddle-faddUng with piracy ; oiling the hand to hold 
 tho eel of eels. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. g3 
 
 good books are of no country ; they are the heritage of the world, 
 and the world would enjoy more of this valuable commodity if it 
 would recognize the claims of those who write them, and foster 
 genius instead of allowing it to be crushed. 
 
 " But at this period in the history of nations, new and generous 
 ideas have taken root, and perhaps it is not too much to hope 
 that, amid other civilizing and ennobling results of the industnal 
 gathering in 1851, an international copyright may be included." 
 
 Reflecting on the iniquitous partiality in the interpreta- 
 tion of law by some of our courts, which iniquity had just 
 been knocked on the head by Lord Campbell and the judges 
 of the Exchequer Chamber, the article puts the logic of lar- 
 ceny very neatly. 
 
 " An English book was treated by the Courts like any other 
 commodity produced by skill or acquired by industry, and so was 
 a foreigner's watch : but not a foreigner's book." 
 
 "The Times." 
 Nov. 26. A leader. 
 
 " The most hopeless subject of negotiation with the govern- 
 ments of other countries has long appeared to be an international 
 copyright law. Intellectual produce has been the only descrip- 
 tion of goods excluded from equitable conditions of exchange. 
 .... The various governments of Europe, and the United 
 States of America, have from time immemorial virtually declared 
 that a work of literature or art, the property of a single individ- 
 ual, was a fair mark for piracy and theft. Genius has been out- 
 lawed. The property it should have owned, whether in its most 
 splendid or most trivial productions, has, by the comity of nations, 
 been treated in the same way as the goods of a convicted felon (o). 
 All this has been done in the broad light of day, under the sanc- 
 tion of the most distinguished statesmen of the most civilized na- 
 tions of the world." 
 
 After giving exanjplea of French, English, and American 
 genius pillaged, the writer points out a peculiar cruelty. 
 
 " Still worse, copies might be, and actually were, mxiltiplied at 
 a cheap rate in Brussels, and disseminated over the whole Conti- 
 nent Nor in fairness can the reprehension be confined to 
 
 the leading statesmen of the time : the real blame lay with the 
 great bulk of the population, whether in Europe or America. 
 
 (o) This is eloquent,. but it is the simple truth. 
 
34 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 There has long existed a profound, immorality of thought with re- 
 gard to the productions of genius. Men have said : ' It is our 
 interest (a) to have the readiest means of access to the works of 
 literary men. Their labours cannot be the subject of property 
 any more than the wild fowls of the air, etc., etc' 
 
 " How shortsighted the policy has beep the example of Belgium 
 will best evince. The effect of the habitual piracy practised by 
 the Brussels publishers has simply been the extinction of original 
 literary genius throughout Belgium. 
 
 " We are glad to be enabled to state that a treaty for the sup- 
 pression of this most di^aceful system has at length been signed 
 between England and R'ance. It is stated, that if the provisions 
 are not more complete, that, if they are not framed with a retro- 
 active as well as a prospective effect, the fault does not lie at the 
 door of the French government. 
 
 " The concluding article, of principal importance, puts dramatic 
 productions on the same footmg as other literary works," etc., 
 etc., etc. 
 
 Dec. 1: — 
 
 " At Paris the recently concluded literary convention has been 
 submitted to the National Assembly, and has afforded the highest 
 satisfaction." (6) 
 
 Thus the English press nailed its colours to the mast, — 
 the colours of international probity and standing policy, — 
 and was writing honestly in the spirit of the treaty, while I, 
 uninfluenced by their remarks, which I never saw till last 
 year, was acting honestly in the spirit of the treaty. The 
 coincidence is worth something in the argument. 
 
 On my return to England, in the spring, I found to my 
 great sorrow that the English playwrights generally were 
 little disposed to sympathize with my views. One or two 
 good-humoured sneers even reached me. The theory in this 
 quarter seemed to be, that in all matters connected with 
 such a dunghill as the English theatre, statesmanship is 
 vain, and — 
 
 " Honour but an itch in youthful blood 
 For doing acts extravagantly good." 
 
 (a) As if it was not as much their immediate interest (though not 
 lasting policy) to steal every cow off every common, and every shirt off 
 every line out of the owner's sight and power to protect it. 
 
 (6) This proves that the French government did not understand that 
 the main French literary export was still to be stolen. They would 
 not have signed it. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 35 
 
 Such sentiments, even if they were not degrading, would 
 be emetics to my understanding. For what mortal thing 
 would ever have been improved by man if its then low 
 state had been assumed to be its highest possible state ? 
 
 On the other hand months passed, and " Le Chateau 
 Grantier " was respected in England as property. 
 
 At this period then the balance fluctuated. The dramatic 
 clauses of the treaty clearly admitted two interpretations ; 
 the one honourable, and consistent with the spirit of the 
 whole treaty, the other dishonourable, and self-contradictory, 
 and opposite to the whole spirit and intention of the treaty, 
 as will be shown anon. The balance trembled, and at this 
 moment, if I had been backed by a dozen honest men, ay, 
 even by half as many as could not be found in Sodom, the 
 British escutcheon would have escaped a lamentable stain, 
 and I a vast loss of time and money, and much suffering and 
 care, and you this cursed autobiography, which chains me 
 to a disagreeable theme, when I ought to be away singing 
 brave men and lovely women. 
 
 At this crisis, when everything thus combined to give 
 double importance to him, a new personage stepped on the 
 scene between the two nations, — Mr. Charles Matthews. 
 
 Mr. Charles Matthews was at this time the manager of a 
 first-class theatre. He could insure the immediate perform- 
 ance of any piece he should treat for with France. I could 
 not. He was therefore on this, and many other accounts, 
 as powerful'in this question as I was weak. He had only 
 to oppose international integrity, to be well supported ; he 
 had only to give his loyal adhesion to the treaty, to be well 
 supported. Other managers would have followed him, and 
 a good custom once founded would have turned the balanced 
 scale the right way for ever. 
 
 Mr. Matthews then came forward between two great na- 
 tions with a letter, or pamphlet ; and it was addressed to the 
 French authors; which promised well; for we English have 
 a sense of shame (often where we have no other virtue), 
 and seldom invite the approval of those we mean to de- 
 fraud. 
 
 It is a sprightly tract, sensible here and there, downright 
 funny everywhere, and supematurally illogical. 
 
 In paragraph 1 he is a boxer, and offers the French au 
 thors his hand, preparatory to a combat with them. 
 
36 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 In paragraph 2 he disowns for his French style all com- 
 petition with the French Academy, but promises to be intel- 
 ligible. 
 
 In paragraph 3, forgetting he is a prize-fighter, courteous 
 but hostile, he is a " weasel : a penitent weasel, who has 
 long sucked the eggs of Gallic nightingales." 
 
 .... "And I am here to offer you my congratulations on 
 your having at last asserted your rights in the British domin- 
 ions." .... 
 
 Ere he gets to the end of this paragraph the penitent 
 weasel, late pugilist, is " an old fox feigning penitence, and 
 a wish to amend his ways." (a). 
 
 The character of their correspondent being thus settled 
 as clearly as three contradictions, of equal authority, can 
 settle it, Mr. Matthews goes to work, and shows the French 
 authors, — 
 
 1st. That England is a place not worth their attention as 
 a source of income : that there are twenty-three theatres in 
 London alone ; but that out of these only three play French 
 pieces. His way of proving this, not by a list of their 
 pieces, but by a priori reasoning, founded on comic sketches 
 of the class of piece that is popular at those respective the- 
 atres, is unique in drollery as well as reasoning. It is Har- 
 lequin Thomas Aquinas. 
 
 The broad fact, that the English theatre owes little to the 
 French, being thus driven, he rivets it by particulars. In 
 1851, says he, the London theatres took but eight pieces out 
 of two hundred and sixty-three produced in Paris. These 
 eight he enumerates. This startling fact, he feels, demands 
 a solution. He furnishes an obliging one, — 
 
 The general indecency and folly of French pieces. 
 
 " We used to steal them in days gone by, and would steal 
 them now," says he, " but they are no longer worth stealing, 
 they falsify history so ; besides, they offend chastity : " and 
 on this our Proteus turns Cato censor (5), and chides the 
 French authors on moral grounds for not making their plays 
 
 (a) This last statement (making allowance for metaphor) I have 
 found better borne out by legal evidence than any other fact advanced 
 in this pamphlet, not excepting the statistics. 
 
 (6) Or Juvenal ; for, in his ardour for propriety, he says one or two 
 things that are none too fit for little girls. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 37 
 
 less inaccurate, more moral, more fit for a thief's use. Off 
 at a tangent on another line, and points out the innumerable 
 and insuperable diflBculties that must prevent an English 
 manager from buying a French piece of its author. He as- 
 sumes, without saying why, that the French dramatist would 
 not, in return for the English purchaser's money, give him 
 a discretionary right to adapt his piece to English audiences, 
 but would insist on its being literally translated, — and 
 damned : in other words, he assumes as self-evident, tl^at i 
 his superiors in intelligence must be egotistical fools (a com- \ 
 mon hallucination). He then points out the inefficiency of 
 the treaty. The manager who should buy a piece would 
 get nothing for his money but a lawsuit ; and wliat manager 
 would buy on such terms when he can steal on the same ? 
 
 He then is suddenly seized with a fraternal regard for the 
 reputation of his milch cows, and warns them, with visible 
 anxiety, against imitating Monsieur Auguste Maquet, who has 
 been so injudicious as to sell "Le Chateau de Grantier" to an 
 English writer. Who the purchaser is Mr. Matthews has been 
 unable to discover ; and, therefore, since he knows nothing 
 about him, can tell the French authors all about him. It is 
 some rich ninny, who is going to buy up all the French 
 pieces, and resell them at a profit. In such hands, he tells 
 them, they might make money ; but would lose reputation. 
 " Now don't set your hearts upon mere money ! " " establish 
 a tariff, make acquaintance with our best authors (singularly 
 enough, that phrase always means, in this pamphlet, Mr. 
 Nemo, Mr. Outis, Mr. Nescioquis, Mr. Incognitus, Mr. and 
 Mi's. Anonymuncula, and Mr. Matthews), our best theatres, 
 and actors, and think a little of your reputation before you 
 think too much of emolument" (o). By this course, he 
 hints, they will attain immediate glory ; and profit at some 
 period indefinitely remote. When he is dead, eh ? 
 
 " Apres moi la probity ! " 
 
 And now, considering that this composition is addressed to 
 the French authors by an influential Englishman in a strain 
 which, however impertinent, coming as it does from a mere 
 creature of their talent, is not unfriendly, the reader begins 
 to be impatient to know what is that precise thing which Mr. 
 
 (o) It is not love of money that inspires this sort of advice ; oh dear, 
 no. 
 
38 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Matthews, as manager of a theatre, -will do for his friends 
 and benefactors over the water, in return for all they have 
 done for him in years past, and all he now proposes to them 
 to forego in favour of him and his clique the best authors 
 unknown. It is a man of business who writes, and having 
 told his correspondents what he won't do, and what he wishes 
 l^hem not to do, it is now for him to say what he will do in 
 return. 
 
 This reasonable expectation he meets as Johnny Cope 
 welcomed the Highlanders, — 
 
 " Gentlemen, I have the honour of wishing you a very good 
 morning. 
 
 " Charles J. Matthews." 
 
 And exit on the light fantastic toe. 
 
 Opinions of the Press. 
 
 The " Era," July 25, 1852, approves in general, and 
 adopts the conclusions ; promises a detailed critique next 
 week, and forgets all about it. Very excusable : in our 
 home news " truditur fur fure." 
 
 " Sunday Times " approves it warmly, but points out the 
 quibble about the eight pieces, and the slippery use made of 
 tiiat quibble in the argument. 
 
 " Times," in a side article of two columns, halts between 
 two opinions, and does a bit of " Gratiano ; " says " an infi- 
 nite deal of nothing " — in good English. 
 
 "Morning Herald" glum over it. Complains in general 
 terms of its flippancy and mendacity ; -and says seriously, 
 that its humour is not the humour of Sidney Smith. It 
 would be odd if it was, considering that Sidney Smith was 
 the wisest and most far-sighted Englishman of his day, and 
 one of the honestest and clearest headed, as well as droll- 
 est. 
 
 "Morning Chronicle," July 27, in a long article cuts it to 
 ribands, so far as assertion can mangle assertion. " Chroni- 
 cle" says as much as that every statement in the pamphlet 
 is either a falsehood or a quibble ; and, inter alia, declares 
 that all the English theatres, without exception, are fed by 
 French brains, more or less : reminds Mr. Matthews that 
 no Englishman has benefited by French talent as he has, 
 etc., etc. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 39 
 
 " Morning Post," after paying a just tribute to the writ- 
 er's easy, d^bonnaire, and rattling style, describes the pam- 
 phlet as written with two main views. 
 
 " 1st. To disabuse the dramatic authors of France of the absurd 
 notion that every piece produced at the London theatres is of 
 Gallic origin. 
 
 " 2ndly. To incite them to the production of a wittier and less 
 licentious class of plays." 
 
 The " Post " then goes through Mr. Matthews' statements 
 and opinions, accepting the one and indorsing the other. 
 
 Were I writing for Mr. J. S. Mill and Co., instead of for 
 the public, it would matter little to my argument at its pres- 
 ent stage whether Mr. Matthews is correct in his facts or 
 not. Equity and honour are bound to resist a small tempta- 
 tion as well as a large one. Say that we only take eight 
 French plays per annum ; what follows? Why, then the 
 treaty, loyally fulfilled, will only take a small sum out of the 
 nation, — say 240Z. Is not the national honour worth 240^. 
 per annum? We let foreign artists of a lower class (o) than 
 the French authors take a hundred thousand pounds out of 
 the country every year ; * in our physical exports and im- 
 ports we deal more on the square with every nation than it 
 deals with us : * and between the two shall we stick in one 
 nasty little lump of incongruous improbity to tarnish for a few 
 pounds a commercial escutcheon, for which we have sacrificed 
 millions ? to steal eight miserable plays in the teeth of a na- 
 tional treaty, under which they can be bought for 240Z., or 
 less ? Is this the sort of national dishonesty to propose to a 
 keen people, that knows the money value of character ? 
 
 We are merchants, not cleptomaniacs. 
 
 But weak as Mr. Matthews's reasoning seems to me, it 
 proved strong enough for his readers. From the date of this 
 publication the dramatic part of the treaty declined gradually 
 but steadily into contempt, till in practice it became a mere 
 nullity. The journalists of the better class who had nailed 
 their colours so nobly to the mast (vide p. 27-34), now ran 
 down into the hold, leavingtheir colours nailed to the mast, and 
 me fighting under them alone. Ay, fighting alone under their 
 colours for years and years. What wonder the battle was lost ? 
 
 (o) Italian singers, French actors and dancers, German flute-players, 
 and fiddlers from all the ends of the earth. 
 
40 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 It would be misplaced arrogance in me to slight so suc- 
 cessful a piece of ratiocination, logical or not ; we will there- 
 fore examine the facts, the more so as the second division of 
 mj subject requires that they should, if possible, be ascei^ 
 tain ed and settled now. To perfect so comprehensive an in- 
 quiry i must ask some assistance. But at least I can put the 
 investigation on a basis instead of letting it dance in the clouds. 
 
 It was asserted by Mr. Matthews and others, that the 
 English theatres were very little indebted to French authors 
 at the, date of his pamphlet. The exact contrary was as- 
 serted by the " Chronicle," and others. But we are not at 
 the mercy of assertions : there is legal evidence to be got, — 
 the play-bills of the period. 
 
 And here my sincere thanks are due to Mr. Croker, for 
 the zeal and care with which he has compiled the play-bills 
 of 1851, 1852, and 1853, in his "Dramatic Register" (o). 
 But for that zeal and care I might now be spending three 
 months' hard work collecting the legal evidence his industry 
 and fidelity have placed so generously at the dramatic his- 
 torian's disposal. 
 
 Mr. Croker's plan is to notice every importantchange in 
 the play-bill of the theatre whose performances he is noting. 
 You are to understand, therefore, that between the dates of 
 his respective entries the new pieces he has already named 
 were performed ; in most cases, the very pieces last entered ; 
 the London theatres varying their week's bill but little as a 
 general rule. I shall strike out the benefit nights, because 
 these are always exceptional performances with which we 
 have nothing to do. It is I who assign each play to its na- 
 tive land, where I can ; and where I can't without assist- 
 ance, I leave it open. His facts are sacred ; where I make 
 bold to word him for sake of brevity, etc., I put " C. K." 
 The type of these pages will be kept standing for any alter- 
 ation< or information the public may honour me with, and 
 such will be gratefully received. 
 
 Aftfr playing upon our two great Italian opera houses ; 
 of which No. 2, he says, was started because there were not 
 amateurs enough in the town to fill No. 1. Mr. Matthews 
 comes to the theatres ; and my advice to the British critic, 
 and the French dramatist, is to enjoy his fun as I do, and 
 keep a sharp eye on the legal evidence. 
 
 (a) Beware of confounding this careful compilation with a late pro- 
 duction which resembles it in title only. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 41 
 
 Mr. MATTHEWS. 
 
 " Drury Lane, 
 
 the other ex-National house, 
 ifl, alas ! ninre like an omnibus 
 than a theatre, — a huge omni- 
 bus running sliort stages at a 
 very low price, but with plenty 
 of noise : changing its coach- 
 man every other day, and, in 
 order to entice the mob (though 
 without succeeding in the at- 
 tempt), printing the slang of 
 the cads upon the way-bill. 
 Authors have but little to hope 
 for here. The present man- 
 ager, poet-librettist, dreams of 
 nothing but English operas, 
 marble halls, and ballets. 
 Drop a tear, gentlemen, and 
 pass on in silence. It is the 
 mausoleum of Shakespeare.'' 
 
 "The Olympic 
 
 is a respectably-conducted the- 
 atre, but its low prices of ad- 
 mission cannot allow any great 
 extravagance in authorship. 
 They generally play there old 
 standard English comedies and 
 
 filays, cheap anonymous trans- 
 ations from the French, and 
 original pieces by second and 
 third class English authors. 
 You may glean slightly in this 
 little field, gentlemen, I think, 
 by wheedling the manager- 
 actor, and coaxing him adroitly 
 on his weak side, — that of his 
 sons.** 
 
 '«The Strand 
 
 is a miniature Olympic. If 
 Drury Lane is an omnibus, 
 the Strand can only be a cab. 
 The house is so small, and the 
 prices so low, that I can 
 scarcely make out how it can 
 be worth any one's while to 
 open the doors. At any rate, 
 I should say, from this homoeo- 
 pathic theatre authors can hope 
 to receive but infinitesimal 
 globules of tin." 
 
 THE DRAMATIC REGISTER. 
 Drury Lane. 
 
 Jan. 16. Old Love and the New (an original 
 English comedy). Jan, 27. The Cadi's Daughter 
 (French). Feb, 19. Azael (French " L'enfaiit 
 prodigue "). A very successful piece ; 0. R. 
 March 17. A Morning Call (French). March 29. 
 aueen of Spades (French). April 21. The 
 Robbers (German). Mmj 6. School for Scandal 
 (old English), Junt 9. Ingomar (from Ger- 
 many, who took it from France). [JTrom 28 July 
 to 25 Oct. '< (Quadruped ante putrem souitu quatit 
 ungula arenam." The actors and their riders 
 American and French. C. R.] D^, 26. Fazio 
 (old English). This time the boot is on the other 
 leg for once. Fazio has been taken by Duuias and 
 brought out in France under the title o( L'Alchy- 
 miste. C, R. Bta^ 27. The Belle's Stratagem 
 (old English) and " The Young Couple " 
 (French, I think). 
 
 Olympic. 
 
 Jan. 13. All that Glitters is not Gold (half 
 French, half English). Fefr. 17. Sextus the 
 Fifth (French). Feb. 24. That Odious Captain 
 Cutter (.'• ). March 17. Charles King 
 
 (French). April 21. Sir Roper de Coverley 
 (English). Ma'ij 7. Ladies' Battle (French), 
 The Fast Coach (French), and The Devil and 
 Dr. Faustus (i* ). June 33. Diogenes and his 
 Lanthorn (English). ' June 30. The Fire Eater 
 (French). JW^ 15. Castle of Valenza (French). 
 August II. Angelo (French). August 25. A 
 Night's Adventure (French) Sept. 8. I 've 
 Eaten my Friend (French). Sept. 29. The 
 Demon Gift (old ? ). Oct. 13. Caught in 
 
 his own Trap (French) and Azael (French). 
 JV*««. Several plays of Shakespeare — As you like 
 it. Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, with 
 one new piece. Original Bloomers (French). 
 Dec. 8. Lucille (old French) and Faint Heart 
 Never Won Fair Lady (old French). Dec 26. 
 The Road to Ruin (60 years old, English). 
 
 The Strand. 
 Summary — C. i2. 
 
 Original plays and burlesques produced at this 
 theatre in 1851:— The Exposition,. Taking the 
 Census, Godiva, A Cheap Excursion, The Alder- 
 man's Gown, Thetis and Peleus, The Willow- 
 pattern Plate. (7.) 
 
 Of doubtful origin -. — Living in Glass Houses, 
 Village Nightingale, Dearest Anna Maria, A 
 Squib for the 5th of November, Counter Attrac- 
 tion. (5.) 
 
 Piracies on English authors: — (1), viz.. Break- 
 fast for Two fa piratical version of an old Eng- 
 lish farce, Raising the Wind). 
 
 Plays, etc., from the French : — Kensington 
 Gardens, The Poor Relation, My Wife's Future 
 Husband, The Shot Tower, the Hopeless Pas- 
 sion, A Figure of Pun, The Artist's Wife, Cir- 
 cumstantial Evidence, The Twelve Labours of 
 Hercules, The Bloomer Costume. (10.) 
 
42 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Large sums of money are made in small theatres: had 
 been made in the Strand before 1851, and have been made 
 since. Mr. Hammond cleared four thousand pounds there 
 in one year by a single piece, a piratical version of one of 
 Mr. Dickens's novels. The profits of the Strand, in 1859, 
 are reported to have been about eight thousand pounds! the 
 highest theatrical balance-sheet in England, and perhaps in 
 the world. — C. R. 
 
 " The Surrey. 
 
 Well conducted by its present 
 managers, the lioii!='e is gen- 
 erally crowded. They play 
 there the old standard English 
 tragedies and plays — some- 
 times even those of Shakes- 
 peare — stirring original melo- 
 dramas, spectacles, and pan- 
 tomimes ; but there is little or 
 nothing to be expected From 
 them Tot you, gentlemen. An 
 occasinnal tran,slation may be 
 detected, but very rarely, and 
 I reciMninend you not to count 
 on them." 
 
 Surrey, 
 
 Jan. 90. Belphegor (French). Feb. 94. The 
 World's Games (French, 1 think), March 17. 
 Waltheof (English). Jlpril 9 Hooker and 
 Snooker (a piratical version of Box and Cox, 
 which is French). ^pril 91 The Czarina, or 
 Ivan the Armourer (This is Victor Hugo's 
 Marie Tudor, come to England after a tour in 
 Germany ; a profitable one, no doubt, except to 
 the author ) June 9. Roland the Rider ( ? ). 
 June 23. The Magic of Life ( ? ). July 98. 
 Orphan of Glencoe (English, I think), «9a- 
 gust II. Left in a Cab (French). Sept. ^-Orf, 
 19. Italian opera set to English words. Oct. 13. 
 The Two Bloomers (English, I think)- OcL 90. 
 Dreaming and Waking (French). JV*o». 3. Her- 
 nani (French) and Pride, or the Curse ( ? ). 
 
 JVoB. 17. The Vegetarians (FrenchU Decl. 
 Masaniello. Dec. 8r-9Aicbettuy Dec. 26. 
 
 Evadne (old. ? ) and the Panl^inime (English). 
 
 " ASTLEV'S 
 
 ia a circus, where they play 
 Battles of Waterloo, Wars in 
 AffuhnniRtan, Mazeppas, and 
 equestrian spectacles together 
 with scenes in the circle, feats 
 of horsemanship, and tumbling 
 in all its branches. You will 
 at once see that there is more 
 to be gained here by French 
 acrobats ihan French authors, 
 
 ASTLEY'S, 
 
 jSprt^ 91, Eleanor the Amazon (English). 
 June 9. A Night in Persia (French), Mazeppa 
 (an old piece which, I believe, like many others, 
 came from England to England via France. Ast- 
 ley's constantly borrows pieces from the Cirque, 
 and I think Mazeppa is one of these). JVou 3. 
 Azael (French). Dec. 26, Mr. and Mrs. Brigga 
 (English). 
 
 The ground is much too sandy for you to build 
 your hopes upon ; there is no field here for your ambition, unless your ambition 
 happens to be what Shakespeare calls 'a vaulting one which overleaps itself,' — 
 I mean the ambition of a double flip-flap." 
 
 " The Martonnettes, 
 
 The Marionnettes. 
 
 I don't include the Marion- 
 nettes, becaii!-e the actors there 
 are only made of wood ; thnuch 
 lam bound to confess we have 
 plenty of living ones who lack 
 their wit and agility. 
 
 Le beau raisonnement ! The actors are of 
 wood, ergo, the pieces they plav must be Eng- 
 lish ; or is it implied that the wooden actors can 
 write their own pieces, though actors whose 
 heads only are wood cannot .!* The dolls were 
 made in France, christened '* Marionnettes" in 
 France, and in Londim played adaptfitiims from 
 the French, just as Mr. Matthews himself was doing in his theatre at night while 
 writing French talent down by day in this pamphlet. Why, the best of the writers 
 for the Marionnettes, iWr. Hugo Vamp, publicly announced his pieces a« "original 
 translations ; " a very fair slap at the pretensions of adapters, Jan. 12. The 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 43 
 
 Manager's Room (? ), Bombastes Furioso (old ? ). Jan, S6. Ilottle 
 
 Imp (German ?). Feb. 2. Arlechino Fortiinato (Italian or French), Poll Practice 
 (Frencli). March 15. Swiss Cottage (French;. March S2. Whose Wife is 
 she .^ (French). JlfarcAS9. The Two Gregories (French). April \^. Now in 
 Reheaisal (? ) and Aladdin (old). AprU 26. The Happy Manager (? 
 May 3. Arcadian Brothers (burlesque on Les Fr^res Corses), etc., etc. 
 
 Mr. Matthews's merry account of Sadler's Wells was 
 really not far from the mark. I find there, in 1851, only 
 three pieces of French origin : — " Fortunio ; " " Beware of 
 Man-traps;" "His Head is in Peril." (The last a piracy 
 on a plagiarism, " Your Life is in Danger.") 
 
 The Anglican character of the Marylebone Theatre is 
 also rather exaggerated than falsified. I find, inter alia, 
 three plays by Mr. Fitzball, which are probably fenglish. 
 But " The Surgeon of Paris " is French, I think. More- 
 over, as this class of theatre seldom prints its pieces, who 
 can tell what they are ? it takes a thief-taker, not a critic, to 
 track them home. I am down upon one, though. " Lone 
 Chateau," played June 23, is a piratical version of Mr. 
 Oxenford's version of " Pauline ; " and " Show Folks," 7th 
 July, is, I am told, taken from a version of a version of 
 " English Exhibition," a French farce. Art has its infini- 
 tesimals as well as nature. What says the poet ? — 
 
 " Smaller than mites, on mites they feed." 
 
 Mr. Matthews's best cards are the Queen's, which, in 
 1851, really did play some truly original trash; and the 
 Victoria, which has always produced English pieces, in 
 which a critic may discern more genuine talent than Mr. 
 Matthews, whose dramatic sense is locked up in vaudeville, 
 will allow. 
 
 "The Victoeia The Victoria. 
 is a model house, the type of a Jan. Zl. Belphegor (Paillasse). (Hallo ! that 
 «chool to which it gives its is a bad start though, and I see they played it 
 name. It is the incarnation of sixty nights). .SprU S[. The Pauper of Lam- 
 the English ' domestic drama,' beth (English). June 10. The Jew of Con- 
 or rather of the drama of stantine ( ). June 23. The Druid's Oak 
 English domestics. There you ( ). .My 7. Claude du yal (an old piece, 
 will always find the truest pic- .' ). Juis 21. The Warrior fioy (English, 
 tures of virtue in rags, and I think). jJu^usl 4. The Lion King (? ), 
 vice in fine linen. There flour- Passion's Slave (French). Sept. 8. The Men- 
 ish the choicest specimens of dicant's Son ( ) and The Bloomer's Bride 
 all the crimes that make life ( ). Oc«. 27. The Secret Foe (French), 
 hideous, — robbery, rape, miir- Mv. 3. Life of a Woman (French, 1 think), 
 der, suicide. It is a country JVou 10. Veteran Ashore ( ). JVod. 24. 
 abounding in grand combats of The Earl of Poverty. Dec. 15. Marmion. 
 four, — a region peopled with ... _ . , 
 angelic maid-servants, comic housebreakers, heroic sailors, tyrannical masters, 
 
44 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 poetical clodhnppers, and diabolical barons. The lower orders rush there in mobs, 
 and in shirt-sleeves, applaud frantically, drink ginger-beer, munch apples, crack 
 nuta, call the actors by their Christian names, and throw them orange-peel and 
 apples by way of bouquets. Fly, gentlemen, this is no place for you, — yon are 
 only known here as frog-eating foreigners, whose armies are easily put to the 
 rout by a couple of stage tars and a beroine with a horse-pistol. There 's not the 
 ghost of a chance for you- They live upon roast-beef and plum-pudding, and 
 abominate French kickshaws." 
 
 I dare not hope that I have made no mistakes in this list ; 
 and the type shall be kept standing for correction and fresh 
 information. Both will be gratefully received. Meantime, 
 my friends over the water may rely on it I now give them a 
 sound general impression of the business done in 1851, at 
 our second and third class theatres. It is for them princi- 
 pally I go into these details, that they may not be humbugged 
 under cover of statistics as well as pillaged under cover of a 
 treaty. 
 
 And this brings me to another matter. Mr. Matthews 
 has given an impression that, in 1851, the English theatres 
 of all sorts produced but eight new adaptations from French 
 pieces. '* The Revue C!oteraporaine " and others have so 
 understood him. It is an impression which the preceding 
 pages must have shaken. I really think one hundred and 
 eighty would be nearer the mark, one year with another. 
 Here, too, a sound general impression is all I can give : but 
 that is more instructive than precise mendacity. 
 
 "The Haymarket, the The Haymarket Theatre. 
 
 Lyceum, THE Princess's 
 
 AND THE Adelphi, Jan. 1 to Feb, 3. Macready's farewells in old 
 
 pieces. Fell. 4. Good for Nothing (French), 
 are the four theatres in my .feft. 6. Presented at Court (French) March%, 
 opinion from which you have Don (?8Bsar de Razan (French). March 6. The 
 most to expect, and" towards Wife (old English). March 8. Othello, 
 
 which you will have to direct March 25. TarrnfTe (French). MarchS7. Make 
 your attention; hut as the the best of it (French). April SI. Arlinefbu^ 
 Haymarket and the Adelphi lesque on the Bohemian Girl ; English). Jaay3p 
 are under one manager, these Retired from Business (English). May S&r- 
 four can only be reckoned as Crown Diamonds (old French). June 7. Good^ 
 three. Night, Sir, Pleasant Dreams (French). June' 
 
 18. The Cadi (French). June 93. John 
 
 Dobbs (old French). June S4. Mr. Hackett's performances of Falstaff. 
 
 July I. Grimshaw, Bagshaw, and Bradshaw (French). July 7. Son and 
 
 Stranger (German).' Aufrust 13. The (^neen of a Day (? ). August 21. 
 
 His First Charopagne (old Fionch). August 30. Tarluffe (French) and The 
 Serious Family (French). Sept. 10. Grandmother Grizzle (French, but a free 
 imitation). Oct. U. La Somnambula (Italian), Grandmother Grizzle (French), 
 and Grimshaw, etc. (French). Oct. 14. Mr-^. White (French), with Somnambula, 
 etc. JVoD. 17. Charles the Second, (old French, I think,) the song of God Save 
 the Queen (ah! that's English, (a) if you like,) Rough Diamond (French), 
 
 (o) This song has been claimed by Germans, and French. But 
 there is not a particle of evidence in favour of any one but Henry Carey. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 45 
 
 The Princess's, 
 
 ^f^f' "^ Mr. Bartley'8 farewell in Falstaff. March 6. Love in a Maze U maro 
 l!?/r,7^"p"°'j'"*^l.™"!? '°'°™«; ="'" to the theatre as oi?grnribVli"ve) 
 A™rtmi;,<,/''p''°\^^'™'=''2; . ^^"^ 2'- Alhambra (English). ' Ma^lt. 
 Apartmente (French?). JIfay 15. Prisoner of War (old finglish), etc. jLe4 
 
 tofor?"''' I^'fr Erf "^ w^r ',i.^- ^'i? '''Sht (French) w&es named 
 M„H t .lu **,: '^" *te?*' °' * ^'f« (French), etc. Oc(. 17. Twelfth Nieht. A 
 Par-ni^i^^r '''•.■t^''^*;'•« ,^'°J^»*'^ •^°''' 22- Merry Wives of Windso", To 
 EnX^ niSL '.k'SJ' C^nglish). JW,«.24-i)ee. 30. Shakespeare and old 
 English pieces, with Tender Precautions (a new farce, English, 1 thinit). 
 
 The Lyceum. 
 
 oi^Z f:^'-^^- ^'^^"'^ first entry.) Cool as a Cucumber (English), jlpril 21. 
 Oueen of the Frogs (French fairy tale dramatized). Jifas 30. Onlv a Clod 
 (French). J«™e 4. fcourt Beauties (old French). Oct 2. Game of Snectlat on 
 French) and i84th time, King CharnJing (French story dramatized). I?X fro™ 
 ftis entry that King Charming was the "piice de rfoistance " from' DeSHm 
 S.Pf. z^^^^?' Speculation. Dec. 15. Game of Speculation, with Forty and 
 I^S, '■^"""V' ^"^ ?* ^™""='" Man (English). Die. 26. The Prince of Hawy 
 Land (French story dramatized), the scenery painted by Beverley. "^^ 
 
 The Adelphi. 
 
 A •?"• J3- Bflphegor (French). March 24. The Denounced (English). Jpril 10. 
 «^i?, .PoB-CESSl'*"-.)- , -^P^ 21. O'Flannigan and the dairies (kn old piece 
 rewritten by Mr. Bourcicault I). JIfaj, 39. Good Night, Sienor Paiitalon 
 
 f SS • -J"'? i^- ^™'? ^^tff i^fi^^*'' ' """'^^- ^^'- 8- ^lie Iron MasS 
 rt rench). S^t SB. Mr. Josh. Silabee's performances in American pieces, viz., 
 Ihe Forest Rose and the Yankee Ploughboy. (I don't know the origin of these 
 pieces : they may be American ; they are just as likely to be French.) Dec 26 
 My Precious Betsy (French), Little Ked Riding Hood (either German or English).' 
 
 « The Morning Chronicle " complains that Mr. Matthews 
 selected an exceptional year, in 1851. But this is unfair. 
 If he had taken 1850, or 1849, somebody would have cried 
 out, "why skip 1851?" 
 
 The thing that astonishes me is, how he could sit down in 
 the spring of 1852, with his pockets full of money made out 
 French skulls, and try to create a general impression that 
 their pieces are too irrational and loose to be played in Eng- 
 land, either with or without that alteration, abridgment, and 
 discolouration, which adapters say are so difficult, and in- 
 ventors and even impartial observers know to be so easy 
 compared with invention. For what was the history of his 
 
 Ctuionsly enough, though, even this is in one sense an adaptation. 
 Henry Carey was a Jacobite, and wrote this song, words and music 
 and all, in support of King James. He sang his composition, " God 
 save Great James, our King," till the tide turned finally against the 
 Stuarts ; and then it turned to " Great George." 
 
46 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 own theatre while he was penning these lines. From. 
 Christmas, 1851, to Easter, 1852, that theatre ran a singu- 
 larly prosperous career on two French legs. " The Game 
 of Speculation " (a close version of Mercadet, Balzac), and 
 the " Prince of Happy Land " (a French fairy tale drama- 
 tized). 
 
 Comment op the "Times.'' 
 
 " The only pieces performed since Christmas were ' The Game 
 of Speculation ' and ' The Prince of Happy Land ; ' so that the 
 bill was not changed for a period of three months, while the au- 
 dience every night was most numerous. The fact is, we believe, 
 without parallel in the annals of the modern drama." Cited by 
 "Dramatic Register," 1852. 
 
 To be sure, on one of these nights, Mr. Feargus O'Con- 
 nor, M. P., performed in the dress-boxes : kicked up a row 
 there, and was carried off by the police. This interlude was 
 certainly not French : it was Irish. But, not having been 
 announced in the bills, it nowise affected the night's receipts. 
 On Easter Monday, of this year, Mr. Matthews produced 
 "A Chain of Events" ("La Dame de la Halle"), which 
 was played, with short occasional breaks, owing to Madame 
 Vestris's failing health, until 3rd June. The new farces in 
 that month were " Taking by Storm " (French) ; " Family 
 Jars " (French) ; and " Very Suspicious " (French). — 
 « Dramatic Register," 1852. 
 
 On June 30, the Lyceum closed, and the manager sat 
 down, jingling money out of French brains, to revile French 
 dramatic invention, and disown our obligations to it in a town 
 ■where seven theatres had just been selling, at one and tke 
 same time, one French play to their customers ; and three 
 more (his own being one of the three) had just been selling 
 another. 
 
 "Deamatic Register, 1852," page 55. 
 
 " It is rather curious that during May, most of the theatres„if 
 they had not a version of the ' Corsican Brothers,' or a burlesque 
 upon it, were playing a version of ' La Dame de la Halle.' Thus 
 
 nette, 'The Arcadian Brothers;' Lyceimi, 'A Chain of Events'' 
 ('La Dame de la Halle'); Adelphi, 'Queen of the Market' 
 (' Dame de la Halle '). Strand, ' The Lost Husband ' (Dame de 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 47 
 
 la Halle). At New York, ' The Coarse-haired Brothers ' ('Corsican 
 Brothers'). 
 
 " N. B. — Many more than seven theatres played ' The Corsican 
 Brothers.' But these cotemporaneously." — C. R. 
 
 It is easy to deceive foreigners as to English facts, in 
 which they are interested. The only difficulty is to make 
 up your mind to do it. It is like cheating a child. 
 
 Here, in England, few were really deceived. But where 
 there is a strong temptation to do wrong, the conscience and 
 the reason of common men scarce need to be convinced. A 
 sneer, a laugh, a straw, will turn the tide ; how much more 
 an example. 
 
 Moral, like physical disease, has its curable and its incura- 
 ble stages. The pirate that asperses the talent of the inven- 
 tor whose brains he steals, is the incurable type. Here the 
 moral vision is extinct. There is no more hope of the pirate 
 when he has reached this stage, than there is of that other 
 familiar English type, the murderer who writes home from 
 the condemned cell, and lectures his dad for breaking the 
 Sabbath, and warns his brothers to amend their ways. 
 
 Belgium in England, alias the English playwrights, com- 
 prehended this by instinct, and plucked up heart, reading this 
 sprightly mendacity. They saw that L had raised them a 
 champion, a manager of a theatre, a man justly popular on 
 many accounts, who on this, that, or the other slippery ex- 
 cuse,, would never pay a French author a shilling till the al- 
 ternative should be Whitecross Street Prison, or some such 
 logic. And now the press seemed to you, who are not in its 
 secrets, to change its tone. Not a word more about national 
 probity in so impure a trade as literature. Nothing now for 
 years and years but sneers at the pretensions of French 
 dramatists to be treated as honestly as other French writers, 
 whom there was less temptation to swindle. The little slimy 
 creatures that write in the side columns of journals, and utter 
 not convictions, but interests, had hitherto been cowed by the 
 thunder of the leaders, and driven into their holes, while the 
 true staff of the journals did their duty, and uttered pubUc 
 and honourable sentiments on literary commerce ; but now 
 the true publicists went back to their petty political squabbles, 
 and left the immortal arts : and the collateral vermin of the 
 public prints crawled out into the sunshine of cleptomania 
 diffused from the Theatre Eoyal Lyceum. 
 
48 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 The proprietors of many English journals are simple 
 enough to employ playwrights to write their dramatic arti- 
 cles. This secures a regular supply of mendacity and ve- 
 nality in the dramatic column even of respectable journals. 
 Jack claws Jill on the distinct understanding that Jill shall 
 claw Jack in his turn ; and both Jack and Jill scratch all 
 interlopers, and fight tooth and nail against any proposal to 
 raise the English theatre, morally or intellectually. 
 
 The national honour (sic Dls visum est) now fell into the 
 hands of these men ; or, as the poets express it, " was lev- 
 elled with the dust." 
 
 Their remarks upon honour and policy were numerous, 
 but not various. These are not inventive even in fallacy. 
 
 Between the autumns of 1852 and 1856, the period I am 
 now dealing with, they rang the changes upon the following 
 arguments. I have extracted them careiuUy from acres of 
 verbosity. And, N. B. ! these succeeded: these got us called 
 a nation of equivocating rogues : and these postponed for 
 many years the rise of a national drama : and these posterity 
 will call 
 
 ¥« aofltcfte of fTfifrtes. 
 
 1. That any one can translate, but few can adapt. 
 
 2. That adaptation demands great labour and rare skill. 
 That labour and skill create intellectual property : that to 
 refuse the adapter the proceeds from sale of a property so 
 created, and give them to the French author, is to rob skill 
 and labour under pretence of protecting skill and labour. 
 
 3. That English adapters habitually improve the French 
 dramatic inventors. Whenever a French adapted play suc- 
 ceeds in England the success is due to English talent, not 
 French. The English talent, then, is the one that ought to 
 be paid. 
 
 4. That practically it is impossible to protect the French 
 dramatist : dramatic plagiarism and piracy are so much more 
 subtle than any other kind. Scenes are altered, the whole 
 dialogue reworded. The courts of law would have nothing 
 to go by. As well try to grasp gas. 
 
 5. That France takes no English plays at all: to buy 
 her plays, therefore, would be to roast the egg all on one 
 side. Would this be an equitable treaty? equitable com- 
 merce? Why, it is not commerce at aU. Commerce iS' 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 49 
 
 exchange of commodities, not eternal monotonous barter of 
 English specie against French ideas, that must after all be 
 wrought by English labour and skill into a saleable form. 
 
 6. That the governments of England and France never 
 intended by this treaty to interfere at all with the English 
 theatre. The copyrights only of French authors, not the 
 stage-rights, were to be protected (a). 
 
 I wish my readers could be persuaded to study those prop- 
 ositions for themselves, before reading my remarks on them. 
 The literary pirate is an intellectual and moral type, well 
 worth the microscope. He has been dissected in France. 
 But in this country, curious and interesting as he is, he has 
 never been examined with any mental power. 
 
 How plausible all that appears ; does it not ? 
 
 1. Is a monstrous exaggeration. There are as many men 
 who can adapt well as there are who can translate well. 
 There are as many who, in point of fact, adapt plays ill, 
 as there are who translate books ill. Let us begin first 
 with the low levels. To translate requires some little knowl- 
 edge of two languages : now we have dozens of adapters 
 who don't know a word of French. The French piece is 
 badly construed to them by an accomplice, who knows a 
 little French. The adapter catches at the sense ; his igno- 
 rance is heaped on his pal's ; and he plays variations on the 
 text, not because he sees his way to improve it, but because 
 he is jumping at the Frenchman's meaning in the double 
 dark. I can lay my hand on a dozen adapters of French 
 pieces to the English stage, who know neither French, nor 
 English, nor the stage. 
 
 So much for the class " adapter," in which talent of any 
 kind is notoriously the exception, not the rule. Out of every 
 twenty adapters how many are ever heard of in letters ex- 
 cept when they bray in a Frenchman's skin ? Three ? Cer- 
 tainly not : two at the very outside. But, to go from the 
 class adapter to the exceptional adapter, 
 
 2. Is rotten at the foundation. It is based on a sham alter- 
 native. Here it is assumed that either the French inventor 
 
 (a) Copyright is the sole and exclusiye right of printing. Stage- 
 right the sole and exclusive right of representation on a public stage. 
 4 
 
50 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 must be defrauded in England or the English adapter must 
 be defrauded. Mere chimera! Of course hoth ought to be 
 paid. I grant that a competent adaptation requires labour 
 and skill, and therefore ought to be properly remunerated ; 
 but for the same reason the longer labour and higher skill 
 of the inventor ought also to be remunerated. Put the 
 adapter at his highest, he is but the inventor's coUoborateur. 
 Why give all the proceeds to one coUaborateur, the less 
 meritorious of the two in respect both of skill and labour ? 
 For invention is the highest and rarest effort of the human 
 mind, and adaptation is neither high nor rare ; and as for 
 labour, time is its best standing test throughout the world : 
 show me the French play I cannot adapt to our stage in six 
 days, as skilfully as any living Englishman can, and you 
 shall cut my hand off to make donkey soup ; but to invent 
 the same thing would cost me a hundred days' labour, or more. 
 "Why, one of the very best adaptations I have ever read,' 
 " Game of Speculation," was done in twenty-four hours. 
 The adapter tells us so himself in his preface (published by 
 Lacy, Strand). Therefore my French brethren and I claim, 
 in the name of the God of French and English and justice, 
 one-half the English proceeds for the French inventor, the 
 superior artist who works a thousand hours, and one-half for 
 his coUaborateur, the skilful adapter, who works from twenty- 
 four, to a hundred hours. This claim may or may not be 
 nullified at law by the timidity of English tribunals, fum- 
 bling with an obscure clause in a well-meant blundering 
 treaty ; but it cannot be eradicated from the conscience, nor 
 confuted on any sound principles of law and justice that will 
 bear the test of universal application. 
 
 If a Frenchman makes a fiddle, and an Englishman makes 
 the finger-board, pegs, and strings, and sells the instrument 
 in England, is he entitled to the whole purchase money, or a 
 part ? Is the Frenchman entitled to none, or a part ? 
 
 The iniquitous sophistries that are acted upon in literary 
 business, — grocers and cheesemongers would not stain their 
 souls with them. 
 
 3. Is a statement too broad to be disposed of in a sen- 
 tence. It was repeated about twenty times between 1851 
 and 1856. But I could never trace it to any human being 
 but journalizing adapters. No evidence has ever been ad- 
 duced in support of this notion ; and though men are gener- 
 
.THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. gi 
 
 • ally sincere when they praise themselves at the expense of 
 
 : their intellectual superiors, they are very apt to be mistaken. 
 
 •The French , dramatists, as a class, are writers. The Eng^ 
 lish playwrights, as a class, and exceptis excipiendis, are 
 scribblers. 
 
 I shall prove, in a succeeding number, that * scribblers 
 have always been possessed with a notion they could improve 
 writers, and said so ; and that posterity has always repealed 
 that disinterested notion. Then, coming tO' direct evidence, 
 I shall show that the, English dl-amatic adapter does not, and 
 never did, habitually improve the French inventor. On the 
 
 ; contrary, the French play is commonly superior in every par- 
 ticular of dramatic excellence to the English improvement. 
 I find the, following scientific processes freely applied to their 
 French originals by our adapters, alive and dead ; viz. : — 
 
 1. The colour extracting process. 
 
 2. The carbonic acid gas extracting process. 
 3.' The soiling process. 
 
 4. « The Penelopizing process. (Turns plot to no plot.) 
 
 5. The- dwarfing process. 
 
 6. The blunting process. 
 
 But for all that the originals not improved. * 
 
 Meantime, permit me to relate two little stories. I'll 
 answer for the truth of the first. The second needs not my 
 indorsement ; antiquity is its voucher. 
 
 A Two-headed Stoet. 
 
 On circuit last year, a juryman stood up and informed the 
 judge that he could not sit as a juryman. " Why not ? " 
 inquired his lordship. Juryman explained that he could not 
 take the oaths ; and cited texts of Scripture, " Swear not at 
 all," etc. 
 
 The judge in question, a rough and ready kind of cus- 
 tomer, with no taste whatever for humbug, inquired brusquely, 
 whether he could find no texts in that book for obeying the 
 law, and doing his duty to his fellow-citizens; but on the 
 man persisting, and itching for a theological argument, he 
 said, " Get out of the box, sir." 
 
 But as Theologus was moving off shopward, probably to 
 
52 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 mix dust with Us pepper, flour and tumeric with his mus- 
 tard : " No, sir," said the judge, " you will not leave the 
 court. You will sit there all day " (pointing to a spot where 
 he could keep his eye on him) ; " you shan't get a holiday 
 by your scruples" (a). 
 
 The other day the same judge, I think, was sitting in Lon- 
 don ; when suddenly, on a case being called on, up rises a 
 juryman. (This time I cite all that passed ad verhum.) 
 
 " My lord, I object to try these men." 
 
 The Judge (sharply). "Why so, pray?" 
 
 Juryman. " Because I am a builder." 
 
 The Judge. " The scruple is an honourable one." And 
 with that made arrangements to relieve him. 
 
 See how swiftly two really honest men, though in different 
 stations, understand one another. The building operatives 
 were on strike. An internecine war raged between them 
 and the master builders. These men were to be tried for 
 what they call " lawful combination," and their antagonists 
 call " unlawful conspiracy and aggression ; " and this honest 
 , builder had the sense, diffidence, and justice — 
 
 " Verbum non amplius addam." 
 
 There are men who can paint themselves better with a 
 word, than we can do it for them with fifty. 
 
 Somewhere in the East, long before Niebuhr, there stood 
 side by side a lion and a man, wasting time. 
 
 Arguing. 
 
 Still the discussion was conducted in a better temper than 
 it is now-a-days, when these two meet. 
 
 The topic was the comparative strength of their respective 
 species. Not far off was a piece of sculpture. The human 
 disputant pointed to it. There, in breathing stone, a man 
 was seen tripping up a lion's heels, cutting off his claws, 
 twisting his tongue, with whatever else natural history, as 
 propounded by the ancients, revealed on this head. 
 
 (o) Whether this novel imprisonment was by the law of the land, 
 or by what is so much more potent, judge's law, this deponent sayeth 
 not. Anyway, it gratifies the feelings of the honest citizen. For apply 
 the unfailing test ! If all men were to act like that virtuous juryman, 
 human justice would be disarmed in nomine Domini, and Newgate and 
 L run about the nation unchecked. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 53 
 
 " There ! " cried the man, with the happy credulous vanity 
 of his species, « What d' ye say to that ? " 
 
 The lion yawned one of those fearful red and white yawns 
 of his (at which the man started a little), and replied : 
 
 " A man carved that. When we cut statues, the lion will 
 be uppermost." 
 
 This must have been a young lion, not versed in repartee, 
 or he would have knocked the blarney-stone down with his 
 fore-paw, and eaten the disputant on it. 
 
 No : on second thoughts it was an old, wise lion, who stood 
 for immortality, not on a vulgar, practical joke, like dining 
 at an opponent's expense, but on a shrewd answer, the justice 
 of which man himself acknowledged a hundred years later, 
 the period that animal takes to know sense from nonsense. 
 
 The French dramatist is a lion. His roar shakes Ger- 
 many, Italy, Belgium, England, and echoes in the Western 
 hemisphere. But he rears no columns to his own praise in 
 English journals. There, where the lion is never heard, the 
 poodle's yelp may pass for thunder. 
 
 Is it La Fontaine's lion, or whose, that says — 
 
 nous aurions bientot le dessus 
 
 Si nous savions &ire — dans le " Times " f 
 
 4. This is one of those bungling pieces of reasoning that 
 succeed with muddle-heads. It proves too much. (The 
 recoil of this well-known fallacy is always fatal.) No dis- 
 tinction is here attempted between a French or English dra- 
 matic invention : on the contrary, the reason given why a 
 French proprietor cannot be secured against piracy, proves 
 equally that an original English drama cannot be secured. 
 But English dramatic property has been for many years 
 better protected by law and courts than any other literary 
 property. The a priori conjecture therefore falls before a 
 notorious fact. 
 
 Nor is literary history less fatal to this chimera than is 
 legal experience. 
 
 Literature is full of plagiarism and piracy ; but none has 
 been so constantly, or is so daily detected, as dramatic piracy. 
 A book-pirate may often escape by re-wording the matter, 
 because in many books an essential feature is the language. 
 The history of the word " plagiarism," originally " plagian- 
 ism," is amusing, and in point. It is to be found in " Que- 
 rard ; " but was first disinterred by D'Israeli. 
 
54 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMEKT. 
 
 " Richesource, a miserable declaimer, called "himself ' Moderar 
 tor of the Academy of Philosophical Orators.' He taught how a , 
 
 I)erson destitute of literary talents might become eminent for 
 iterature ; and published the principles of his art under the title 
 of .' The Mask of Orators ; or the manner of disguising all kinds 
 of composition ; briefs, sermons, panegyrics, funeral .orations, dedi- 
 cations, speeches, letters, passages,' &c. I will give a notion of 
 the work : — 
 
 " The author very truly observes, that all who apply themselves 
 to polite literature do not always find from their own funds a suf- 
 ficient supply to insure success. For such he labours ; and 
 teaches to gather, in the gardens of others, those fruits of which , 
 their own sterile grounds are destitute ; but so artfully to gather, 
 that the public shall not perceive their depredations. He dignifies 
 this fine art by the title of Flagianism, and thus explains it : — 
 
 " ' The Plagianism of orators is the art, or an ingenious arid 
 easy mode, which some adroitly employ, to change, or disguise, 
 all sorts of speeches of their own composition, or that of other ■ 
 authors, for their pleasure, or their utility.; in such a manner that 
 it becomes impossible even for the author himself to recognize his 
 own work, his own genius, and his own style, so skilfully shall the 
 whole be disguised.' 
 
 " Our professor proceeds to reveal the manner of managing the 
 whole economy of the piece which is to be copied or disgmsed ; 
 and which consists in giving a new order to the parts, changing 
 the phrases, the words, &c. An orator, for instance, having said 
 that a plenipotentiary should possess three qualities, — probity, 
 capacity, and courage ; the plagiarist, on the contrary, may employ 
 courage, capacity, and probity. This is only for a general rule, for 
 it is too simple to practise frequently. To render the part perfect 
 we must make it more complex, by changing the whole of the 
 expressions. The pla^arist in place of courage will -pnt force, 
 constancy, or vigour. For probity, he may say religion, virtue, or 
 sincerity. Instead of capacity, he may substitute erudition, ability, 
 or science. Or he may disguise the whole by saying that the 
 plenipotentiary should ie firm, virtuous, and able. 
 . "The rest of this uncommon work is composed of passages, 
 extracted from celebrated writers, which are turned into the new 
 manner of the . plagiarist ; their beauties,' however, are never 
 improved by their dress." — (" Curiosities of Literature," Ed. 1838, 
 p. 145.) 
 
 A friend was staying with a "Welsh parson, and heard him 
 preach in the afternoon. 
 
 " By Jove," said he, " there was good matter in your ser- 
 mon ; I did n't think you — ahem." 
 
 " It would be odd if there was not," said the preacher; "it 
 was one of Bishop Butler's." 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 55 
 
 " Bishop Butler's ? was it ? Well now, you surprise me. 
 I have read Dr. Butler's sermons, and I did not recognize it." 
 
 " Oh ! " says the other, " you don't know how I manage. 
 I have two services, one in Welsh, one in English. Well, I 
 translate his sermons into Welsh to begin : and there I am 
 all safe ; my Welsh flock don't read Butler. , Then I take 
 my Welsh and translate it into English ; and after that the 
 devil himself would not know them again." I cite ad 
 verbum ! ! 
 
 But all the Eichesources and Taffies going can't do this 
 with a play ; because, underneath the words, or flesh, there 
 lies in every play an indissoluble skeleton; consisting of plot; 
 characters, situations, pictures. You may reword these to 
 any amount ; you can't hide them. 
 
 * This dramatic skeleton, exactly corresponds with what in 
 a patent is called the specification, and is the heart of the. 
 invention. Now when the English mechanical inventor is 
 pirated in England, in nine cases out of ten the fraud tried- 
 on him is neither more nor less than the adaptation swindle.* 
 
 But the adaptation swindle is constantly detected and 
 baffled by our courts in patent cases ; why then should it not 
 in stage-right, or copyright cases ? 
 
 . To conclude ; if we were all just getting out of the ark on 
 to Ararat, Ham might reasonably conjecture that detection 
 of dramatic pirates would be peculiarly difficult. But the 
 conjecture comes too late, when for the last hundred and sixty 
 years they have been successively detected and exposed in 
 print by, Langbaine, Jacob, Baker, Reed, and Jones, Genest, 
 Gxenford, and the journalists of our day, while so many 
 other . literary pirates have escaped, and are now escaping 
 detection. 1 
 
 It is only in literature, "the insane root that takes the. 
 reason prisoner," a man would dare to argue out of the 
 nature of things, that what he sees done by the "Times" 
 critic, and other journalists of small research , every, week, 
 and admits he sees it done, is an intellectual impossibility : ■ 
 easy and impracticable, constantly done and not to be done 
 at all. This is what I call " cephalomatticy,", or "divination 
 by means of an ass's skull inthe teeth- of direct evidence." 
 
 5. If the same man could be a medisBval hermit, and a 
 modern thief, this notion of equity in international commerce 
 
56 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 would not discredit his double character. How can the 
 prime export, physical or intellectual, of any nation, be also 
 its main import ? England is just now going to buy French 
 wines on a large scale. Will France, in return, buy English 
 wines ? Certainly not. No international balance was ever 
 struck, or ever will be struck, in that way. France will sell 
 us her wine and silk, etc., and buy our coal and cotton, etc. 
 It is the same in intellectual exports. 
 
 At present France produces more original plays than we do. 
 We produce many more biographies, voyages, and travels, 
 and three times as many reviews and magazines as she does. 
 Are these, our main intellectual exports, protected under the 
 treaty ? They are. Then how can any quibbler short of 
 Satan look the God of nations in the face, and pretend it is 
 equitable that France's main intellectual export should not 
 be protected too ? 
 
 And this brings us to No. 6. What is the true interpre- 
 tation of the dramatic clauses in the treaty ? 
 
 I print these clauses from the " London Gazette," Jan. 16, 
 1852: — 
 
 "Article IV. 
 
 " The stipulations of the pre- 
 ceding Articles shall also be appli- 
 cable to the representation of dra- 
 matic works, and to the perform- 
 ance of musical compositions, in 
 so far as the laws of each of the 
 two countries are or shall be ap- 
 plicable in this respect to dramatic 
 and musical worKs first publicly- 
 represented or perfonned therein. 
 
 "In order, however, to entitle 
 the author to legal protection in 
 regard to the translation of a dra- 
 matic work, such translation must 
 appear within three months after 
 the registration and deposit of the 
 original. 
 
 " It is understood that the pro- 
 tection stipulated by the present 
 Article is not intended to pro- 
 hibit fair imitations, or adapta- 
 tions of dramatic works •to the 
 stage in England and France re- 
 spectively, but is only meant to 
 prevent piratical translations. 
 
 " Article IV. 
 
 " Les stipulations des Articles pr^ 
 cedents s'appliqueront ^galement ala 
 representation des ouvrages drama- 
 tiques, et h, I'ex^cntion des compo- 
 sitions musicales, en tant que les lois 
 de chacun des deux pays sent on 
 seront applicables, sous ce rapport, 
 aiix ouvrages dramatiques et de mu- 
 sique represent^ ou executes pnb- 
 liquement dans ces pays pour la 
 premiere fois. 
 
 "Tontefois, pour avoir droit k la 
 
 f>rotection legale, en ce qui conceme 
 a traduction d'un onvrage drama- 
 tique, I'auteur devra faire parattre sa 
 traduction trois mois aprfes I'enregis- 
 trement et le d^pot de I'ouvrage 
 original. 
 
 "H est bien entendn que la pro- 
 tection stipul^e par le present Article, 
 n'a point pour objet de prohiber les 
 imitations faites de bonne foi, ou les 
 appropriations des ouvrages drama- 
 tiques aax scenes respectives d'Angle- 
 terre et de France, mais seulement 
 d'empgcherles traductions en contre- 
 ■fa^on. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 57 
 
 " The question whether a work " La question d'imitation ou de 
 
 is an imitation or a piracy shall contrefafon sera d^termin^e dans tons 
 
 in all cases be decided by the les cas par les tribunaux des pays 
 
 courts of justice of the respective respeotifs, d'aprfes la Iteislation en 
 
 countries, according to the laws in vigueur dans chacun des deux 6tats." 
 force in each." 
 
 By an act of Parliament, passed in May 28, the French 
 treaty became law in this country, so far as it did not clash 
 ■with anything in the Act that made it law. I have discov- 
 ered no discrepancy between the treaty and the Act : only 
 the Act explains clearly one or two passages in the treaty, 
 that might otherwise have been disputed perhaps. 
 
 For instance, it is not quite clear on the face of Article 
 rV. (treaty), whether musical pieces are placed on the foot- 
 ing of books, or of dramatic pieces ; but the act shows clearly 
 that they go with the latter (sect. 6). Again Mr. Matthews 
 doubted the meaning of these words in the treaty, " such 
 translation must appear within three months after registra- 
 tion and deposit of the original ; " and certainly " appear " 
 might mean appear on the stage, or appear in print. The 
 Act, however, had settled in May the doubt that afflicted 
 Mr. Matthews in July (sect. 8, par. 6). " In the case of 
 dramatic pieces, the translation sanctioned by the author 
 must be published within three calendar months of the regis- 
 tration of the original work." 
 
 I cite the 4th and 6th sections of the Act mainly to show 
 that not mere copyright (as has been pretended) but stage- 
 right, or the sole right of representation, is what the legisla- 
 tor intended. This accords with Article IV. of treaty, first 
 paragraph, last line. It is not the English of educated men, 
 nor even of charity school children. But the idea is just 
 visible looming through the fog. 
 
 " IV. Her Majesty may, by Order in Council, direct that au- 
 thors of dramatic pieces which are, after a future time, to be 
 specified in such order, first publicly represented in any foreign 
 country, to be named in such order, their executors, administra- 
 tors, and assigns, shall, subject to the provisions hereinafter men- 
 tioned or referred to, be empowered to prevent the representation 
 in the British dominions of any translation of such dramatic pieces 
 not authorized by them, for such time as may be specified in such 
 order, not extending beyond the expiration of five years froni the 
 time at which the authorized translations of such dramatic pieces 
 hereinafter mentioned are first published or publicly represented. 
 
58 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 • " VI. Nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to pre-, 
 vent fair imitations or adaptations to the English stage of any- 
 dramatic piece or musical composition published in any foreign 
 country." 
 
 Pirates, in interpreting this Act and treaty, pounce on the 
 clause that favours them, and ignore all the others, and their 
 modifying effect. Even lawyers, little ones, have been known 
 to interpret a clause so ; but a great lawyer — never. 
 
 All the clauses of an Act are of equal force, and come 
 from the same breast. A judge, therefore, in interpreting a 
 statute, searches for the mind of the legislator, not in a sin- 
 gle clause, but in all the clauses that bear on a point. These 
 he reads by three lights, viz., their respective light, and the 
 light they cast on each other, and the general intention of 
 the enactment. Where two clauses seem at variance he 
 leans towards , any reasonable interpretation that reconciles 
 them. Just conceive the consequence if he did not. Were 
 the pettifogger's plan adopted of reading each clause as an 
 independent statute, many an invaluable law would be frit-, 
 tared into Kilkenny kittens. 
 
 Let us then examine all the materials. They are these : — 
 
 The Foreign Book Author. 
 
 The State sells to the foreign book author the sole right of 
 translating his book or, causing it to be translated, and the 
 translation sold in England. The terms are — 
 
 1. /that he shall notify on the title-page of the original 
 work that he reserves right of translation. 
 
 2. Must register original work at Stationer's Hall, and de- 
 posit a copy gratis within three calender months from date of 
 first publication. 
 
 3. His authorized translation must be published in Eng- 
 land within -one year after said registration and deposit. 
 
 4. And it must be registered, and a copy deposited gratis 
 within a certain time. 
 
 If he escapes each and all of "these gins, springes, and 
 author-traps, the State secures to him for five years what is. 
 his own for ever jure Divino, and by the universal human 
 law of honest and unsalaried labour. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 39> 
 
 ' The Foreign Dramatic Axjthor. 
 
 1. Must notify on title-page, etc. (same as book author). 
 
 2. Must register original play (same as book author, vide 
 supra). . • . 
 
 3. His authorized translation must be published in Eng- 
 land within three calendar months of said registration. 
 
 4. Same as book author, supra. 
 
 _ If he pays these prices, and . escapes each and all these 
 gins, springes, and author-traps, then the State , secures him, 
 for five years only, the sole right of representing on our 
 Stage his play in English, proviso that nothing herein con- 
 tained is to be so.constt-ued as to prevent fair imitations, (a) 
 or fair adaptations of his piece from being played in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The Musical Composer. 
 
 That protection, limited as above, which the State sells 
 the foreign dramatist on the hard and harassing conditions 
 specified, it gives the musical composer without any con- 
 ditions at all. 
 
 " Ex quovis ligno non fit Lycnrgus." 
 
 The pirates say, the proviso means that any adaptation is 
 permitted, however close, and however destructive, by direct 
 competition and undersale, to the authorized version. The 
 words .will bear this sense. But will they bear no other? 
 and could so heartless a' fraud as this be intended? The 
 treaty, thus interpreted, sells the foreign dramatist on hard 
 terms — what ? false hopes, nothing more. It becomes a 
 mere trap to catch his copies and his money. It gives him 
 practically nothing he did not possess before the treaty.' He 
 had always a right to compete with English pirates on even 
 terms ; and the right cost him no fees, no deposits, no print- 
 er's MIL • ' 
 
 The dramatist is associated with the book author. Why 
 was this, if no protection was intended him ? It was easy 
 to omit him — easy to except him. Severe conditions ful- 
 filled create rights. . Condition 3 is doubly severe in his 
 
 (a) Treaty says fair adaptations and imitations, Act says fair imita- 
 tions and adaptations. I liave tlierefore combined the two. 
 
60 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 case : first, because only three months' delay is allowed him 
 instead of twelve ; secondly, because if he does not gain 
 protection by printing this translation, he gains nothing in 
 return for this expense the State involves him in. The 
 translation of a book is another matter. That is property 
 in its saleable form. J3ut a translation of an unacted play 
 is not saleable at all in booh form. It is mere waste-paper if 
 not played in a theatre. To be saleable at all, then, it must 
 be in some degree protected against theatrical piracy. But 
 the protection would be not limited, but null, if the inventor 
 or his assigns could be elbowed out of all the theatres by 
 mere colourable imitations of his own invention. 
 
 Add to all this, that the adjective " fair " in connection, 
 seems to moderate extreme views on either side, and to 
 mediate between the rest of the proviso and the clauses, that, 
 by inviting to expenses, hold out hopes of an equivalent. 
 The use of this adjective, " fair," implies that some kind of 
 adaptation might be unfair, and not permitted. If the pro- 
 viso ended there, it would almost follow that an adaptation 
 so close to the invention and its title as to thrust the foreign 
 authorized version out of all chance in the English theatri- 
 cal market, is forbidden by implication. 
 
 But then come the words, " but only to prevent, piratical 
 translations." These words are not in the Act, but they are 
 in the treaty ; and though they are not the words the pirates 
 rely upon, I think a judge would attach the most weight to 
 them. Is the stress here on " piratical " or on " transla- 
 tions " ? that is the question. If no more followed, I should 
 say " on the substantive." But then the succeeding clause 
 seems to imply the stress is to be on " piratical." It tells 
 us the courts of law in each country are to decide " whether 
 any work is an imitation or a piracy." 
 
 Now this sentence, and the independent inference from 
 the use of the word " fair," strengthen one another ; for it 
 can in no case require a court of law to decide so naked a 
 thing as whether any dramatic piece is a translation or an 
 imitation. Parties would never join issue on this : it is not 
 of a debatable character. But the contracting powers are 
 clearly providing for a genuine difficulty, a knot dignus 
 judice. 
 
 A third consideration seems to throw the weight upon the 
 adjectives " fair " and " piratical," rather than upon the sub- 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMAKDMENT. 61 
 
 stantives. Musical inventions are here put on the same 
 footing as dramatic. Now, what do the Act and treaty in- 
 tend by a " fair adaptation " of the notes of a musical com- 
 position ? clearly not any adaptation whatever, which shall 
 not be a translation. Why, musical notes are not translata- 
 ble. The French notes of " Partant pour la Syrie " are its 
 English notes. The contrast then must be sought elsewhere. 
 The fair adaptation, or fair imitation of a musical compo- 
 sition, must surely mean one that takes much of the cream, 
 but not all ; not quite enough to destroy the invention as 
 property. In some such sense as this, the words " fair adap- 
 tation " and " fair imitation," can be reasonably applied to 
 plays and to musical compositions. How else can they be 
 construed to fit both ? 
 
 This, then, I think, is what the contracting powers meant 
 to say. If so, of course they have not said it. 
 
 In this discussion I have been faithful to my plan, and 
 laid before you not my more recent discoveries, but the 
 views I held from 1852-57. The logic of larceny, into 
 whose wheel I have just ventured to put a spoke, won the 
 day in England — hollow ; and by way of comment, ver- 
 sions of French plays came out, one after another, closer to 
 the French text than they were before the treaty (a). Then 
 the French press teemed with remarks, sometimes angry, 
 sometimes satirical, on the low cunning with which a nation 
 of shopkeepers had overreached a nation of warriors and 
 artists. 
 
 These remarks gave me great pain: they were exag- 
 gerated ; but I could not deceive myself into thinking them 
 baseless. I used to say to them : " You are wrong to take 
 any interpretation but an English judge's. In England, 
 nobody knows what an Act of Parliament means till it has 
 received its construction in a court of law. The_ legislator 
 himself has not an idea what he means, till the judges tell 
 him. Try the question," said I. 
 
 But here the vile reputation our courts have got, not for 
 their decisions, but for bleeding the suitor, came in the way. 
 They dared not go into an English court of law, relying 
 
 (a) This was a mere accident, owing to the number of adapters 
 increasing, as it naturally would. StUl it shows how completely in- 
 operative was the treaty. 
 
62 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 on a rotten statute ; sure of nothing but being bled a bucket- 
 ful. 
 
 Mr. Jj6vj, the dramatic publisher (Rue Vivienne), re^s- 
 tered the French pieces for some years, in compliance with 
 the statute, but at last he was persuaded the whole thing was 
 a shuffle, and declined to pay the English government any 
 more solid fees for an empty shadow. 
 
 The pirate journalists, on this side the water, relieved of 
 all their fears, indulged in the insolence of settled triumph. 
 They made especially merry over a proposal for a Bureau 
 de Traduction that appeared in French journals, and a milk- 
 and-water agent whom the French dramatists appointed to 
 protect their British rights. Poor wretches ! they did not 
 see it was the national dishonour they were grinning over, 
 and that France had the best of the bargain after aU ; since 
 she was defrauded and we disgraced. 
 
 Whilst these were grinning, I know who was writhing 
 and blushing. So would you if you knew how worthy 
 ' French authors are, how valuable and hearty is their good 
 opinion where they can give it, how highly their own nation 
 prizes it, and how vile an estimate they formed and ex- 
 pressed of English writers' morals and delicacy. 
 
 In this state of things I learned, to my delight, that there 
 was another Englishman who thought with me, and, what is 
 much rarer, acted as he thought. Mr. Palgrave Simpson, 
 without any communication with me, had, since the year 
 1852, steadily declined to adapt French pieces without re- 
 munerating the inventor. 
 
 I compared notes with him, and learned his sentiments. 
 
 Mr. Palgrave Simpson considers that all French works, 
 published previous to the treaty, are fair game here, and all 
 English works ditto in France. But for pieces produced 
 since the treaty he has constantly dealt with the French 
 author, and paid him half or a third, as may be (a). 
 
 If any other English writer, or any manager of a theatre, 
 has dealt on the square with the French dramatic authors 
 
 (a) In the present state of the treaty this' is liberal; because the 
 French author can really give the adapter no property in exchange. 
 The adapter, therefore, runs a risk of not getting his adaptation, how- 
 ever valuable, played at all. This risk is fairly deducted from the 
 French author. Whenever an honest, sufficient statute passes, I am 
 sure Mr. Simpson will give the French inventor half in every case. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 63 
 
 between 1851 and 1860, 1 entreat liim to send me particu- 
 lars, and let me have the very great pleasure of printing his 
 name in this page. Each such name adds something to the 
 credit of English letters, and subtracts something from its 
 shame. I keep the type standing for all such, and a blank 
 space ready to be filled. 
 
 The seven wise men of Greece risked their several repu- 
 tations on short dicta, samples of their wisdom. One stood 
 on " Know thyself; " another on " Habit is everything ; " a 
 third on " Nothing to excess ; " etc., etc. I wish I had all 
 their reputations, that I might stake the aggregate on these 
 six syllables — 
 
 Put yoxirselp in their (a) place ! 
 
 For this single precept, should the world begin next Mon- 
 day morning to give it a fair trial in all transactions between 
 man and man, would double the intelligence and morality of 
 our race long before Wednesday night. 
 
 And why ? because it is the intellectual step towards 
 obeying the divine maxim, '* Do unto your neighbor as you 
 would he should do unto you." And when this preliminary 
 intellectual step is not taken, forty to one the moral maxim, 
 spite of its sacred origin, is violated. Forty? Four hun- 
 dred ! ! 
 
 I do entreat you, then, shut your eyes, open your imagina- 
 tion, and by one vigorous effort put yourself in their place ! 
 
 It is done. Malgrd the salt-water ditch, and the moun- 
 tains of egotism, that Nature has set between us, we are in 
 France for five minutes ; and for five minutes 
 
 We are the French Dramatists. 
 
 We are a distinguished body of some three hundred writ- 
 ers ; highly prized, and severely protected, throughout the 
 French territory. 
 
 Up to 1851 we were even worse pillaged by foreign 
 nations than other French writers. When treaties to put 
 authors on the footing of mankind were first discussed, our 
 
 (a) I use this idiomatically, for his, her, or theirs. 
 
64 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 past wrongs were admitted, and our interest in the promised 
 relief had its weight in bringing nations to equity. Our 
 expectations rose high. We have a wealthy and civilized 
 neighbour, keen in business, but jealous of her commercial 
 honor. No nation so indebted to us as she in times past. 
 Her theatre has been enriched gratis with more than a 
 thousand of our inventions. We have not taken a hundred 
 from her. In 1851, after some discussion, she declined to 
 settle arrears with us ; but she acknowledged them ; and 
 that made us feel safe for the future. Our treaty arrives, 
 and lo ! she has drawn an unkind distinction between us 
 and other French authors. 
 
 Yet the Shakespeare she justly reveres above all her own 
 writers was a dramatic author. Were he alive she would 
 outlaw him in France by outlawing us in England. 
 
 This treaty actually makes the terms of protection more 
 severe to us than to our brethren, yet the protection we buy 
 so dear is to be small, or null. This may be " I'esprit des 
 lois," as understood by Satan ; but it would make Montes- 
 quieu as sick as a dog ; and Bentham as sick as Montesquieu. 
 
 No kind of iniquity is so bitter to the sufferer as partiality. 
 What have we done to England that she is our brethren's 
 friend yfet our enemy ; and under cover of equity ? What? 
 a great nation attack individuals ! Why, even in war, 
 national hostilities are now diverted from individuals. We 
 can comprehend a nation declining altogether what it thinks 
 a bad international bargain. The United States of America, 
 as we learn from the abusive epithets of English journalists, 
 refuse to sign any copyright treaty with Great Britain. We 
 can understand that : it is fair and above board, and it is an 
 incident common enough in the history of nations. That is 
 merely to refuse the hand. But what we can't understand, 
 is how a great people can offer the hand and draw back the 
 fingers. 
 
 The excuses of the English press for still outlawing us, 
 though England outlaws our brethren no longer, do but con- 
 firm our bitter sense of injustice. Was ever such egotism? 
 One would think the channel had but one side, and justice 
 was like the channel. " We don't translate, we only imi- 
 tate," say they. What the better are we for the distinction ? 
 Your imitation, however remote it may seem to your vanity, 
 is identified by the naked eye with our invention, and renders 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 65 
 
 the invention unsaleable in our hands. Treat with us ! and 
 then adapt, imitate, and sell in what form you please the in- 
 ventions you will have honestly purchased. You dare not 
 so imitate an English dramatist's invention. Why then so 
 juggle us ? " c'est lS,che ! " 
 
 France is an old country. These shallow subterfuges 
 you think you have invented, you who invent nothing, they 
 were exposed here ages before you were born. 
 
 " Qaoi qu'en disent certains railleurs, 
 J'imite, et jamais je ne pille. 
 Vous avez laison, Monsieur Drills ; 
 Out, vous imitez . . .■ les voleurs." 
 
 The next subterfuge is, that to adapt an invention is 
 harder than to invent an invention. 
 
 And how do you know that, Messieurs ? Have you ever 
 tried ? But say it were so ! do we hinder you to invent ? 
 We but ask you to pay something for such of our inven- 
 tions as you take and adapt. You won't ? Then invent ! 
 it is easy, you know; and resign the roguery you find so 
 difficult. 
 
 The next subterfuge is, that we take no English plays ; so 
 ours are to be stolen, not bought. What other Englishman 
 but the piratical adapter ever talks thus ? Against what 
 other Frenchman dare even he argue thus in public ? We 
 sell England no razors ; yet we buy English razors, and 
 claim no right to steal them. England takes millions of eggs 
 from us, and we none from her : yet she buys French eggs, 
 not steals them. Every French article sold to the English 
 public has to be bought of the French owner. Our com- 
 modity is the sole exception, physical or intellectual. Mnd 
 nobody can give us a reason that does not by its absurdity 
 confirm us in our opinion that we are cruelly, ungratefully, 
 and unjustly used. Moreover, two English writers have 
 constantly disowned the reasoning, and the practice of their 
 nation : and this, too insignificant to cure so wide a wrong, 
 is valuable as a proof that the wrong is an obvious one. 
 And now we are advised to appeal to the law courts of this 
 perfidious nation : courts whose purity we admit, but whose 
 capacity in matters of copyright is lightly esteemed by our 
 jurists : courts, too, infamous throughout Europe for the ex- 
 pense they put the suitor to. 
 
66 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Others dissuade us. They say that all which has oc- 
 curred was planned in England in 1851, with cunning truly 
 diabolical : that not having the courage to say openly, " from 
 this equal treaty we will except your principal authors and 
 their property," the English government smuggled in an 
 equivocating clause, satanically worded, to be read in good 
 faith by our government as giving us a certain protection, 
 but in practice to leave us at the mercy of the pirates, and 
 to baffle us entirely in their courts of law. 
 
 " Comptez done sur les trait^s sign& par le mensonge, 
 Ces actes soleanels avec art prepare ! " 
 
 Then comes our friend Mr. Beade, and says, that self- 
 contradiction and the perverse selection of equivocal terms 
 are the chronic mania of English legislators. He entreats 
 us not to suspect notorious addlepates of fraud, because 
 they are unintelligible : and would have us try the English 
 judges, and let them try us. 
 
 If the court goes with you, says he, all is well. If against 
 you, the iniquity you suspect will be proved and commented 
 on. In England an iniquity exposed in court is half cured. 
 Besides, you can then go to your own government with a clear 
 case. 
 
 Mr. Simpson has advised the same course. 
 
 This much is certain ; our present situation is desperate ; 
 this sham protection is far worse than none ; for it perpetu- 
 ates the wrong by creating a doubt whether the wrong ex- 
 ists ; and so averts both sympathy and cure. 
 
 En Italic I'^tat de bandit est une profession. H n'en est 
 pas de mgme en Angleterre. 
 
 Quand on s'engage dans les Abruzzes, on salt h. quoi on 
 s'expose ; mais si Ton a un sauf conduit, on est respect^. 
 Le sauf conduit vis-k-vis les Anglais, c'est le traits qu'ils ont 
 signd ; et ce traits est r^duit k I'^tait de lettre morte. 
 
 Of desperate ills, desperate cures. 
 
 We who have been bled so copiously in England, let us 
 bleed once more, to get at the truth. Let us pay these 
 islanders another five or six thousand francs to tell us, with- 
 out an equivoque, what their equivoque means. 
 
 The Channel, you see, has two sides, and Justice two 
 scales. And now that you have caught a glimpse of the 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 67 
 
 feelings, bitter, and here and there excessive, but not unjust, 
 that lie in the hearts of our outlawed benefactors, for the 
 credit of our common nature give them some few grains of 
 human sympathy in this their hard situation, and the strug- 
 gle it led to. 
 
 In the autumn of 1856, being in Paris, it was hinted to 
 me that the French dramatists were coming round to the 
 view I had often urged on them, and were disposed to 
 take legal proceedings in England to get the treaty formally 
 interpreted. 
 
 Though I had long ceased to write for the theatre, or take 
 a pecuniary interest in it, I had not lost my zeal for its im- 
 provement, and for our allies' rights. I acted, therefore on 
 the above hint, and looked out for a subject. It was some 
 time before I could find one. Being an inventor myself, 
 I cannot, even with the best motives, write mediocrity, 
 (another's). 
 
 At last a piece with an idea came out at " The Ambigu 
 Comique." It was called " Les Pauvres de Paris." 
 
 " Aha ! " said I, « you '11 do." The authors were Mes- 
 sieurs Edouard Brisebarr.e and Eugene Nus. I called on 
 the former, and explained the whole matter to him. I treat- 
 ed with him, not on the same terms as with Monsieur 
 Maquet, but as I have done with Monsieur Anicet Bour- 
 geois and others, in 1852. However, the assignment will 
 explain itself; not being worded by an English legislator. 
 
 The next thing was to do my part of our contract with the 
 British State. First, to register the original piece in Paris. 
 I did it. Next to produce a version, and publish it, and 
 enter it at Stationers' Hall. "Well, I printed my version, 
 which cost me 8/. 15«., and took it to Stationers' Hall ; there 
 I found officials who would not register it without a declara- 
 tion from the French authors. I produced the assignment, 
 on papier timbr6, with their signatures. " That won't do ; 
 must have inferior evidence, their signatures in answer to a 
 letter." ObUined it from Paris. Another visit to the City : 
 got it registered at last. 
 
 " Oblige me with a stamped copy ! " {a) 
 
 " Tou must call again fpr that." 
 
 (a) The stamped copy is jrrim& facie evidence in a court of justice, 
 and averts the necessity of bringing the French authors into court. 
 
68 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 " Why so ? my time is precious." 
 
 " It is contrary to the rule of the office to issue the copy 
 the same day." 
 
 Another afternoon wasted, going to Stationers' Hall, City. 
 (N. B. — Who robs an Englishman of his time, robs him of 
 gold.) Got the document at last. [I have done the iden- 
 tical thing in Paris ; and there it was all done at one sitting, 
 and the official parchment placed in my hands at once.] 
 
 In a proceeding of this kind it is not fair to take people 
 by surprise. Very early, therefore, in these proceedingsj 
 riz. on the 16th and on the 17th of October, 1856, 1 adver- 
 tised as follows, in the " Times " : — \ 
 
 "Les Pauvbes de Paris." 
 
 " The authors of this drama are preparing a version for Lon- 
 don. It will be printed according to the statute in a few days : 
 meantime their solictor is instructed to restrain any other version, 
 or imitation, by an injunction of the Court of Chancery." 
 
 About the middle of November I sent copies of the au- 
 thorized version to certain journals,' and to the theatrical 
 managers, and offered to treat on fair terms. I now reprint 
 the title-page in fac-simile, and the preface. 
 
POYEETY AND PRIDE. 
 
 BT 
 
 CHARLES EEADE. 
 
 BEING THE AUTHORIZED ENGLISH VERSION OF 
 
 "LES PAUVRES DE PARIS." 
 
 DKAMA BT MESSRS. 
 
 EDOUARD BRISEBARRE AND EUGENE NUS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 RICHAKD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 1856. 
 
LONDON: PBINTED BY W. CXOWES AKD SONS, STAMFORD STEEBT. 
 
( 3 ) 
 
 In the year 1852, the few nations that are really civilized 
 agreed to protect mutually the parents of civilization, authors, 
 from a principal enemy of civilization, — thieves. 
 
 A treaty with this view passed between two rivals in civ- 
 ilization, England and France, and in due course became 
 law. 
 
 The act, like the treaty, is so worded as to give a full 
 protection to books, and a limited protection to dramatic 
 
 " Fair imitations and adaptations of a foreign drama are ex- 
 cepted." The treaty, then, protects the foreign dramatist only 
 against unfair adaptations and imitations. 
 
 Here arises a question : What is a fair, and what is an un- 
 fair adaptation or imitation of a foreign inventor's idea and 
 labour ? 
 
 I am ashamed to say that there is in England a clique, which 
 has asserted that no imitation or adaptation is unfair, provided 
 the Frenchman's property is taken without his consent, and not 
 a farthing of English money goes into his pocket for it. 
 
 This is the logic of thieves. 
 
 I disown it in my own name, and in the name of every honest 
 Englishman to whom the nation's credit for probity and equity 
 is dear. 
 
 In 1852 I acted on the notorious object of the treaty, by pur- 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 chasing for cash a French author's property in a drama called 
 " Chateau Grantier"; and I have acted on it in 1856, by assur- 
 ing to Messrs. Brisebarre and Nus one half the English profits 
 of " Les Pauvres de Paris." 
 
 In interpreting statutes, the rule is to read, not one clause of 
 an act, but all the clauses, and each by the light of the others, 
 and also of the general intention declared on the face of the 
 statute. 
 
 Proceeding thus, I understand " by a fair imitation or adapta- 
 tion," one so vague or partial as not to destroy the value of the 
 authorized version, and so the French proprietor's property in 
 this country. 
 
 The other interpretation, besides contradicting the eighth of 
 Moses, by which all modern statutes relating to property are in 
 some degree interpreted, is open to the fatal objection, that it 
 would leave foreign dramatic pieces exactly as it found them, 
 viz., entirely unprotected; whereas both treaty and statute 
 profess to make some change, and confer on them some protec- 
 tion, and even to settle the terms of that protection. 
 
 One of these terms is, that France shall pay England, (and 
 vice versa,') for each dramatic piece to be protected, a small reg- 
 istration fee. And, in fact, since the treaty, considerable sums 
 have passed from France to England, in the faith that this fee 
 is, as the act affirms, the consideration paid by one nation for 
 value to be returned by the other in the shape of protection to 
 the dramatic piece registered. 
 
 Of two things one : either England does give some protec- 
 tion to French dramas, or she has for four years been swindling 
 France out of those registration fees. 
 
 I do not take my country for a swindler. Whoever does has 
 only to steal the scenes, situations, and soul of " Les Pauvres 
 de Paris" from the French inventors and me, and I promise 
 him that the highest court of law in this nation shall decide 
 whether England or he is the swindler. 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 Meantime, the authorized version of that play is now offered 
 to the public and to the theatrical managers by Messrs. Brise- 
 barre, Nus, and Reade. 
 
 A question is here raised fraught with important consequences. 
 I am trying, this day to lay, not only the first stone of intemar 
 tional dramatic honesty in these islands, but also the first stone 
 of an English dramatic literature. For English dramatists will 
 spring up, the moment they are encouraged as English journal- 
 ists, novelists, biographers, and compilers are ; and they will be 
 so encouraged the moment a Frenchman's play has to be bought 
 from him, instead of stolen. 
 
 I beg the London managers not to fancy that I do not sympa- 
 thize with their difficulties; or care for their just interests. 
 
 They gain nothing by paying pirates a small sum for a smug- 
 gled piece, that, by step two of the same rotten system, is to be 
 pirated from them at the fifteenth night ; it is more to their solid 
 interest to pay a moderate sum to the French proprietor, or the 
 representative of his interest, and so acquire (by the simple 
 process of deserving it) a five-years' monopoly in such good 
 French pieces as suit their respective stages. 
 
 C. K 
 
 November, 1856. 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 The Count de Eocheville, a poor Nobleman. 
 
 M. ViLLEBRTJN, a Banker. 
 
 Pierre Bernier, a Sea Captain. 1 , j , 
 
 ANDRi! Bernier, his Son. "f ^ ^^ ^ °°^ ^''*°'"- 
 
 Plantbkose, a Banker's Clerk. 
 
 Joseph, a Domestic. 
 
 Joubert, a Civic functionary. 
 
 Bigot, a Workman. 
 
 Emilie Villebrun. 
 
 Madame Bernier. 
 
 Antoinette Bernier. 
 
 Margot, Servant to the Berniers, and mother of Bigot. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 73 
 
 To_ give still further publicity to the transaction, and to 
 my views, I published a little manifesto in the " Era," our 
 dramatic weekly. I do not cite it ; the opinions it embodied 
 are all in these pages. 
 
 I soon found, and not to my surprise, that 1 had walked 
 into a hornet's nest. Many opprobrious epithets were lav- 
 ished on me ; many perverse and sordid misinterpretations 
 of my conduct and motives were published by pirate journal- 
 ists, and publishers' hacks, hanging on to the skirts of the 
 press. It is easy for poor degraded wretches, lost not only 
 to honour, but common manhood, to throw dirt in the dark 
 from behind the wall of the anonymous at a gentleman, 
 whose pen or dog-whip they dare not face : but skunks do 
 not find it so easy to assault justice, or even me, by the way 
 of argument. Accordingly, dirt in abundance was thrown at 
 my person and name; but my opinions and statements 
 remained (a) unanswered. 
 
 But a more serious and less cowardly opposition was at 
 hand. 
 
 It came close upon an incident creditable to the English 
 theatre. On or about the 9th February, Mr. Creswick, one 
 of the managers of the Surrey Theatre, called on me at my 
 club, and oflFered to pay a small sum for permission to play 
 an adaptation, by another writer, of " Les Pauvres de 
 Paris." The proposal was not at first blush agreeable : first, 
 it was not flattering ; secondly, it is a serious injury to this 
 kind of property to break into the monopoly at all. Per 
 contra, the Surrey Theatre plays to a distinct audience ; and 
 above all, this was an act of English virtue ; and I was 
 almost childishly eager to introduce English virtue and Eng- 
 lish money to my allies. I consented. 
 
 I print the agreement : — 
 
 Gareick Clttb, Feb. 11. 
 It is agreed between Messrs. Shepherd and Creswick on the one 
 hand, and Mr. Charles Reade on the other, that Messrs. Shepherd 
 
 (a) The single exception was this. On the question of the balance 
 of imports, an anonymous writer had the folly to deny that England 
 produces far more Reviews, Magazines, Voyages, and Travels, than 
 France does. Answer — Bead the " Publishers' Circular," and the 
 advertisements of both nations! "Black is white," is easily said. 
 But why print it in a journal ? 
 
76 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 and Oreswick shall receive permission to play a version of " Les 
 Pauvres de Paris," upon paying twenty pounds to him, of which one 
 half is to go to the French authors. 
 
 It ii however a distinct stipulation in this agreement, that the ver- 
 sion played by Messrs. Shepherd and Oreswick shall contain nothing 
 that is in Mr. JReade's published version but is not in the French 
 original. 
 
 WM. ORESWICK. 
 
 CHARLES BEADE. 
 
 The right of adaptation thus honourably obtained, the 
 Surrey adaptation was played, and in due course printed. 
 Here is its title-page : — 
 
FRAUD 
 AND ITS YICTIMS. 
 
 IN POUR ACTS, 
 
 PRECEDES BY A PROLOGUE. 
 
 J. STIELING COYNE, Esq., 
 
 Member of the " Dramatic Author's Society." 
 
 ATTTHOR OF 
 
 ' Man of Many Friends," "My Wife's Daughter," "Box and Cox," 
 
 " Married and Settled," "Mnhs the -Bagman," " Bow to Settle 
 
 Accovmts vMh your Lawndress," " Did you ever send your 
 
 Wife to Camberwell," "A Dud in the Dark" " Leo the 
 
 Terrible," " Mrs. Bumbwry' a Spoons," "The Water 
 
 Witches," " An Unprotected Female," "The 
 
 Pas de Fascination," " The ffope of 
 
 the Family," " WilUHns and hys 
 
 Dinah," " The Old Chateau," 
 
 " Catching a Mermaid," 
 
 " The Secret Agent," 
 
 4-c., #c., #c. 
 
 THOMAS HAILES LACY, 
 
 WELLINGTON STREET, AND 
 
 89, STRAND, 
 
 LONDON. 
 
78 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 [Of this 20/., one half paid the expenses of protection, 
 viz., the printing of the authorized version, the various reg- 
 istration fees, the stamped copies, and the advertisements. 
 The other half went to the French authors, and proud I 
 was to be able to send even that small sum. It was a be- 
 ginning. 
 
 The very next day, Feb. 12, walking along the Strand, I 
 came bump upon a board, placed at the door of the Strand 
 Theatre ; on that' board was a poster, announcing 
 
 " The Peide op Povertt," or " The Real Poor of 
 London ; " a drama, taken from " Les Pauvres de Paris." 
 
 I instantly bought the small bill of the theatre, and saw 
 what you see now. 
 
Strand Theatre. 
 
 Proprietor— Mr. F. W. ALLCROFT. Sole Lessee — Mr. T. PAYNE. 
 
 THE PRIDE OF POVERTY; or, THE REAL POOR OF LONDON. 
 
 This powerful Drama, replete with IncidentB, wan suggested to the Management 
 by the extraordinary success attending the production of ** JjES PAUVRES DE 
 PARIS," which for months has attracted and delighted the Parisians. An attempt 
 is made to bring before the Public notice, the trials and sufferings, not of the professed 
 Mendicant) but of those whose Pride and Self-respect induce them to preserve ap- 
 pearances — in fact 
 
 THE HXiAI. POOR OF IiONSON. 
 
 Monday, Feb. 16th, & during the Week, 
 
 The Performances will commence with (First time) a Drama, in 3 Acts, by Messrs. 
 Ben Barnett and J. B. Johnstone, entitled 
 
 THE PRIDE OF POVERTY; 
 
 Or, the Real Poor of London. 
 
 Induction — THE BAHKEB. Scene — WILLOW ASH. 
 
 Mr Ralph Vernon . . . . (the Banker) . . Mr J. B. JOHNSTONE 
 
 Mark Bavenstone . . (his Clerk — " Sinned against and Smning ") . . Mr KINLOCn 
 
 Frederick . . . . (the Father) . . Mr. JOHN HOWABD 
 
 A N INTERVAL OF FIFTEEN YEARS. 
 
 Act 1. - LiONDON. I^IFE'S VICISSITUDES. 
 
 Scene 1st. .. COVEITT GABD£IT IIABKET. 
 Mr Ralph Vernon .. .. .. Mr J. B. JOHNSTONE 
 
 Mark Ravenstone . . (a Mendicant) . . Mr KINLOCH 
 Frederick Ranger . . (The Son) . . Mr JOHN HOWARD 
 
 George Normanton . . (a Poor Gentleman) . . Mr G. LEE 
 
 Peter StUplod (A Perambulator — a Dealer in Books,but notSiationa7^)MrJ.CLARKE 
 
 A Pawnbroker Mr JAMES. A Policeman Mr EDGE. A Passenger Mr HENSON 
 
 Mrs Ranger . . Mrs WOOLLIDGE. Clara Ranger . . Miss Kate PERCY 
 
 Martha Mag (of Low Class,but High Principle— with a Song) Miss CUTHBERT 
 Ella Vernon . . (the Banker's Daughter) . . Miss Emma WILTON 
 
 Scene 2nd. - The ITidow's Home. The Portrait. 
 
 Scene 2nd.'-Tlie LONDON RESIDENCE of the BANKER. 
 
 The Mendicant and the Banker— the Arrest. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 Scene lst.-The South Western Railway Station, Waterloo Road. 
 
 The Itinerant Dealer. 
 
 Scene 2nd.--Wellington Street North, Strand. 
 
 The Lover and his Friend. 
 
 See. M.-TWO CELLARS IN SHORT'S GARDENS. 
 
 The Suicide. 
 
 See. 4.-Street iu London. Sc. S.-Drawing Room at the Banker's. 
 
 The Wind-up. 
 
80 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 A piratical version of a French play was, in my view, an 
 unauthorized adaptation, so published or played, in matter, 
 form, or title, as to supersede and undersell the authorized 
 version. 
 
 Now here was the French title, and the credit attached to 
 it, offered publicly for sale in spite of its authors, and my 
 English title " Poverty and Pride " tampered with into the 
 bargain, and an imitation of it hung out in the street to bait 
 a rival adapter's hook. 
 
 Whether the coming adaptation was in itself close or free 
 remained to be shown. But the place was suspicious ; this 
 theatre was infamous for evading author's rights ; and query, 
 could any adaptation be fair with an unfair title (o) ? 
 
 This advertisement, not parried, was destruction to my 
 allies' property and mine. I knew this by foresight then. 
 I know it now by fact. 
 
 I went in all haste to my friend and solicitor, Mr. Annes- 
 ley : out of course ! Made an appointment for next day. 
 Went to the "Era" office, and inserted the following ad- 
 vertisement : — 
 
 " Les Pauvres de Paris." 
 
 Whereas the manager of the Strand Theatre has advertized a 
 piratical version of this play, the authorized version of which and 
 the original have been entered at Stationers' Hall, this is to warn 
 all other managers and lessees of English theatres that injunctions 
 in the Court of Chancery are at this moment being prepared, 
 both against the lessee and the manager of the said Qieatre. 
 
 Geo. Annesley, 64 Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
 
 This to save the relics of our property. 
 
 The next day I had a conference with Mr. Annesley, 
 which ended in his drawing up a formal notice to Mr. Payne, 
 threatening proceedings in Chancery should the play be con- 
 tinued. Mr. Annesley's managing clerk served this notice 
 next morning (Saturday) on Mr. Payne, at the theatre ; and 
 I accompanied him, with a motive which has been ungra- 
 ciously misrepresented, but never misunderstood. 
 
 Mr. Payne, the manager of this theatre, was a poor man, 
 
 (a) If I take crumbs of bread, and sell it as " HoUoway's Pills," it 
 is just as much a piracy as if I imitated his materials as well as stole 
 his title. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. §1 
 
 maintojping a hard struggle to keep his theatre going. I 
 went in person to mix a little courtesy with law, and divest 
 a public matter of all personal animosity. 
 
 I saw Mr. Payne alone in the lobby, and my first words 
 to him on the matter were : " I am sorry to proceed against 
 so small a theatre, but you are aware that this is a question 
 I have pledged myself to try." 
 
 " Come into my room, gentlemen," said Mr. Payne. 
 
 There we found his solicitor, Mr. Edward Levi. He ap- 
 peared angry at us. I don't know why; for these little 
 matters always turn to the advantage of the attorney. 
 
 Mr. Annesley's clerk served the notice. 
 
 " But you are ail wrong," said Mr. Payne. " My piece is 
 quite wide of the French." 
 
 " In that case," said I, " you will perhaps allow me to 
 read your MS. before I proceed farther ? " 
 
 Now, I must do Mr. Payne the justice to say, he was in- 
 clined to acquiesce. But Mr. Levi interfered. 
 
 " No ; if you had apphed to us in the first instance we 
 would : but you have accused us of piracy in the ' Era ' of 
 this morning." 
 
 " I must protect our property, gentlemen." 
 
 " And we will protect ours, sir." 
 
 On this I requested them to believe, at all events, that 
 there was no hostility in the matter ; and that the proceed- 
 ings, if any, would show this. This was courteously re- 
 ceived, and we parted like Christians, and men of sense, 
 with opposite interests. 
 
 On Monday the adaptation was played. I had two short- 
 hand writers in the theatre taking it all down. I went to 
 the pit myself. Mr. Levi was at the door ; I saluted him in 
 passing. Some friends of mine joined me by appointment. 
 The play was reworded, but the whole heart of it — scenes, 
 situations, characters — was " Les Pauvres de Paris." In 
 the charcoal scene, the actors squatted down and died, one 
 after another, so cannily, and with so few notes of prepara- 
 tion, that the audience giggled. My friends, artists them- 
 selves, laughed loud. On this I withdrew from their com- 
 pany, I dare say you can tell why, and sat at the back. 
 There Mr. Levi found me all alone. He excused himself 
 politely for not having immediately recognized me at the 
 6 
 
82 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 door. He sat down beside me, and we had a civil coafversar 
 tion of some minutes. 
 
 On the fall of the curtain, Mr. Payne came forward, and 
 told the audience an attempt had been made to stop the play 
 by injunction ; but it would be resisted. (Applause, and 
 sympathy of the audience ! " Britons never shall be 
 slaves ! " etc., etc.) 
 
 The poor oppressor sat forlorn, and saw himself first pil- 
 laged, then held up as a tyrant for not holding his tongue 
 at it. 
 
 After the " Pride of Poverty " I went out. Mr. Levi 
 was at the door. By this time the theatre was full ; an 
 unusual occuiTcnce here. 
 
 I said to Mr. Levi, " Tou see, I have done you no harm ; " 
 meaning more than I said. 
 
 The following is Mr. Levi's reply,' ad verbum. 
 
 " Yes ! it will be a capital advertisement ; " meaning my 
 threat of an injunction, (a) 
 
 On the next Saturday the injured pirate printed a letter 
 in the " Era," which surprised me. 
 
 He lashed the pillaged oppressor thus : — 
 
 To THE EdITOK of THE " EkA." 
 
 Sir, — An advertisement appeared in your paper on Sunday 
 last, signed by Mr. Annesley, a solicitor of Lincoln's Inn Fields, 
 announcing an intent, on the part of some one unnamed, to apply 
 to Chancery for an injunction to restrain me from producing 
 a drama entitled "The Pride of Poverty, or the Real Poor of 
 London." 
 
 Notwithstanding the threat, the piece was played with great 
 success on Monday, and has been repeated on each evening smce, 
 and the attempt even to carry out the threat has not been made. 
 
 Under these circumstances, I must beg of you, in justice to 
 Messrs. Ben. Barnett and J. B. Johnstone, the authors, to insert 
 this letter, that country managers may know the piece may be 
 played any or everywhere by obtaining those gentlemen's written 
 permission. 
 
 It may not be uninteresting to your readers to know the pre- 
 cise words of the Act bearing on this point. 
 
 In the International Copyright Act, passed to carry into effect 
 
 (a) So far is this from injuring a property, that it has often been 
 obtained ad interim, at a heavy cost, by collusion, to cause publicity, 
 soul of success. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 83 
 
 a convention -with France on the 28tli May, 1852, being Cap. XII. 
 15 Vict., in Sec. 6 are these words : " Nothing herein contained 
 shall be so construed as to prevent fair imitations or adaptations 
 to the English stage of any Dramatic Piece or Musical Compo- 
 ation published in any foreign country." 
 
 Presuming that Mr. Keade or his solicitor must have known 
 this, the advertisement must be regarded an impertinent bragar 
 docia, and an attempt to injure me, for which I have given in- 
 structions to commence legal proceedings, unless a proper apology 
 be made. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 Thos. Payne. 
 
 Strand Theatre, Feb. 20, 1857. 
 
 I just found time, in the midst of a far more serious 
 calamity, to disown those unworthy motives my injured pil- 
 lager thought proper to saddle me with. 
 
 To THE Editor of the "Era." 
 
 Sir, — The advertisement Mr. Payne complains of was put in 
 by me, not to injure Mr. Payne, who I knew was determined to 
 play his version of " Les Pauvres de Paris " in spite of all I could 
 say, but that other managers might not, seeing Mr. Payne's adver- 
 tisements, assume there would be no opposition to the legality of 
 such versions. Legal proceedings, not to injure Mr. Payne, but 
 to try a great question of international good faith, being contem- 
 plated, I took the liberty of signing my solicitor's name without his 
 formal consent, because I had not the opportunity of consulting 
 him, and the affair was pressing. 
 
 I offer myself to Mr. Payne and the writers of the piece as the 
 advertiser. 
 
 The best answer to Mr. Payne's notion that I have injured the 
 theatre is to be found in an impartial observer, "The Era." 
 Speaking of the first night's performance, your critic says : " There 
 was a full house to witness its representation, in consequence of its 
 being understood that Mr. Charles Eeade had purchased the copy- 
 right of the last-named piece, and had declared his intention to 
 ]M&. Payne of resisting any infringement, &c." 
 I am, sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Charles Keade. 
 
 Garrick Club, Covent Garden, 25th Feb. 
 
 Having printed Mr. Payne's polite conjectures, I may as 
 well give the real reasons why I did not file an injunction 
 against bim that week. 
 
84 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 In the first place I was advised that in so new and doubt- 
 ful a case the Court of Chancery would send the question to 
 law. Now this would have let me and my allies into two 
 heavy suits instead of once. Instead, therefore, of going to 
 law round by Equity, alias Purgatory viS, Plutus, I settled 
 to let him play his adaptation, and destroy the authorized 
 version ; then try the question by a suit for damages. 
 
 In the next place, I was at that moment in no state of 
 mind to sue a Payne and catch an insect. 
 
 It had pleased heaven, at the very moment when I was de- 
 fending the literary property of others, that my own copy- 
 rights, the children of my heart as well as my brain, should 
 be torn from me contrary to law. 
 
 My stories, " Peg Woifington," and " Christie Johnstone," 
 had been published upon an agreement known amongst 
 authors as " the half-profit swindle." (a) 
 
 Under this agreement, an author seldom receives the re- 
 muneration of a printer's devil, or anything like it. [My 
 share of the first edition of " Peg Woffington " was 10?.] 
 
 But he retains his copyright. The publisher findmg at 
 his own risk the paper, print, and advertisements of each 
 edition, that copyright lies in pawn till the edition shall have 
 repaid the outlay. This claim on the copyright once dis- 
 charged, it becomes as free in equity as any other pawned 
 article is after redemption. As to the leffol right, that never 
 quits the author at all. 
 
 Now, my two copyrights had not only repaid the publisher's 
 outlay, his sole contribution to our firm, but had brought us 
 in a profit ; when, all of a sudden, after repeatedly acknowl- 
 edging me as the partner that held the copyright, or sole 
 and exclusive right of printing, by asking permission to go 
 into a cheap edition, which I refused again and again by 
 letter, my publisher assumed the right of printing maJgr^ 
 moi ; sent to the printer without consulting me, and not only 
 
 (a) This term has been appli^ to it because, though it is a mere 
 partnership agreement between the author and publisher, upon terms 
 ridiculously favourable to the latter, the accounts rendered by the 
 trading partner to the other partner, the creator of the copyright, are 
 seldom bon§, fide accounts as between partner and partner, being gen- 
 erally adulterated with secret and disloyal profits on the paper, the 
 printing, and the advertisements. The system of pillage done upon 
 the anthor under this partnership is explained in facts and figures by 
 " The New Quarterly Review." 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 85 
 
 printed my property contrary to the Copyright Act, but being 
 only one partner out of two, changed the price agreed on by 
 the firm, which was contrary to the custom and law of part- 
 nership. The discovery fell on me like a thunder-clap, the 
 very day after I attended at my pillage in the Strand Thea- 
 tre, viz., Feb. 17, and a correspondence followed, in the 
 course of which the publisher made no secret that publish- 
 ers under these agreements claim aU that the law under- 
 stands by copyright. 
 
 On this I had no alternative but to dissolve our partner- 
 ship, and file an injunction to restrain him from printing 
 my works. 
 
 This battle demanded my whole -time till it was settled. 
 
 The motion was argued before the Vice-Chancellor, very 
 early in March, and I was defeated ; not upon the law of the 
 thing ; quite the reverse ; nor, indeed, upon any ground 
 taken by the publisher ; but solely because I had not dis- 
 solved the partnership before my copyright was thus tam- 
 pered with ; and so my partner, while still my partner, had 
 run us into fresh expenses (a), which he was entitled to be 
 recouped. Yet how were these expenses incurred ? Se- 
 cretly, and malgre moi (nolenti non fit injuria, eh?) : and I 
 offered in court to recoup these expenses incurred malgr^ 
 moi, a mode of recouping that I still think would have been 
 more equitable, on the whole, than to let one partner both 
 break the Copyright Act, and assume the whole powers of 
 the firm, and this too the mere partner of straw, who, at the 
 moment of assuming these extravagant powers, had not an 
 atom of property left in the concern : his sole contribution, 
 the copies, having all been sold, and the intellectual property, 
 or right of creating fresh copies, being vested in the other 
 partner, its creator and producer. 
 
 Thus was I deprived of my property, and bereaved of my 
 children. 
 
 Whatever you that possess land could feel, were you to be 
 
 (a) I have since proved the above to be the sole ground the Court 
 went upon in letting my partner seize my copyright upon this doubtful 
 equity, contrary to law. I attacked the same publisher again in the 
 same Court with the same weapon, just before he had time to run into 
 a fresh set of expenses ; and the Court gave me my children. So that 
 now, thank God, and Sir W. P. Wood, I am only 200/. out of pocket 
 by creating two immortal works in Great Britain. 
 
86 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 suddenly robbed of half your family acres, that, believe me, 
 I felt this bitter year. Whatever a mother feels, bereaved 
 of her children, that I felt, too, besides the other. _ Till that 
 year I had not a gray hair in my head. Before it was half 
 gone I had plenty. 
 
 My friends said, " Get out of London, for heaven's sake, 
 or they will drive you mad amongst them." I took the ad- 
 vice ; for I felt myself beginning to disbelieve in justice, 
 human or divine. I fled to my native woods, and shut out 
 the very t)ost, for many days. 
 
 And this was the other reason why I neglected the great, 
 the all-absorbing Mr. Payne. 
 
 I returned in due course, sick at heart, but calm, and on 
 the day of my return was honored with a call at the Garrick 
 Club from a stout party, who told me he had two writs against 
 me in the Court of Exchequer. No. 1, Payne v. Reade. 
 No. 2, Bamett and another v. Reade. 
 
 I referred him to my attorney. 
 
 CAP. V, 
 
 A WRIT of summons, the first step in a suit for damages, 
 does not disclose the nature of the injury complained of, nor 
 the precise form of attack meditated. It merely invites 
 you to enter an appearance in the Court whence the writ 
 issues, and to compose yourself for the part of Damocles tiU 
 " the declaration " falls on you. This may be next week, or 
 in six months' time. 
 
 A suit at law brought, as these manifestly were, by a 
 speculating attorney, is a serious thing if the case gives him 
 a chance of getting a verdict. The damages may be merely 
 nominal ; but he runs up his costs to two or three hundred 
 pounds, and you will have to pay them. This was the game 
 in the present case, and would have harassed me ; but I saw 
 no ground of action. Slander was clearly untenable. The 
 pirate suing the merchant, after pillaging him, need not pre- 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 87 
 
 vent the merchant from suing the pirate, after being pillaged. 
 I therefore ignored their impudence, and in due course sued 
 Mr. Payne for piracy of the French property. I had already 
 notified my intention to the French authors. The following 
 is M. Brisebarre's reply : — 
 
 Chek Collabobateur, 
 
 J'ai re9u votre lettre, et le billet de banque coup^. Vous 
 recevrez lundi les deux exemplaires " Des Pauvres de Paris." 
 
 Je suis alle chez men agent auquel j'ai communique votre let- 
 tre ; et on va vous dorire pour tous adresser k une personne qui 
 habite Londres, et qui pourra vous Stre utile pour le procfes. 
 
 De plus, la Commission des Auteurs Dramatiques va se rendre 
 la semaine prochaine chez le Ministre des Affaires Etrangeres, 
 pour le prier de s'ocouper immddiatement de I'execution des traitds 
 avec I'Angleterre. 
 
 Done, marohez et ferme ; Si vous, de coeur, et de plume 
 
 Edouakd Brisebarre. 
 
 Realize my object, and my many difiiculties ! 
 
 What we wanted was, — Ist. A judicial interpretation of 
 a well-meant but Satanic law. "A Satanic law" is an 
 equivocating law; equivocation being, as Holy Writ has 
 taught you, that party's main characteristic. 2ndly. Not to 
 pay a ruinous price for it. 
 
 Now to take Mr. Payne into a Court at Westminster, 
 would have been to risk the loss of his costs on an ambigu- 
 ous law, and to insure the dead loss of our own costs ; for 
 Mr. Payne was virtually insolvent. 
 
 I sued him, therefore, for a nominal sum in the County 
 Court. 
 
 This did not suit his attorney. There is little plunder to 
 be got out of the suitors in the County Court. 
 
 Accordingly, on the very day of the trial, at the door of 
 the Court, a notice was served on me that the cause was re- 
 moved, by a writ of certiorai-i, into the Court of Exchequer. 
 
 In other words, Mr. Baron Channel, sitting in a secret tri- 
 bunal, called Judges' Chambers, and there doing what can 
 only be done in a secret tribunal, viz., hearing one side only, 
 and deciding finally against the other party unheard, had, 
 by a legal but unjust and unconstitutional act, robbed me in 
 spite of my teeth, of Cheap Justice ; that great boon the 
 legislature has secured to me and to my pillaged, bleeding, 
 pettifogger-eaten countrymen. 
 
88 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Mr. Levi's affidavit, on hearing which, and not giving 
 mine a hearing, Emperor Channel, in a secret tribunal, or 
 den of iniquity, controuled the legislature, and bereft me of 
 cheap justice; lies before me. As the tribunal I speak in is 
 not a secret one, " audibimus alteram partem." 
 
 " That in consequence of Mr. Eeade's notice and advertisement, 
 I, E. L. Levi, consulted with counsel on behalf of the said Thomjis 
 Payne ; who gave me as his opinion that the said Thomas Payne 
 had, according to law and the construction of the Act of Parlia- 
 ment, a proper right to represent such piece. 
 
 " That I am advised various points of law will arise on the trial; 
 and a special question for the jury. 
 
 " That the decision will, I believe, decide the question, which is 
 at present undecided, as to the right of French authors to prevent 
 their pieces being translated and dramatized to the English stage, 
 etc." 
 
 The force of all which is, that County Court judges are 
 ex-officio incompetent to deal with matters of fact and mat- 
 ters of law. [If so, why not hang them ?] 
 
 Answer. — Some of our best lawyers are among their 
 body. We pay them each more than the United States pay 
 their Chief Justice ; and they deal with both law and fact 
 every day of their lives. 
 
 It happens to be an English jury that is notoriously in- 
 competent to deal with the facts of any copyright case. 
 
 The foreign jurist will throw up his hands with amaze- 
 ment when I tell him the Court to which I was driven, by 
 this unconstitutional tyranny, is a Court of Appeal from the 
 County Court. Fancy in France a Cour de Cassation in- 
 sisting on being the first to try a case, malgr^ the plaintiff. 
 I could not keep Mr. Payne out of his beloved Court on ap- 
 peal : why then should he be allowed to keep me out of my 
 Court in the first instance ? Has not one citizen more right 
 to cheap justice in its turn, than another has to dear justice 
 out of its turn ? 
 
 The real fact is this. Applications for a writ of certiorari 
 have never but one object, — Pillage. Everybody knows 
 this, judges especially. 
 
 The judge who signs a writ of certiorari indulges his 
 clique, and oppresses the suitor.' He becomes the attorney's 
 and barrister's instrument to pillage honest and often injured 
 men, and choke them off the remedy a pitying legislature 
 has given them. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 89 
 
 See now whether the sequel of this ex parte chica ery 
 does not bear me out. It had an immediate effect, and a 
 distant effect. 
 
 The first effect was this : justice was denied me except 
 at a price English justice, in matters of copyright, is not 
 worth. 
 
 I cannot afford to give twenty times its value for any arti- 
 cle : so I declined it at that price : and as Dictator Channel 
 would not let me have it at less, I did n't get it at all, but 
 was outlawed, and justice snapped up and put out of my 
 reach — by a judge. 
 
 "What could I do ? I bowed to imperial power, left the 
 insolvent pirate under its »gis, and sat down to write a novel. 
 
 This transpired, and won me back consideration. 
 
 While I was fighting for my own children as well as 
 property in the Court of Chancery, and protecting two hun- 
 dred English writers whose case was mine, no grain of sym- 
 pathy, pity, nor common humanity came my way privately, 
 nor was uttered in the English press, though it babbles about 
 every mortal thing in earth or heaven. 
 
 When I stood out to fight for international justice, and for 
 the allies who fought for me at Inkerman, the thieves of the 
 press insulted and slandered me ; the honest men of it were 
 mute as fishes — every man Jack of them. Justice was in 
 their heads, but not in their hearts. And when you have 
 got a man's head, and not his heart, you have got a cocoa- 
 nut. 
 
 In a nation of twenty millions I was alone. I felt like a 
 solitary camel, thirsting in Zahara for a drop of water ; there 
 are times when one drop of sympathy is as precious, and 
 comes not to the parched heart. 
 
 I sat down to write a pack of fibs ; and Anglo-Saxony 
 owned me once more. 
 
 One or two honest fellows came about me, animated 
 with a friendly warmth, to bid for the coming fibs. I bled 
 them. 
 
 But at this the justiciomania revived. 
 
 Fiction, in a turn of the hand, not only paid the heavy 
 bill I owed Equity for looking on with her hands behind her 
 back while I was bereaved of my children contrary to law ; 
 but left a balance ; and just at this moment an inquiry came 
 to me from France about Keade v. Payne. 
 
90 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 On this I wrote to explain what had taken place, and to 
 say that, had cheap justice not been put out of my reach by 
 a lettre de — certiorari, I had intended to bear all the 
 expense. As -it was, I could contribute 40Z. 
 
 In a few days I received a private letter, to say that this 
 ofiFer would certainly be accepted. The formal notifications 
 foUowed in due course ; first from M. Peragallo, the Dra- 
 matic Authors' secretary ; then from ,M. Maquet, their 
 president this year ; and finally from the French Govern- 
 ment, through the consul. 
 
 But, meantime, events did not stand stiU. Before pro- 
 ceeding I took legal advice. 
 
 It was unfavorable. 
 
 CAP. VI, 
 
 The practical lawyer soon showed me the flaw in my 
 theory. I give his purport, but not his words : — "If you 
 could take this before the full Court, and if the judges there 
 had time (which they have not) to read the French piece, 
 and your short-hand copy of Mr. Payne's piece, and compare 
 them, you might have the ghost of a chance ; even there you 
 would have to fight against the general impression that all 
 these Acts of Parliatnent restrain English liberty, and rob 
 the public of its right to cheap ideas, and therefore are not 
 to be interpreted liberally, but literally. But before a jury 
 you have no chance at all. The judge is sure to refer a 
 question of fact to them. Their thick skulls will be called 
 on to draw a distinction ; but they are not capable of draw- 
 ing any distinction that is not broad as their own backs. All 
 they will be able to see is, that you labour to prove identity, 
 and that Mr. Payne's words differ from yours, and the char- 
 acters are English in his piece, and French in yours. No ! 
 live and let live. He don't hinder you to sell yours. Why 
 hinder the poor man to sell his ? Verdict for the defendant. 
 Plaintiff voted a litigious splitter of hairs, and would be a 
 tyrant — if we'd let him.'' 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 91 
 
 Now I saw why my friend Mr. Levi had gone to that 
 " imperium in regno " Judges' Chambers, and got me 
 shifted from a competent tribunal, to an incompetent one 
 with a reputation for competence : I mean incompetent in 
 such a case as this. 
 
 When the enemies' counsel tell me, by the acts of their 
 attorney, that so-and-so is their client's interest ; and my own 
 counsel tells me that the same thing is contrary to my inter- 
 est ; I don't set one hot head against those two cool heads 
 viewing the same thing from opposite sides. I am as obsti- 
 nate as a mule, not as a pig. 
 
 So I dared not launch my allies into the expenses of this 
 suit. 
 
 Ere, however, I could advise France of the hopeless con- 
 dition of affairs, relief came from an unexpected quarter — 
 the enemy. 
 
 Mr. Payne declared : Bamett and another declared ; and 
 claimed each of them 
 
 FiTE Hundred Pounds Damages ! 
 
 CAP. VII. 
 
 I HAVE discovered that there are ladies and gentlemen 
 who think a suit at law begins in open court. Not exactly. 
 Out of one hundred suits at law, not more than one comes 
 into court. Suitors only face a jury to try an issue. An issue 
 ie a mutual lie direct. When A gives it B upon a fact or 
 facts, and B retorts it, and each has the audacity to rest the 
 cause on his veracity, then a jury is empanneled to hear 
 evidence, and decide thereon which is the mendacior of the 
 two. The odd ninety-nine cases are either compounded, or 
 are stifled in the pleadings. 
 
 Those pleadings, which are still a byword of contempt 
 (special pleadings), because years ago they used to be trickt/, 
 are in reality paper war in its most beautiful aud scientific 
 form. The science seems to be based on two main rules. 
 
92 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 1. That every statement of the adversary must either be 
 contradicted flat, or confessed (in the latter case its effect 
 may be parried by fresh matter). 
 
 2. That nothing shall be advanced by defendant which, if 
 true, would not be a defence to the action. 
 
 But these rules, severely enforced by the impending 
 demurrer, exclude all the defects and vices of vulgar contro- 
 versy. You can't be irrelevant, you can't advance insig- 
 nificant facts. You drive, and are driven into a corner, 
 instead of drifting like a tub on the Atlantic, as in unscien- 
 tific controversy, especially literary and theological, the two 
 sloppiest that are. Often Polemic divines have attacked 
 and defended in folios, and never brought the matter to an 
 issue that twelve plain men would decide : and two special 
 pleaders have taken and done it in three sheets of paper. 
 This is a general remark, which, not liking to hear anything, 
 that is beautiful and wise, made a byword of reproach, and 
 not being myself a lawyer, I thought I might make without 
 indelicacy. 
 
 The particular application is this, that the science of 
 special pleading is apt to prove on paper to one or other 
 suitor that his cake is dough. On this, out oozes his belli- 
 cose fire, and he shuns judge and jury like pison and bowl : 
 which speedily befell one of my plaintiffs, Mr. Payne ; my 
 special pleader gave him such a foretaste of his death war- 
 rant, that he turned tail, and vanished for ever from unchris- 
 tian litigation in plumes of snow. 
 
 Barnett and Johnstone v. Reade. 
 
 The cream of the declaration, which 1 now extract from 
 the document itself, is to this purport : — 
 
 " That the plaintiffs are and were the authors and proprietors 
 of a dramatic piece called ' The Pride of Poverty,' etc., a fair 
 imitation and adaptation of a dramatic piece published in France, 
 called ' Les Pauvres de Paris,' and were entitled to the sole 
 hberty of representing the same. Yet the defendant, well know- 
 ing the premises, but contriving to injure the plaintiffs, falsely and 
 mahciously printed and published (here my advertisement), mean- 
 ing that the plaintiffs were not the authors, and by means of which 
 the plaintiffs were prevented from disposing of their pieces to 
 divers theatrical managers, who might and otherwise would have 
 purchased, etc. 
 
 " And the plaintiffs claim five hundred pounds." 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 93 
 
 The Defendant's Pleas. 
 
 1. " Not guilty. 
 
 2. '_' That the plaintiffs were not the authors and proprietors of 
 the said dramatic piece, nor entitled as alleged." 
 
 Here the special pleader somehow or other omitted to 
 add, — 
 
 " An author, 'tis a venerable name. 
 How few deserve it, and how many claim ! " 
 
 8. " That before the manager of the Strand Theatre advertised 
 a version of the dramatic piece called ' Les Pauvres de Paris,' 
 the authorized version of the said dramatic piece, and also the 
 original, ^had been entered at Stationers' Hall by the defendant, 
 and that the said version so advertised by the said manager was 
 not a fair imitation and adaptation, etc., but a piratical version, 
 etc., within the meaning of an Act passed in the 15th year of 
 Vict., etc., etc. ; and that at the same time when the alleged 
 offence, etc., injunctions were being prepared against the lessee 
 and manager, etc." 
 
 Demtjkkee. 
 
 " And the defendant further says that the said declaration is 
 bad (a) in substance." 
 
 Plaintiffs' Replication. 
 
 " The plaintiffs join issue on the defendant's pleas. 
 
 " And the plaintiffs say the declaration is good in substance." 
 
 I will now try and explain why this attack was at first 
 welcome to me. It raised exactly the issue I wanted to raise 
 [vide my third plea, on which they joined issue], and brought 
 the statute and its interpretation into court, vrith this notable 
 difference in my favour ; if I had sued Payne, and he had 
 beat me on this same issue, he would have gained a verdict 
 and costs ; whereas, in this action, it could advance Bamett 
 and another but little to beat me on the statute : they had 
 yet to prove that I had attacked their doubtful property 
 
 (a) One ground of demurrer (amongst others) is that the alleged 
 libel is actionable (if at all) by reason of special damage ; and no 
 special damage is alleged. 
 
94 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 wantonly and maliciously, and not bonS, fide in defence of 
 an undeniable property, endangered by Mr. Payne's adver- 
 tisement. But this, I thought, they could not prove. And 
 I felt sure I could prove the contrary. 
 
 I wrote therefore into France, in high spirits and base 
 French, and explained the adversaries' game and ours to my 
 allies. 
 
 The Gog and Magog of the Courts are Law and Fact. I 
 retained eminent counsel to fight the points of law ; for the 
 facts, i. e., the evidence of piracy, I retained myself. Woe 
 be to the man who trusts to his attorney to get up his case. 
 It is the attorney's duty : it is the client's interest. 
 
 While I was working like a horse, diving into back slums 
 for evidence, and writing to everybody I did n't know for 
 evidence, ransacking the Chamberlain's office, penetrating 
 behind the scenes of journals, working on the briefs, and 
 doing a dozen other things, that none but zealots like me ever 
 do, I received encouraging letters from France, which were 
 the more welcome that my allies here were full of gloomy 
 forebodings, and chilled me with their low estimate of human 
 justice. 
 
 With the exception, however, of my correspondents MM. 
 Maquet and Brisebarre, no Frenchman seems to have been 
 able to comprehend, at all events from my explanations, 
 which unluckily I had given them in French, that the tables 
 were now turned, and the issue raised by the pirates suing 
 me. 
 
 My good friends have studied human nature too well not 
 to know that " Odisse quern Iseseris " is one of its most cher- 
 ished sentiments : but, for all that, in their country the 
 injured party is not the defendant in actions for damages ; 
 nor indeed is he in ours, unless he happens to be an honest 
 author, or the representative of honest authors. 
 
 It appears that the French Government, with its usual 
 liberality towards the immortal arts and their professors, and 
 perhaps accusing itself of an excess of good faith and loyal 
 confidence in having signed, without suspicion, a literary 
 treaty with the representatives of Anglo-Saxon shopkeepers, 
 a tribe that, in the fine arts, would cheat their mothers or 
 their God (if they could) without a twinge, had ofiered to 
 sustain the entire cost of the coming trial : but the French 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 95 
 
 dramatists had declined, choosing to bear the expenses them- 
 selves, save and except the 40?. I had offered. This informa- 
 tion was formally conveyed to me by the Minister of Foreign 
 Affairs, through the consul. 
 
 Not to interrupt my narrative too much, I transfer that 
 and other original communications to the Appendix. 
 
 I translate one cheering communication : — 
 
 6th August, 1857. 
 My dear Reade, 
 
 Your courageous attitude in the coming trial has called forth 
 from the Committee of Dramatic Authors and Composers, a lively 
 acknowledgment. If the cause of literature is to triumph, the 
 triumph ought to be due to the writers themselves appealing to 
 their rights, and to the good faith of the English nation. 
 
 Wherefore the Society, of which I have the honour to be Presi- 
 dent, has decided that the costs of the trial shall be defrayed by 
 the French authors, and the part you offer to take in the affair 
 will be a new title to the esteem and gratitude of your brethren 
 on this side the Channel. 
 
 We accept, therefore, both your tribute and your aid. Count 
 on being followed to the field of battle by all our sympathies, and 
 by our energetic co-operation. 
 
 For, I repeat, you sustain in this matter the cause of the glori- 
 ous and honourable part of literature. Your example will cer- 
 tainly draw after it the approbation of your feUow-citizens. 
 
 Keceive, my dear Keade, the assurance, etc. 
 
 Maquet. 
 
 What would I not have given for such sentiments as these 
 from any English pen, at any part of this business ! 
 
 Payne had been defended against me by Mr. Levi, who 
 is a Jew. But the attorney in Payne v. Reade, and Barnett 
 V. Reade, was a Mr. Edward Kelly Harris ; who conducted 
 his case like a cat : put the venue in Surrey of an offence 
 committed in Middlesex, in order to drag us out of town and 
 make the trial more expensive and uncomfortable : refused 
 a copy of Payne's piece, and, when compelled by a judge's 
 order to furnish us one, made trumpery delays, and charged 
 31. 15s. for the copy, vilely done ; and in all things fought us 
 like a pettifogger, and not like a man ; as if battles royal 
 were to be won by scratching. 
 
 I met Mr. Levi, by accident, in the Strand : so I asked him 
 how I had come to lose him for my opponent. 
 
96 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 " Oh," said he, " I don't approve the proceeding ; I was 
 in Paris when the writs were served." 
 
 " Hallo ! " thought I, " this is dismal. The Jews would 
 not dirty their fingers with this case : so Bamett and another 
 have had to find a Christian attorney not so nice." 
 
 At last the trial drew near ; and then for four days I was 
 in purgatory, soul and body ; obliged to hunt up three coun- 
 sel, who were continually flashing to and fro London and 
 Croydon ; and get them to one place for consultation : it was 
 like chasing three wills-o'-the-wisp into one comer ; the tire- 
 some devils ! 
 
 Strange to say, when we had got them, they were worth 
 having (things that cost so much trouble generally are not) ; 
 and gave the case unusual sympathy and attention. 
 
 That very kindness, however, took a discouraging form. 
 Mr. James, in particular, shook his head over his brief, and 
 gave it as his opinion that the statute, as nullified by the 
 proviso, was a rotten reed ; and the case had better be fought 
 on the other pleas. He, however, begged me to furnish him 
 with a close comparison of the scenes and incidents in the 
 authorized version and Payne's, and above all, every passage, 
 however small, where the very words of the original play 
 had been pirated : and proposed another consultation. 
 
 At this second interview, Mr. Lush observed that the 
 plaintifis in their declaration did not say they had registered 
 their piece at Stationers' Hall, before serving their writ : if 
 they had not done so they must be non-suited. This was 
 doubted by the other counsel. But Mr. Lush stood to his 
 point. " The plaintifis had assumed copyright, and were 
 suing me for having slandered their title. They must show 
 their statutable title in court, as in any other proceeding for 
 the protection of literary property." Mr. Lush will forgive 
 me for putting his good law into my bad language. 
 
 It was agreed, at all events, to elicit this fact in cross- 
 examination. 
 
 The trial was next day, and I went down to Croydon with 
 all my witnesses. 
 
 To my horror the railway carriages overfiowed with 
 hooked noses, going to Croydon ; and centre of the aquiline 
 throng was my friend Mr. Levi, radiant as Apollo. " Tunc 
 manifesta fides," etc. 
 
 Ah, the subtle Orientals! They had been ashamed to 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 97 
 
 appear in it, but not to be in it. But now that the trumpet 
 sounded, their martial ardour overpowered all other senti- 
 ments, and they burst on us like Judas Maccabeus. 
 
 We got down to Croydon : our case had been put off, 
 without notice, to suit the convenience of some counsel or 
 other. This piece of insolent cruelty and oppression cost the 
 suitors, between them, at least sixty pounds. This is one 
 ■way the expenses are run up in England. We went back 
 smarting under this cruelty, and crying, " Oh, the poor Eng- 
 lish suitor ! " 
 
 The next morning I drifted down again to Croydon, on a 
 tide of hooked noses. I groaned in spirit, and pointed out 
 the sinister phenomenon to my brother. " I don't Uke it," 
 said I ; " I have a superstition ; 1 hate fighting the oppres- 
 sive people : besides, they live in these courts — swim about 
 them hke aquiline sharks." 
 
 " The worst lawyers in the world," was his reply. " They 
 are clever at teasing and pettifogging, and frightening fools 
 into compounding suits ; but if they venture into Court we 
 always beat them. They can't understand a point of law : 
 have n't heads for it. Besides, they always forget that there 
 is such a thing as justice, and that our courts invariably aim 
 at it, and very seldom miss it." And he turned up his 
 Anglo-Saxon proboscis at the subtle Orientals. 
 
 " You have no defence to this action," added this cheerful 
 ally; "but as they have no ground of action it does not 
 much matter — here we are." And we entered a herd of 
 bullocks. 
 
 CAP. VIII. 
 
 Ceotdon is a vile hole at best ; but this was fair day, 
 and all the avenues to justice blocked up with bullocks. 
 
 Heavens ! what a place it looked to try the interests of 
 immortal literature in : narrow, sloppy, greasy, rustic, 
 bovine. 
 
 At last we wriggled through the sea of living beef into 
 the Court. Ours was the first case. Not having knocked 
 out anybody's brams, or cut his throat, we excited no inter- 
 7 
 
I 
 
 98 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 est in Anglo-Saxon minds : — happily : for thus we got a 
 good seat in a cool Court : " sic nos servavit Apollo " from 
 the foetid odour of accumulated Surrey snobs : their souls 
 were in the bullocks at the door, and their hands feeling 
 them all over in search of the fat. I settled myself in a 
 seat, and a heavenly calm came for the first time this many 
 days over my vexed spirits; the actual fighting was at 
 hand. 
 
 My ruin impended over me as I sat ; and I knew it. A 
 verdict obtained must be malice proved. I could not receive 
 French aid to avert the personal consequences of having so 
 misrepresented that great nation and its sentiments. I 
 should stand with them ; but fall alone. 
 
 But ruin, or no ruin, I had room for no feeling, and did 
 feel none, but the holy, balmy, peaceful joy of fighting, after 
 the botheration of the trenches. 
 
 • concurritnr, horse 
 
 Aut cita mors venit aut victoria lasta." 
 
 The jury were assembled, but not sworn. 
 
 There was a little silence of expectation. The judge en- 
 tered by his side door ; the audience rose and fell : comic 
 song — "Kiss the Book!" and Mr. Montague Chambers, 
 Q. C, opened the plaintiffs' case. 
 
 " This was an action brought to try a most important question 
 connected with dramatic literature, and which depended upon an 
 Act of Parliament which had within the last few years been 
 passed, with the view of giving authors property in the works of 
 their imagination and of their brains, just as much as if such prop- 
 erty were an estate. For some years there had been in this 
 country copyright in the works of literature, and it had of late 
 been considered just and right, owing to the extensive communi- 
 cation which existed throughout all parts of the civilized world, 
 that those rights should be extended to those nations with whom 
 we might be at peace, and, amongst others, an international treaty 
 had been entered into between France and England. At first it 
 related to general woi-ks of literature but it was afterwards ap- 
 plied to dramatic compositions. This action was founded on the 
 last Act of Parliament on this subject, which was passed in the 
 fifteenth year of the present reign, entitled ' An Act to enable 
 her Majesty to carry mto effect a convention with France on the 
 subject of copyright, and to extend and explain the International 
 Copyright Act.' In that Act there were the words (the 6th sec- 
 tion) which enacted the following important provision : — ' That 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 99 
 
 nothing herein contained shall be construed so as to prevent a fair 
 imitation or adaptation to the English stage of any dramatic piece 
 or musical composition of any foreign country,' so that the right was 
 preserved to dramatic authors in this country if they should think 
 proper to adapt or imitate any dramatic piece which might have 
 been composed or written in France, and then it carried the right 
 to the profits that are derivable from the authors having so exer- 
 cised their talent. The present action was founded on that pro- 
 vision in the Act of Parliament. The plaintiffs were both of them 
 actors and dramatic authors. There appeared, in the course of 
 the present year, in Paris a dramatic piece, which became exceed- 
 ingly popular, and attracted a great deal of attention. It was 
 called ' Les Pauvres de Paris.' The plaintiffs got that piece, and, 
 having read it, they were required to prepare a dramatic piece 
 upon the same foundation, called ' The Pride of Poverty ; or, The 
 Real Poor of London ; ' and what the jury would have to consider 
 was whether that was a fair imitation or adaptation to the English 
 stage of the dramatic piece published in Paris, called ' Les Pauvres 
 de Paris.' Having composed that piece as a fair adaptation or 
 imitation of that which was so successful in Paris, they offered it 
 for the acceptance of managers, and Mr. Payne, of the Strand 
 Theatre, accepted the piece, and it was produced on the 16th of 
 February in the present year. On Saturday, the 14th of the 
 same month, Mr. Keade went to the Strand Theatre, and there 
 performed certainly a strange and entirely new character, for Mr. 
 Keade, he believed, was an author himself. He served upon the 
 manager a notice of his intention to make an application to the 
 Court of Chancery for an injunction, and that notice purported 
 to be signed by Mr. Annesley, who was a respectable attorney in 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields. Besides that, he had caused an advertise- 
 ment to appear in ' The Erei,' a newspaper very well known as the 
 organ of the theatrical profession, it being extensively circulated, 
 and that advertisement was the principal object of complaint in 
 the present action. The advertisement was as follows : " 
 
 Mr. Chambers then read my advertisement. 
 
 The judge (Chief Baron of the Exchequer) asked for a 
 copy of the " Era," containing it, which was handed up to 
 him. 
 
 Mr. Chambers resumed — 
 
 " That notice was served on the Saturday, and purported to be 
 signed by Mr. Annesley." 
 
 Mr. James — " That was a mistake which we shall explain 
 presently." 
 
 Mr. Chambers — " The natural effect of that was somewhat to 
 alarm Mr. Payne, and more to alarm, a more excitable race. The 
 
100 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 performers on the stage became dreadfully alarmed at the threat 
 of an injunction, and it was only after the greatest possible per- 
 suasion that they were induced to go on the stage, having the fear 
 before their eyes of the tipstaff of the Lord Chancellor, who might 
 come to carry them off to the Court of Chancery. The result 
 was to throw a ^eat damp on the success of the piece and the 
 exertions of the actors. Another natural effect of that notice 
 was, that other managers were prevented from embarking in the 
 speculation, as they might have been involved in the harassing 
 proceedings in Chancery. The jury were aware that the authors 
 of dramatic pieces in this country, under another Act of Parliar 
 ment, brought in by a lamented author and judge, the late Mr. 
 Justice Talfourd, were entitled, by virtue of their copyright, to 
 receive from all managers throughout the country a small sum 
 every night that their pieces were played. Mr. Rejide's advertise- 
 ment, of course, prevented that profit reaching the plaintiff. Upon 
 Mr. Payne communicating with Mr. Annesley, whose name was 
 attached to the notice, that gentleman at once said that his name 
 had been so attached without his authority, and that no applica- 
 tion to Chancery was intended to be made. Thereupon Mr. 
 Eeade wrote the following letter to ' The Era ' : " 
 
 The Chief Baron — " What copy of the ' Era ' is that ? " 
 Mr. Chambers — "The 1st of March, and the letter was as 
 follows : " 
 
 Here my letter was read, and the Chief Baron examined 
 it in the paper. 
 Mr. Chambers resumed — 
 
 " True : it would be seen he did not intend to injure Mr. Payne, 
 but ihe plaintiffs." 
 
 The Lord Chief Baron suggested the best course would 
 have been to refer the two pieces to an arbitrator, to settle 
 whether there was a fair imitation. 
 
 Mr. Chambers could not accede to that course ; this was 
 a case of slander of title. 
 
 The Lord Chief Baron — " It is not a case of slander of 
 title. It may turn out not to be a slander at all. It is cer- 
 tainly not slander of title." 
 
 Mr. Chambers proceeded to prove that it was. 
 
 The Lord Chief Baron (interrupting him) — " / very 
 much doubt whether it is actionable at all." 
 
 Mr. James (for the defendant) — " If the defendant was 
 interested, and acted bonS, fide, libel of the title will not lie." 
 
 The judge bowed assent. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. IQI 
 
 On this a legal argument ensued between the counsel, in 
 the course of which Mr. James reminded the Court that I 
 had acquired a property by complying with all the statutable 
 conditions ; and offered the stamped copies of the several 
 registries. Mr. Chambers declined to admit them as evi- 
 dence, unsupported. 
 
 I understood the judge to say they were admissible as 
 prima facie evidence. They were inspected. Mr. Cham- 
 bers insisted this was a libel of a title, and cited the parallel 
 case of a man going to ah auction-room, and spoiling the 
 sale of an estate by *proclaiming that the title to it was 
 faulty. 
 
 The Lord Chief Baron appeared not to consider the two 
 cases parallel. He went to the law of patents for the par- 
 allel. " I take the law to be, that if a man has a patent, 
 and another man takes out a patent which the first patentee 
 considers an infringement of his rights, he has a right to 
 publish that, provided he does it bona fide, and to caution 
 the public against the washing, or mangling machine, as the 
 case may be." 
 
 Mr. James — " The last is very applicable to this case, 
 my Lord." (a) (Laughter.) 
 
 The case proceeded, like a wounded snake. 
 
 Mr. John Beere Johnstone, one of the plaintiffs, was ex- 
 amined by Mr. Wordsworth. 
 
 " Stated that he was by profession an aetor, and also a dramatic 
 author. In the course of his time he had produced a great many 
 dramatic pieces. At the commencement of the year ne heard of 
 a piece called ' Les Pauvres de Paris.' He had a conversation 
 with Mr. B. Barnett on the subject, and he obtained a translation 
 of the piece. He never read the French piece himself, as he did 
 not sufficiently understand French. He prepared the English 
 piece. He did not do It entirely from the French piece, hut 
 from an idea of his own to a great extent. The piece was offered 
 to Mr. Payne, and it was performed on the 16th February." The 
 witness was asked if there was not great consternation amongst 
 the actors. ■ 
 
 The Lord Chief Baron — " That really has nothing to do 
 with the case, and I will not allow the question to be put. 
 We are not trying the conduct of the actors. 
 
 (a) Implying that the pirates had mangled the French piece. 
 
102 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Examination continued — " He saw ' The Era,' of the 14ih of 
 February." 
 
 Mr. Wordsworth — "In consequence of the publication of the 
 notice in ' The Era,' were you prevented negotiating with other 
 managers ? " 
 
 Witness — " To a very great extent in town and country." 
 
 The Judge — " Unless the managers are named I cannot 
 take that in evidence. You cannot go into that fact at all. 
 You can only ask the jury generally what damage has been 
 sustained." 
 
 Mr. Wordsworth — " What I wish to ask is, whether, in conse- 
 quence of that advertisement, he was prevented from applying to 
 managers ? " 
 
 The Lord Chief Baron (rather sternly) — "I am of 
 opinion you are not entitled to put such a question ; you 
 can only give an unlimited number of anonymous persons ; 
 and what does that amount to ? " 
 
 Mr. Johnstone being unable to specify by name the man- 
 agers that had refused his piece on account of defendant's 
 advertisement, gave evidence as to the usual custom, that 
 when a piece was successful in London it was played in the 
 country, and that brought a considerable sum to the author. 
 
 Cross-examined by Mr. James — " You play the heavy fathers, 
 I believe ? " 
 
 Witness — " Yes, the heavy fathers and the light. (Laughter.) 
 Sometimes play the heavy fathers and sometimes the sons." 
 
 " You have, like us, to play anything V " 
 
 " You play much better than I can, sir.'' 
 
 " I certainly am much more adapted for the heavy father. 
 (Laughter.) But Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too 
 light for you ? " 
 
 " Admitted, sir." 
 
 " Is the Strand Theatre the property of Lawrence Levi ? " 
 
 " He has nothing to do with it as far as I know." 
 
 " Will you swear that ? " 
 
 " Never during the time I have been a member." 
 
 " Is Mr. Payne in Court ? " 
 
 " Mr. Payne is the manager, and has been for some time." 
 
 " Will you swear that Levi had nothing to do with him ? " 
 
 " I have seen him there. I have seen him in front." 
 
 " Have you seen him behind ? " (Laughter.) 
 
 " I don't remember having seen him behind." 
 
 " Is it his son who brings this action ? " 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 103 
 
 " Is he not the attorney in this action ? " 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " How many nights was this piece played ? " 
 
 " I believe for three weeks." 
 
 " Was it played afterwards at the ' Victoria ' ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Did you see it ? " 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " What did you get for it ? " 
 
 " Two pounds." 
 
 " When did you sell it ? " 
 
 " I sold it to the ' Victoria ' manager : to Mr. Young." 
 
 " Attend ! please ! When did you sell it ? " 
 
 " After the second week at the ' Strand.' " 
 
 " How long did they play it at the ' Victoria ' ? " 
 
 " I think the same number of nights as at the ' Strand.' " 
 
 " It was damned, was n't it ? " 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 _ " Would twelve nights be the ordinary career of a piece of that 
 kind 'I" 
 
 " Certainly not ; but the piece was originally produced there, and 
 was not got up with that expense which an original piece would 
 have been. Sometimes pieces run for a whole season. This was 
 merely a time-serving novelty." 
 
 " Did you register your piece at Stationers' Hall ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 Mr. James called the attention of the Court to the words of the 
 Act of Parliament, which required that a work should be regis- 
 tered to secure a title. 
 
 Mr. James — " Who translated thfs piece ? " 
 
 Witness — " It is not a translation." 
 
 The witness went on to state that a translation was handed 
 to him. He read it and then returned it, and then he wrote the 
 English piece. He had never seen Mr. Reade's translation. He 
 was then cross-examined with regard to the similarity of the two 
 pieces, and a considerable time was occupied by the Court, coun- 
 sel, and the jury, comparing the English and French pieces. 
 
 Mr. James — "I see that in the second act you make the char- 
 acters 'Suffer from the effects of charcoal. Is not that in the 
 French piece V " 
 
 Witness — " It may be ; it is a very common thing in Paris." 
 
 " Well, then, I see that Ravenstone talks about having four 
 ounces of beef ; is that in the French piece ? Have you got any 
 beef in the French piece ? " 
 
 " I don't know. It is a similar sort of scene to the French 
 piece, but the language is not a translation." 
 
 " No ; for I see that Ravenstone says, ' What a lot of 
 
 draughts there are. (Laughter.) Here are holes big enough to 
 stop a bullock.' " (Laughter.) 
 
104 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 The Lord Chief Baron — " Would it not be better for the jury- 
 to go up to town and see the French piece acted, and then see the 
 English piece ? " (Laughter. ) 
 
 Mr. James — " Is the charcoal discovered on the stage?" 
 
 Witness — " Yes." 
 
 " I see that Kavenstone has a pistol, and he has in the French 
 piece, has he not ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " He is the villain of the piece, is n't he 1 " 
 
 " No ; I make the villain of the piece a banker." 
 
 " A banker, eh — a British banker; of course. (Laughter.) I 
 see in the piece that two females sink down in the charcoal. Do 
 they sit upon it ? " 
 
 " They inhale it." 
 
 " Then the last act winds up with these lines, spoken by 
 Martha — 
 
 ' Oh, may we say that all is right, 
 And reckon on repeat to-morrow night.' 
 
 That 's not a translation — that's your own, I suppose ? " 
 " Yes, that 's mine." 
 " And you reckoned on repeat for twelve nights r " 
 
 " ^^■" 
 
 " This Kavenstone seems to have been a sensible sort of fellow, 
 
 for he sticks to the beef? " 
 
 " That is one of the incidents." 
 
 " There is no beef in the French piece ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 Mr. Chambers — " Is there any iouilli in the French ? " 
 
 Witness — "I don't know, sir." 
 
 The Lord Chief Baron — " It is what is called a mechanical 
 equivalent." 
 
 Mr. Benjamin Barnett was then called and examined by Mr. 
 Chambers. He stated that he obtained a copy of the French 
 piece, and made a literal translation of it. He took the transla- 
 tion to the manager of the Strand Theatre, but it was found that 
 the piece was much too long, and the manager suggested to wit- 
 ness to put himself in communication with Mr. Johnstone, so that 
 they might make up a piece between them. The translation was 
 accordingly handed to Mr. Johnstone. The plot of the French 
 piece was altered altogether, and new characters and scenes cre- 
 ated, so as to make the English piece almost an original piece. 
 
 At this point the learned judge suggested that the pieces should 
 be submitted to some gentlemen to be named to exzumine them, 
 and see if a fair imitation had been made. 
 
 Mr. James contended that there was no right of action at all. 
 
 The learned judge proposed to the counsel, on either side, 
 to withdraw a juror. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 105 
 
 The defendant, through his counsel, declined to accede to 
 that course. 
 
 Mr. James pressed for a nonsuit on the points raised, es- 
 pecially the non-registry of the plaintiffs' piece. 
 
 After some discussion, the Chief Baron said he should 
 nonsuit the plaintiffs, but they might raise the several points 
 of law again before the full Court in term. It was then 
 proposed by the plaintiffs' counsel, that should the nonsuit be 
 overruled, an arbitrator should be appointed (I forget his 
 name ; some barrister) to compare the two pieces, and 
 decide upon the statute whether the plaintiffs' was a fair 
 imitation or not ; and, if the former, what damage, if any, he 
 had sustained. 
 
 This arrangement was consented to, but not by me. It 
 was ridiculously unfair to me, and I protested against it in 
 Court, and never consented to it, and never would have con- 
 sented to it. This was to undo half the victory I was sure 
 to win by fighting the facts out before this jury. And as to 
 the law, no barrister in creation shall ever jcdge me, nor 
 my allies. France, in my hands, shall never accept for law 
 any Englishman's interpretation of a statute, whose interpre- 
 tation does not bind the kingdom. 
 
 The plaintiffs were now nonsuited, which was contrived, 
 selon les regies, with simple duplicity. The crier of the 
 Court invited them, in a loud voice, to come and sue me. 
 
 They were instructed not to answer. 
 
 On this the Court, having in vain awaited their reply, was 
 disgusted, and nonsuited them, not because they were there 
 without a leg to stand on in law, but on the imaginary ground 
 that they were not there in the body : a legal fiction ; the 
 beauty, probability, and usefulness of which are obvious. 
 Ah ! no wonder the lawyers despise our little attempts at 
 this art. 
 
 Plaintiff and defendant went back to Croydon, each with 
 his oyster-shell. The aquiline profiles of the oppressive 
 people were supernaturally elongated, like a Swiss nut- 
 cracker open ; and my heart was alternately boiling and 
 freezing. The balmy peace and comfort that stole so sweetly 
 over me during the blessed, blessed hour we were fighting it 
 out like Christians, was faded and gone. In the moment of 
 victory I had been fobbed out of my judge and my jury, and 
 an arbitration hung over my head. 
 
106 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 CAP. IX. 
 
 The plaintiflfs' case was heard, and published in all the 
 papers ; the defendant's was reserved for a secret tribunal. 
 But this one-sided justice is not irreparable like a writ of 
 certiorari obtained ex parte on an attorney's imaginavits in a 
 secret tribunal. I am about to show that if the International 
 Copyright Act is not a mere juggle, there was a defence to 
 this action upon the merits. 
 
 This will put the absolute necessity for fresh legislation in 
 a clearer light than I have yet done. 
 
 Etidence for the Defence. 
 
 The advertisement was bon§, fide. 
 
 Mr. Annesley to depose that he never replied as stated by 
 Mr. Chambers : his letter-book to show that he never told 
 them an injunction was not contemplated, nor said a syllable 
 on the subject. Also his day-book, to prove that proceed- 
 ings of that nature were contemplated and discussed by him 
 and defendant on March 13, the day before defendant's ad- 
 vertisement appeared. 
 
 Against the Alleged Malice. 
 
 The meaning of these words, " opposition would be made 
 to the legality of such versions," had been distorted. It is 
 not usual for two London theatres to play the same version 
 of a French piece. What defendant feared was that each 
 theatre, seeing the authorized version defied, would produce 
 its own version (evidence to this custom), and tear the French 
 property to rags. 
 
 At the time of the alleged personal malice, defendant 
 would -swear he was ignorant that the plaintiffs' existed. 
 His advertisement was defensive, and part of a systematic 
 support of French rights, on public and respectable motives. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 107 
 
 It began in 1851. It was in Oct. 16 and 17, 1856, he first 
 advertised that he would restrain all unfair adaptations of 
 " Les Pauvres de Paris " (the copies of the " Times " in 
 Court), and announced the authorized version. In the pref- 
 ace to the same he repeated the threat in general terms, 
 and sent copies to the London theatres. That the manager 
 of the Strand Theatre, whose announcements (poster and 
 small bill in Court) drew forth the advertisement, knowing 
 all this, and tlie expenses incurred by defendant under the 
 Act, held no communication with defendant before putting 
 out his poster and small bill. 
 
 That a respectable manager had previously communicat- 
 ed with defendant, and paid 20?. to him for permission to 
 adapt "Les Pauvres de Paris" (Agreement, Creswick and 
 Reade). 
 
 That defendant was not sole proprietor of " Poverty and 
 Pride," but had foreign partners, whom he was bound to 
 protect with zeal in this country (original assignment). 
 
 That in such matters as this an advertisement can only be 
 parried by an advertisement. That defendant had a sincere 
 conviction piracy was intended, both because the manager 
 had not communicated, and also on account of the character 
 of the theatre, which had previously pirated him, and other 
 dramatic authors, and because his English title was tam- 
 pered with on the bill. To prove the previous piracies, the 
 secretary of Dramatic Authors was in Court with his books 
 and letters, to show that this manager had been more than 
 once struck off the hooks of the Society for what authors call 
 frauds on authors. That he had evaded payment for pieces 
 written for him : one of the authors in Court to corroborate. 
 That he had repeatedly played piratical and unlicensed 
 pieces : in particular " The Chalet," a piratical and unlicensed 
 version of " The Swiss Cottage," and " Forget and Give," a 
 piratical and unlicensed version of the defendant's piece 
 " Village Tale " (play-bills in Court, and also stamped cer- 
 tificates from the Lord Chamberlain's Office, showing these 
 pieces on said play-bills to be unlicensed). By this last act, 
 the theatre, where defendant saw the seeming piratical an- 
 nouncement, had outlawed itself, and could have been closed 
 at any moment. Mr. Payne had been in hot water with the 
 secretary for playing defendant's piece, "Ladies' Battle," 
 without permission. Defendant himself had, some months 
 
108 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 before the alleged offence, received a notice from the secre- 
 tary (letter-book), not to let the Strand Theatre play any 
 piece of his, on account of Mr. Payne's unfair proceed- 
 ings. 
 
 [In short, defendant's malice amounted to this : he saw a 
 rat's tail peeping out of a notorious rat-hole, and smelt a 
 rat.] The title, " The Pride of Poverty," which defendant 
 saw at the mouth of the rat-hole, was nonsense, and a mani- 
 fest tampering with his own title, " Poverty and Pride," and 
 was in no way suggested by the words " Les Pauvres de 
 Paris." 
 
 As a further proof that defendant's suspicions on this 
 head were not misplaced, the proprietors of the adaptation 
 no sooner got across the water, a little more out of his sight, 
 than they advertised their piece thus in the poster of the 
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110 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 and also in the " Era," March 15, produced, which is direct 
 and undeniable piracy of the defendant's English property, 
 and was duly avoided by the honest adapter (" Fraud and 
 its Victims "). 
 
 Under a title so piratical these plaintiflFs produced the 
 scenes, situations, characters [with one exception], (o) plot, 
 and leading idea of the protected piece, and kept close to 
 the topics of the dialogue ; discolouring the language only 
 [Richesourcing it] : which was to take all the essentials, 
 and only spare the non-essential part of a melo-drama : and 
 they took even the language in one or two places ; but very 
 rarely. 
 
 The Plot. 
 
 Mr. Collins, a dramatic critic, to prove that he attended 
 the first representation of Mr. Payne's piece : that he was 
 unacquainted with the defendant, and wrote the following 
 critique .for the " Morning Chronicle," which appeared in 
 that paper 17th Feb. [The journal produced.] 
 
 STKAND THEATRE. 
 
 The first step towards testing the efBcacy of the International 
 Copyright Act, with regard to dramatic literature, was taken last 
 night at thi^ theatre. For some time past a piece has been run- 
 ning in Paris called " Les Pauvres de Paris," and it has acquired 
 additional celebrity, at all events in this country, from the fact, of 
 Mr. Charles Eeade, the English dramatic author, having purchased 
 the copyright of the French authors, and his having made an an- 
 nouncement to the theatrical managers of this country that he will 
 resist any attempt to produce the piece in England without his 
 authority. In the face of this announcement, a translation was 
 produced at the Strand Theatre last night, under the title of 
 " Pride and Poverty ; or, the Real Poor of London." 
 
 Mr. Charles Keade would appear to mean mischief in his threat 
 against the English managers, for last night in the stalls of the 
 Strand Theatre, two short-hand writers were stationed for the pur- 
 pose of taking down verbatim the piece as it was played. 
 
 The drama commences with a prologue, the scene of action be- 
 ing at the house of Vernon, a banker, who, on the eve of a fraud- 
 ulent bankruptcy, receives a deposit from a shipwrecked emigrant 
 (Ranger), and devotes the property of the dying man to his own 
 
 (n) Peter Stillplod, which character is a fair adaptation of Bigot in 
 the original. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. m 
 
 purposes. This act is observed by his clerk Ravenstone, who in 
 the confusion arising from the death of Ranger in the banker's 
 office, secures the acknowledgment and receipt intended for the 
 family of Ranger. 
 
 The first act introduces us to the family of the late Ranger, who 
 are in the extreme of ruin, although the mother has kept from her 
 children the knowledge of her situation, having had for her confi- 
 dant and adviser a faithful and attached friend and domestic, 
 Martha. We here meet with the clerk Ravenstone, who by a hfe 
 of dissipation is reduced to beggary, and is relieved by the family 
 he has assisted to wrong, the parties being perfectly unknown to 
 each other. Another character is here brought upon the scene, 
 a George Normanton, who has all the outward appearance of 
 wealth, IS literally without a dinner, but is invited to one by the 
 family, who have to make sacrifices to obtain it, at the usual re- 
 source, the pawnbroker's. A meeting takes place between Ver- 
 non and Ravenstone at this juncture, and the clerk is invited to 
 the present residence of the banker, and, by a ruse of Vernon, 
 accused of robbery, and the act terminates with the apprehension 
 and accusation from Vernon of the clerk Ravenstone. 
 
 In the second act the family are still more reduced, and the son 
 strives to obtain a living as a casual porter at the railway, to which 
 neighbourhood both mother and daughter come for the purpose of 
 obtaining a trifle for their necessities, and find the son overcome 
 by weakness and privation ; and driven to desperation by their 
 joint sufferings, they determine to commit suicide. Of course this 
 does not take place ; they are preserved, and the banker com- 
 pelled by the executive and the ex-clerk to make restitution, and 
 all ends happily. 
 
 ■ There are other characters mainly conducive to the working 
 out of the plot, such as Peter Stillplod, a travelling bookseller, and 
 others that assist the drama to its finale. 
 
 The piece is thoroughly French in every respect (a). It is 
 most effectively played by all engaged in it. «A.t the fall of the 
 curtain, in answer to loud calls from the audience, Mr. Payne 
 came forward and announced that he had been threatened with 
 Chancery proceedings, but he was determined to produce the 
 piece in spite of such threat, and he believed the public would 
 support him in his determination. He said the most effectual 
 answer that would be given to the threat of Chancery was this : 
 that the piece would be played at every theatre in London. 
 
 The English authors of the piece were then loudly called for, 
 and Mr. Benjamin Bamett and Mr. J. B. Johnstone appeared 
 before the curtain. 
 
 (a) Would a fair adaptation produce this effect on a spectator's 
 mind % 
 
112 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Two witnesses to prove that the plot is the soul of a 
 play ; that what the public goes to see at a theatre is a new 
 plot or incarnate story : and the newspapers, who always 
 know what the pubhc wants to hear, confine their description 
 of a new play to an analysis of the plot and characters : and 
 that Mr. GolUns's analysis of Payne's piece is a good analysis 
 of the plot of " Les Pauvres de Paris," a play he had not 
 seen when he wrote this critique ; and that it describes char- 
 acters that are in " Les Pauvres de Paris " (Stillplod 
 excepted), and do, in the French piece, the very same busi- 
 ness as in Mr. Payne's. 
 
 Mr. Bayle Bernard, dramatic author, who has both written 
 original plays, and adapted from the French, to depose that 
 he has carefully compared the two pieces, and thinks that, 
 as far as phraseology, the plaintiffs' is certainly not a trans- 
 lation, but an adaptation ; whether fair or not, depends on 
 many concurrent circumstances. Mr. Bernard maintains 
 there is such a thing as translation of incidents ; and that, 
 in particular, to transfer a modern characteristic French inci- 
 dent bodily to the English stage is to distort the English 
 stage to the French incident, not adapt the French incident 
 to the English stage. 
 
 Mr. Bernard was ready to point out several bare transla- 
 tions of incident in the plaintiffs' piece ; such as the bank 
 being closed to keep a young lady's birthday, and the 
 " qugte pour les pauvres," and the charcoal scene ; with all 
 the good business arising out of these two latter incidents, 
 which are French truths, but English lies and absurdities. 
 
 Mr. Bernard would depose, that in comedy or poetic 
 tragedy the phrase is an essential part ; but, in these dramas 
 of action, it is less essential than either the business, the 
 characters, the plot, or the situations and scenes ; and could 
 not be weighed for a moment against all those essentials com- 
 bined. 
 
 Counsel, in opening this defence, would have compared the 
 essentials of a drama with the specification of a patent. It 
 is a fkvourite argument of mine, and from the Chief Baron's 
 remark, not likely to have missed fire. 
 
 There was to be coupled with all this, Mr. Barnett's own 
 evidence. This gentleman had let the court behind the 
 scenes of adaptation. He swore he had made a piratical 
 translation of a French piece, which he knew was protected 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 113 
 
 (step 1) ; and then (step 2) an artful dodger, who did not 
 know French, and so could not steal without the aid of a 
 piratical translator, was called in to discolour the piratical; 
 translation just enough to escape punishment at law, but not 
 enough to leave the honest inventor a chance of selling the' 
 authorized version to any theatre in London. On this head! 
 my evidence was supplementary, to show that my fears,, 
 though accused of being unreasonable, had been verified :• 
 my version was now actually destroyed as property by this 
 21. version ; and unlike the plaintiflPs, I could have named in^ 
 court a friendly manager who declined mine, simply and 
 solely because the bloom had been taken ofi" the subject and 
 tJtle at the Strand Theatre. 
 
 All this crude matter was in shape on the briefs ; and 
 dealt with by able counsel, would have been formidable ; 
 would perhaps have even gained me the sympathy of the 
 court : and in that case, woe betide these heartless adapters, 
 picking out of two hundred and sixty French pieces the one 
 that France, through me, protected at a high price that year, 
 and in good time publicly invited them to leave her. Such 
 men, in a court of law and justice, stand on a razor's edge. 
 The adaptation, which is fair, per se, is not necessarily so 
 when there is an authorized and protected version endan- 
 gered by it. "We should have urged on the court, that under 
 all the circumstances these freebooters had no right to trans- 
 late a single line of " Les Pauvres de Paris," and had trans- 
 lated several. For instance, some thirty lines and short 
 interlocutions appropriated in this style, and spoken by the 
 same characters as in the French. 
 
 Act I. — Scene 1. — The banker of the French piece, 
 " Villebrun," and the banker of the adaptation, " Vernon," 
 each in soliloquy, explains mankind's contempt for gold ill 
 gained. 
 
 Villebrun — " On mdprise, mais on secourbe." 
 Vernon — " Bows to tiie gold it worships and dbfames.'' 
 
 Villebrun (to his clerk) — " Vous ne faites plus partie de mon 
 bureau." 
 
 Vernon (to his clerk) — " From this moment you cease to he a 
 clerk of mine." 
 8 
 
114 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Planterose, the clerk (to Villebrun) — " Dans les aflfaires il y a 
 deux moyens de s'enrichir, I'un p^nible, lent, plein de fatigue ; 
 I'autre facile, rapide, etc." 
 
 Ravenstone, the clerk (to Vernon) — " There are two roads to 
 fortune, one rough and rugged : now, there is a more pleasant 
 and shorter way " 
 
 In the subsequent business : — 
 The French Piece. 
 
 " Votre nom. Monsieur ? " 
 
 " Pierre Bernier." 
 
 Planterose ( dcrivant ) — 
 " Bordeaux, 30 Oct. 1840." 
 (Se levant et remettant la 
 plume k Villebrun, etc.) 
 
 Bochefeuil — " Quelquea pe- 
 tites affaires k r&ler." 
 
 Andre — " Ce que c'est 
 d'h^riter." 
 
 Planterose — " Quel est ce 
 portrait ? " 
 
 Andr^ — " C'est celui de mon 
 pfere." 
 
 Planterose — " Son pere, 
 vous etes " 
 
 Andrg — " Andr^ Bernier." 
 
 Planterose — " Les trsiits, le 
 regard de I'autre." 
 
 Andr^ — " Auriez-vous con- 
 nu mon p6re ? " 
 
 Planterose (k part) — " C'est 
 son fiis." 
 
 The Plaintiffs' Piece. 
 
 " Your name, sir ? " 
 
 " Ranger." 
 
 Ravenstone ( writing ) — 
 "Willwash, March 20, 1840." 
 (Hands receipt to Vernon, 
 etc.) 
 
 Normanton — " Oh, a little 
 matter of business." 
 
 Frederick — " It is a fine 
 thing to be wealthy." 
 
 Ravenstone — " Whose por- 
 trait is that ? " 
 
 Frederick — " The likeness 
 of my father." 
 
 Ravenstone — " Tour name, 
 then is " 
 
 Frederick — " Ranger." 
 
 Ravenstone — " Every fea- 
 ture of the face the same." 
 
 Frederick — " You knew my 
 father, then ? " 
 
 Ravenstone (aside) — " It 's 
 his son." 
 
 There are several more, as close as any of these, scattered 
 about the play. But they are not numerous ; and therefore, 
 taken alone, it would be hard and unreasonable to call them 
 piracy. But where the title is also taken or tampered with, 
 and the whole pictorial invention, and the characters and the 
 situations, and the topics of the dialogue, and the stage busi- 
 ness, in short, all that patentees protect by specification and 
 drawings ? ? 
 
 Besides the above, are far more numerous instances of 
 what I call " sloppy translation." 
 
 "Les plumes des oiseaux cr^dules, qui sont venus se 
 
THE EIGHTd COMMANDMENT. 115 
 
 prendre a la glu de votre credit," is thus rendered — " or 
 starts again to pluck fresh pigeons, and stuff his pillow with 
 the feathers of the foolish birds." 
 
 In " Les Pauvres de Paris " the banker, an hour before 
 open bankruptcy, calmly bids his clerk receive a heavy 
 deposit from his visitor ; the clerk, as he goes to his desk, 
 says (aside), " Oh, le beau voleur ! " which told upon the 
 French audience. 
 
 Mr. Johnstone pirated this situation and this business to 
 the very letter ; but rendered the line thus — " Well, this is 
 the very essence of villainy ! " which, being as feeble, arti- 
 ficial, and undramatic, as the French line is the reverse, 
 missed fire as a matter of course. Does it follow that this, 
 and many such examples of the wishy-washy in this piece, 
 are adaptation, and not loose translations ? 
 
 Dishonest blockheads, for an immoral purpose, have lately 
 begun to call all sloppy interpretations adaptation : but I 
 appeal to the learned, throughout Europe, * whether honest 
 blockheads in all ages have not discoloured and enfeebled 
 their originals precisely in this style, and called it " transla- 
 tion." * Hence the proverb " traduttore traditore." 
 
 This is an outline of the defence in the great case of Bar- 
 nett and another versus France and Justice, under the name 
 of Reade. Let us now combine our information. 
 
 1. With these materials, any English piece so pirated as 
 " Poverty and Pride " was, could have been at once pro- 
 tected by an injunction in equity, or an action for penalties, 
 under 3 & 4 William IV. 
 
 2. With these materials counsel advised me not to sue 
 adapters or colourable pirates under 15 Victoria, and in 
 defence of a French dramatic property protected at great 
 cost, and statutable. 
 
 3. Mr. Payne's counsel advised him to transfer the case 
 to the most expensive courts he could find, and fear nothing 
 I could do with these materials. 
 
 4. (Barnett v. Eeade.) When the pirate, strong in the 
 conviction that the Act of 15 Victoria is a man-trap, sued 
 the honest citizen, and accused him on oath of malice, for 
 trying to parry by advertisement a hostile advertisement, 
 which was a death-blow to the French property, then my 
 able and learned counsel felt so sure the dramatic clauses of 
 
116 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 15 Viet, are a mere joggle, that, with these materials on 
 their briefs, they dared not rely on the statute and the facts 
 of the case even as a defence. 
 
 This then is the way the Act and treaty work in our 
 courts of law. My interpretation, therefore, whether just or 
 not in theory, turns out not worth a straw. For laws cannot 
 execute themselves, but can only reach the citizen by the 
 medium of the courts. The statute then, constituted as our 
 courts are, operates thus : — 
 
 In all cases where the French dramatists don't pay the 
 heavy price charged for protecting them, their works can be 
 translated literally, and, in point of fact, they are so trans- 
 lated. 
 
 In all cases where they do pay the heavy price, then the 
 heartless, lawless law encourages another swindler to attack 
 them, viz., " the adapter." He destroys them as inevitably 
 as the other. Hie same pirate that translates the unprotected 
 pieces, plays the adaptation swindle on the protected pieces. 
 It costs him nothing : " it is as easy as lying," or as daubing 
 a stolen article with paint. Any stick is good enough to 
 beat such mere dogs as Victor Hugo, Scribe, Molifere, Shak- 
 speare, Corneille. Mere colourable piracy is punished every 
 day between Englishman and Englishman ; but it becomes 
 an honest lawful act when levelled against a French dra- 
 matic author, after he has bought of us at a heavy price 
 those sacred rights an Englishman gets gratis. Oh, shame ! 
 shame ! shame ! 
 
 CAP. X, 
 
 To all this there is but one cure, and no one can say the 
 remedy is hastily proposed. Expense has not been spared 
 to obtain opinions of English lawyers before condemning an 
 English statute. The result is before you. 
 
 The English courts, too, have had a fair trial. The result 
 is before you. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 117 
 
 I was advised that if I took this ambiguous statute to 
 Chancery, the court would send it to law, after putting me to 
 the expense of filing my bill, etc. 
 
 Why should I pay 801. to one man to tell me to go to an- 
 other man ? That would be rather too idiotic. 
 
 The courts of equity, therefore, could n't deal with our 
 double difficulty of fact and law. 
 
 I went to the county court, which is the next best place, 
 because it is quiet; and the judge is not encumbered with 
 twelve worthy Anglo-Saxon hogs, all hating brains like 
 poison. 
 
 But this court failed like the former. It- has not the 
 power to protect itself from insult. A Judge of Appeal 
 launched from a secret tribunal an imperial mandate over- 
 ruling the three estates of the realm, and compelled me to 
 go to a more pillaging, and therefore, ex hypothesi, a more 
 competent tribunal. Failure of justice, No. 2. 
 
 Well, I found myself in this very competent tribunal, to 
 which I had been driven like a lamb to the pillage. 
 
 And what was the first word this competent tribunal ut- 
 tered ? the very first ? — 
 
 A Declaration or its Incompetence, No. 3. 
 
 " Friend, go up higher ! " said Emperor Channel, " go into 
 mi/ court ! " 
 
 Well, I am in his court, and it cost us 200Z. to get into 
 his court. What is the first word we get for all that money ? 
 
 " Friend, go down lower ! this is a case for an arbitrator." 
 And so the interests of the greatest writers in the world, 
 foreigners, and the judicial interpretation of a statute, were 
 referred, in spite of my teeth — to whom, in heaven's name ? 
 — to a barrister ; who is not only lower, but infinitely lower 
 than a County Court judge. For a barrister, however great 
 his learning and ability, is but a private citizen. But a 
 County Court judge is a part of the executive government, 
 and his construction of a statute is a judicial construction, 
 and can be laid before the legislature as sufficient evidence 
 of the working of the law : a barrister's can't. 
 
 The " rise and progress " of this great case may be de- 
 scribed by the following figure : — 
 
118 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Exchequer. B 
 
 County Court. A 
 
 C Private citizen, to be 
 paid by the poor suitor for doing the work of gentlemen the nation 
 pays five to tvrelve thousand a year to judge all who come to them. 
 
 Did you ever hear of a dance called " the double shuffle " ? 
 
 That dance must surely be some relation to these dances 
 from A up to C ? while the music plays the great national 
 air of " How not to do it ; " and the suitor pays the piper. 
 
 Summary. 
 
 Our courts of equity won't guess so obscure a legal rid- 
 dle. 
 
 Our county courts would do it, but a dog in the manger 
 won't let them. 
 
 Our superior courts won't do it, nor let any court but 
 themselves do it. 
 
 Out of this maze of insular wisdom and jurisprudence 
 there is but one exit. We must get that working swindle 
 blotted out of our statute book, and that done, my allies can 
 go to our judges in equity (a), the natural guardians of copy- 
 right. They will not shrink from mere trouble. The law- 
 
 (a) In a recent copyright case, one of these gentlemen is known to 
 have taken the evidence home with him, and studied it closely during 
 play hours for a matter of three weeks. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. ng 
 
 yers are still sitting in those courts who made England give 
 little Hanover back her diamonds after seventy years' jug- 
 gling ; and they will make her deal justly with French 
 genius, the moment justice shall be law. And "justice to 
 authors " will be law the moment the love of justice shall 
 gaia a footing, however small, in the heart of the legislator. 
 Never till then. Justice, like music, must be in his heart, or 
 it will never come out at his pen. 
 
 " His conscience ? " Thank you ! I don't deal in gutta- 
 percha. 
 
 " His head? " I've outgrown my love of cocoa-nuts. 
 
 Will any honest man or woman in this island help me sow 
 the first seeds of "justice to immortal authors " in the Eng- 
 lish legislator's heart ? I shall be grateful. 
 
 Will any brother writer rise to the occasion, and join 
 with me, sincerely, in this good work ? If he will, I am 
 his friend for life : and he will find I can love as well as 
 hate. 
 
 Will any lawyer who, like me, takes noble views of law. 
 lend me his advice and sympathy ? It will fall on me like 
 the dew on Hermon. 
 
 The first step towards cleanliness is to know how dirty we 
 are. 
 
 This can only be ascertained by comparison. 
 
 The nations that in matters of copyright have been the 
 most constantly accused of dishonesty by the English press, 
 are Belgium and the United States. 
 
 Very well. 
 
 " I, Charles Reade, of 6 Bolton Row, Mayfair, London, 
 do, by these presents, offer a bet to the first comer of what- 
 ever nation. 
 
 " I bet him, or her, seventy guineas to forty guineas, that 
 he, or she, does not to the satisfaction of able umpires, to be 
 by us approved, succeed in proving that either the kingdom 
 of Belgium or the American republic has ever, in treating 
 or refusing to treat with another State for international copy- 
 right, been guilty of any act as dishonest, disloyal, and 
 double-faced as Great Britain has committed, by treating 
 with France for international copyright; and contriving, 
 under cover of that treaty, to steal the main intellectual ex- 
 port of that empire, and that I will prove the contrary." 
 
120 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 There, that is the way to get at the truth in England. 
 The country is chock full of feUows who will risk their souls 
 on a lie, but won't risk a 51. note on one. 
 
 Lawyer, statesman, writer, and plain honest man or wo- 
 man of every degree, marchons ! ! 
 
 This disloyal intruder into a great international equity has 
 been tried nine years, and convicted as a pettifogging cheats 
 down with it ! 
 
 It is a blot on a noble enactment, and on our national es- 
 cutcheon : " Out, damned spot ! " 
 
 It is a double-faced, double-tongued, double dealer. It 
 turns one cheek to the honest inventor, and says, " Pay the 
 price, and I'll protect you;" turns the other cheek to the 
 rogue, and says, " Let him pay what he will, I '11 show you 
 how to do him ; " and so it tempts the honest man to his 
 temporal, and the frail man to his eternal harm : down 
 with it ! 
 
 Oh, do not think that any vacillating enigmatical law is a 
 merely silly thing. 
 
 It is a hellish thing. 
 
 It is an equivocating handpost. 
 
 It is a standing temptation to commonplace consciences, 
 i. e., the greater number, and decides them to pick, and steal, 
 and hide, where a clear law would bind their hands, and per- 
 haps save their souls. 
 
 It is a fruitful nursery of Spartan thieves, and Cretan 
 liars, and English adulterators, the three blackest rogues in 
 creation. 
 
 It is a trap for property, probity, and industry. 
 
 It is the horror of all great and wise men that love their 
 kind. 
 
 It is the devil's delight; and an imitation of his worst 
 known vice. 
 
 " And damned be those equivocating fiends, 
 That palter with us in a double sense ! " 
 
 — 'Macbeth.' 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 121 
 
 CAP. XI. 
 
 Foe three months that wretched arbitration hung over our 
 heads. Then, one fine day, I was told that the whole thing 
 was at an end. Theji had applied to the full Court for a 
 new trial, and the Court had refused them. The nonsuit 
 stood : and Bamett and Johnstone had to pay Reade's costs. 
 
 " Sue a beggar, catch an insect," says the proverb. And, 
 unfortunately, if you are sued by a beggar, you catch just as 
 many insects. My allies and I caught two hundred and 
 seventy in Bamett v. Eeade. 
 
 In other words, our lawyer's bill for Eeade v. Payne, 
 Payne v. Reade, and Barnett and another v. Reade, came 
 to 270Z. ; of which, in theory, we had not one farthing to 
 pay, except the two or three pounds in Reade v. Payne. 
 But Mr. Payne went bankrupt, and evaded payment of our 
 costs. (This arrangement is a part of the system of piracy.) 
 
 Messrs. Barnett and Johnstone awaited the storm. 
 
 Thereupon, in due course, our attorney threw Mr. Barnett 
 into prison. Mr. Barnett instantly prepared to go through 
 the Insolvent Court, and laugh at us. On this, I went in 
 person down to the Insolvent Court, to oppose his uncondi- 
 tional discharge. I went alone, luckily. 
 
 The other side no sooner saw me in court, unencumbered 
 with milk-and-water auxiliaries, than they came at once to 
 terms, and offered that Mr. Barnett should pay by instal- 
 ments 60Z. towards our costs. 
 
 I accepted these terms, and Mr. Barnett was discharged. 
 I have pleasure in adding that these instalments have been 
 honourably paid, and that, where a little indulgence as to the 
 periods has been accorded, it has been handsomely acknowl- 
 edged. 
 
 Mr. Johnstone is a poor actor. I was told that if I im- 
 prisoned him I should merely punish him for his attack on 
 me, and should not extract a shilling from him for my allies. 
 You know my opinion about prison — that it is not Para- 
 
122 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 dise. My well-weighed opinions on that point may be erro- 
 neous ; and my shallow opponents' hasty guesses mat be 
 right. " The race is not always to the swift," etc. 
 
 But whether mistaken or not, I am sincere, and what I 
 write I act. Therefore, I declined to inflict a fruitless im- 
 prisonment on this man who, by-the-by, had shown me no 
 mercy ; having first pillaged me and destroyed my property, , 
 then brought a malicious and slanderous action against me, - 
 accusing me of malice, a low vice. ^ 
 
 However, clemency is a fine thing. 
 
 What says Portia — " It blesseth him that gives and him-j 
 that takes." It is " its own reward." And in fact, so I foumjL, 
 it. For Mr. Johnstone evinced his sense of my clemency by , 
 showing all the miscreants and thieves of the stage how to 
 rob me with colourable piracy of two of my English literary 
 properties, and by leading them the way. 
 
 Besides the heavy pecuniary loss, these heartless vaga-,^ 
 bonds have made me feel once more the anguish a mothery 
 feels, robbed of her children. 
 
 Of the remaining two hundred and ten pounds, forty was 
 to be paid by me, one hundred and seventy by the swindled. 
 
 But considering that I alone represented the honour of the 
 nation in matters of dramatic copyright, and considering, fur- 
 ther, that I had recommended my allies to try the English 
 courts of law (for which, may God forgive me), I felt it my 
 disagreeable duty to bear a larger share than that of the ex- 
 penses. 
 
 Accordingly, being in Paris in 1858, 1 called on my good 
 friends in their committee room, and offered to pay half the 
 lawyer's bill, instead of 40Z. They did me the honour to ac- 
 cept the proposal ; and we have each paid since then 80t, 
 leaving a balance due of 50Z., or 25Z. apiece to pay. 
 
 I think it bitterly hard that they, being foreigners, should 
 not only be defrauded year after year by a nation which, in 
 a national sense, defrauds no other foreigners on her own 
 soil, but should also be swindled out of their costs iii two 
 actions they have won. Were I a rich man they should not 
 pay one shilling of it. 
 
 As it is, I have done what I can out of a small income, 
 reduced by perpetual attacks on my own copyrights, and by 
 the expenses of defending them from my author-swindling 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 123 
 
 countrymen. And what I could not do directly I shall try 
 to do indirectly, by writing and printing unpalatable and un- 
 saleable truths, until justice shall be done. 
 
 Will any honest man help me by word or deed ? We 
 shall have a few pirates and thieves against us, and a mass 
 of Anglo-Saxon brutality and apathy to peck into with our 
 pens and tongues. But on our side will be advancing civil- 
 ization and morality: and we shall win in one year, or 
 twenty. 
 
 Consider! The whole honour of a country cannot be 
 maintained by bayonets and rifles. Courage inspires admi- 
 ration, strength enforces outward respect : but these come into 
 play between nations only on great, and brilliant, and sad 
 occasions. 
 
 We cannot measure our valour against French valour 
 without putting back human nature like a clock, and making 
 widows weep on earth and angels mourn in heaven. But 
 we can vie with her in justice ; and God, and all good men 
 that love their race, can smile on the bloodless contest. And, 
 in so worthy a combat as this, who ought to be in the first 
 ranks ? who, but authors, the moral instructors and self-ap- 
 appointed judges of mankind ? 
 
 CAP. XII. 
 
 The first division of my subject is exhausted. Those 
 who read these pages, and still think that piracy on French 
 dramatists is just, delicate, or honourable to the British name, 
 are out of my power to convince on any moral ground. They 
 shan't escape me for all that. 
 
 In compliment to their little infirmity (absence of the 
 moral sense), I shall now dismount the high horse, and show 
 them that this piracy is clean against the interest of the na- 
 tion, or to use my own words, '• is shallow, unstatesmanlike, 
 and impolitic." 
 
 In the original print of this work I inserted between 
 these two branches of the subject a fierce exposure of sev- 
 eral scribblers, who under the coward's shelter, the anony- 
 
124 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 mous, and the coward's and forger's shelter, the pseudony- 
 mous, have slandered me to the public as a tamperer with 
 that very property in defence of which I have done and 
 suffered so much. 
 
 But on reflection I shall not dissect skunks on the p^es 
 of an international book. They would make the whold 
 volume smell, and I could not confine my loathing and scorn 
 of them within social or legal bounds. 
 
 Their misrepresentations I will remove from such minds 
 as are not unwilling to part with them. 
 
 French works produced before the treaty are Englislf 
 spoil, and English are French. Amongst these are " ClaiP 
 die," a play by George Sand, and " Tiridate," a one act 
 comedy. I adapted both these to the English stage years 
 ago ; and paid the French authors nothing, and never will, any 
 more than they paid poor ruined Walter Scott a shilling for 
 the hundred thousand pounds and more they made out of him. 
 I am just to myself and to England as well as to France. 
 Equity of spoliation up to 1851. From that date equity of 
 commerce (a). 
 
 I kept my adaptation of " Claudie," called " VillagtP 
 Tale," for two years, and then a small theatre, the Strand, 
 played it. 
 
 It was from a famous source : it was criticised in the usual 
 organs, and its origin no secret to any human creature. One 
 of the actors was even induced by it to make a rival version 
 from the original. 
 
 This play was what some people call successful, and I call 
 a dead failure. 
 
 I can bow to the public when it is right ; but I never bow 
 to error and false judgment. 
 
 I have purchased Mr. Millais's chef-d'cEuvre in the teeth 
 of all the babblers about pictures. And I ventured to differ 
 from those who saw nothing in the " Village Tale." I built 
 a beautiful little story on that beautiful little play, and tried' 
 it on the public in that form — second heat for the stakes, — 
 and printed it in " Bentley's Miscellany." 
 
 (a) Since the treaty, M. Hachette, a French publisher, has never 
 published or translated any English book, without paying the authoii 
 
 I won't be behind a French publisher, in justice to authors : I am an 
 author. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 125 
 
 The early history of " Art " is somewhat similar. 
 
 The manager of the Olympic Theatre requested me to 
 ^ve him a version of "Tiridate." I objected, for obvious 
 reasons. He assured me Mr. Oxenford's was denied him, 
 and that if I did not do one, somebody else should. So I 
 produced a version of " Tiridate." It was read, and a prin- 
 cipal actor dechned his part. On this, the manager could 
 not do it. It is usual, in these cases, to make the poor soul 
 do it, or pay. 
 
 I took what I intended for a less illiberal course. I said, 
 " Well, never mind, there is the open market ; " and I built 
 a story on it. However, while the story lay in my desk, I 
 made a present of the play to a deseirving but unprosperous 
 theatre,, the St. James's. 
 
 The play was criticised in the " Times," and elsewhere,. 
 and its origin transparent. It was version No. 2 of a famil- 
 iar theme. When these two stories came out in " The Mis- 
 cellany," in 1854, they attracted little attention. Their 
 French origin was the only thing commented on ; their in- 
 teinsic beauty was as little seen as the labour and skill that 
 had turned them from plays into good stories, one of the 
 rarest feats in art. 
 
 Years rolled on, and my English novels, especially " It is 
 Never too Late to Mend," raised me to popularity. Then 
 my publisher, Mr. Bentley, naturally wished to profit by his 
 early appreciation of me. He purchased the copyright of 
 these stories for two years, and eventually produced them, 
 together with a new story, in a cheap volume. 
 ! By the light of " It is Never too Late to Mend" the two 
 former verdicts were instantly reversed ; and Mr. Bentley, 
 I hear, sold twenty-five thousand copies in a few months. 
 This in 1857, three years after their cold reception in the 
 '^Miscellany." 
 
 On this success, always deserved, yet obtained only after 
 t^Q defeats, will it be believed that a cabal of booksellers' 
 hacks, presuming on the ignorance and obliviousness of the 
 public, suddenly affected to believe (the little rogues) that 
 these subjects were now produced for the first time instead 
 o£ tibe third ; and that their origin, instead of being doubly 
 notorious, was a discreditable mystery; and that French tal- 
 ent was selling me, instead of being sold by my personal 
 reputation, after foiling twice on its own merits ; and that I 
 
126 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 was tampering with the treaty ? whereas my publisher was 
 but reprinting works taken long before the treaty. 
 
 Those who did me this injustice without malice, I invite, 
 without heat, not to be so hasty next time with their flippant 
 comments on the character of an artist, whose art is freely 
 abandoned to their wildest conjectures. - ' 
 
 A pseudonymuncule, writing under the sham signature;) of 
 M. P., says he " found out that one of Mr. Reade's baoks 
 was copied from Mr. Oxenford's adaptation of ' Tiridate.' " 
 
 This is an unscrupulous falsehood, though not a very nox- 
 ious one. Pseudonymuncule found that Mr. Oxenford's 
 adaptation is not printed ; he found too that Mr. Oxenfoijd 
 had criticised my version of Tiridate in the " Times," and 
 noticed that the treatment was different from his own — or 
 be found nothing. 
 
 This same pseudonymuncule goes on to say that my novel, 
 " White Lies," " is in dialogue and incident a translation 
 from a drama called Chateau Grantier, jUled up into three 
 volumes with the moral reflections of the distinguished apprO' 
 priator" etc. Now the above statement having obtained a 
 large currency, perhaps it may be as well to compare it with 
 the truth. 
 
 Of a three-volume novel so composed as he has described, 
 two thirds must be moral reflections, so small is the bulk of 
 a play compared with that of a novel. 
 
 Well, the volumes of " White Lies " are before me. I 
 find a page and a half of political reflection ; a page and a 
 quarter on puppies ; half a page on Napoleon I. ; a moral 
 paragraph on suicide, and another on women, etc., and a 
 fragment or two. 
 
 The work is seven hundred and sixty-eight pages. My 
 moral reflections are not two pages. I doubt if they are 
 more than one. All the author's reflections together (and it 
 is the author's reflections he is talking of) may be six pages. 
 Compare this with the impression this liar has sought to 
 create ! 
 
 Such bold falsehoods are uttered in a sentence. To con- 
 fute them fully would take pages. 
 
 Let us apply, for once in a way scientific criticism. The 
 test I propose is one, the value and severity of which will 
 strike every man who knows the A B C of that science. It 
 is a test that would at once be fatal to all your " fair adaptar 
 tions," and identify their plots with the French originals. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 127 
 
 On its first appearance in the " London Journal " " White 
 Lies " was illustrated by Mr. Gilbert. 
 
 I don't know Mr. Gilbert, even by sight. I held no com- 
 munication with him. Proof-sheets were no doubt submitted 
 to him by the publisher, and he selected for his pencil what 
 his experience told him were the most dramatic and telling 
 incidents. 
 
 - I put the inventor's name opposite each of these situa- 
 tions, selected by Mr. Gilbert. 
 
 The story begins July 11, 1857 ; No. 646, Vol. XXV. 
 The title to each illustration has been supplied, I conclude, 
 by Mr. Gilbert. 
 
 1. "Josephine and Laure interrogating the soldiers." 
 [This is a situation of five figures.] — Reade. 
 
 2. " Edouard Riviere watching Josephine and Laure." 
 [Three figures.] — Reade. 
 
 3. " The notary's departure from Farmer Bonards." [Two 
 figures, and pony.] — Reade. 
 
 4. " The discovery of the purse." [Five figures ; admi- 
 rably done, Mr. Gilbert.] — Reade. 
 
 5. " Riviere conveying Dard home after his accident." — 
 Reade. 
 
 6. " Josephine expelling the Notary from Beaurepaire." 
 [Three figures.] — Reade. 
 
 7. " Riviere granting new leases to the tenants of Beau- 
 repaire." [Six figures.] — Reade. 
 
 8. " Riviere obtaining leave of absence from Raynal." 
 ^Two figures.] — Reade. 
 
 9. " Commandant Raynal dismissing the Notary from 
 Beaurepaire." [Three figures.] — Reade. 
 
 10. " Interview between Laure de Beaurepaire and Ray- 
 nal." [Two figures.] — Reade. 
 
 11. " Return of Camille Dujardin to Beaurepaire." [Three 
 figures.] — Maquet. 
 
 12. " Josephine imploring Camille's forgiveness." [Three 
 figures. J — Reade. 
 
128 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 13. Not illustrated. Under those circumstances, I beg to 
 state there is not one syllable in the whole Number, nor one 
 idea, that is to be found in " Chateau Grantier." 
 
 14. " Camille Dujardin making his nuptial arrangements." 
 [Three figures.] — Reade. 
 
 15. " Camille Dujardin reading Raynal's letter." [Five 
 figures. Very skilful, Mr. Gilbert.] — Reade. 
 
 16. " Dard marching off to join the army." — Reade- 
 
 17. "Josephine sympathizing with the poor mother." 
 [Six figures.] — Reade. 
 
 18. " An unpleasant discovery at Beanrepaire." — Maquet.- 
 
 19. " Raynal writing to Josephine from Dujardin's tent." 
 [Two figures.] — Maquet. 
 
 20. " Colonel Dujardin leading the attack on the Bastion 
 St. Andrd." [Numerous figures, full of spirit.] — Maquet 
 
 21. " Laure snatching the poison from Josephine.'' [Six 
 figures.] — Maquet. 
 
 22. " The return of Dard and La Croix to Beaurepaire." 
 — Reade. 
 
 The plagiarism, you see, is small, the invention large by 
 comparison. 
 
 By the word " appropriator " it was intended to convey 
 that I have here stolen French ideas, (as my detractors do, 
 and those they praise,) instead of buying them like an hon- 
 est trader. 
 
 This too has been echoed far and wide. Compare with 
 this statement made and repeated by writers, who have not 
 access to my kitchen, far less to my heart, what the author of 
 Chateau Grantier himself wrote to me on the point in 1857. 
 
 " Rue de Bnixelles, 12, Paris. 
 "My dear Reade, 
 " VoTRB nouvelle est eharmante. EUe respire tout votre esprit 
 et your warm heart," etc. — (all this refers to a translation of ' It 
 is Never too Late to Mend'). 
 
 " Je vous reconnais Men b, voire proposition de 20 livres pour la 
 nouvelle du ' Chateau Grantier.' Vous etes un vrai gentleman. 
 J'eusse eprouve un vifplaisir a vous dire cela en vous servant la 
 main : mais la manche est entre nous, et y sera encore tout cet 
 hiver, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 " Macjuet." 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 129 
 
 The whole transaction was as follows : — 
 
 In 1851, instead of stealing, like the rest of my country- 
 men, I gave Maquet 40^. for the play of Chateau Grantier, 
 subject to a certain clause, vide p. 25. 
 
 ■ In 1854 this clause came into operation. The London 
 managers had declined the play, and it became waste paper 
 on my hands. On this. Monsieur Maquet refunded to me 
 20Z., as per treaty. I took it ; for I am not a generous per- 
 son at all, nor chivalrous in money matters, but only one 
 who deals as fairly with authors as with tailors. I was still 
 20Z. out of pocket ; and vaj work : two acts of which were 
 original. I could not afford to lose my money, still less my 
 labour. Was it just I should ? come now ! 
 
 I determined, therefore, to build a story on the basis of 
 rny rejected MS. But as this was throwing the theatre over 
 altogether, I thought it fair, in that case, to repay Monsieur 
 Maquet the 20?. he had refunded : and, indeed, the wish to 
 be able to do so with justice to myself had some influence 
 in setting me to work. 
 
 I worked twelve months on this novel of " White Lies." 
 Bound the small nucleus of such incidents in " Chateau 
 Grantier," as were fit for a story, I wove a whole web of 
 original invention ; and I did, what no Englishman ever did 
 since the nation existed, I bought those few incidents for my 
 story of the French dramatist, instead of appropriaiing them 
 as others do who escape abuse from pseudonymuucules ; be- 
 cause liars and thieves understand one another. 
 
 Then it has been urged by others with more plausibility, 
 and a great deal more courtesy, that I ought to have an- 
 nounced this work as an adaptation from a French original. 
 
 These gentlemen don't know what they are talking about. 
 Why I should have been instantly swindled out of my la- 
 bour and my property, and any such ridiculous and insin- 
 cere admission of mine brought into court as evidence to eke 
 out the perjury with which piracy is invariably defended. 
 
 I am not in Heaven : I am in England, a singularly friend- 
 less author, surrounded by heartless author swindlers, who 
 attack every property I create, and who would rob me of 
 " White Lies " to-morrow if my legal claim to it was merely 
 that I had honestly bought the ideas of a Frenchman. Was 
 " Poverty and Pride " spared ? Was there one syllable of 
 sympathy uttered in the English press either for the French 
 9 
 
130 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 authors or for me,, when we were robbed of it ? It is lost to 
 us as property forever. No ; " White Lies " contains a few 
 golden situations that are not mine in law, but only in mo- 
 rality, for I only purchased them of a foreigner ; but on the 
 whole it is a product of English labour and invention, and 
 is an English copyright. And those who are not prepared 
 to dispute this, either as pirates or libellers, before an un- 
 bought judge, had better take my advice, and from this date 
 cease to dispute it publicly in their venal columns. 
 
 This short answer to the misstatements of two unscrupu- 
 lous cabals is merely inserted to protect my readers against 
 dishonest men, who would gladly prejudice them against this 
 much needed book, by exciting an unworthy doubt of the 
 author's sincerity and consistency in the cause of immortal 
 authors, and their families, throughout the world. 
 
 Men don't like to be led to virtue by a hypocrite. And I 
 don't blame them. 
 
 Take my advice, then : go by facts ! 
 
 An Englishman may write leading articles, or critiques, 
 in favour of justice without caring a straw for her : he is 
 paid per line or per time, not per sincerity : and, besides, 
 verbal virtue is as saleable as vice in book or journal. But 
 if an Englishman puts his hand, not into his head, but into 
 "his heart of hearts" — his pocket — for a cause; and 
 bleeds, and bleeds again, time, money, toil ; take my word 
 for it that Anglo-Saxon is in earnest, even though the cause 
 he bleeds for should be a just one. We all belong to the 
 genus Mammonalia here. 
 
 Arm yourselves with this bit of common sense, and give 
 the tried advocate of international justice and national hon>- 
 our a candid hearing. 
 
 The first part of the case is in your hands. Weigh it ! 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 131 
 
 CAP. XIII. 
 
 The love of the drama is so engrained in the human 
 heart, that all attempts to put it down are insane. This 
 makes it all the more our duty to improve it. To improve 
 it is as easy as to destroy it is impossible : for the stage has 
 no fixed character any more than have these old rags, on 
 which I now write its first true definition as a moral or an 
 immoral engine. 
 
 Definition of the Stage. 
 
 The stage is (not a pit of perdition, but) " a set of dirty 
 deal boards laid down nearly flat, with vertical pictures cross- 
 ing it by means of side-grooves." On those boards a story 
 is presented in its natural form, instead of the artificial shape 
 of narrative. Its moral character depends entirely upon those 
 eight hundred men and women you see sitting on the other 
 side the foot-lights. The actors are their slaves and cha- 
 meleons ; and through the actors the dramatist is their slave 
 and their chameleon, as no other writer is. The stage is 
 what the public and the Puritans make it between them — 
 the Puritans by staying away, and robbing it of the benefit 
 of their voice, and the public by going and approving or 
 disapproving according to the current measure of their virtue 
 and intelligence. This makes it the more important that 
 men and women of intellect and character should attend the 
 performances, and help to keep up their tone. 
 
 But persons of intelligence will not give a high price for 
 a bad intellectual article. And the English theatres do not 
 habitually sell a good one. 
 
 A comparison of the French and English theatres reveals 
 the following facts : — 
 
 1. That the French managers are selling to their public 
 representations of modern French life, really interesting, 
 and often beautiful and instructive ; and that the English 
 managers are selling pantomime, good scenery (English), 
 puns, and certain orduriflcations of all that is great in man 
 
132 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 and pure in woman, and ennobling in art, called burlesques, 
 and clever French truths turned by discoloration into stupid 
 Enghsh lies. 
 
 2. That they are selling this bad intellectual ware dearer 
 to the public than the French managers sell their good arti- 
 cle to their public. 
 
 3. That they have closed the stage to English authors or 
 inventors, as a class. 
 
 4. That they don't pay the writers they do employ one- 
 eighth as much as the French theatres pay their writers. 
 
 5. That the highest minds, French or English, find pleas- 
 ure and instruction in the French theatre, and have been 
 driven, as a class, out of the English theatres. 
 
 Now, I am going to show you that all these happy results 
 — high prices, low article, intellectual auditor banished, in- 
 ventor extinguished, adapter half starved, petty pirate in 
 rags — are not the results of nature, as dreamers think, but the 
 product of feeble legislation, and unjust, incapable tribunals. 
 
 France has a national drama, mainly because she is an 
 honest nation, and worthy of one. England has none, be- 
 cause she is at present an author-swindling nation, and un- 
 worthy of one. 
 
 "When the English legislature shall rise to the moral and 
 intellectual level of the French legislature, and the Enghsh 
 judges to the moral and intellectual level of the French 
 judges, then the present artificial oppression, which is such 
 as no art ever yet throve under, will be removed or lightened, 
 and a great and glorious national drama wUl that moment 
 begin to arise by a law of commerce as inevitable as that 
 which now strangles it. \ English statesmen would not need 
 to be told all this by me, if they would only think for them- 
 selves instead of trusting to rant, cant, and chimera. 
 
 English statesmen dealing with matters mechanical are 
 gods in intellect compared with the same men regulating 
 literary commerce. 
 
 The reason is worth profound attention, and dictates my 
 line of argument. 
 
 In figs, and cotton, and all the business of the mechanical 
 arts, our statesmen, the most laborious and wisest in Europe, 
 Napoleon the Third excepted, have the industry, and the 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 133 
 
 humble, lofty intelligence, to hunt up the legal evidence first, 
 and form their opinions accordingly. But in literary busi- 
 ness they lay aside, even as a garment, that wisdom humble 
 and lofty, and go by intelligent conjecture founded on vague 
 but current notions. 
 
 But this is to be shallow in proportion as the subject mat- 
 ter is profound. 
 
 It is to build their huts on the rock, and their palace on 
 the sand. 
 
 In sober truth, this is to apply to figs and raisins, etc., 
 the Solomonian method, i. e., observation and induction ; 
 but, to literary statesmanship, the method of the schoolmen, 
 which kept the world dark for ages. 
 
 Now that false system, though it has lost its wide domains, 
 has not lost its nature, nor its absolute power over its con- 
 tracted territory. It sends hundreds of moderns to Bedlam 
 every year; and it can still reduce to utter darkness any 
 stray subject on which it settles, A. d. 1860. 
 
 And, unfortunately, one of the relics of that old kingdom 
 of darkness is a little province called " Literary Criticism ; " 
 a pseudo science (at present), one of whose positions is that, 
 in matters of art, a man may attain to truth by searching 
 the depths of his inner consciousness. 
 
 This is a German phrase, and there are not above six 
 men in this island who thoroughly understand it. Let me 
 have the honour of adding your name to that list. 
 
 In figs and raisins, and in the fine arts, and in every sub- 
 ject matter whatever, "the depths of a man's inner con- 
 sciousness " are " the shallows of his ignorance with the rock 
 of his vanity peeping through the foam and froth." 
 
 Nothing in man is an inch deep, but knowledge painfully 
 acquired, partly by personal observation, partly from the tes- 
 timony of other eye-witnesses. Nothing in man is a foc»t 
 deep, but knowledge acquired by the science of sciences, sta- 
 tistic. That science, sneered at by buzzards, is " the soi- 
 disant Baconian principle " worked by a vast machinery of 
 eyes and hands. It is what / call Solomon (a) -j- Argus -|- 
 Briareus. 
 
 (a) Lord Bacon inculcated observation, but was a feeble observer. 
 Solomon did not talk about it, but did it. And that is the man for 
 my money. 
 
134 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Out of literature, then, our statesmen base their conclu- 
 sions upon this science of sciences ; but in literature they 
 reason a priori, or else don't reason at all, but resign their 
 own excellent judgment to the rant, cant, and chimera that 
 are current in society, and sometimes to quarterly and 
 monthly " critics " so called. But these are all tarred more 
 or less with Thomas Aquinas his stick. 
 
 They fiddle well, but they can't see ; and a blind fiddler 
 is no better a guide than a blind tinker. 
 
 I can think at present of no better way of converting men 
 of intelligence from that pernicious system of reasoning in 
 literary matters, than to give them a glimpse of it at work, 
 blinding the ingenious persons that use it, and reducing the 
 learned to ploughboys. 
 
 Cephalomanct, Example 1. 
 
 When Lord Macaulay first brought out his " History of 
 England " it was a great chance for criticism ; for the feats 
 of that science are not florid phrases, but contemporaneous 
 judgments that posterity confirms" (your humble servant's 
 judgment of Sir Isumbras, to wit) ; and it is not once in fifty 
 years that so great an author as Macaulay comes up for such 
 judgment. 
 
 What was the general tenor of that most amazing verdict ? 
 That Macaulay was a charming and seductive writer, but an 
 ephemeral one. " It is not the ' History of England,' " (sic,) 
 said the " Times ; " and nine out of ten English critics ar- 
 rived at the same conclusion, and on the same grounds. I 
 will state their reasoning shortly, but fairly. 
 
 " We grant his dazzling parts and his profound industry, 
 and his mastery of English. But he mixes largely the col- 
 ours of fiction and rhetoric with history. Therefore his his- 
 tory, popular for a time, will not be immortal." 
 
 Apply the syllogism! The syllogism is a touchstone, 
 though not the instrument, of reasoning. Mr. Mill will 
 grant me that. 
 
 Major premiss. No historian, who mixes the colours of 
 fiction and rhetoric with history, achieves immortality. 
 
 Minor. Macaulay mixes the colours of fiction, etc., with 
 history. 
 
 Mrgo. Macaulay will not achieve immortality. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMASDMENT. 135 
 
 Now where do they get their major premiss, or general 
 principle? "Why out of the depths of their inner conscious- 
 ness. It is an impression : and a rational one. Most error 
 is rational. 
 
 Apply the Solomonian principle. This begins at the other 
 end: it inquires first and decides afterwai"ds, instead of de- 
 eding first and inquiring never. 
 
 The first immortal historian was Herodotus. On dissect- 
 ing his work we find it composed of three main elements. 
 1st. A niunber of exact truths, the result of investigation as 
 enthusiastic, honest, and laborious as Macaulay's, and even 
 more meritorious, because accompanied with bodily fatigues, 
 and the dangers of travelling in rude times and foreign lands. 
 
 2nd. A number of fictions and romantic traditions gleaned 
 from oriental priests and such-like romancers. 
 
 3rd. A number of speeches put by the historian into the 
 mouths of his characters, not one word of which any of them 
 ever uttered. 
 
 The first immortal history, then, is one part truth, and 
 two parts fiction. 
 
 The next immortal is Thucydides. Dealing with events 
 that happened in a few years, and on a singularly small 
 arena, this contemporaneous historian could record facts with 
 an accuracy unattainable by Herodotus, or indeed by most 
 writers, fie is believed to have done so. " I should feel 
 sure of it, if he had not opened with aminseemly brag, and 
 a needless detraction of a greater man than himself. Well, 
 this immortal has coloured his narrative, and seasoned it 
 with spice from the dramatic poets of his country ; and a 
 huge river of pure fiction runs right through it ; the speeches 
 are more numerous and far more lengthy than in Herodotus, 
 and they are just as pure fiction as the speeches in the 
 " School for Scandal " or " Oliver Twist," or as the imaginary 
 conversations of Mr. Landor, or of Monsieur MonteiL, or the 
 dialogue in the " CEldipus " of Sophocles, Rotrou, FoUard, 
 Comeille, Dryden, and Lee, or the speeches in Homer's 
 "Biad" or Shakspeare's "Troilus and Cressida," — the 
 single difference is, that the fiction, in the historian, is more 
 crude and barefaced than in the best poets. In Homer, as 
 in all great modern artists, the characters utter, not the 
 writer, but themselves. Ajax talks Ajax, Achilles Achilles, 
 Hector Hector, Nestor Nestor, Ulysses Ulysses. But in 
 
136 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Herodotus and Thucydides all the speakers talk Herodotus 
 and Thucydides. It is prime rhetoric and second-rate fiction. 
 
 'Next in eminence comes Livy. He starts by telling us 
 he is not going to embellish ; but this is a mere flourish of 
 words in imitation of Thucydides. Adaptation. " Bgtise 
 renouvelde des Grecs.'' A favourite trick of the Latins. 
 Having eased his mimic conscience, Mr. Bos Locutus Est 
 Livy goes to work and sets his she-wolf suckling Uttle boys, 
 and his seven consecutive kings reigning 280 years, and his 
 bulls talking, and his clouds raining blood, and his vinegar 
 dissolving primary rock, and his characters delivering long 
 orations, masterpieces of rhetoric and uniform Latin, no syl- 
 lable of which they ever uttered. With all this fiction he is 
 an immortal historian, and deserves it. 
 
 Polybius is far more accurate, colourless, — and neglected. 
 
 Tacitus is grave, fair, and cool : a great model : but not 
 the " laid ideal " of the Cephalomants. He is tinted with 
 the arts of fiction. 
 
 Of old chroniclers the French have dozens ; but Mona- 
 trelet, Jean Juvenal des Ursins, Belleforest, and the rest, are 
 dry, and do but exist : Jean Froissart hves, and lives by his 
 gorgeous colours. 
 
 The English have a host of learned chroniclers : who 
 reads them ? Nobody but the bonepickers of learning : and 
 why ? because they are colourless. Holingshead we peep 
 into, just to see the dry bones that Shakspeare and fiction 
 put flesh on : but one peep is enough. 
 
 Voltaire's '• Charles the Twelfth" Uves. 
 
 Mariana's Spanish History lives. 
 
 Thierry's '' History of the Norman Conquest " lives. 
 
 Lamartine's " Girondins " lives. 
 
 Mr. Carlyle's " French Revolution " lives. It is far more 
 highly charged with fiction than Macaulay's. It is a gallery 
 of poetical caricatures. 
 
 A colourless history or two survive also, such as Mosheim's 
 and Dr. Henry's : but they are the exception rather than 
 the rule, and almost as many shallow inaccurate histories 
 live on by style and colour alone ; Hume's at the head of 
 them. 
 
 Gilt rags are naught, and perish soon or late. But silver 
 gilt is a mighty different matter, and that is where these 
 muddle-heads got confused. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 137 
 
 Strutt and Monteil were two antiquaries, equal in learning, 
 research, and enthusiasm. 
 
 These remarkable men printed the labours of thirty years. 
 Strutt published his learning in the form of learning. Mon- 
 teil threw his learning into a string of little fictions, studded 
 with recondite facts, and bristling with notes and references. 
 Strutt printed a thousand copies (quarto), and has never got 
 to a third edition. Every scholar consults him, now and 
 then, as a sort of demi-dictionary. Nobody reads him. 
 Monteil, his superior in nothing but that happy idea, is not 
 only read but thumbed, in England as well as France: his 
 worlt has been twice crowned, and has gone from edition to 
 edition, and bids fair to flourish for centuries. 
 
 Of all the works of Erasmus, what really survives ? His 
 " Colloquies " alone. And why ? They are a mine of erudi- 
 tion and observation ; but so are most of his works : but in 
 the " Colloquies " there is fiction, and its charm, superadded 
 to his learning, language, method, and philosophy — as in 
 the immortal Macaulay. 
 
 The Solomonian principle gives us, then, by infallible in- 
 duction this ; that where things so rare and solid as long and 
 profound research, lucid arrangement, and empire over lan- 
 guage, meet in an historian, there he has a good chance of 
 immortality ; but, where he blends with these rare virtues 
 the seductive colours of Action, he turns that good chance 
 into a certainty. 
 
 For which reason the premature tomb in Westminster is 
 " the grave of one that cannot die " but with the English 
 language. I wish I was as sure of the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 The same applies to bias. Your a priori reasoners divine 
 that bias must be fatal to any historian's duration. Enter 
 Solomon and shows you that three out of five immortal his- 
 torians have a visible bias. 
 
 Cephalomancy, No. 2. 
 
 A lady writes a book to prove from internal evidence that 
 Lord Bacon wrote Shakspeare's plays. On this mania she 
 expends great ingenuity, and powers of mind it makes me 
 sad to see her wasting so. Men are hanged every month in 
 England on legal evidence light and incomplete compared 
 with the legal evidence that Shakspeare wrote " Hamlet," 
 « Othello," etc. 
 
138 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Some of these plays were printed and entered at Station- 
 ers' Hall under his name -whilst he yet lived. So were all 
 his sonnets and his "Venus and Adonis," which he dedicates 
 in person to Lord Southampton, and which, by internal as 
 well as external evidence, are proved to be from the same 
 hand as the plays. Those plays were his sole source of in- 
 come, yet his bonds, his mortgages, and a will, survive 
 to prove he became rich from poor. For those plays 
 Greene and Jonson, playwrights, sneered at him while he, 
 lived (aoiSos aotSa), and Jonson and many more brayed tha; 
 usual recantation over the dead dramatist's body. Contem- 
 poraneous register, contemporaneous praise, envy, bonds, 
 deeds, letters, will, bust, picture, scarce a phase of legal 
 evidence is absent from the throng. Against these, who but 
 criticasters and lunatics ever oppose a priori reasoning in-. 
 this century? 
 
 The last instance is Cephalomancy pushed further than 
 usual. £ut in matters of reasoning the true test of the value, 
 of a principle is shown by carrying it as far as it can go. 
 The Solomonian principle will not shrink from that same 
 test. Until of late years you could not detect the existence 
 of poison in a dead man, unless it was in the stomach. Well, 
 the chemists announced that certain poisons entered the tis- 
 sues of the body. The body of a murdered man is now 
 melted down if necessary, and a grain of arsenic found gives 
 the one link wanting perhaps to punish murder, and protect 
 honest men's lives. This is now legal evidence. A few 
 years ago blood was blood in the eye of the law. But now 
 the law does not refuse to apply the microscope, and to learn 
 by the number and shape of the globules that the blood on a 
 murderer's trousers is not the blood of a sheep or a rabbit, 
 but of a man. The Solomoniau principle, you see, bears > 
 carrying out — the further the better. These and many addi- 
 tions to its range of inference are quite as subtle, and a 
 thousand times more beautiful, than the silly ingenuity of 
 Thomas Aquinas and his modern relics ; and that Solomo- 
 nian method criticasters must import into literature, or they 
 will never be critics, and never find out why France has a 
 great living drama, and England had, and has n't. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 139 
 
 Cephalomanct, No. 3. 
 
 The mind of. Richard Bentley was by nature of the same 
 gigantic mould as Newton's and Bacon's. That he turned 
 that mind's eye backwards instead of forwards was a mere 
 accident, and perhaps on the whole a misfortune (a). What- 
 ever science he had give his youth to would probably have 
 strode forward a century under him. At twenty-nine years 
 of age the scholars of the Continent hailed him the star of 
 learning. No Greek scholar that ever lived either ap- 
 proaches or resembles him. The old Greeks themselves, 
 each in their day, were like men walking on a road ; they 
 saw a little way before them, behind them, and about them, 
 and that was all ; but to this modern, looking from the height 
 of his prodigious learning, all Antiquity seems present. His 
 page is like a fiery torch moving across the dark abysses of 
 the past, and lighting them in a moment to the bottom. What 
 was the end of this intellectual son of Anak? He edited 
 Milton, and assuming that Milton employed an amanuensis 
 who garbled the text, he undertook to restore it. He in- 
 forms the reader that " he will supply the want of manu- 
 scripts to collate by his own sagacity and happy conjecture." 
 
 Bead this amazing sample of impudence, incapacity, and 
 ignorance, and compare it with the editor of Hesychius and 
 Joannes Malila of Antioch, and the Dissertator on Phalaris. 
 How are the .mighty fallen ! Can this arrogant dunce be 
 the same Bentley ? Ay ? it is the same man, but the oppo- 
 site method. 
 
 His emendation of poor Horace was the intermediate step. 
 But the canker must have been in him from his cradle. 
 The whole decline and fall of Bentley is worth a thousand 
 times closer study than has been bestowed on it. The sum 
 total is this. This great scholar and close-reasoning divine 
 began upon the Solomonian method. He worked it against 
 error in a dozen forms. By it he detected John Malila re- 
 ducing verses to prose, and turned them back. By it he 
 detected the two leading errors that had corrupted He- 
 sychius; and effected five thousand approved emendations 
 
 (a) He had himself misgivings towards the close of his career 
 whether he might not have employed those rare powers more profita- 
 bly to his country. 
 
140 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 in that single author. By it he discovered the synalepha 
 or liaison of verses in the anapaestic measure practised by 
 Greek writers and their Latin imitators, which had escaped 
 all the intermediate scholars. He worked the S. P. against 
 Hobbes in his Sermons, and there confuted, inter alia, a 
 piece of Cephalomancy lately published as new in " The 
 Vestiges of Creation " (a). And his great work on the 
 letters ascribed to Phalaris, Themistocles, Socrates, EuripiT 
 des, etc., what is the stone it was built on ? 
 
 Throughout this controversy with the wits of ChristF 
 church it is one mass of legal evidence on the scholarly 
 giant's side ; and arbitrary analogies and intelligent conjecr 
 ture on the side of the Lilliputians ; and sometimes, as ijj 
 Bentley's Milton, the Oxford conjectures are based on coqt 
 jecture. It is one critic versus a clique of criticasters. An4 
 mind, contemporaneous idiots thought Oxford had gained 
 this battle ; whereas she was not only defeated, but annihi- 
 lated. Such was Bentley so long as he was true to Solo- 
 mon : " nee pluribus impar." 
 
 He went from Greek to Latin, in which he was not su- 
 preme ; and as his knowledge became shallower, his inney 
 consciousness became profounder. It always does with every 
 man. See the principle on which he changes " qui siccis 
 oculis Arcroceraunia" into "qui rectis oculis!" and '"versus 
 male tornatos " into " male ter natos." See the whole thing ! 
 
 He seems scarce conscious that his science was, to teU 
 us what Horace said, not what he should have said ; and 
 that the consent of early MSS. is the legal evidence as to 
 what Horace did say. " The lying spirit of divination " 
 having now entered him, and ousted the teacher of Israel, 
 he was no longer " nee pluribus impar ; " on the contrary, 
 no dreamer was ever more justly or effectually quizzed. 
 [Vide one specimen out of a hundred, the emendations in 
 " Martinus Scriblerus," printed among Pope's works.] 
 
 (a) Those who fancy Bentley was a mere scholar should read his 
 " Boyle's Lectures," and his correspondence with Sir Isaac Newtoq, 
 printed by Cumberland in 1756. This last I have a notion was re- 
 viewed by Sam. Johnson in the " Literary Magazine." 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 141 
 
 The Solomonian 
 
 principle, 
 
 or 
 
 Bentley restoring the 
 
 text of Homer. 
 
 The lying spirit of 
 divination, 
 
 or 
 
 Bentley restoring the 
 text of Milton. 
 
 Extract from a letter to Dr. 
 Davies about Joshua Barnes's 
 edition of Homer : — 
 
 He struts and swaggers like 
 a Suffenus, and challenges that 
 same enemy to come aperte, and 
 show him any fault. If he mean 
 Me, 1 have but dipped yet into 
 his Notes ; and yet I find every- 
 where just occasion of censure. 
 H. S. ver. 201, — 'AXXo cmoitra- 
 veov(Tiv, epanaovin 8c x'^PI"!^' 
 Thus all editions have it; but in 
 Mr. Barnes's, and in the very 
 text, A?Tap awoirraviovo'iv • and 
 this noble note added, " ASrap] 
 Ita omnino, pro 'AXXa, ut olim." 
 So we have avrap clapped in 
 pro imperio, only to avoid the 
 hiatus of two vowels, aSXa a — 
 Now for this interpolation alone 
 his book deserves to be burned. 
 iLet us examine into the passage 
 a little : What is dwowravfauaiv 'I 
 He translates it respicient, but 
 says not one word to explain it. 
 TTis friend Eusiaihius, to whom 
 he owes the better half of his 
 iiotes, knows not what to make 
 of it, whether it be cm — (mra- 
 viov(Tiv, from oirra, onraiKO), i. e. 
 dlTo^\eylrov(nv • or djro — Trra- 
 veov(nv, fi"om irra, jrTaiva, <j)o- 
 /SoCftai, i e. Trrri^ova-iv • or from 
 TteTO), TTTOiVa), i. e. TreraadriarovTai. 
 But who ever heard of either 
 oTTTaiVo) or iTTaiva ? where does 
 our Professor find either of 
 
 In the seven famous lines : 
 
 He spoke, and to confirm his 
 
 words outflew 
 Millions of flaming swords, etc. 
 
 Bentley alters, out of the 
 depths of his inner conscious- 
 ness, " swords " to " blades," 
 " arms " to " swords," and the 
 just and noble epithet, " the 
 vault of heaven," to the ab- 
 surd one, " the walls of heav- 
 en : " extracts the music in the 
 two first, and propriety in the 
 third, and quantum in se ex- 
 tinguishes the true reading 
 forever. 
 " No light, but rather darkness 
 
 visible." 
 This line Bentley restores 
 thus : — 
 
 " No light, but rather a tran- 
 spicuous gloom." 
 
 It is like a picture restorer. 
 
 " As fi-om the centre thrice to 
 the utmost pole." 
 
 For this he substitutes, 
 
 " Distance which to express all 
 measure fails." 
 
 Milton.'] Our torments also may, 
 in length of time, 
 
 Become our elements. 
 
 Bentley.'] Then, as was well ob- 
 served, our torments may 
 
 Become our elements. 
 
142 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 them ? He is wholly mute upon 
 this word, which is ana^ \ey6- 
 jievav and yet the wretch would 
 venture blindfold to put in aZ- 
 rap- but the true reading is 
 thus : — 'aXX' dTroTraTTTaveovtrLv 
 — diroiranralva) fut. — TrairTava, 
 lonich Trairraveto, Jlanraiva 
 comes forty times in Homer; 
 and, if he had been, as he thinks 
 himself, Mmonides, sextus pavone 
 ex Pylhagoreo, he might have 
 found out the emendation, which 
 is clear, ^er se ; but I will prove 
 it so by authority. Etymol. in 
 'ATTOTrrd/ifi/or, " 7rcT<a ireraiva Koi 
 nmrravS) irairravovai kcH. jucra rris 
 jrpo6ciT(a>s dirh, mrcrmavovcri, • " 
 so it is printed indeed ; but it is 
 evident that he wrote it diroTrra- 
 veovm, and had respect to this 
 place, as Sylburgius well ob- 
 serves. Again, Hesychius, in the 
 right series between dnona^ and 
 animap, has it thus : — 'AjroTTTa- 
 veoucrtv, TTcptjSXfi^ouo'H' 0Tra)s <pe- 
 vyoMTiv • correct 'AjroTrajrrareo- 
 vtriv, 7repij3X e^ouo'U'. — He means 
 this very passage, as appears by 
 the Schohast : — dirowraveovaiv ' 
 nrot es Tas vavs dno^Xeylfova'iv, 
 
 What says our Professor to 
 this job 'i 'Epyov 'O/ujpeioio toS 
 twKeTo Sapvf(rioto, to foist in 
 airap of his own head ; and so, 
 quantum in se, extinguish the 
 true reading forever! which 
 while ak\a was preserved in 
 the text, might some time be re- 
 trieved. 
 
 I dipped into his second vol- 
 ume, and there I found this 
 learned correction. Od. A. ver. 
 546, p. 307. Agamemnon, says 
 the Scholiast, to judge fairly 
 whether AJax or Ulysses best 
 
 Here is poetry turned into 
 prose, and nothing gained but 
 an anachronism as silly and 
 more obvious than any he ex- 
 posed in the pseudo Phalarift 
 Here is a pre-Adamite speak- 
 er made to refer back to a 
 future observation. 
 " So parted they, the angel up 
 
 to heaven 
 From the thick shade, and Adam 
 
 to his bower." 
 
 Bentley condemns these two 
 lines, and substitutes for the 
 last, 
 
 "Adam to ruminate on past dis- 
 course." 
 
 His " exquisite reasons " 
 are as follows : — 
 
 " After the conversation, it 
 may well be presumed that 
 our first parent waited on his 
 heavenly guest to some little 
 distance, and therefore the 
 poet could not with propriety 
 say the angel parted from the 
 thick shade, that is, the bower, 
 to go to heaven. And if, on 
 the contrary, Adam attended 
 the angel no farther than the 
 door or entrance of the bow- 
 er, how could he return to his 
 bower ? He had not, strictly 
 speaking, ever been out of 
 it." 
 
 Here is a conjuror for you. 
 To begin, he does not know 
 the difference between " bow- 
 er " and " arbor " in old Eng- 
 lish. So Milton is to suffer by 
 his ignorance. Next, this di- 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 143 
 
 viner can't conceive a cluster 
 of trees in the neighborhood 
 of a bower. So Milton is to 
 perish for his folly. 
 
 Imagine a Horace or a Mil- 
 ton, cum notis variorum, the 
 varii being Cephalomants. 
 
 Actseon's fate was but a 
 feeble type of theirs. 
 
 deserved Achilles's armour, Ai^- 
 liaKaTovs T&vTpaav dyayiav ijpd)- 
 Trjo'ev, aTTQ oirorepov t&v T/wawv 
 uSKKov i\virri6r)<Tav etirovraiv 8e 
 OSva-a-ea, he gave the armour to 
 Him. — Here our Professor cor- 
 rects it, OTTO mroTepov avroSv ol 
 TpcBEs • and thus acts Thraso in 
 ms note — Ita emendo; sensupos- 
 (ulante : quique hoc valent, ad hos 
 provoco. Impertinence ! to ap- 
 peal to men of sense here, as if 
 It requited much sense to know 
 that Ajax and Ulysses were not 
 Trojans! The business is to cor- 
 rect the place neatly, that is, 
 truly as the author wrote it ; 
 which he has not done ; but has 
 
 fone clumsily about it. I '11 give 
 im the true lection, with alter- 
 ing half a letter : — viro oirorepov 
 rav 'Hpaav from which of the 
 two heroes they suffered most. 
 
 Upon this method the drama has been discussed in Eng- 
 land by all the more pretentious critics so called ; and by 
 their false system they have enveloped a mighty simple mat- 
 ter in almost impenetrable darkness. Perhaps the best 
 specimens are to be found in " Fraser's Magazine ; " and in 
 particular you may derive real profit by dissecting the system 
 in an article called " Poets and Players." This is written 
 by a clever boy, whether an old one or a young one I can't 
 tell ; but probably the latter. Proceeding on the same sys- 
 tem that in other hands proved Macaulay ephemeral, and 
 Bacon the author of Shakspeare, and Shakspeare from his 
 writings a Celt by race, in the teeth of the trivial fact that 
 his father was Saxon and his mother Saxon (a), this poor 
 boy has proved by k priori reasoning that Shakspeare's 
 plays cannot be good acting plays for our day. 
 
 The argument runs thus. Since we see the best acting 
 plays are those written for a certain set of actors, it is not 
 likely a play written for Shakspeare's company, age, and 
 audience should make a good acting play for other and more 
 civilized times. 
 
 (a) His mother was the heiress of Arden. 
 
144 THE EIGHTH COMllANDMENT. 
 
 He might have put it more strongly. Is it likely that 
 plays, the female characters of which were written for males, 
 would suit a woman to play in, or answer her purpose ? 
 
 Now what does Solomon tell us ? That these plays have 
 never left the stage since they were written. That they 
 have steadily increased in popularity, not declined. That 
 they have been above all plays the delight of actors, espe- 
 cially modem ones. Betterton, the first great actor after the 
 theatres reopened, played in them occasionally. Quin, who 
 succeeded, played in them oftener. Garrick played thetn . 
 much oftener then Quin had. The Kembles, who succeeded, 
 played in little else. Edmund Kean played in nothing else. 
 Young, G. Cooke, Macready, Warde, Charles Kean, Phelp^ 
 Forrest, VandenhoflF, how would any English tragic actor get 
 on relieved of Shakspeare ? As to the women, Mesdames 
 Oldfleld, Pritchard, Gibber, Yates, Siddons, O'Neil, Charles 
 Kean, Faucit, Glynn, all the female tragedians, in their day, 
 have dehghted to play those parts which Shakspeare wrote 
 for " little scrubby boys." 
 
 The first actress put her foot on the English stage about 
 the year 1661. She was full of natural womanly tremors, 
 and came on with her little heart in her mouth, as you may 
 see by her pretty feminine prologue, evidently dictated and 
 improved by her own agitated feelings. Well, this little 
 trembler, what author did she select for so hazardous and 
 trying an experiment ? She chose for herself, instead of let- 
 ting criticasters and the male jackanapes about her choose 
 for her ; that is plain : and as most women ai-e born critic^ 
 she chose an author never so httle prized as in that filthy 
 reign. To carry her through an ordeal truly terrible to the 
 female mind, she selected, with all the sagacity of self- 
 defence, and woman, not Shirley, D'Avenant nor any living 
 celebrity, but a dead immortal, whom this wretched ephem- 
 eral conjectures years must superannuate. The first actress 
 faced her first public in the character of Desdemona, and 
 won the dangerous game in a moment. The public, con- 
 trary to expectation, for prejudice was afloat, welcomed her 
 sex at once in that epitome of its purity, its virtues, and its suf- 
 ferings, which Shakspeare wrote for " a little scrubby boy." 
 
 So much for Cephalomancy, by which we may prove 
 quiJlibet ex quolibet, if we have a mind to die the blind pup- 
 pies we were born, and the vain puppies we were not born. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 145 
 
 After this specimen, and many more like it, this writer en- 
 dorses some German cephalomancy, showing that Shak- 
 speare was not specially a dramatic poet, and would have 
 succeeded better in other lines. 
 
 Solomon says, take down his volumes, and see first whether 
 he has or has not attempted other lines : you can babble 
 afterwards. 
 
 This Shakspeare then has written a volume of non-dra- 
 matic poetry, quite hng enough to make a first-rate reputa- 
 tion with. It has been done with such a volume more than 
 once since the revival of letters ; but not by him. Out of 
 the drama he is at most a second-rate poet. He does not 
 come up to Dryden, nor Pope, far less to Milton, or Byron. 
 Prejudice apart, there are a dozen men now living in Europe 
 who can rived his " Venus and Adonis," and can eclipse hia 
 Sonnets h, dormir debout. The story is a pretty story. His 
 goddess is a thorough woman, with nothing of a goddess 
 about her. Heaven knows whether that is a beauty or a 
 fault. I am content. 
 
 In his sonnets anybody but a Cephalomant or^an idiot can 
 see that this is a thundering great fish in shallow water, floun- 
 dering. He gets to his home, the stage, and it is a whale in 
 a sea. 
 
 From David's days to Victor Hugo's, two hundred poets 
 at least have surpassed him off the stage. 
 
 On the stage one man alone is his rival. The comedies 
 of Moliere are as supreme, in their way, as the tragedies of 
 Shakspeare. But then Moliere could not write tragedy, 
 and Shakspeare has written comedies second only to the 
 best of Moliere's. Therefore, on the stage, by his double 
 eminence he is " ava^ avSpoiv," and, I fear, will so remain till 
 the end of time. 
 
 On the above plan of reasoning the whole article, and 
 others by the same hand, are written ; and thus a mountain 
 of cant and chimera is raised between the reader and the 
 narrow path that leads to truth. 
 
 There is the cruel part. These blind puppy-dogs drunk 
 with moonshine are eternally filling the public ear, and 
 drowning with their noise every whisper of truth. Your 
 Cephalomant is a most dangerous, industrious pest, that 
 raises an impassable mountain of cant and chimera before the 
 very gate, which opens on the avenue,which leads to truth. 
 10 
 
146 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 I am told that somebody asked Newton the secret of his 
 wonderful insight into nature : and 
 
 Newton replied, " Hypotheses non fingo." 
 
 Well, no man will ever gain a profound insight into art 
 by being an anti-Newtonian. There are wonders yet to be 
 done in criticism, but not by the processes of fiction, nor by 
 " opening the mouth and shutting the eyes " hke this poor 
 boy in Fraser ; not by assumption, intellectual and moral ; 
 not by spinning cobwebs " out of our inner heart ; " not by 
 building dogma on chimera ; not by sitting up on our hams 
 like puppy-dogs, and cocking the arrogant, innocent nose, 
 and baying the moon, and then saying, " Give ear, oh earth, 
 this is the music of science ! " 
 
 " Hypotheses non fingamus." In other words, " Non si- 
 mus caniculi lun9, ebrii." 
 
 CAP. XIV. 
 
 To reason k priori is not in itself a disgrace to any man. 
 It is our substitute for evidence, though a poor one. The 
 Gephcdomant is he who opposes a priori reasoning, or mere 
 assumption, to direct evidence, present or accessible. 
 
 I coin the word, not out of pedantry, but with a respecta- 
 ble motive. I have studied human nature, and observe it is 
 as difii'cult to drive out a fallacy with no name in the dic- 
 tionary, as it is to shovel away mephitic gas out of a mine. 
 If, therefore, my readers will aid me to make that ugly, but 
 useful and necessary word, current, they will be good friends 
 to letters, and perhaps to the human mind. 
 
 I will now draw the argument closer, and labour to let in 
 a few gleams of light on a subject not in itself profound nor 
 obscure, but wrapt in thick darkness by repeated explanation. 
 
 In nearly every laboured article written to prove the cause 
 of the drama's decline, you meet with the following piece of 
 " criticism," so called : " The novelist is never a dramatist, 
 and vice versi, and the reason is obvious : in the first place, 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 147 
 
 buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz ! in the second place, 
 buzz, buzz, buzz ! " i. e., intelligent reasons, in the terms of 
 science, and carrying conviction to every candid and unin- 
 formed person. 
 
 The above statement has been made and repeated in arti- 
 cles on the drama by every review or magazine of old stand- 
 ing in the kingdom. It is one of the standard positions of 
 what is at present called "criticism" in these islands. It 
 has been a quarter of a century before the public, and never 
 once seriously disputed. In fact, it would not be easy to 
 answer the profound and sagacious reasons on which the 
 conclusion rests. 
 
 Nor is it necessary. 
 
 The scientific answer is, as usual, 
 
 It is a lie. 
 
 Pray, my little dreamers, did you never hear of a man 
 called Goethe ? 
 
 Did he not write a few plays, of one of which Dr. Zerffi 
 says there are twenty-two translations into English ? Oh ! 
 you grant the plays, but your inner light shows you he must 
 have written no great stories as well. Then why did Mr. 
 Carlyle translate his " Wilhelm Meister " ? and why do the 
 tender-hearted weep over the sorrows of " Werther " ? 
 
 How about Schiller ? History says he produced a dra- 
 matic story called the " Robbers ;" and when it became pop- 
 ular, turned it himself into an acting play, and that he made 
 the fortune both of bookseller and theatre, item, with his 
 " Wallenstein," in both forms. 
 
 Freytag, the dramatist, produced the other day a story of 
 such merit, that three English publishers pirated it within 
 six months (" Debit and Credit"). 
 
 You never heard of Freytag ? "Well, did you ever hear 
 of a man called Voltaire? Is it clear to your intestinal 
 eye that he did not write the immortal " Candide," " Zadig, 
 I'Homme aux 40 Ecus," and " L'Ingenu," or was it " Zaire," 
 "M^rope," "Alzire," "Brutus," he forged his name to? 
 
 Tasso's two chef-d'cEuvres, are you quite sure that one 
 was not a story in verse, and the other a rustic drama, called 
 « Amynta," the success of which (played at Milan and Fer- 
 
148 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 rara) was prodigious, and stirred up a host of imitations, the 
 " Pastor Fido " of Guarini among the rest ? 
 
 Goldoni, the great dramatist, tells us in his autobiography 
 that he was a successful novelist. Must that be false ? On 
 that one point I prefer his inner consciousness to yours. 
 
 Cervantes (you have heard of him) wrote " Don Quixote " 
 etc., and a dozen moral tales : but he began life as a dram- 
 atist, and made a great reputation by the theatre long ere 
 he penned a story of any value. He wrote thirty successful 
 plays. ' " Ah ! but of small merit." How do you know ? 
 Have your intestines ever read them ? He was not only a 
 dramatist, but a dramatic genius. He claims to have been 
 the first to embody the natural passions and actual charac^ 
 ters on the Spanish stage. He also is the inventor of the 
 three act play in Europe. He vastly improved the theatri- 
 cal scenery and costumes ; and it was he who paved the 
 way for Lope de Vega. Vide his life by Mayans, trans. 
 Ozell, pp. 0, 82, 83. 
 
 Is it a self-evident truth that Le Sage did not write " Le 
 Diable Boiteux" and " Gil Bias"? Or is it "Turcaret," 
 " Crispin rival de son Maltre," and at least twenty inferior 
 pieces ? That great novelist was essentially a dramatist. 
 Even " Gil Bias " is built on different dramas. 
 
 I have heard it stated as a fact that the " Vie de Mari- 
 amne," by dramatist Marivaux, is a delicious story, and his 
 " Paysan Parvenu " not a bad one. 
 
 So you never heard of Victor Hugo ; yet there is such a 
 man, author of " Hans of the Island," and " Bug Jargal," 
 and the " Hunchback of Notre Dame," great world-wide 
 stories ; and of " Lucrezia Borgia," " Angelo," " Le Eoi 
 s'amuse," " Ruy Bias," " Hernani," "Marie Tudor," etc., 
 great world-wide plays. And you never heard of him, or 
 know him by his name, not his art ? 
 
 Scribe has produced short stories, which are models of 
 narrative skill. " Maurice," " Carlo Broschi," " Judith," and 
 others ; and a grand romance, " Piquillo Alliaga." 
 
 Gerard de Nerval, Auguste Maquet, Paul Meurice, Mi- 
 chel Masson, Paul F^val, and twenty more living French- 
 men, are novelists and dramatists, dramatists and novelists. 
 
 Octave Feuillet is mathematically equal in both those lines 
 of art. 
 
 In England, did you never hear of Mrs. Behn ? She was 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 149 
 
 a woman of genius. Her eighteen plays filled the theatre. 
 Her stories, almost as numerous, filled the salon, and fetch a 
 high price now, though two hundred years old. Southerne's 
 two best and most successful plays were but two of this, 
 lady's stories dramatized ; and her double talent earned her,, 
 in the year 1689, an honour your method of criticism will, 
 never earn you. 
 
 " Pour avoir su dans ses beaux jours 
 E^ussir au grand art de plaire " she lies in West^ 
 minster Abbey, and you never heard of her. 
 
 Before her day, Greene, the dramatist, wrote stories,, one 
 of which Shakspeare admired enough to build " The Win- 
 ter's Tale " on it. 
 
 There is another countrywoman of yours, Mrs. Inchbald. 
 Did she not write " The Simple Story," and " Nature and 
 Art " ? two exquisite tales ; or is it " Every One has his 
 Fault," " Lovers' Vows," " Wives as they were," " Animal 
 Magnetism," "To Marry, or not to Marry," she did not 
 write, and a dozen more plays that go so irrationally by her 
 name? 
 
 The poet Gay was no inconsiderable master of fiction in 
 both walks. He, too, filled the stage, and the drawing-room. 
 Vide Johnson's "Life of Gay." Reed and Jones, two 
 learned gentlemen, being without a theory on the matter, 
 are good evidence ; and they say, " As, among his dramatic 
 works, his ' Beggars' Opera ' did at first, and perhaps ever 
 will, stand as an unrivalled masterpiece, so among his poeti- 
 cal works, his ' Fables ' hold the same rank of estimation, 
 the latter having been almost as universally read as the 
 former was represented, and both equally admired." — Bio- 
 graphia Dramatica, Vol. I., p. 271. 
 
 Among the clergy. Dr. Young in the last century. Dean 
 MUman in this, have given clear indications of this double 
 faculty, so impossible in theory, and only frequent in fact. 
 
 The stories, " St. Giles's and St. James's " and " A Man 
 Made of Money," was it Mr. Jerrold who did not write 
 these ? or is he the gentleman that did not write " Black-, 
 Eyed Susan " and the immortal " Kent Day," with " The 
 Cat's Paw," and "The Bubbles of the Day," and "Time works 
 Wonders," — comedies as feebly constructed and as witty as 
 Congreve's ? Among lighter but able writers Albert Smith, 
 Shirley Brooks, Mr. Oxenford, Mr. Brough — oh! and 
 
150 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 there's myself; I saved Drury Lane Theatre to this nation 
 with a play, and laid the foundation of all E. T. Smith's 
 greatness ; yet I have produced a story of which the public 
 has taken seventy thousand copies, and I — 
 
 You don't want to hear about the small fry ? Well, but 
 what can I do ? You don't know the big fish, except by 
 name : so I was coming down to your level. 
 
 Well, then, did you ever hear of an artist called Gold- 
 smith? Is it fixed as fate in the depths of your mental 
 cavity that he did not write two immortal comedies, called 
 by the non-reasoning observer "She Stoops to Conquer"' 
 and " The Good-natured Man " ? Then why do men play 
 them to this day under his name ? Or is it " The Vicar of 
 Wakefield " he did not write ? 
 
 Well, poor Goldsmith died before you were bom. But it 
 is odd you have never dipped into Sir Edward Bulwer Lit- 
 ton's works. " The Lady of Lyons " is by far the most suc- 
 cessful play since Shakspeare. " Eichelieu " and " Money " 
 are dramatic masterpieces. Is it a severe intestinal truth, 
 coeval with chaos and the primeval father of all jackasses, 
 that " Eugene Aram," " Lucretia," " Paul Clifford," " Pel- 
 ham," " The Caxtons," and other master novels, cannot be 
 from the same hand ? 
 
 Did you never hear of Jules Sandeau ? novelist and dram- 
 atist. 
 
 Did you never hear of George Sand ? novelist and dram- 
 atist. 
 
 Did you never hear of one Balzac ? His play of " Vau- 
 trin " was a success ; " Mercadet," a vast success in Eng-- 
 land as well as France ; '' La Maratre," a thrilling success. ' 
 
 Poor Dumas ! he has not only produced immortal stories 
 and immortal plays, each by the dozen, but also a son, who 
 has shown himself master of the story and the drama. But 
 what avails that treble fertility? If five generations of 
 Dumas, novelist and dramatist, were now on earth together 
 instead of two, our puppy-dogs blind drunk with moonshine 
 would manage to look at them all, and not see any one of 
 them. 
 
 Chorus of Gephalomants. 
 
 Full moonlings we 
 From over the sea. 
 From the land where chimeras in plenty be ; 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. igi 
 
 The land of a single Rant with a E, 
 And a hundred Cants with a C. 
 
 Bacon be dumb, 
 
 Newton be mum, 
 The worth of induction 's a snap of the thumb. 
 
 This list of dramatist novelists might easily be trebled ; 
 but it is not necessary. These few instances, skimmed off 
 the surface of my memory, are as fatal to that pernicious 
 piece of cant as numberless examples would be. The worst 
 of it is that one stupid current cant like the above closes the 
 door to a dozen useful truths. 
 
 How do reasonable men discover causes ? 
 
 By noting repeated coincidences. 
 
 Let us apply the Solomonian principle in this form. 
 
 The following facts can be deposed to on oath : — 
 
 A. In England there has never been at one and the same 
 time a good market both for plays and novels : but in France 
 at the present moment there is the best market for dramas 
 that ever existed in the world. The highest prices and the 
 most honour. 
 
 B. In France there are at this moment five times as many 
 capable dramatists as ever wrote at one time in that same 
 France when the market was poor. 
 
 C. In France, at the present moment, there is also a first- 
 rate market for the novel. It is paid first as a feuilleton, 
 then as a book. 
 
 D. In France there are abundance of novel writers. 
 
 E. In the one country, which has two good markets, the 
 leading novelists are nearly all dramatists. But the dra- 
 matic market being somewhat the higher of the two, several 
 prolific dramatists are not novelists ; for instance, Ponsard, 
 Augier, Melesville, Anicet Bourgeois. Scribe, too, has writ- 
 ten only one long novel, and more than three hundred plays. 
 Not nature alone, but habit and the market direct men's 
 labours ; and authors are men. 
 
 F. The French judges, acting loyally up to the spirit of 
 their Copyright Acts, will not allow a French author to be 
 juggled out of his legal property, directly or indirectly. 
 They have knocked the " abridgment swindle " on 
 the head, — Horet v. Amaud, Eoret v. Bailly and Babinet ; 
 and they knocked "the dramatizing swindle" on the 
 head, — Paul de Musset v. Lefranc ; and " the adaptation 
 
152 THK EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 SWINDLE " oa the head, — Beaudouin v. Vatel, and Victor 
 Hugo V. Monnier. 
 
 Thus in France Propriety Spells property, without 
 respect of persons, as it will in the next world. An author's 
 production is as sacred from thieves and jugglers as a car- 
 penter's — in France. 
 
 G. In France, marvellous Coincidence that sixty thousand 
 moonstruck polysyllabic puppies would never have fished out 
 of the depths of their shallows, novels are constantly drama- 
 tized, and are nearly always dramatized hy the novelist along; 
 or in collaboration. There are about ninety French novels 
 on the publishers' lists so dramatized by French novelists 
 for their own benefit within the last twelve years. Many 
 of these have been vast dramatic successes, and brought for- 
 tunes from the theatre to the novelists. " Mademoiselle La 
 S^gliere," "Monte Christo," "Les Mousquetaires," "Ro- 
 man d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre," etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. 
 How do you account for that, moonlings mine ? 
 
 H. In England, the old judges, some years ago, Under 
 pretence of interpreting the statutes (they bear no such in- 
 terpretation), virtually repealed them on many points : they 
 passed a law of their own, by which " the abridgment swin- 
 dle" is protected in the courts, provided it is done with 
 Spartan dexterity : in that case, if, by its superior cheapness, 
 it destroys the original property, all the letter. This is tte 
 acknowledged principle of the infamous judgment in the 
 case of Dr. Hawkesworth's " Voyages," piratically abridged ; 
 — Strahan v. Newhery : also in Doddey v. Kinnersley. It 
 is cited by text-writers as a leading principle of those idiotic 
 and inhuman judgments, viz., by Godson, pk 344, with ap- 
 proval, and by Mr. Curtis, the American jurist, with just con- 
 tempt. Curtis on Copyright, 267. Monstrous, idiotic, heart- 
 less, illegal, and iniquitous as it is, and the laughing-stock of 
 all foreign jurists, including brother Jonathan, it is the worMng 
 law in England ; and, in an English court you might as weU 
 hope to prevail against it with the eighth commandment of 
 God the Father, or the golden rule of God the Son, as with 
 the statutes of the British realm. The property of authors 
 is governed by judges' law, not by the Acts of the realm, 
 stUl less by impartial justice, as between man and man, 
 workman and workman. The above unprincipled principk 
 is the exact contradictory of the principle upon which aU 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 153 
 
 French decisions in copyright are founded, without one re- 
 corded exception. When once that monstrous principle was 
 invented, copyright lost every genuine feature of legal prop- 
 erty in England. Copyright is settled by the law as "joer- 
 sontd property " of a character so sacred, that, unlike meaner 
 personal property, it can pass from its creator (during the 
 term of its legal existence) only by loritten assignment; but 
 by the heartless perfidy and disloyalty of these old judges, 
 whom Heaven confound, it was, by an act of rebellion, not 
 interpretation, degraded infinitely below every known kind of 
 personal property, the law having placed it above them all in 
 technical terms, that no lawyer who is not a rascal can pre- 
 tend to mistake. All indirect swindling of authors received 
 an impulse from this judicial fraud. Of " the abridgment 
 swindle " " the adaptation swindle," " the novel dramatiz- 
 ing," and "drama novelizing" swindles, are natural and 
 logical consequences. See now how feeble nature is in these 
 matters, how strong is law, if good for good, if bad for evil. 
 No English novelist dare sue a pirate for swindling him out 
 of his right to dramatize his own work. 
 
 I. Mark the coincidence that foUows ! There are some 
 sixty English novels dramatized, and not one by the author. 
 Scott was swindled out of his characters and plots by the 
 dramatic pirates in spite of his teeth, and never received 
 one shilling for the use of them. Sir E. L. Bulwer has been 
 swindled out of " Paul Clifford," and other works. Mr. 
 Dickens has been swindled out of the right of dramatizing 
 « Pickwick," " Oliver Twist," « Nicholas Nickleby " (a), etc., 
 etc., etc., etc. Ainsworth Smith, and many more, have been 
 served the same. I have just been juggled out of my right 
 to dramatize "It is Never too Late to Mend." Several 
 pirates, without one name to their several backs, have sold 
 versions of me to the theatres. Several managers, knowing 
 me to be a dramatist, and jealous of my children, have 
 treated with these three pirates for versions of me. But not 
 
 (a) The one exception is " The Tale of Two Cities," which has 
 been dramatized with his consent by Mr. Taylor. Well, It was no 
 sooner done and paid for by a respectable manager than I find some 
 heartless person advertising a version of it for a few shillings to all the 
 theatres (in the "Era"). Nobody attempted to stop this. It is Eng' 
 land, nation of author-swindlers, land empty of jurists and full of pet- 
 tifoggers, whose motto is, "Whoso swindleth an author doeth the 
 public a service." 
 
154 THK EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 one with me for me. The distinguished author, an acknowl- 
 edged dramatist, is the one man not allowed to dramatize a 
 dramatic novel by that distinguished author. The reason is, 
 in England he can be hopelessly undersold with Ms own art 
 and labour by barren rascals, who could never compete with 
 him but by help of his own invention and labour. Vive la 
 France ! She has a great drama, because she is morally 
 worthy of one : because she has the sense, the humanity, ; 
 and the probity, not to let her theatres swindle, and outlaw, 
 and drive off the stage by means of their own talent, stolen, 
 those who alone can give any nation a national drama. Mr. 
 Dickens alone is man enough to have renovated the English 
 drama, and would, I think, have done so, years and years - 
 ago, if he had not been steadily defrauded out of his dramatic- 
 rights from the first hour he wrote. 
 
 Mr. Dickens is the most extraordinary artist, in one re- 
 spect, England has produced. He is a first-rate writer of 
 fiction, and a first-rate actor. England has bred just five 
 men of this sort in three hundred years, — Shakspeare, 
 Gibber, Macklin, Garrick, Dickens. 
 
 We will go through them. Shakspeare as a writer was 
 — Shakspeare. There is an impression that he was a bad 
 actor; but this arises from the loose way people have of 
 using and interpreting language. The words are, " Shak- 
 speare, who I have heard was a better poet than actor." Now 
 he might be that, and yet a very great actor. However, we 
 have legal evidence of the point. He played the Ghost in 
 his own play of " Hamlet." Therefore he was a respectable 
 actor, and there was a better actor in the theatre, the actor 
 who took the part of Hamlet. He also played the second- 
 ary part of Adam in " As you like it." But his admirable 
 advice to the players, coupled with his playing " the Ghost," 
 are against his being a poor actor. Gibber was a good comic 
 writer and actor, but, by universal confession, a ridiculous 
 tragedian. Macklin a great actor, but little more than a 
 farce-writer. Garrick a supreme actor and an elegant writer, 
 but the last on a small scale as to invention. Mr. Dickens 
 is a great actor and a great dramatic novelist, i. e., a novelist, 
 out of all whose early novels good plays have been cut with 
 the scissors by scribblers destitute of dramatic invention. 
 Those, who do not know that such a dramatic novelist and 
 great actor under one skin are a heaven-born dramatist, have 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 155 
 
 my leave to retire at once from criticism, and dissect moon- 
 shine ; the fine arts will always be a dead letter to them. 
 Mr. Dickens could not afford to write an original work for 
 the stage, because his labour is at least twenty times better 
 paid by the serial. But, the story written and disposed of 
 in the higher market, he could very well afford to give it a 
 dramatic shape. A little consultation with an intelligent 
 manager as to form and details, a good deal of scissor work, 
 a little pen work, and in his case, (he being the most dra- 
 matic of novel writers), the thing would be done. Now mark 
 the consequences. If those dead judges had not, while they 
 lived, undermined and corrupted the law, and legahzed indi- 
 rect swindling of authors, the managers would have been 
 compelled to come to Mr. Dickens for his children instead of 
 suborning kidnappers ; just as the French manager had to 
 go to Nice the other day and invite Alphonse Karr (a) to 
 drop his tulips, and dramatize his " Penelope." (Vide " Le 
 Figaro," Dec, 1860.) Thus invited, it stands to reason 
 that a gentleman who loves the drama enough to become a 
 great actor, would love it well enough to dramatize his own 
 child instead of letting scribblers mangle it. But that is not 
 aU ; being an actor and a great author, he must be one of the 
 best rehearsers in Europe. 
 
 Original authors' hints to actors are all intrinsically valu- 
 able ; but they miss fire, being nearly always spoiled by a 
 false delivery and gesture. But here is an author, who can 
 show his own bright conception to an actor. To the efiect of 
 this on a national stage there is scarcely a limit. Known 
 limit there is none. He would have infused fresh blood into 
 the withered old veins of our stage, which remains conven- 
 tional for want of personal collision with inventors of this 
 class. Th e French stagehas Jto advMtage.__^_An^^ 
 sequence ; /Mr. Dickens, like~most great and genial spirits, 
 
 (o) Of all the novelists that ever wrote, this one, Balzac and Field- 
 ing excepted, reads least like a dramatist. But see the power of good 
 laws, and loyal judges. Invited to dramatize bis own child, Mons. 
 Earr, like Balzac, knew perfectly that he must thoroughly change his 
 hand to shine in the theatrical form. He laced the difficulty, did the 
 work, Ais_^rs( rfmmatic a«iemp<, and achieved a great success. ("Les 
 D^ats," 16 Jan.) In England they would have stolen his child nine- 
 teen years ago, and sworn he could not dramatize it himselt^ And the 
 Cephalomants would have endorsed the kidnappers' cant. " The nov- 
 elist is never a dramatist, because buzz ! buzz ! buzz 1 " 
 
156 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 has a school, and in that school are some g Qod menj) Many 
 of them would have followed him. Mr. Wiltie Collins in 
 particular is evidently a born dramatist, and his chief would 
 have smoothed the road to the stage for him and_othera. 
 .The genius who, nearly twenty-five years ago, changedtEe 
 face of the English novel, sharpened our sight, widened our 
 sympathies, and coloured every one of us, more or less, de- 
 tractors and non-detractors, was just as capable of renovating 
 the stage, and raising it, and enlarging its sp here, it s mind, 
 its eye, its hearfcuits iormj The naturaMFogiJery anS^eart^ 
 lessn'eii of the Anglo^axon where authors are concerned, 
 restrained by too mild laws, and encouraged to evade the 
 letter and spirit of those laws by those partial old judges^ 
 uttering not the voice of the Legislature, but the brutal 
 prejudices of the people, this it is that has robbed the stagf 
 up to this day of that inestimable advantage. As a prelim- 
 inary towards curing this idiotic fraud, I earnestly entreat 
 my readers to speak of it, and write of it, as what it is, 
 
 The Kidnapping Swindle. 
 
 Polite circumambient phrases water villany and folly, and 
 keep them alive to all eternity. Calling smooth, subtle, ras- 
 cality by a rough and true name blights it in one year, fifty, 
 or a hundred. 
 
 Some years ago there was a kidnapper called Duncombe, 
 a little theatrical bookseller. He kidnapped every play that 
 came out, and mangled it into a dwarf story. Now mark 
 the ramifications of fraud, and see how necessary it is in 
 copyright obstare principiis. Mr. Bayle Bernard brought, 
 out a play, " St. Mary's Eve." Duncombe kidnapped Mr.. 
 Bernard's child, and sold the plot, in a somewhat distend^ 
 form, as a story. A very honest and intelligent gentleman 
 bought this little story as an original narrative. " Why this 
 would not be a bad plot to found a play on," said he. He 
 wrote his play and sold it to Mr. Kean, who was not 
 then a manager. Mr. Kean brought it with him to the 
 Haymarket Theatre. But when they came to rehearse it, 
 " Hallo ! " said Mr. "Webster, the manager, " this will not do: 
 why this has been done before, and at this theatre." "Im- 
 possible," said the author, " I founded it on a little story I, 
 bought for sixpence." However, the piracy was distincflyf 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 157 
 
 proved to him, and I believe certain alterations were made 
 in the theatre. Thus you see in fiction indirect piracy is not 
 only effectual robbery, but ramifies into direct piracy. Be- 
 sides the theatrical managers, most of whom are kidnappers, 
 we have now a half a dozen gipsy shopkeepers prowling 
 about for authors' children, and selling them in shops. See 
 their unblushing advertisements in the " Era." 
 
 Such is the remorseless person, who, although he knows 
 Madame Celeste has just set this nation of pirates a better 
 example by treating honestly with Mr. Dickens and Mr. 
 Taylor for " The Tale of Two Cities," is so far from imitat- 
 ing her, that he instantly employs a scribbler to undersell 
 hopelessly the property she has made hers by purchase ; 
 advertises for sale to town and country managers " The 
 Tale of Two Cities," a play, for fifteen shillings. 
 
 Another kidnapper (this one is a bookseller), does the 
 trick on both sides the hedge. He has on sale sixty-three 
 stories. They lie (in more senses than one) on my table. 
 They are all mangled plays, and the title of each play is 
 taken as impudently as the matter. Among these stories I 
 see "Jonathan Bradford," "The Vampire," "Susan Hop- 
 ley," " The Lady of Lyons," " Martha Willis,'' and a score 
 more chopped bodily out of copyrighted plays ; also twenty- 
 eight plays, some of them from copyright plays, others from 
 copyright stories. The direct. and indirect pirate is one and 
 the same individual : it is only those gnat-straining, camel- 
 swallowing old gentlemen that ever imagined there was any 
 distinction in sound law or morality between them. 
 
 Among the plays are "Susan Hopley," "Black-eyed 
 Susan" (direct piracy), " Rook wood," "Jack Sheppard," 
 '• Belphegor," "Little Dorrit," "Oliver Twist," " Minni- 
 grey," etc., etc. 
 
 To all these plays are affiled lists of actors, who, it is 
 pretended, have played them ; whereas these ladies and 
 gentlemen played in rival versions, probably in versions of 
 which these are unfair copies : " saddling their neighbour's 
 horse to carry their own wife to market." 
 
 "Oliver Twist" is described as "a domestic drama, dram- 
 atized from Boz's celebrated work of that name, and as 
 
 performed at the City of ." Here a fib seems to have 
 
 died out for want of fuel — the only known the 
 
 history of piracy. But with " Jack Shepp . . i ■ flies 
 
158 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 a bolder flight; rising, no doubt, with the recollection of 
 that great example. 
 
 JACK SHEPPARD. 
 
 % grama in %^m %ds. 
 
 WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH. 
 
 He does not say that Mr. Ainsworth wrote it in form as he 
 sells it, but you see he words it so as to give his customers 
 the impression. Time was when a thief was hanged his ca- 
 reer ended. But Jack Sheppard, though dead, yet filcheth, 
 Purvise duce. 
 
 In " Dombey and Son " this mousing owl hawks at the 
 royal falcon with a courage worthy of a better cause. He 
 steals the great master's own name as well as his matter 
 and title, and sells that name, title, and matter to simple 
 Soho — for a penny. 
 
 Mark the naivete of the second title, which is not My. 
 Dickens's. Good Mrs. Brown, i. e., good at our line of 
 business. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
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160 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 By the notice to country managers, it would seem kid- 
 nappers hold the same theory of the true title to literary 
 property as my Croydon plaintiffs. Unless you steal it, it 
 can with propriety be tampered with. But if you go 
 through that ceremony it -bars theft from you. You have 
 got the devil on your side now. 
 
 Le vol, c'est la propri^t^ 
 
 As the bee sucks honey out of a dandelion, so my mind 
 extracts a drop of comfort from kidnappers and adapters 
 copyrighting plunder. 
 
 Since the sense of literary property lies somewhere in the 
 slipperiest conscience, it must be in nature and in honest 
 men, though latent at present, and will come out some day 
 in a less perverse form. 
 
 A TALE OF TWO CITIES, a New Historical 
 
 X*- Drama, adapted from Charles Dickens's work. All Lessees and 
 Managers of theatres who are subscribers to Cumberland's list of act- 
 ing dramatic pieces may obtain a MS. copy of the above within one 
 week of their remitting 155. for the same, and they will have the right 
 to perform the piece under their contract for the year I860. 
 
 Apply and remit to F. A. Davidson (Agent), 19, Peter's-bill, St 
 Paul's, London, £. C. 
 
 It would appear by the above that certain managers of 
 theatres have formed a sort of " kidnapping' association." 
 Observe, Madame Celeste, being an English manager, but a 
 French woman, has deviated from the national custom, and 
 has honourably purchased the sole right to dramatize " A 
 Tale of Two Cities," and play it in London. She has not 
 paid less than one hundred and fifty -pounds for the piece; 
 and here is a monster that, because she has dealt so honour- 
 ably, offers directly a similar article with the same title to 
 any theatre for fifteen shillings. What inventor or honest 
 purchaser can compete with this ? In France this black- 
 guard would be not only fined, but probably imprisoned. 
 In England who cares but Mr. Reade ? Who else sees the 
 consequences to the nation ? Au revoir, good Mrs. Brown, 
 good Mr. Purkess, good Mr. Davidson ; pursue your little 
 avocation ! If you are not punished in this world, don't 
 be discouraged ; you will get impartial justice in the next. 
 There at least the eighth commandment will be read to you 
 as it is in France, and not as in England at present. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. J61 
 
 Thou shalt not steal, except from an author. 
 
 The following is from an American newspaper : — 
 " Music and the Drama. — Is it a sin to write a book ? or 
 are authors in literature peculiarly good people, set aside 
 "by Divine Providence for the endurance of peculiar trials ? 
 One of these propositions we must surely answer in the 
 affirmative ; else why should such a horrible judgment (or 
 loving chastisement, as the case may be) as the dramatiza- 
 tion of a popular story in its writer's lifetime be visited upon 
 its writer's head ? What, for instance, has Charlotte Bronte, 
 or William Makepeace Thackeray, or Charles Dickens done 
 that they should be doomed to undergo all the ruthless lit- 
 erary barbarities that it may enter the mind of a dramatizer 
 to conceive ? Was the production of ' Jane Eyre ' a griev- 
 ous error for which atonement must be made ? Can we 
 regard ' Vanity Fair ' in the light of a prodigious transgres- 
 sion, deserving of condign punishment ? Must we honestly 
 believe that ' David Copperfield ' and ' Bleak House ' are 
 crimes of deadly hue, for which the perpetrator's soul, even 
 in this world, is to be delivered up to worse than fiendish 
 torture ? And if not — if we are to come to the conclusion 
 that the composition of a first-class work of fiction is a good 
 deed — that our beloved humourists and their womanly peer 
 have been benefactors of their time and of the future, whom 
 it must please Heaven to look down upon with an -eye of 
 especial favour — if these things be so, then in what manner 
 should we look upon the ink-stained mercenary who, for a 
 hireling's price, impales their pet oflfspring on his free 
 lance, slashes them with his dishonoured sword, blows their 
 brains out with his uncouth matchlock, mangles and anato- 
 mizes them worse than ever Sepoys did poor British babes 
 in India ? If we stand transfixed with horror at the mere 
 recital of unknown chUd-mutilation by some ferocious fol- 
 lower of Nena Sahib, why should we behold with indiflfer- 
 ence or complacency the disembowelling and massacre, upon 
 a public stage, of the loved and treasured bantling of a 
 Dickens brain ? " 
 
 I shall be glad to know the honest fellow who wrote this, 
 and give him a shake of the hand across the Atlantic, if he 
 will let me. 
 
 11 
 
162 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 CAP. XV, 
 
 The only real reasons why every other art rises in Eng- 
 land, and the drama stands still are " the adaptation swin- 
 dle " and " the kidnapping swindle." ' 
 
 The first enables men of no dramatic invention hopelessly 
 to undersell the English dramatic inventor by means of stolen 
 French invention ; and the second to undersell him hopelessly 
 by means of his own invention stolen. 
 
 The system of artificial oppression, hy which these two 
 frauds grind down and stifle the English dramatic inventor, 
 has no parallel beneath the canopy of heaven. Nor is there 
 any known art, either fine art or mechanical, that similar 
 swindles, if permitted hy law, would not extinguish in any 
 nation, either in a year or two, or in a month or two. The 
 potato itself would soon be rooted out as a national produc- 
 tion were stolen potatoes admitted into the market ; because 
 the stolen potato could always be offered at a profit, yet be- 
 neath the bare cost of honest production. 
 
 There exist featherless bipeds that call this " free trade.'' 
 Muddleheads ! This is freebooting, not free trade. This 
 system would destroy free trade just as inevitably as it would 
 trade encumbered by 60 per cent, import duties. Apply the 
 test. I enter into the spirit of free trade ; I make a large 
 purchase of French wines in cask under the new tariff, and 
 my countrymen are to benefit by the duty being taken off. I 
 put the wine into English bottles, and sell it at a dollar per 
 bottle : clear profit 2d. per bottle. A pirate steals a similar 
 cargo, and puts it into English bottles, for which he pays. 
 He offers it at 3d. per bottle, making a profit of three half- 
 pence per bottle. He is allowed to say in all the newspa- 
 pers it is the same thing I charge a dollar for. What be- 
 comes of the free-trader, who buys the wine duty free and also 
 the bottles ? Can he stand against the freebooter, who steals 
 the wine and buys the English bottles ? 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 163 
 
 Nor does it matter in this argument one straw whether it is 
 money or labor the honest trader has invested in the essential 
 commodity. If I live by the sale of my labour, and if I 
 spend five hundred hours' labour on a production, the sale of 
 which is to compensate that labour, and pay the debt I have 
 incurred to my butcher, baker, etc., by thus applying my 
 labour, the pirate who steals a similar article from France, 
 and makes it English with fifty hours' labour, can sell it at a 
 profit nine times cheaper than I can sell it without going to 
 gaol ; and so he elbows the honest inventor out of the dra- 
 matic market, and drives him elsewhere. Men of -genius 
 will not, in any number, so apply their labour as to go to 
 prison for it ; and that would be the probable fate of Shak- 
 speare, Marloe, Massinger, and Fletcher, should they come 
 back to earth, and endeavour to live by writing original 
 plays in England, under " the adaptation swindle " and " the 
 kidnapping swindle." A single such inventor might live, 
 but not half a dozen. And take notice, Englishmen can all 
 see this where any nation but England is the pirate. We 
 warned Belgium she would extinguish her literature if she 
 played the same ansero vulpine game in all literature we are 
 playing in dramatic literature. She persisted, and did ex- 
 tinguish her literature. What is the difference between her 
 and England ? None in our favour. The only vital differ- 
 ence is this : First, She did not shuffle and tamper with 
 treaties, but did her roguery like a man, and we do it like a 
 pettifogging sneak. Secondly, She has lately read a noble 
 recantation, and we have not. Belgium has formally abjured 
 piracy ; and feeling that she has artificially suppressed Bel- 
 gian invention, as we continue to do English invention, she 
 is now giving the inventors artificial encouragement : has 
 just offered prizes for native productions, in Flemish or 
 French, upon a graduated scale. 
 
 I learn from "The Times," April 10, that the higher prizes 
 are to be for the compositions in French, on account of the 
 severe competition the Belgian inventor must face in that 
 language. Daylight breaking in ! 
 
 Thus you see common sense and uncommon honesty have 
 dawned on Belgian statesmen ; and why not on ours ? 
 
 When I was at Antwerp in 1848, there were eight hun- 
 dred painters in the town, and not twenty writers. Of these 
 painters two or three hundred would have made better writ- 
 
164 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 ers than painters. Eight hundred to twenty — that pro- 
 portion was never in nature. The thumbscrew of piracy 
 was robbing a deal of paper, and spoiling a sight of canvas 
 there. Inventors will not waste their brains competing with 
 thieves. Invention is too hard and laborious ; theft too swift 
 and easy. 
 
 Then some people ask me, Do you really think giving the 
 French dramatist property in his- works would make so 
 great a difference ? 
 
 I don't think if ; I know it. 
 
 It would make a wonderful difference. It would destroy 
 fences' prices. At present a playwright selling to a manager 
 is literally a thief selling to a fence, or receiver of stolen 
 goods. The last gaol I inspected I talked with a thief who 
 had stolen five thousand pounds worth of jewelry. I asked 
 him what the fence had given him for them ? " Thirty 
 pounds, sir," said he. 'E| ifioimv Sfioia. The average price 
 of a new play in many flourishing London theatres is now 
 four pounds. This was given in evidence in the case of 
 " Shepherd v, Courtenay," Nov., 1856 ; and I will find 
 twenty witnesses to depose to the truth of it on oath be- 
 fore either House of Parliament. 
 
 This Courtenay it seems was employed by Messrs. Shep- 
 herd and Creswick to go to Paris and appropriate pieces 
 from the French authors gratis. He improved on his in- 
 structions : he not only appropriated from his allies, but 
 from his employers : kept a MS., and went and resold one 
 of these pieces to Mr. Conquest, <rf the Grecian. So much 
 for laws which sap the great foundations of morality, and 
 hope that only a part of the house wiU tumble down. 
 
 This same writer (by no means devoid of talent) sold two 
 pieces out and out to a provincial manager of my acquaint- 
 ance for one pound a-piece. On Barnett and Johnstone 
 suing me for five hundred pounds, I wrote and asked the 
 provincial managers whether that sum was the price of the 
 muse Johnstonian. I received from most of them marks of 
 sympathy highly honourable to them, for which I now pub- 
 licly thank them, and beg th^n to command me in return. 
 They furnished me with a mass of documents, which I should 
 like to lay before Parliament. They would answer a nobler 
 purpose than that I got them for. They prove that piracy 
 does nobody any good ; drives away the inventor and starves 
 the pirate. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 165 
 
 Here they lie on my desk, piracies committed on piracies ; 
 " smaller than mites, on mites they feed ; " and to what end ? 
 Three separate lists of plays, from sixty to one hundred in 
 number, offered to a manager for thirty shillings and one 
 pound per annum. Here is five-hundred-pound Johnstone 
 himself selling five new pieces out and out, with the MSS., 
 for three pounds to one manager, and offering himself and a 
 female relation as actors, together with all his pieces, for 
 three pounds per week, to another. See the evidence, Bar- 
 nett V. Reade ; he sold his piratical version of my piece, 
 MS. and all, to the Victoria for two pounds. I had to pay 
 three pounds fifteen shillings to a copyist for a copy of it. 
 Thus does piracy elevate the fine arts above the mechanical 
 arts. 
 
 And now mark. Here is one of the pirates selling what 
 I happen to know to have been an original English composi- 
 tion, for two pounds. Another poor devil sends a MSi 
 pantomime, also original, foi> thirty shillings ; and, if not 
 approved, offers to write "another, and another, and an- 
 other," sooner than a rival shall win the thirty shillings. 
 But for piracy, and the system of fences' prices it has intro- 
 duced, he would have had fifteen pounds for it. They are 
 starving themselves, as well as massacring the inventor and 
 disgusting the better class of spectators. N. B. When a 
 pirate turns honest for a moment, and invents, retribution 
 falls on him, he gete only the price of stolen goods for bis 
 invention. Compare all this, and much more to the same 
 tune (which I once more offer to lay upon oath before Par- 
 liament), with the piece of legal evidence from " Literary 
 Gazette " as to the effect of book piracy in translations, vide 
 p. 28. 'E| ofioiav ofioia wf<f)vKe yiyveirBai. From like causes 
 like results in every branch of art, and in every case just 
 the opposite of what the Cephalomant, in Pariiament and 
 out, expects. 
 
 By this system of prices the public loses everything and 
 gains nothing ; for in the theatre the public pays a set price, 
 the same whether the play is dirt or gold, and in the arts 
 " nasty " is Siamese twin to " cheap ; " and no law, however 
 roguish, will ever, in the arts, separate those two things 
 which God has joined together by a chain of natural and 
 intelligible consequences. 
 
166 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 CAP. XVI. 
 
 The Cephalomants tell you that France owes her drama 
 to nature. She is more dramatic by force of blood than 
 England. This is not only a falsehood, but, as usual, a 
 notorious one. 
 
 History is a dead letter to Cephalomants. Their systeiii 
 enables a man to unrealize all he knows. But to get into 
 this state of factitious ignorance is not the science of a 
 statesman, nor a critic. The order of nature is clearly that 
 of the spontaneous drama. The spontaneous drama is the 
 unpaid drama. This flourished. 
 
 1st. 
 
 In England. 
 
 2nd. 
 
 In Spain. 
 
 3rd. 
 
 In Italy and France, 
 
 4th. 
 
 In Holland. 
 
 5th. 
 
 In Germany. 
 
 Until lately it was received, on the authority of Pasquier 
 and BrantSme, that the first sacred drama played in France 
 was. " The Mystery of Christ's Passion," performed in St. 
 Maur's in 1398. But this was perhaps merely the first 
 public performance before a mixed audience, or by a regular 
 company. Monsieur le Grand, hunting closer, has pro- 
 nounced positively, "dans le treizieme siecle nous avions 
 d6jk des drames ; " and, unless my memory betrays me, he 
 has made his words good by citing from them in a preface to 
 a book of minstrelsy. 
 
 I have, therefore, ventured pro tem. to bracket France 
 with Italy, who, according to PanciroUi, cited by Dodsley, 
 played her first sacred drama A. D. 1264. I say pro tem., 
 in case some Italian antiquary should discover that the 
 Italian drama in question had been also preceded by private 
 performances in that country. Nothing is more likely. 
 
 That Spain was in advance of both these nations is 
 proved by good legal evidence. A law of Alonzo the Wise 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 167 
 
 passed in the middle of the 13th century (teste Luzan), 
 which forbids the clergy to act "juegos de escamios," but 
 permits them to represent the birth, passion, and resurrec- 
 tion of Christ. The juegos de escamios may mean low secu- 
 lar buflPooneries, or, more likely, the buffoonery and deviltries 
 which were introduced into more sacred dramas by their 
 mayas, and diablillos, to relieve the weight of sanctity. The 
 same strange desire to mix a little buffoonery with piety 
 occurs in the early miracle plays of all countries. Indeed, 
 it is a fixed trait in human nature (a). Holland would like 
 to pass off her Reden Ryckers, or banded minstrels, for 
 dramatists, and so get back to the 12th century. But this 
 won't do. Mynheer. Spain might as well propose her troba- 
 dores, France her provengal minstrels, and England her 
 Welsh bards, as dramatists. 
 
 Into Germany the first sacred drama was imported by the 
 English, and played by English actors before the emperor, 
 31st January, 1417. 
 
 In England, the first notice of an acted play by name is 
 to be found in Matthew Paris, and in Bulseus, cited by 
 Strutt, Wharton, Reed and Jones, Ritson, Collier, and all 
 our antiquaries. Matthew Paris, writing about 1240 the 
 lives of the abbots of St, Albans, tells us how Geoffrey, 
 afterwards abbot, but at this time preceptor of the school at 
 Dunstable, made a miracle play upon St. Catherine : " Quem- 
 dam ludum de Sancta Katerina, quam miracula vulgariter 
 appellamus, fecit." The chronicler adds that, to give effect 
 to the performance, he borrowed ecclesiastical vestments 
 from the Abbey of St. Albans ; so that it was a bont, fide 
 dramatic representation : and, as my Puritan friends derive 
 so little pleasure from dramatic subjects, let me hope to give 
 them a moment's innocent satisfaction by informing them 
 that after the play there was a fire, and several rich copes, 
 and other vestments, borrowed from St. Albans, were burned, 
 to the infinite dikress of the poor dramatist. This is proved 
 
 (a) The vice jumping on the devil's back, or thumping him with a 
 bladder, between the most sacred scenes, is an instance. At present 
 the instinct is softened down by education ; but it survives. See how 
 men run to hear a comic saint preach, soit Hill, soit Spurgeon. They 
 always did : they always will : they must. Such tragi-comedians hit 
 nature in the bull's eye, without knowing how or why. — Biglow 
 Papers. 
 
168 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 by other dates to have been about the year 1110, rather 
 earlier than later. If this had been, as the authors of the 
 " Biographia Dramatica " suppose, the first played in Eng- 
 land, it would not prove much, for Geoffrey, I find, was a 
 Norman monk, and a member of the University of Paris, 
 who had lately settled in England. Then it becomes a fair 
 question, did he import a new custom ? or, like an able man, 
 adapt himself to one he found in his adopted country ? And 
 this is settled the latter way by two pieces of evidence. 
 Bulseus, describing the above, states distinctly that the mirar 
 cle was a custom of Dunstable School, not an invention of 
 Geoffrey : " Non novo quidem instituto, sed de consuetudine 
 magistrorum et scholarum." And, secondly, in France we 
 have at present no trace of it, either in the hands of Geoflfrey 
 or any other, till more than a century later. Still who can 
 swear in 1860 what passed within walls of continental con- 
 vents in the " night of ages " ? 
 
 And, therefore, to go from performances within the walls 
 of convents to public exhibitions, which are far more satis- 
 factory evidence of a national drama, Fitz-Stephen, a monk, 
 writing the life of Thomas k Becket about the year 1175, 
 shows us that public performances of this character w^re in 
 full swing in the 12th century. His words are, " Lundonia, 
 pro spectaculis, pro ludis scenicis, ludos habet sanctiores, 
 representationes miraculorum quae sancti confessores operati 
 sunt, seu representationes passionum quibus claruit constan- 
 tia martyrum." 
 
 This is evidence that the drama, in a form of art, had 
 taken root; and it is borne out by proofs of every class. 
 William de Wadington, writing about 1240, lashes the 
 clergy for it : — 
 
 TTn autre folie apert 
 
 Unt les fols clers cnntrov^ 
 
 Qae miracles sunt apele 
 
 Lur faces unt la d^guise 
 
 Par visen lie forsene 
 
 Que est defendu en decree, 
 
 etc., a long tirade in the above seductive dialect. 
 
 If the miracle play originated in London or its vicinity, 
 it did not stop there, but spread far and wide in the genial 
 soil of this nation. About the year 1268 it became a civic 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 169 
 
 institution in Chester, York, Coventry, Newcastle, Durham, 
 Lancaster, Leeds, Preston, Kendal, Bristol, Widkirk, Cam- 
 bridge, Manningtree, Witney, and some other towns. 
 
 Like our law pleas, and most of the great business of the 
 realm, they were done at first in French, or perhaps I should 
 say Gaulois, which was, indeed, the language of all the better 
 sort, and above all of the clergy. But in 1327 the burghers 
 succeeded in getting permission to have them in English. 
 This lingual victory was celebrated in great pomp at Chester, 
 a town which retained the miracle play for several centuries 
 IsLter. 
 
 The several acts of the play which inaugurated the above 
 event in 1327 were undertaken by the guilds of the town ; 
 to wit : — 
 
 The Fall of Lucifer, by the Tanners. 
 
 The Creation, by the Drapers. 
 
 TTie Deluge, by the Dyers. 
 
 Abraham, Melchisedek, and Lot, by the Barbers. 
 
 The Salutation and Nativity, by the Wrightes. 
 
 The Shepherds feeding their Flocks, by the Painters and 
 Glaziers. 
 
 The Three Kings, by the Vintners. 
 
 The Oblation of the Three Kings, by the Mercers. 
 
 The Killing of the Innocents, by the Goldsmiths. 
 
 The Purification, by the Blacksmiths. 
 
 The Temptation, by the Butchers. 
 
 77ie Last Sapper, by the Bakers. 
 
 The Blind Men and Lazarus, by the Glovers. 
 
 Jesus and the Lepers, by the Corvesarys. 
 
 Ohrisfs Passion, by the Bowyers, Fletchers, and Iron- 
 mongers. 
 
 The Descent into Sell, by the Cooks and Innkeepers 
 (patriotic ! ). 
 
 The Besurrection, by the Skinners. 
 
 The Ascension, by the Tailors. 
 
 Anti- Christ, by the Clothiers (the inventors of devil's 
 dust). 
 
 Day of Judgment, by the Websters. 
 
 This triumph of the Anglo-Saxon tongue was not achieved 
 in one year, probably not in twenty. The popes of Eome 
 
170 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 were applied to once, if not twice, by an emissary or emis- 
 saries from Chester, and refused. It was at last conceded, 
 perhaps in compliment to the reigning monarch, Edward the 
 Third, who favoured the English tongue. It was he who, 
 many .years later, forbade law causes to be pleaded in French 
 as heretofore (a). The " Guary miracles " in Cornwall bear 
 a ruder and more primsEval stamp than the Chester miracles, 
 but arose later than the London plays spoken of by Fitz- 
 Stephen ; and of these I believe them to be translations from 
 Latin into Cornish. Under the impression that their placg 
 is between these two, I subjoin the only known account of 
 them. At the period of this account (Queen Elizabeth's 
 reign), Cornish tradition assigned no date to their commence- 
 ment : " They raise an earthen amphitheatre in some ope% 
 field. The countiy people flock from all sides, many miles 
 off, to hear and see it, for they have therein devils and 
 devices to delight as well the eye as the ear. . . The 
 players conne not their parts without booke, but one, called 
 the ordinary, followeth at their backs, with the booke in 
 hand, and telleth them what to say" (J). 
 
 The " Guary miracles " were in Cornish, a genuine popu- 
 lar national drama. 
 
 So much for nature. The author was not paid for these 
 compositions in any part of the world ; and that England 
 took so marked a lead over every country but Spain, is good 
 evidence that by nature she is more dramatic than any other 
 nation but Spain. That same nature crops out in our day 
 from time to time. I will give you two specimens that oc- 
 curred in one month this very year, 1860. The first is 
 from Scotland, stronghold of Puritanism. I cut it out of a 
 journal : " On Tuesday last the Rev. Mr. Weddell, of Girvan, 
 read from his own pulpit a poetical tragedy, of which he is 
 said to be the author, called ' King Saul.' It is a five act 
 tragedy, illustrating the power of madness, superstition, and 
 
 (a) The attempts that were made by the early Norman dynasty, and 
 the Roman clergy, to overcome the Anglo-Saxon tongue, were nu- 
 merous and well planned. They would have certainly succeeded in 
 most nations, but the Anglo-Saxon tongue was defended by the Anglo- 
 Saxon character. 
 
 (6) In other words, when the Guary miracle was first established, 
 the laity could not read a line, but only the clergy. The priest was the 
 author, had to be on the stage with his book, and played his actors 
 like a human pianoforte. They sounded. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 171 
 
 jealousy, the narrative based on holy writ, and containing 
 delineations of character and fine dramatic taste, which would 
 not disgrace the pen of the greatest dramatists." 
 
 The next is from "Wales, condensed by me from a journal : 
 " Mr. W. Jowett, of Swansea, informs the ' British Standard ' 
 that a dramatic performance has taken place in that town, 
 presided over by the Independent minister." (I Puritani.) 
 
 The performance was " Joseph and his Brethren ; " the 
 c&aracters in oriental costume ; Joseph variegated, the rest 
 in white calico ; the language Welsh ; the performers en- 
 gaged from various " Independent " chapels. The receipts, 
 after all expenses, went to build a temperance hall. 
 
 It is in our blood! it always was ever since the first 
 dim dawn of the alphabet on these islands, and it will be till 
 the crack of doom. 
 
 Money is to the arts what manure is to soil. The 
 moment you open a market you get from nature to another 
 giant, " culture." " Honos alit artes," said the ancients, and 
 it is true. " Nummus alit artes " is ten times truer though. 
 
 Let us now leave the spontaneous drama, and take a 
 hasty survey of the drama under culture of Gog and Magog, 
 i. e., " Honos " and " Nummus." 
 
 CAP. XVII. 
 
 Fevt subjects vary more under separate stages of exami- 
 nation than a comparison of the French and English stages 
 during the 16th century. The works that supply informa- 
 tion in the gross, such as the " Biographic Universelle," the 
 historians, the writers of " Ana," leave a general impression 
 that England had a great drama, and France had next to 
 none. They scarcely notice a French dramatist but Eti- 
 enne Jodelle, who wrote two tragedies in the Greek form, 
 and one comedy, Eobert Gamier, author of seven pieces 
 between 1668 and 1680; Larivey, and Hardy, author of 
 six hundred pieces, whereof scarce sixty survive. This fer- 
 tile author, however, did not begin to write till about 1600. 
 
172 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Against this you have in England a galaxy of dramatic 
 genius, including the names of Sackville and Norton, Chapi 
 man. Green, Lilly, Kyd, Chettle, Monday, Dekker, Marloe, 
 Shakspeare, Jonson, Massinger, Beaumont, Fletcher, Forde, 
 Marston, and a dozen lesser stars. 
 
 This is the first stage. 
 
 Dive below those loose authorities to the bibliographers, 
 who in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred are more to 
 be trusted ; and what do they show you ? That Englsfnd 
 printed in that whole century about sixty-five plays proper 
 (exclusive of " moralities " and mysteries), and that France 
 printed nearly double that number. These pieces seem to 
 be chiefly tragedies, tragi-comedies, and farces ; the latter 
 nearly always confined to two personages. 
 
 I give the following as specimens of the century, not witM 
 any pretension of exhausting the list : — 
 
 Name of Piece. 
 Les Deux Savetiers . 
 Poncette et Transy . 
 Martin Baton . . . 
 La Farce des Qniolards 
 Les Deux Marchands 
 Le Valet h tout faire 
 
 Faeces. 
 Author. 
 
 Where 
 Date. published. 
 
 1530 
 
 1595 Lyon. 
 
 1606 Lyon. 
 
 Tragedies. 
 
 Agamemnon Toutain . 
 
 Philanire Koillet . 
 
 M^dde La Peruse 
 
 Philoxfene ....;. Duverdier 
 
 La Soltane ...... Bounin . 
 
 Lucille Le Jars . 
 
 Adonis Le Breton 
 
 CoUigny Chantelouve 
 
 Les Tragedies de . . . . Bob. Gamier 
 
 1566 
 1563 
 1570 
 1567 
 1561 
 1576 
 1579 
 1575 
 1585 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Poitiers. 
 
 Lyon. 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Among these there is one called " Bradamant," founded 
 on the " Orlando Furioso." 
 
 Attilee De Beaubreuil . 
 
 Esther P. Mathieu . . 
 
 La Guisiade P. Mathieu . . 
 
 Le Mauvais Kiche ... 
 
 Sophonisbe Garel .... 
 
 Le Triomphe de la Ligue . 
 Le Rodomontade et la Mort 
 de Koger, tragi-com. . . Bauter . . . 
 
 1582 Limoges. 
 1585 Lyon. 
 1589 Lyon. 
 
 Eouen. 
 
 Bordeaux. 
 
 Paris. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 173 
 
 Item, the following tragedies, for further particulars of 
 which see " Brunet's Catalogue : " " Didon," " La Pucelle 
 du Dom Remy," "Mdleagre," "La Th^baide," "Josias," 
 " Le Guysien," " L'Assidgement de la Ville de Gais," 
 " Jokebed," tragi-comedy, " Octavie," " Achab," " Priam," 
 "La BeUe Hester," "Acoubar," " Th^bie," « Cldophon," 
 " Maurice," " Les Gordians et Maximins," " Jeanne d'Arc," 
 @tc., etc. 
 
 Comedies not nearly so numerous : " Comddie du Pape 
 malade," " Seigne Peyre et Seigne Joan," " Les Escoliers," 
 « La Merveille," etc. 
 
 Add to these several collected works, which, however, 
 probably include many of the above. The works du Sieur 
 de Fief Mehn, CI. Billard, J. Behourt, Et. Jodelle, Chante- 
 louve, Montchr^tien, La Taille, P. de Larivey, etc. 
 
 The number and names of these plays seem to prove that 
 France had a drama embracing a wide range of subjects, 
 and that she had even then the courage to dramatize pas- 
 sages of her own history (yet Voltaire gives the English 
 credit for being the first to do this), and printed many of 
 them in provincial towns ; whereas the English plays of the 
 day were all printed in London. They compel you in can- 
 dour to own that France had in this century a greater and 
 more difiused drama than England. 
 
 This is the second stage of observation. You now go a 
 little deeper, and you can hear of no great tragic actors in 
 France before 1600. Nor do the titles of books of research 
 imply that such actors existed. 
 
 Now sift the early English theatre, and you find many 
 actors of the 16th century celebrated by their cotemporaries 
 with intelligent and minutely descriptive criticism. Of these 
 actors many retired with fortunes. Their wills, disposing 
 of large and various property, were drawn in grand form, 
 proved duly, and are to be seen in Doctors' Commons to 
 this day, monuments of the grandeur of the dramatic opera- 
 tions in their time, and of the piety and charity, as well as 
 worldly respectability, the artists of the scene can attain to, 
 when their self-respect is not undermined by the unchristian 
 prejudices, and their property by the brutal roguery, of their 
 cotemporaries. See Eichard Burbadge's will, cited in the 
 " Prolegomena to Shakspeare," vol. iii., p. 185 ; Hemin je's 
 will, ditto, p. 191, bequeathing large property in leases of 
 
174 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 houses, shares in the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres, and 
 plate and furniture, and presents to his fellow-actors and 
 several relations, not forgetting the poor of his parish. 
 Cundall's will, p. 200, dealing with still larger property in 
 all its principal forms, and not forgetting the poor. UndM" 
 wood's will, p. 216. Augustine PhiUips's will, cited p. 470. 
 Nicolas Tcoley's will, by which the poor of the parishes of 
 St. Leonards, Shoreditch, and St. Giles's, Cripplegate, ben- 
 efit to this day, is cited, p. 483. Will. Sly's, p. 477. As 
 for Edward Alleyn, a famous actor of the century, he built 
 a grand theatre while he lived, at a cost fully equal to six 
 thousand pounds of our present money (see Collier's " An- 
 nals of the Stage," vol. iii., p. 309), and, dying, bequeathed 
 a noble institution to his country, Dulwich College. Several 
 actors, predecessors and cotemporaries of Shakspeare, are 
 spoken of by eye-witnesses in terms of high, but discrimi- 
 nating eulogy, that carries conviction (vague laudation con- 
 vinces me like the smoke of burning weeds). Tarleton, and 
 his successor Kempe, in comedy, Burbadge (the original 
 Richard the Third), and Allen in everything, are lauded in 
 prose and verse. Yet it was matter of doubt whether the 
 latter could equal Bently and Knell, his predecessors, in 
 certain parts they had created. Those who, following the 
 flimsy guesses of Dryden, Rowe, and Pope, fancy that 
 Shakspeare was the root of the British stage, instead of 
 the fruit, may be surprised to learn that not only had most 
 of these actors secured a reputation some years before 
 Shakspeare, but that famous actors had lived and retired 
 or died before Shakspeare penned a line. Kempe had an 
 established reputation in 1589 ; yet Tarleton was on the 
 stage and famous ten years before him. Richard Burbadge, 
 who had the ear of the town four years before Shakspeare, 
 was the son of James Burbadge, a respectable actor, whom 
 we find at the head of a company in 1574. 
 
 Here, then, is a great acting drama in England existing 
 about 1570, but greatly advanced in 1576, and, as I shall 
 show, in full career in 1580. 
 
 The next discovery we make by the help of Solomon, 
 Malone, and other dealers in legal evidence, is a remarkable 
 one, the true clue to many things on which chimerical con- 
 jecture has been wasted, viz., that at this period the printing- 
 press and the theatre were not coadjutors in England, but 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 175 
 
 rivals, and, in fact, deadly enemies : that' it was always the 
 interest of a proprietor of a play to keep it out of print. 
 There were two kinds of authors, as there were of actors, 
 the paid authors, and the sharing authors of whom Shak- 
 speare was one, and Jonson, on a smaller scale, another. It 
 was not the sharing author's interest to print his play, and 
 the paid author lost the right to print his. The sharing au- 
 thor's parental feeling and amour propre made him print 
 eventually, but only when the theatre had worn the play 
 quite o\a, Jaecause then his interest no longer curbed his P. 
 F. and (A. P. But the sharing actors, whose vanity sided 
 with their interest, held the bought plays tight, and kept them 
 out of print with the keenest jealousy. They kept them 
 under lock and key ; they hid them ; they destroyed them. 
 When aU their precautions were outwitted, as happened now 
 and then, by double MSS. or short-hand, they appealed to 
 some great officer of state to restrain the printing, or they 
 bought the printer off, or grinned and closed their stage-door 
 to the author. They did this to Robert Greene. 
 
 "Lent unto Robert Shaw, the 18th March, 1599, to 
 give unto the printer to staye the printing of 'Patient Gri- 
 sell,' the sum of xxxxs." 
 
 Robert Shaw was the stage manager. — Henslowe's 
 Diary, p. 167. 
 
 For the printing of bought plays restrained by the Lord 
 Chamberlain, see a MS. in Lord Chamberlain's office, enti- 
 " Cockpit Places appropried," cited, " Prolegomena," vol. iii., 
 p. 158. 
 
 Nor was this, I think, mere jealousy of the press ; five 
 playgoers out of six could not read : but printing enabled 
 other theatres to play their pieces (a). 
 
 It was Malone who first announced that between 1570 and 
 1590 a host of pieces had been produced and played in 
 London, and most of them perished. — Prolegom., vol. iii., 
 p. 40. 
 
 (o) Copyright existed in those days, and long before. So did stage 
 right. But stage right and copyright never coexisted in England till 
 1832. A play obtained surreptitiously, and played elsewhere, might 
 hare been stopped, because this was theft in domicilio : nor could a 
 rival printer with safety pirate a printed play. But any theatre could 
 play a play once printed. This defect in literary property lost us the 
 true text of Shakspeare, and also the text of two hundred good plays 
 at least. 
 
176 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Having ascertained the fact, but not at that time the solu- 
 tion (he learned it before his death), he dismisses the lost 
 plays with indifference, and, arguing backwards, very natu- 
 rally infers they were of no great value. But, alas ! we 
 who have the clue know better. 
 
 The better the play, the less likely were the sharers to let 
 it escape into print. No poet's work, unless he was a sharer, 
 was safe. If Shakspeare had sold his plays out and out to 
 a theatre, we should have lost many of them. We home 
 lost one or two. What has become of " Love's Labour's 
 Wonne " ? 
 
 Philip Henslowe was a trader. He began with starch ; 
 from that to pawnbroking : but in the year 1584, finding the 
 drama the best trade going, he got hold of a theatre, " The 
 Eose," and, instead of leasing it to a company per annum, 
 this illiterate but cunning trader made the sharers pay him 
 a large portion of the gross receipts (not the profits) of each 
 night's performance. By this means he received every year 
 in the shape of interest a sum little short of his whole in- 
 vestment. The same move has been played in my day in 
 Manchester. The Grindstone is immortal. 
 
 Of his triturations from 1584 to 1591 he has left no 
 record. But from that year we possess his diary until 1609. 
 Nearly every page of it contains some valuable and unex- 
 pected revelation. The very spelling, monstrous as it looks 
 to the eye, reveals at times the pronunciation of our ances- 
 tors (a). 
 
 He puts down, inter alia, every night's performance; what 
 it brought him in, and the prices the sharers paid through 
 him to the poets who sold their pieces out and out. His en- 
 tries show that this company did business with thirty living 
 dramatists, besides playing some plays that had become pub- 
 lic property apparently. I have profited by Mr. Collier's 
 index attached, and count as many as two hundred and 
 eighty plays played at Henslowe's theatre. Of these plays, 
 on a rough calculation, 1 think under thirty are extant. Nar- 
 rowing the calculation to one good man, I find that Chettle, 
 one of Henslowe's poets, and of undoubted merit, produced 
 
 (a) " Troyeles and Creassedaye ! " " Diary," p. 147. This exploit 
 of orthography has been merely laughed at ; but it shows that in speak- 
 iug they made a diphthong of the oi, and pronounced the e in Cresaida 
 long, and the final a as our rustics do to tiiis day. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 177 
 
 thirty plays, and that five only exist. Some of the twenty- 
 five that are lost carry very promising titles : " Hot Anger 
 soon Cold," " 'T is no Deceit to Deceive the Deceiver " (this 
 promises an ingenious intrigue), " Love parts Friendship " 
 (room for nature under that head), " Jane Shore," " Too 
 Good to be True," " Lady Jane Grey," « All that Glisters is 
 not Gold," etc. Of Munday, who had been writing twenty 
 years when Shakspeare began, yet outlived him seventeen 
 years, seven plays only survive. Yet Meres, praising the 
 cotemporary writers of comedy, places him high in a list, 
 that contained Shakspeare's name, and describes him thus : 
 " Anthony Monday, our best plotter." 
 
 But Henslowe'a entries prove him to be one of the mis- 
 managing writers, that sold their plays, and Chettle to be 
 always poor, and vranting advances, and therefore at the 
 mercy of the sharers. 
 
 I dare not flatter the reader that less than a thousand 
 original plays were produced and lost in sixteen theatres be- 
 tween 1570 and 1620, and among them many masterpieces. 
 Mr. Collier must be of the same mind, for he sums up the 
 loss of early plays in these words : " The very few plays 
 that have come down to us, compared with the immense 
 number irretrievably lost." — Note to Henslowe's " Diary." 
 
 The real truth is now visible, and to the best of my belief 
 has never been so clearly explained as it ought, viz., that 
 France, in the 16th century, published many five-act plays, 
 but played very few of them ; that England produced five- 
 act plays with a fertility which has never been equalled in 
 any age or nation, and played them with no scenery, but 
 with more gorgeous and costly dresses than now, and with 
 great beauty and propriety of action and delivery; but 
 rarely printed them. 
 
 Now if one of our Cephalomants had lived in 1590, what 
 would he have said ? He would certainly have said, " The . 
 French are poetical by nature; witness the trouveres and 
 minstrels, and their successors the romance writers in verse, 
 and Villon, Marot, etc., etc. ; but the drama, the acting 
 drama, is not in them. We English are born dramatists. 
 Look ! there are eight theatres in this city so much smaller 
 than Paris, and all of them full, and two good new plays 
 out every week. What genius ! what unrivalled fertility ! 
 France will never have such a drama as ours ; never can." 
 12 
 
178 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Now drop moonshine, and inspect the markets ! Begin 
 with France ! Hers was little better than an honour market. 
 Hardie, who did not write till about 1600, is said by the 
 "Biographic Universelle" to have been the first who re- 
 ceived remuneration for his pieces. Probably he was not 
 the first. No man with a name ever is the first in such 
 matters ; but doubtless nearly the first : and until the " At- 
 tila" and "B^r^nice" of P. Comeille, no French author 
 received a just equivalent from the theatre. 
 
 But in England it was a money market from about 1575, 
 prices steadily increasing up to 1620. I am not talking of 
 the precarious gifts of princes, such as the five hundred 
 crowns to Etienne Jodelle, and the more numerous presents 
 bestowed by the princes of the house of Tudor on English 
 writers. Capricious gifts are a curse : • they are given not to 
 the best pen, but the oiliest tongue and the supplest back- 
 bone. I am talking of a healthy market, ofiering a sure and 
 proportionate return to talent, and one with no known limits, 
 to talent, prudence, and sober living. Wherever such a 
 market is open to an art, nature gets a fair chance. In this 
 just and healthy form, nummus is to honos a giant to a 
 dwarf. 
 
 Nummus alit artes. 
 
 To ascertain when the market began, found the inquiry 
 on three positions, the result of general observation of man- 
 kind. First, it would never occur to actors or to the specta- 
 tor, as a matter of justice, that the author had a claim to be 
 paid for work done out of sight ; actors, carpenters, salvage 
 men in skins, scaled and fiery dragons, working coram populo, 
 would be remunerated as a right many centuries before' the 
 inventive artist. "Work done out of sight is out of mind. 
 , Secondly, whenever authors, by the demand for many plays, 
 became numerous, some of the number would be too poor to 
 work gratis : then their hunger on the one hand, and the 
 impossibility either of dispensing with their labour or stealing 
 it, would extort justice. And, thirdly, the author actor, a 
 character that by another law of nature is most frequent at 
 the commencement of the art, would be a natural go-between 
 to bring about a fair arrangement. For the writing actor, 
 accustomed to be paid for work, would say, " Writing is hard 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 179 
 
 work when I do it ; and why should I do any kind of work 
 and not be paid for it ? " 
 
 Apply this key to the following facts, resting on legal evi- 
 dence. Up to 1570, public plays were played principally, 
 if not always, in the yards of inns. In 1580 there were as 
 many as six proper theatres standing. About 1575 we catch 
 the theatres in the transition state. Lambarde's " Perambu- 
 lation of Kent " speaks of the Bell Savage and the Theatre. 
 Of these the first was an inn, and the second a theatre in 
 Shoreditch, probably the first ever built, certainly one of the 
 very first. But they were rising on all sides, for in 1576 a 
 Puritan preached at Paul's Cross, and delivered himself as 
 follows : " Looke but on the common playes in London, and 
 see the multitude that flocketh to them : beholde the sump- 
 tuous theatre houses, a continuall monument of London's 
 prodigalitie and folly " ! 
 
 Blackfriars Theatre was built in 1676 by James Burbadge 
 and his fellow-actors. " The Curtain " was erected either 
 in that year or early in 1577, in which year Northbrooke, 
 another Puritan, preached against it by name. 
 
 Paris Garden was full thirty years old at the above date : 
 used first for bear-baiting ; but as plays became the fash- 
 ion, they were done here. This theatre or amphitheatre 
 was a hexagon, and held a thousand spectators. — Collier's 
 « Annals," 3. 282. 
 
 Of "the Eose" we know only that in 1591 it was old 
 enough to need expensive repairs (Henslowe's "Diary"); 
 but there is little doubt it was built about 1576. 
 
 Of the "Whitefriars we know only that it was standing in 
 1580. 
 
 " Newington Butts Theatre ; " date doubtful. 
 
 Here then you have at least six theatres that can be 
 proved to have been in use, the newest of them eight years 
 before Shakspeare wrote plays. 
 
 London companies of actors, and the dates of their for- 
 mation : — 
 
 Lord Dudley had players, who performed a play before 
 the Queen, 10th Jan., 1562-3. 
 
 The Queen had a company existing in 1569. 
 
 1572. Sir Robert Lane had a company, and Lord Clinton 
 another. 
 
 1574. Earl of Leicester had a company, licensed under 
 
180 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 the Privy Seal to play throughout the kingdom. Head of 
 this company, James Burbadge. 
 
 1575. Earl of Warwick's company, apparently the sec- 
 ond, for his players played before the Queen in 1565. 
 
 1575. The Lord Chamberlain's company, which Hemin- 
 ges and Shakspeare joined many years later. 
 
 1576. Earl of Sussex's company, and Earl of Worcester's 
 company. 
 
 1578. Earl of Essex's company. 
 
 1579. Earl of Derby's company. 
 
 How many more who can tell ? — Vide the " Stratford 
 Entries." 
 
 When private speculators build theatres in such number 
 as above, it is to obtain a good interest for their money ; but 
 this could only be done with plays, and the plays must be 
 written. Here then is the demand for authors which enables 
 authors to extort that remuneration for labour which is con- 
 ceded spontaneously to an actor, or a scene painter, or the 
 tailor that cuts Hamlet's cloak. The market therefore dates 
 from a period not later than 1575, and probably not much 
 earlier. 
 
 The immediate result of a public market on production 
 was that rapid growth of dramas, first traced by Malone. 
 In 1580, however, we get direct cotemporary evidence. 
 
 Stephen Gosson, writing against the theatre about 1579, 
 says, " ' The Palace of Pleasure ' (an old collection of 
 stories by Painter, principally of Italian origin), 'The Gold- 
 en Asse,' ' The Ethiopian Historie,' ' Amadis of Fraunce,' 
 ' The Eound Table,' wanton comedies in Latin, French, Ital- 
 ian, and Spanish, have been thoroughly ransacift to furnish 
 the play-houses in London." 
 
 I appeal to French critics whether this is not very much 
 the state of matters in France, 1860, under the hot-house 
 culture of thirty years. 
 
 Nor does the parallel end here. On the French stage 
 collaboration has lately become common. In a hundred 
 critiques, both French and English, you shall see it spoken 
 of as a trait peculiarly French, and of our day; and, on one 
 or other of these grounds, quizzed to the nine. 
 
 Sweet simplicity, on two sides of one channel ! 
 
 At the end of this chapter I will try and make a list of 
 English coUaborateurs from 1580-1620. It will not contain 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 181 
 
 one-tenth of the acts of collaboration really done for our 
 theatre in the 16th century, and in that part of the 17th 
 century, when Hardy, a Frenchman with an English name, 
 reigned alone in France, poete du roi (honos), and almost 
 starved, if not quite. 
 
 To a soil as dramatic by nature as any in Europe, num- 
 miculture could not long be applied without raising first men 
 of talent, then men of genius : accordingly the names of Kyd 
 (a), Lilly, Chapman, Munday, Green, Chettle, Dekker, etc., 
 soon struggled out of the throng. And in 1587 the market 
 elicited a great genius. Marloe, having just taken his M.A. 
 degree at Cambridge, adopted the stage as a profession. 
 Why not ? It was the most open, and furnished an imme- 
 diate competence. He began in King Cambyses's vein, with 
 " Tamerlane the Great," and the " The Massacre of Paris ; " 
 but this was not his genius, — it was his youth. On paper 
 youth is sure to rant whein it does not cant. Happy the 
 youth 
 
 " Who his wild oats is a-sowing, 
 While his beard is a-growing," 
 
 and begins, instead of ends, by ranting or canting : this is 
 the order of healthy nature. He went on to " Edward the 
 Second," still improving, to " The Jew of Malta," and 
 " Faustus." When geniiis begins ill (a grand point gained), 
 and rises so steadily, yet so rapidly, where will it end ? 
 The dagger stroke that slew Marloe in his twenty-ninth 
 year, struck down a heaven-born and nummi-cultivated 
 genius, that would have produced thirty masterpieces, and 
 had a class of merit all to himself, between Shakspeare 
 above him and Massinger below him. As it is, if you com- 
 pare the seven pieces he wrote before he was twenty-eight 
 with the seven the great Corneille wrote before he was thirty, 
 you will have no reason to blush for your countryman. 
 
 Shakspeare gathered much from this writer, especially in 
 versification. Marloe was the true originator, on a smaller 
 scale, of that melodious blank verse with endless variety of 
 rhythm and natural collocation of the words, which is so justly 
 admired in Shakspeare. r 
 
 Then came Shakspeare. This writer has been called a 
 
 (a) " The decline of the drama " was chanted, just as Shakspeare 
 was dawning, by no less a man than Spenser. 
 
182 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 lusus naturae. He was just the opposite. He was the 
 natural fruit of high culture on a fertile soil. He was a 
 noble plant, watered by a rare concurrence of circumstances 
 favourable to the growth of genius. Between 1580 and 
 1587, at which later date he is supposed to have come to 
 London, more theatres had been built, and authors were in 
 proportionate request. The sharing authors were making 
 fortunes, and even the paid authors were ten times better 
 off than any other writers. They received the overplus of the 
 second performance, and a sum of money, from 6^. to 10/., 
 equal to 36/. and 60/. respectively of our money.'' Calculate 
 the overplus at 4/. = 24/. These did not write so well as 
 the sharers ; it was not in nature they should ; and the above 
 was not bad pay for their crude and hasty, though talented, 
 compositions. Shakspeare avoided that trap. He was paid 
 from the first as the French dramatists are paid now, viz., 
 by a share in the receipts of the house. And he wrote his 
 best, because that system makes it a man's interest to write 
 his best. So did Moliere, and for the same reason. So did 
 Plautus, and for the same reason. So does Victor Hugo, 
 and for the same reason. So would you ; so would I; so would 
 every featherless biped that ever was hatched with brains.^ 
 
 One of the barriers to sound legislation, and the establish- 
 ment of that healthy trade which fosters the godlike arts, is 
 the fatal notion that genius is independent of such trifles as 
 steady encouragement and steady discouragement ; that sys- 
 tem, good or bad, can neither rear genius nor blight it; 
 whereas it can do either. The more narrowly facts are 
 looked into, the more possible will appear the rise of another 
 Shakspeare in these islands in twenty-five years or so of 
 good legislation and consequent culture the exact opposite of 
 the present, which is the exact reverse of common sense as 
 well as honesty. 
 
 Let me repeat you the sham history of this man as told by 
 old women, and the real one as I gather it from the legal 
 evidence which has been collected, with infinite patience and 
 sagacity, by Mr. Malone, Mr. Collier, Mr. Halliwell, true 
 critics, to whom be honour. 
 
 The Sham History. 
 That he was an uneducated youth, the son of a butcher ; 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 183 
 
 that he used to kill the calves, and make them a rhetorical 
 speech first, " We should rejoice when tyrants fall," and so 
 knocked them down ; that on leaving Stratford he was a raw 
 youth, and knew nothing of law, nor of the drama, which 
 indeed he could not know, since he created, it up in London ; 
 that on arriving thither he went first into an attorney's oiRce, 
 and there picked up an astounding number of legal terms 
 and phrases to adorn his poetry with ; that getting sick of 
 this, or being dismissed, he held gentlemen's horses at the 
 door of the theatre, and held them as they had never been 
 held before ; the natural result followed : no gentleman 
 would let his horse be held by any body but by Mr. Rarey, 
 I beg pardon, Mr. Shakspeare ; which observing, he hired 
 "little scrubby boys," and "turning Briareus, with digits 
 vicarious," he held all the horses that came, and received 
 the main profit. That the actors, struck with this effort of 
 intelligence, conversed with him, and finding him centum 
 puer artium, invited him in, and hired him as an actor ; that 
 on this he sat down and wrote off " Othello," or " Macbeth," 
 as you and I write a letter, or as " Arabian trees drop 
 medicinal gum," and created the true drama. That he 
 cared only for the money these productions brought him in ; 
 was quite indifferent to reputation, and, when he had made 
 a competence, retired to Stratford, and left his plays for any- 
 body to do what they liked with; did not respect them 
 enough to print them ; and was a man apart, unlike all other 
 men ; an inspired idiot ; in one word, a lusus naturse. 
 
 Thk Truth. 
 
 His mother was of an old family of high standing in 
 Warwickshire, and an heiress. His father a landed pro- 
 prietor and a burgess of the town, afterwards an alderman ; 
 and mayor in William's sixth year : he never was a butcher, 
 nor any trade but a glover, and he ended a gentleman 
 farmer (a). 
 
 (a) June 17, 1556. In the bailiff's court, Thomas Siche de Arscotte 
 queritur versus Johanem Shakyspere, de Stretferd, in com. Warwicensi, 
 glover, in plaeito quod reddat ei oeto libras. Cited from the Court- 
 roll by Malone and Halliwell. The latter has discovered that J. 
 Shakspeare won this action, with costs. Equally undeniable documen- 
 tary proofs that his business after William's birth was agriculture ; — 
 Halliwell's " Life of Shakspeare," p. 21. 
 
184 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 William was educated at a good grammar-school till four- 
 teen, and after that educated himself, like many more edu- 
 cated men. The things dreamers fancy a man could only 
 learn in London were to be learned in that day at Stratford- 
 upon-Avon ; and there he learned them. 
 
 The Tomb of the Capulets. 
 
 There was a charnel-house at Stratford-upon-Avon, a 
 great dark vaulted place, containing the largest assemblage 
 of human bones in* this island. See the drawing made of it 
 by Captain Saunders. Shakspeare, when a child, was not 
 the child not to peer often into this cave of death, and draw 
 back shuddering, and come again. To this impression on 
 his youthful fancy we owe the famous description in " Romeo 
 and Juliet." 
 
 The Law. 
 
 At Stratford-upon-Avon there was in his day a court of 
 record, open to all comers, in which all causes underneath 
 30^. (^180/. now) could be tried, and were tried almost 
 daily, as appears by the rolls of the court. Here the pas- 
 sions came out strong, and character in all its hues. Shak- 
 speai-e, the ex-bailiff's son, and the alderman's son, and the 
 thirstiest observer that ever lived, was not the youth not to 
 go often and sit in that civic court, all eye, and ear, and 
 mind. And, as most of these clients pleaded their own 
 causes, he would never get tired of it. Barristers are works 
 of art, and partake in some degree its monotony ; but the 
 client is a product of nature : 
 
 " Age cannot wither him, nor eustome stale 
 His infinite variety." 
 
 Even had young Shakspeare not been so thirsty an ob- 
 server, he would have been drawn into this court by personal 
 curiosity and filial anxiety ; for his own father is proved by 
 the rolls to have played a part in it either as plaintiff or 
 defendant some dozen times during his son's youth ; and, 
 once there, the observer would have returned to it again 
 and again. He knew the road to it, for in 1 604 he himself 
 sued Philip Rogers in this very court for 1^. \bs. \0d. for 
 malt sold and delivered by the said Will. Shakspeare to 
 Philip Rogers at different times; and in 1609 he sued one 
 Horneby in it for \l. \\s. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 185 
 
 In this repository of nature and law William Shakspeare 
 sucked in nature and law together ; and that is why you 
 find nature and law together in his works from the very first 
 to the very last. 
 
 We may safely lay this down, that, whatever Stratford 
 grew, young Shakspeare reaped and garnered. The very 
 names of his townspeople sunk into him, and many of them 
 got dramatized, soon or late, owners included sometimes. 
 The names of " Bardolf" and " Fluelhn " occur frequently 
 in the records of civic business at Stratford. On the 19th 
 August, 1584, one Parsons sued William Fluellen in that 
 very court. I dare say there was a peppery fight, and 
 Shakspeare, setat 20, looking on, drinking it in like a fish. 
 " Peto," droll and artificial as the name sounds, was a magis- 
 trate, living within a few miles of Stratford at this date. 
 Sly, Heme, Home, Brome, Page, Ford, were Stratford 
 names. — Hall! well, p. 27. That "Justice Shallow" was 
 " Sir Thomas Lucy," of Charlcote, near Stratford, is now 
 admitted on two or three distinct grounds of evidence. 
 
 The Drama. 
 
 " That at least must have been new to him till he went 
 up to London, and there created it." This is founded on 
 the same hasty notion I have encountered above, viz., that 
 Shakspeare's Stratford was the same thing as our Stratford 
 is ; sans plays, sans charnel-house, sans court of law, sans 
 everything. 
 
 Oh ! immortal Herodotus, how much nobler, wiser, and 
 greater was that of yours than the Athenian's brag direct. 
 
 Says you, " I shall describe in this book small as well as 
 great cities ; for I find that cities which once were great are 
 small, and others which once were small are great." 
 
 In the year 1569 occurs the following entry in the muni- 
 cipal account-books, still preserved at Stratford : — 
 Item, payed to the Queene's pleyers 9^. 
 
 Now who was the mayor or bailiff that was so stage bitten 
 as to make the town pay this magnificent sum to the actors, 
 a sum without a parallel in the books ? 
 
 John Shakspeare, father of William Shakspeare. 
 
 The drama was in the Shakspeare blood, you see. For 
 this sum, however, the players must have given more per- 
 
s. 
 
 d. 
 
 5 
 
 8 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 8 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 186 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 fonnances than one, and it is not to be supposed that this 
 munificent bailiff, profusus alieni, had not a good place, where 
 himself and all his family could see it. On which occasion 
 Master William Shakspeare, in his sixth year, sat on some 
 good woman's knee or other, with eyes like saucers and ears 
 like a hare's. Can't you see him from here ? And so the 
 drama-loving bailiff inoculated his son, even as men enter a 
 young terrier to blood. 
 
 There is no payment to players by the bailiffs of 1570, 
 71, or 72. 
 
 1573. Payd for the Earle of Lester's players 
 
 1576. Geven my Lord of Warwicke's players 
 Paid the Earl of Worceter players 
 
 1577. Paid to my Lord Leyster's players 
 Paid to my Lord Woster's players 
 
 1579. Paid at the commaundement of Mr. Bai- 
 
 liffe to the County s of Essex plears . 14 6 . 
 
 1580. Paid to the Earle of Darby e's players 
 
 at the commaundement of Mr. Bailiffe 8 4 
 
 1581. Paid to the Earle of Worcester his 
 
 players 3 3 
 
 Paid to the Lord Bartlett his players . 3 2 
 
 1582. Paid to the Earle of Worcester's players 5 
 
 This young gentleman had seen about twelve different 
 companies at an age when most of us have not seen one 
 play. 
 
 1583. Payd to Mr. Alderman, that he laid 
 
 down to the Lord Bartlett his players, 
 and to a preacher [il faut s'arauser] 
 Payd the Lord Shandowe's players 
 
 1584. Given to my Lord of Oxford's pleers 
 Given to the Earle of Worcester's pleers 
 Given to the Earle of Essex pleers 
 
 1586. Paid to Mr. Tiler for the pleyers . 
 
 We now come to the year in some part of which Shak- 
 speare probably left Stratford. 
 
 1587. Gyven to the Queen's players . . 20 
 Gyven to my Lo. Essex players . .50 
 
 . 5 
 
 
 
 . 3 
 
 3 
 
 . 3 
 
 3 
 
 s 3 
 
 3 
 
 . 3 
 
 8 
 
 . 5 
 
 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 137 
 
 1857. Gyven to th' Erie of Leicester his *' ^' 
 
 players . . . . . . 10 
 
 Gyven to another company . . .34 
 
 Gyven to Lo. Stafforde's men . .34 
 
 He was not driven out of Stratford by misconduct, or he 
 could not have returned to the town in 1592. He suffered 
 no personal indignities from Justice Lucy (a), for all such 
 matters are recorded at Stratford, and there is no trace of 
 it. I notice, too, that when a man leaves a place where he 
 has been degraded, his heart leaves it. Sbakspeare's heart 
 can be proved never to have left Stratford for a single day. 
 
 Let us combine legal evidence, and shut our ears to old 
 wives' fables. Mr. Halliwell has traced, by a series of doc- 
 uments, the fortunes of John Shakspeare, and showed a 
 gradual decline in his circumstances, until in March 27-29, 
 1587, he was put in prison. The cause of his decline was 
 manifestly his large family. Here then, in the spring of 
 1587, is William Shakspeare put under a necessity of doing 
 something for himself and his wife, or starving ; to say 
 nothing of a filial desire to aid his father, a sentiment he 
 probably possessed, since he carried it out in due course. 
 
 Just at this nick of time (J) come the Queen's players 
 to Stratford, and find their best patron and friend in sore 
 trouble, perhaps in durance vile. 
 
 William Shakspeare was formally betrothed to Anne 
 Hathaway in 1582, and married soon after. She had a 
 daughter, Susanna, in May, 1583. In February, 1585, 
 new style, she had twins, Hamnet and Judith. Doubtless 
 she nursed her own children, and two years is a common 
 
 (a) There is a natural tendency in vulgar minds to assume that 
 when a vivid sketch of some man's foibles leads to identification, the 
 great writer had some personal motive. But this is becanse they 
 measure him by themselves. Their own praise and censure represent 
 not facts but motives. To the great artist character presents itself so 
 vividly he can't keep his pen off it. In all human probability, and in 
 the absence of legal evidence, Shakspeare merely saw old Lucy's foi- 
 bles as they were, and could n't help painting them. 
 
 (6) Six companies were admitted into the town this year — the 
 Queen's company the first in order. The year began in March; and 
 in that month or April these players came, the London theatres being 
 closed in Lent. 
 
188 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 interval in that case. She was evidently a breeding woman, 
 yet had no children after these twins. This inclines me to 
 think the separation took place as early as 1587 ; and no- 
 body places it earlier. 
 
 In November, 1589, there is legal evidence (a) that 
 Shakspeare was a sharer in the Black Fryers Playhouse, 
 with the two Burbadges and thirteen others, i. e., not a 
 joint proprietor of the building, but an author actor, paid 
 by a share in the nightly receipts. -;, 
 
 Dowdall states, on fair authority, that Shakspeare entered 
 this theatre as a servitor. This statement it is which, mis- 
 understood by ignorant persons, has led to that nonsense 
 about his holding horses, etc. "A servitor" (b) meant 
 only one of the non-sharing actors, paid by a salary. There 
 were such in every company. There is no reason to reject 
 the statement thus explained. Every novice would be^n 
 in the lower position. It was the interest of the sharers he 
 should. 
 
 Shakspeare, November, 1589, is low down among the 
 sharers ; but there are four below him : he had, therefore, 
 been a sharer some months. The usual engagement of a 
 salaried actor was two years. Six months a sharer and 
 two years a salaried actor would just take him back to 
 Lent, 1587. 
 
 Has Shakspeare ever been traced into any company but 
 Burbadge's ? 
 
 No. 
 
 What countryman was Burbadge ? 
 
 Of Stratford-upon-Avon. — Malone in Prolegom. 
 
 (a) Certificate addressed to the Privy Council, and preserved in: 
 the archives of the city of London : — These are to certifie — that her 
 Majestie's poor players, James Burbadge, Kichard Burbadge, John , 
 Laneliam, Thomas Green, Robert Wilson, John Taylor, Anth. Wade- 
 son, Thomas Pope, George Peele, Augustine Phillips, Nicolas Tooley, 
 William Shakspeare, William Kemp, etc., etc., being all sharers in the 
 Blacke Fryers Playehouse, have never given cause of displeasure," etc. 
 
 (6) "Hiered as a covenaiint servant Willy am Kendall — to give him 
 for his sayd servis everi week of his playing in London 10s. (equal to 
 21. 10s. of our money), and in the countrie 5s., for the which he cove- 
 naunteth to be redye at all houres to play in the house of the said 
 Philip, and in no other." — Henslowe's "Diary." 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 189 
 
 What company was it which came to Stratford in 1 ) 37, 
 and found the Shakspeare family in that distress, which aas 
 so often broken up families ? 
 
 Burbadge's : the Queen's company. 
 
 Putting all this together, and in the absence of all evi- 
 dence to the contrary, I have little doubt that he walked 
 out of his native town with the Queen's players (a) on their 
 provincial trip in the spring of 1587. 
 '_ To such a result the road had been paved for years. 
 
 He was inoculated with the drama from infancy, and the 
 taste constantly fed by histrionic visitors. 
 
 He was too genial and inquisitive not to have conversed 
 with many of the actors that visited the town, and they were 
 then what they are now, on the stage they gagged, and off it 
 they bragged. 
 
 He left Stratford to make his fortune by an acknowledged 
 road to fortune. I can't find a trace of vagabondage or bo- 
 hemianism in the transaction, nor any tint of it in the man's 
 character. He went, but left his heart at home ; came home 
 whenever he could ; and in the small space of nine years, 
 i. e., as soon as he could, returned home so far as to make 
 it his head quarters. As for London, that was his milch 
 cow, nothing more. 
 
 Shakspeare's pen it was that made him a sharer so early. 
 He was too wide awake to sell his plays for money down. 
 
 Now mark the result of the present French system of re- 
 muneration working in England, 1589. 
 
 In 1592 Greene (an established dramatist) was already 
 jealous of him, and warned others a formidable rival was in 
 the field. 
 
 In 1593 the stage had enabled him to print his poems, 
 mainly written down at Stratford. He gave the printing of 
 them to Field, a London printer, that came from Stratford- 
 upon-Avon. 
 
 In 1594 the sharing system enabled this author to bear 
 his part in building the Globe Theatre. 
 
 In the beginning of 1597 this author came down to Stratr 
 ford, and there purchased of John Underbill Newe Place, 
 one of the largest houses in the town, and settled in it with 
 his wife and family. Price 601. = 3001. Newe Place con- 
 sisted of the dwelling-hoAse, two barns, and two gardens. 
 
 (a) Companies are often short of hands out in the country. 
 
190 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 He seems to have thrown his aegis round his father, who 
 from this date gets into no more troubles, and to have thrown 
 capital into the old man's farm ; for though at this time he 
 had no farm of his own, he is returned in a municipal record 
 as holding ten quarters of wheat. 
 
 This same year this author sold a load of stone to the cor- 
 poration, price lOrf. 
 
 Perhaps his inventive genius had opened a quarry: as 
 likely as not. 
 
 In the same year Richard Quiny, his countryman, living 
 in London, writes to him for a loan of 30A, "upon Mr. 
 Bushell's and my securytee, or Mr. Myttens with me." The 
 letter is worded as to a capitalist. 
 l"^ He wrote none the worse for being paid upon a just sys- 
 ( tem ; on the contrary, just as he rose in wealth, he rose 
 J^.in industry and genius. About a year after the production 
 of " Othello," he bought a hundred and seven acres of ara- 
 ble land in Old Stratford Parish from William and John 
 Combe. Item, a cottage from one Gettey. Item, a consid- 
 erable property from Underbill — one messuage, two gar- 
 dens, two orchards. The land he is supposed to have farmed. 
 
 In 1604, he sued Phillip Eogers for 1^. 15s. lOd. on ac- 
 count of malt sold and deUvered. 
 
 In 1605 he gave 440Z. = 1,760^., for a lease of the tithes 
 of Stratford and other places. 
 
 In 1608 he is said to have given up acting altogether; 
 but he retained shares in the Globe and Blackfriars by 
 writing plays for Burbadge's company, and no other. 
 
 His popularity and influence having defeated an attempt 
 on the part of the Puritans to puU down the Blackfriars 
 Theatre, they were seized with a sudden fit of honesty, and 
 offered to buy the sharers out, since they could not rob them. 
 On this a valuation was submitted to them. Shakspeare's 
 item was as follows : — 
 
 W. Shakspeare, for the wardrobe and properties, 500Z. ; 
 and for his four shares, the same as his fellows, Burbadgfi 
 and Fletcher, viz., 933Z. 6s. 8rf. 
 
 The poet means at the same rate as his fellows. None 
 but Burbadge and Shakspeare had as many as four shares. 
 
 The shares were calculated thus : ascertained yearly val- 
 ue of each, 33Z. 6s. 8rf., one year with another, of wMch 
 they claimed seven years' purchase. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 191 
 
 Money carried 10 per cent ; so that Shakspeare's income 
 from the shares and properties was about 1801. = 7001., 
 money having declined in value since 1587. The Globe 
 was a larger house ; so we may double this to arrive at this 
 author's professional income. No author's income in the 
 17th century comes near it, except Moliere's. Nummus alit 
 artes. 
 
 In 1593 Chettle confessed he was a man of integrity. 
 
 In 1609 Shakspeare sold something or other to Adden- 
 brooke, taking the precaution to require a bondsman. 
 Addenbrooke did not pay. Shakspeare took out a writ. 
 The writ was returned, endorsed to the effect that defendant 
 was not to be found. On this Shakspeare sued the bonds- 
 man Horneby in the court at Stratford. This was a man : 
 he would neither swindle nor be swindled. There was no 
 hole in any part of his intelligence. It is false that he de- 
 spised reputation. Heywood has recorded that he was much 
 offended with Haggart for printing another man's play as his. 
 He pi'inted all his poems, and such of his plays as he could 
 print with propriety. But for others he was drawing an 
 annual income from the theatre, on the condition of not 
 printing them. When he dropped acting they were his 
 main commercial claim to his shares and annual receipts 
 from the Globe and Blackfryars. To print them he must 
 not only have sacrificed his main source of income, but 
 broken faith and wounded to the heart the tried friends and 
 brother artists of his youth and his whole life. What ! take 
 " Richard the Third " and « Hamlet " from Dick Burbadge, 
 and let any fool mouth them ? And all for what ? To add 
 a little paper notoriety to a great reputation. For in his day 
 the stage gave a dramatist a great name, and the press gave 
 him a small one ; the few readers of that day fit to judge 
 Shakspeare in print read few plays. Had he lived to the 
 term of man, and had his friends and fellows left the stage, 
 he would have printed them. But he died suddenly, and in 
 his prime. [Buzzards never take this into account at all.] 
 
 Meantime the natural dishonesty of his nation, where 
 authors are concerned, was not checked by sufficient laws. 
 Therefore he could not print without wronging himself and 
 •worthy men he really loved — men that were one flesh with 
 him in those great characters he had created for them, and 
 they had embodied for him. He chose then between evils, 
 
192 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 as you will have to do more than once before you die ; and 
 he chose like the wise, affectionate, just, and sober-minded 
 man he was. 
 
 The foregoing facts must convince any candid person that 
 this writer was not a " lusus naturae," but a natural product 
 of the Anglo-Saxon dramatic genius, under example, stimu- 
 lus, and nummiculture. I will only add that, so far from 
 bounding on to the stage an unique writer, he passed through 
 his noviciate like other men, and from his infancy to his last 
 hour profited by his cotemporaries and predecessors. He 
 began his career as a dramatist by altering historical plays (a) 
 of the day that had somehow become public property, and 
 by collaborating with other authors. Then dramatized 
 Greene's story, " Dorastus and Faunia." Then he wrote 
 original comedies ; and at last he rose to that in which he 
 has never been approached, the philosophical melodrama. 
 Even here he did not always disdain to deal with other 
 men's thoughts. He used the old play of " Hamlet ; " but 
 of course absorbed and extinguished it as the sun drinks the 
 morning star. 
 
 If this Anglo-Saxon had not been nummicultivated by the 
 theatre, what man with half an eye for character does not 
 see he would have taken his vast powers into some other 
 business, that would have enabled him to buy land at Strat- 
 ford-upon-Avon ? 
 
 A steady increase in the price of bought plays was going 
 on between 1590 and 1620. In 1613 Daborne, a writer of 
 no note, stands out against screw Henslowe, and states that 
 he had been offered 251. for a play, which, with the overplus 
 of the second day, would make a considerable sum. — The 
 " AUeyne Papers," p. 67, cited by Mr. Collier. 
 
 Nummiculture raised Philip Massinger in 1604. He left 
 the university before taking his degree, to write for the stage. 
 About the same time Beaumont, the son of a judge of the 
 
 (o) The first part of " Henry the Sixth " is an old play, merely re- 
 touched by Shakspeare. For others see Malone's dissertation oh this 
 head. He is said to have collaborated with Laurence Fletcher in 
 " The Two Noble Kinsmen," and with an unknown author in " Arden 
 of Keversham." " King Lear," " Troilus and Cressida," " Titus An- 
 il ronicus " — of all these plays we know thus much, that they existed 
 uuder those names long before Shakspeare had anything to do with 
 them. " Hamlet " ditto. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 193 
 
 Court of Common Pleas, and Fletcher, son of the Bishop of 
 London, took to writing for the stage, and, being duly num- 
 micultured, resigned their other professions for it, and pro- 
 duced say forty pieces in nine years ; fifty-three go by their 
 names ; but Fletcher wrote some of these after B.'s death. 
 Shirley, an university man and a scholar, kept a school at 
 St. Albans ; but presently was drawn into the best market. 
 Talent follows the market. He cut the trade in birch, came 
 to London, and wrote for the stage. " By this," says his 
 biographer, '• he gained not only a livelihood, but also great 
 respect and encouragement from persons of quality." 
 " Honos " seldom fails to follow " nummus," even in the 
 pocket of genius : contempt, open or secret, waits upon 
 genius in want of it. When Shirley was in full career the 
 theatres were closed by the Puritans. What did Shirley ? 
 Set up a school. What reversed his sentiments ? The re- 
 versal of the markets. 
 
 After the year 1630 I find new dramatists no longer 
 rising. Nature exhausted, eh? Oh dear, no: the market 
 contracted ; the theatres attacked on paper, and with physi- 
 cal violence, by the puritanical party, and defended by the 
 king and his party. In this, the final result of the more 
 terrible civil war that was brewing was prefigured ; the 
 Puritans beat the king. By the year 1636 the companies 
 had dwindled to four. The next game was to starve out 
 even these : this was effected by closing the theatres for a 
 year or so at a time, on one disingenuous pretence or an- 
 other. It does not take a year, nor a month, to starve a 
 man ; so this drove both actors and writers into other and 
 less precarious modes of life, from which many of them never 
 returned. The theatres were closed thus in 1636 for ten 
 months, and again in 1642 for eighteen months. So that 
 many years before the coup de grSce came in 1647, which 
 closed them for fourteen years, the market had been robbed 
 of every feature that inspires confidence and tempts genius 
 to embark ,kbour in it. On this rising genius turned its 
 b^ck on the stage. 
 
 Withered artificially in England, it was just rising in 
 France, under culture. It did not begin there with Cor- 
 neille, any more than here with Shakspeare. No art ever 
 originates and culminates in the same hand. The notion 
 that it does is very seducing to dreamers, but hurtful to 
 13 
 
194 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 sound legislation : it has often been put forward and chris- 
 tened Homer, Shakspeare, Comeille, Raphael, according to 
 the art under Cant; but fact levels all these superhuman 
 pretensions. The moment fact comes to light, it encour- 
 ages just legislation by showing that genius comes, not like 
 Venus, springing out of mere foam, but like the Venus of 
 Apelles, by combination ; or, to speak soberly, by degrees 
 and culture. 
 
 Hardy wrote about 1 600 - 30. 
 
 Scuderi, born 1607 ; wrote 1631-44. He, not Comeille, 
 introduced the unity of time. 
 
 Mairet, born 1604; produced "Sylvie" in 1626, and in 
 1629 " Sophonisba," in which, for the first time, all the 
 unities were preserved. 
 
 Tristan, born 1601, has described the rock he split him- 
 self on, 
 
 " Faisait le chien couchatit anpr^ d'an grand seigneur." 
 
 Produced "Mariamne," 1637. 
 
 Rotrou, though born three years after P. Corneille, pre- 
 ceded him as a writer by one year, and as a successful 
 writer by eight years : he led off with two adaptations from 
 Lope de Vega. This was a great thing for the French 
 stage, as it introduced several personages speaking in the 
 same scene. 
 
 P. Corneille, born 1606, forty-two years after Shakspeare, 
 wrote in 1629 his first play, "Melit^," a weak comedy. For 
 seven years he wrote a weak comedy every year. They 
 were played with little success ; so that up to 1636 he was 
 really inferior in public running to more than one cotem- 
 porary, and, unlike Scuderi, Mairet, Rotrou, added nothing 
 to the form of the drama. But in his thirtieth year, either 
 in imitation of his friend Rotrou, or, as the sto^y goes, ad- 
 vised by an old gentleman down in the country, he had 
 recourse to a Spanish model, and built the immortal " Cid " 
 on the play of that name by Guillen de Castro, whom Cer- 
 vantes praises for " his harmony and delightful sweetness*' 
 The rest you know. 
 
 From 1625 to nearly 1680 France had a great and still 
 rising drama, and poured forth some of the very noblest and 
 purest productions of the human mind. 
 
 From 1570 to 1625 England had a great and still rising 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. J 95 
 
 drama, and a more abundant and far more national one ; for 
 the French drama (a), up to Moliere's later comedies, was a 
 demi-Greek, demi-Spanish drama, in form and theme. 
 
 From 1630 to 1660 the drama was extinguished by brute 
 force in England, and all the fine arts with it. Was this a 
 shift in the wind of nature ? Oh dear, no. 
 
 In England, Puritans up, fine arts down. Theatres closed, 
 a civil war of the diabolical, *. e., politico-theological kind. 
 
 In France, Richelieu. 
 
 The drama rose in France under that great man from 
 three causes : 
 
 First, He made the country prosperous ; and the fine arts 
 are luxuries, not necessaries, and blow in the sun of national 
 prosperity. 
 
 Secondly, Being a stage-struck cardinal, he gave the tone 
 to the court and the public, and so founded indirectly and by 
 degrees a healthy market. 
 
 Thirdly, He gave money out of his own purse to drama- 
 tists, which founded a petty, unhealthy market. His direct 
 patronage sustained Mairet, and raised Boisrobert, CoUetet, 
 L'Etoile, and a cabal against the author of the " Cid." But 
 his genius gave the people religious peace and prosperity, and 
 his taste directed the public ^ a fallible, but an incorrupt- 
 ible judge of art. Boisrobert can't fawn himself up over 
 Corneille's head with them. 
 
 Indirectly, then, Eichelieu founded the market on two 
 pillars, prosperity and fashion, and was the cause that Cor- 
 neille, in due course, made the theatre pay him 2,000 francs 
 for two tragedies. 
 
 Nummiculture once started, produced its usual degrading 
 eflFect on art. Enter Thomas Corneille, Quinault, Molifere, 
 Kacine. 
 
 (a) It was a noble adaptation, but not a pure product of the soil 
 like ours. 
 
 " Ralph Roister Doister,'' a. d. 1550; " Gammer Garten's Needle," 
 1566; " Gorboduc," 1562 ; Marloe's "Edward II.," and the historical 
 plays of the 16th century, are purely English in form as well as sub- 
 stance. " Arden of Peversham," " A Woman Killed with Kindness," 
 and many others of the time, are "des drames en habits noirs " trage- 
 dies of the day, such as France produces so plentifully now that her 
 drama is a genuine product. I call Cervantes a great dramatist, be- 
 cause so early as the middle of the 16th century he produced plays of 
 powerful interest on cotemporary topics. 
 
196 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Who of these wrote uniforniy well ? 
 
 Moliere. 
 
 Who was paid the best ? 
 
 Moliere. 
 
 Who was paid in exact proportion to the merit and suc- 
 cess of each work, as Scribe is paid now ? and Shakspeare 
 had been ? 
 
 Moliere. Fantastical coincidence ! 
 
 Meantime we poor English were cutting one another's 
 throats over the trampled arts. 
 
 Weak thinkers imagine that you can close the theatres 
 virtually for thirty years, actually and physically for four- 
 teen years, and at the end of that period open them, and 
 go on again, as if nothing had happened. 
 
 No more than the world can be deluged for a fortnight, 
 and drowned all but one family, and then go on again, just 
 as if nothing had happened. It is an ascertained fact that, 
 except Davenant, no single dramatist, who had written be- 
 fore the Civil War in England, wrote a line after it ; and no 
 actor of repute that played before the troubles spoke a line 
 on the stage after them. They had been driven into other 
 lines. Clever men will go a long way out of their road 
 sooner than starve. 
 
 The supply of writers ceased in 1630, because the author 
 is always the last to be paid and the first to be swindled. 
 Adversity, therefore, extinguished him first, and left the 
 inferior artist lingering. Next went the actors, then the 
 fiddlers, last the candle-snuffers. The great Othello of the 
 day retired into the jewellers' line, and never returned. 
 Hamlet took to toad-eating, and never returned to art. Fal- 
 staff set up a public-house, " The Three Pigeons." Many 
 of them were knocked on the head, .fighting for the crown 
 against the petty tyrants who had robbed them of their liv- 
 ing. Most of these gallant Richards and Henrys fell about 
 as wept and sung as carrion crows ; but the fate of one is 
 recorded. Dick Robinson yielded himself prisoner to Har- 
 rison, the regicide. " At plus JEneas " levelled his pistol at 
 the unresisting player, and deliberately blew his brains out, 
 remarking, " Cursed be he who doeth the work of the Lord 
 negligently." Vietjversus Player. 
 
 When the theatres reopened in 1660, there were neither 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 197 
 
 ■writers nor actors on the soil. Sole link between dead ge- 
 nius and living dunces was Will. Davenant, who, they say 
 down at Oxford, was Shakspeare's son by a fair citizen of 
 that town. Then it was that plagiarism from the French 
 commenced, nor was it in human nature that it should not. 
 On one side of a narrow channel was a great kingdom, that 
 had for forty years been steadily accumulating dramatic 
 treasures, and improving the dramatic art : on the other, a 
 nation in which the art and its profession had both been up- 
 rooted at a prior epoch of civilization. England in 1660 
 woke up from her drunken fit — the dramatic England of 
 1 630 only, with all the actors and all the writers gone. 
 
 Dramatic France in 1660 was therefore thirty years ahead 
 of her in progress, and fifty years ahead in material. Now 
 invention is the child of necessity, and mever exists without 
 it on a great scale. Accordingly at this epoch our plagia- 
 rism begins. You find scenery introduced from France, and 
 actresses invented in imitation of France, and some few 
 French plays adapted to our stage — wonderfully few, con- 
 sidering. From so complete an extinction as our drama 
 underwent 1640-60,1 should give any other country but 
 England a hundred years to recover ; but England, being 
 by nature a singularly dramatic nation, I give her a quarter 
 of a century to breed actors and writers on a tabula rasa, 
 as now we grow turnips on a deal table. This takes us to 
 1675; but here I find another civil war, with Satan's favour- 
 ite sultana, theology, at the bottom of it : so I shrug my 
 shoulders, and go on to 1 689, when the kingdom was settled. 
 From this date I take a human generation, thirty years, 
 1689-1719. What do I find? I find more dramatists of 
 lasting merit in England than in the land of Corneille, 
 Moliere, Racine — considerably more, measured against 
 population. Dryden, Lee, Otway, Mrs. Behn, Mrs. Cent- 
 livre, Vanbrugh, Congreve, Farquhar, Gibber, Addison, 
 Eowe, Southerne, Young, Steele. This list cannot be 
 matched in cotemporary France — La Motte, Le Sage, 
 Cr^billon, Destouches, Marivaux, T. Corneille. 
 
 Was the nature of the two countries changed again ? Na- 
 ture be hanged ! The English theatre was revived by hon- 
 est criticism and numjniculture. The French theatre was 
 lowered by bad statesmanship. Nature is a mere flea-bite 
 in these matters compared with the other forces. 
 
198 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 England. 
 
 Sober citizens, still infected by Puritanism, long held aloof 
 from the theatres. This degraded the spectators from a 
 public to a clique. The stage, a mere chameleon, instantly- 
 caught the tone of this abnormal audience, and became won- 
 derfully indecent and immoral. Then Jeremy Collier, an 
 honest and learned Puritan, wrote the one good book against 
 the stage human nature has produced. Unlike the lying 
 ranters, who write against plays now, without having the 
 honesty or veracity to read them first and know what they 
 are describing, he read every play of his day with grim rel- 
 ish, and pointed out vices that really existed. What was the 
 consequence ? He gained a hearing that his false apes can't 
 gain : he could not put down the stage, for that will never be 
 done in England by mortal man ; but he purged it, and was 
 the best friend (except me) it ever had. The result is rer 
 corded in Gibber's " Apology : " " This had a wholesome 
 effect on the stage : indecencies no longer passed for wit, and 
 by degrees the fair sex came again to fill the boxes." There 
 is no limit to the power of a genuine book. It roused pub- 
 lic opinion and revived an obsolete law, under which several 
 performers, Betterton and Mrs. Bracegirdle among the rest, 
 were fined for uttering profane language on the stage. This 
 inspired confidence, and the true public began to flow into 
 the theatre, thanks to Jeremy Collier. 
 
 From 1660 up to 1694 authors were paid in the theatre 
 by the overplus of the third day. It seems to have averaged 
 100/. But before the close of the century Southerne de- 
 manded the overplus of the sixth night as well as the third, 
 and obtained it. 
 
 In 1705, a piece of Farquhar's having run the unparal- 
 leled number of fifty nights, he obtained a third, viz., the 
 ninth. This was a great stimulus to authors to write their 
 best, for at this date weak pieces generally stopped short 
 of the ninth night. Here then was a remuneration, not 
 only high but just, i. e., the better the piece the higher the 
 price. 
 
 The following actual figures are all I have been able to 
 ascertain. 
 
 1588, when the author had only the third night's overplus, 
 we learn from Downes, the prompter, that " 'The Squire of 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 199 
 
 Alsatia" brought the author 130?., being the highest overplus 
 recollected at single (a) prices. 
 
 In 1694, under the two-night system, one of Southerne's 
 nights brought him lAOl. The play was " The Fatal Mar- 
 riage," Mrs. Behn's story, dramatized. Besides this market 
 the dramatist was, since, the war, allowed to sell his copyright 
 to the booksellers. 
 
 The following are a few of the copyright transactions. 
 These are to be added to the stage right : — 
 
 £ s. d. 
 Southerne's " Fatal Marriage 
 Addison's '■ Drummer " . 
 Young's " Eevenge " . 
 Gay's "Three Hours after 
 
 Marriage " . 
 Young's " Busiris " . 
 Eowe's " Jane Shore " 
 Rowe's " Jane Gray " 
 Southerne's " Spartan Dame ' 
 Gibber's " Non Juror " 
 Smyth's "Rival Modes" . 
 
 Malone, who is very careful, says that the usual price of 
 a copyright, from 1707 up to 1726, was &01., when it was 
 raised to lOoZ., and stood at that for some years. 
 
 Now popular and useful books remunerated their authors 
 even then ; but Action was vilely paid and scarcely treated 
 as a fine art, except on the stage. Pope, indeed, received 
 3,203/. for his translation of the " Iliad ; " but that was sup- 
 posed to be a learned work : moreover it was published by 
 subscription, and therefore furnishes no real clue. Zach. 
 Gray received 1,500Z. for a commentary on "Hudibras," 
 published by subscription. 
 
 The prices paid Pope for original works tell a different 
 story. " Eape of the Lock," first edition, 11. ; " Windsor 
 Forest," 32/. ; « Temple of Fame," 32/. ; additions to the 
 "Eape of the Lock," 15/.; "Essay on Criticism" (an edi- 
 tion), 15/., better worth 120/. than the " Spartan Dame " 
 These purchases are by Lintot. Vide his payments for 
 
 (a) They sometimes raised the prices for a new play, by which the 
 aathor profited. 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 
 
 A.D. 1694. 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tonson, 1715, 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tonson. 
 
 43 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 Lintot, 1713. 
 
 84 
 
 
 
 
 
 Lintot. 
 
 50 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 Lintot. 
 
 75 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 Lintot. 
 
 120 
 
 
 
 
 
 A.D. 1719. 
 
 105 
 
 
 
 
 
 Lintot. 
 
 105 
 
 
 
 
 
 Lintot, 1726. 
 
200 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 plays, supra (D'lsraeli's " Miscellanies," p. 203). Yet the 
 play had two markets, and the story in prose or verse but 
 one. 
 
 This was the market that set learned divines like Young, 
 and a man so high in the state as Addison, and architects 
 like Vanbrugh, and scholars and men of genius, and women 
 of genius, writing for the stage. Talent follows the market. 
 
 Mrs. Behn and Mrs. Centlivre were both Saxon women ; 
 yet it was in their nature to write plays. The latter mar- 
 ried a gentleman of that nation which is now so dramatic by 
 nature : he had no occupation ; and the Saxon kept both him 
 and herself in perfect comfort and prosperity by writing for 
 the theatre. (See the preface to Mrs. CentUvre's works, 
 written by an acquaintance.) 
 
 And this is how we got ahead of France again with a 
 smaller population and fewer theatres. We had a coadjutor 
 in Louis XIV. That king, I think, must have been wise too 
 young. Nature exacts her peck of folly. We cannot re- 
 peal her law : we can but invert it, and sow our wild oats at 
 sixty, like Solomon. Louis XIV. grew in folly as he grew 
 in years. He got a set of black spaniels about him, fawning 
 on their master and snapping at all creation. 
 
 Thus inspired, he picked quarrels at home and abroad, 
 where it was not his interest to pick quarrels. Take one in- 
 stance : the Protestants of France were not, like the Eng- 
 lish Puritans, republicans under a thin varnish of religion : 
 they were a genuine religious sect, attached to law and 
 order, and to a book which bade them " Fear God, honour 
 the king." Yet after persecuting and tormenting them with 
 cruelties that belonged to heathen creeds and uncivilized 
 times, he succeeded in driving out of France about five hun- 
 dred thousand of her ablest, most moral, and intelligent sons. 
 They carried out all the money and movables they could, 
 and, richer treasure far, they took away their skilled labour, 
 their morality, and industry. 
 
 But a monarch can't skim so much cream as this oif his 
 nation and fling it abroad without impoverishing the platter. 
 To whatever land these impious creatures went, on that land 
 they descended, a present from France, but a blessing from 
 heaven. They were the jewels of a noble nation, these impi- 
 ous wretches, they and their abominable Bibles. We and 
 the U. S. got most of them. All the better for the U. S. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 201 
 
 and us. Of all the capital crosses (a) in their breed and 
 ours this was, perhaps, the best. But what we got France 
 lost, and soon' felt the loss. 
 
 I happen to have access to a MS., written by one of these 
 " impies," and this is perhaps your only chance of seeing it : — 
 
 "The 5th October, 1685. I, Garric, arrived at London, 
 having come from Bordeaux the 31st August, running away 
 from the persecution of our holy religion. 1 passed through 
 Xaintonge, Poitou, and Brittany. I embarked at St. Malo for 
 Guernsey, leaving my wife and a little boy, four months old, caUed 
 Peter. • 
 
 " The 5th December, English style, God gave me my wife at 
 London. She embarked from Bordeaux in a bark of 14 ton, 
 being hid in a hole, and was a month on the sea, with strong 
 tempests, and at great peril of being taken by our persecutors, 
 ■frho were very inveterate. Pray God convert them ! [L'impie !J 
 
 " The 22nd May, 1687. Little Peter arrived at London, by the 
 grace of God, in the ship of John White, with a servant, Mary 
 Mougnier, and I paid for their passage 22 guineas." 
 
 The other entries relate in order, with touching simplicity, the 
 birth in London of his little children, ending with a prayer that 
 each may live a long and happy life to the glory of God ; and too 
 often, alas ! the next entry records the poor little thing's death 
 and interment in English soil. 
 
 "The 4th July, 1693, God took to himself the little Stephen. 
 Buried at night at Wandsworth, in the new churchyard." [This 
 is the village Voltaire spent two years in, studying Shakspeare, 
 Newton, Locke, Hobbes, Pope, Parnell, English. Here he wrote 
 the first act of " Brutus," in English prose.] 
 
 " God hath afflicted me, and taken from me my poor wife the 
 2nd December, 1694, and gave her to me in April, 1682. She is 
 buried in Bartholomew Lane, behind the Royal Exchange." 
 
 And thus the poor exile records each death, and how he laid his 
 brother and sister beside " his poor wife " in English soil, almost 
 in the words of Job, " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken 
 away ; blessed be the name of the Lord." L'impie ! 
 
 Little Peter became a soldier in the service of the English 
 crown. He married an English lady, a Miss Clough, and their 
 son was David Garrick, the greatest actor that ever lived, being 
 
 (a) It would be well worth while to try and trace these French 
 exiles into the service of the English crown and people. From cer- 
 tain indications I suspect some of the best men in our chnrch and 
 state at this moment are presents from Louis XIV. Any of my read- 
 ers who know anything on tliis head, or who are so descended, will 
 much oblige me by sending me particulars. 
 
202 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 more tragical than any other known tragedian, and far more com^ 
 ical than the comedians. The English Roscius was a pure cross, 
 half French and half English, and a present from Louis XIV. 
 
 By being wiser than Richelieu, and so on, this crowneii 
 monk reduced France to a desperate state of poverty and 
 misery (a). See the remarks of travellers on the poverty- 
 stricken appearance of the country, cited by Mr. Buckle, pp. 
 653, 654 
 
 And that is why fewer dramatists of genius were bred in 
 France than in England at this period. And I dwell with 
 the more force on this fact, Because this king in his own per- 
 son is called a great patron of art ; and indeed he was very 
 liberal to writers, and did all an individual can to counteract 
 the general poverty and decline of nummiculture his bad 
 statesmanship caused. But pray take notice that he failed. 
 And why ? Because it is not to be done except through the 
 public. A king can do wonders by just legislation, and by 
 setting the fashion ; but direct patronage only raises writers 
 with a talent for scribbling and a genius for adulation. Noth- 
 ing but a public market raises many men with a genius for 
 writing, and capable of the dogged labour that genius must 
 apply to produce lasting works of art. 
 
 From that day, when a healthy market in England defeat- 
 ed Louis and his private purse, to about the year 1832, the 
 French and English stages present no more of those very 
 marked contrasts, three of which I have dwelt on. Caeteris 
 paribus, the nation with the larger population produces 
 more dramatists, as it does more carpenters, painters, black- 
 smiths, than a smaller nation. 
 
 I find France, from 1730 to 1815, superior on the whole 
 to England in production, but not superior measured against 
 population. Of course there are fluctuations. From 1730- 
 60, with Piron, Voltaire, CrebiUon, Marivaux, etc., against 
 Cilsber, Gay, Hoadley, Liilo, France has clearly the advan- 
 tage, population taken into the account. But 1760-90, 
 England has rather the pull, with Sheridan, the two Cole- 
 
 (a) The notion that John Law did her any serious harm is all a de- 
 lusion. She was virtually a bankrupt in 1729. He inflated her with 
 delusive prosperity, and left her no poorer in resources than he had 
 found her, and much richer in mercantile ideas, which afterwards bore 
 a healthy fruit. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 203 
 
 mans, Foote, Mrs. Inchbald, Goldsmith, Holcroft, Garrick, 
 Macklin, and the minors, population taken into account. 
 
 I therefore postpone comparison till 1830 - 60. With re- 
 spect to plagiarism, as our ancestors conducted it, a sober 
 account has never been printed. Being a matter of figures, 
 arithmetic has been carefully excluded, and cant industrious- 
 ly substituted. 
 
 From the year 1660, when our theatre reopened without 
 actors or authors, we begin to adapt and imitate French 
 plays : Wycherly, Shadwell, D'Urfey, Dryden, all took 
 French ideas, and now and then a whole piece. I have 
 collected with a labour that would break most critics' backs 
 every known adaptation or imitation done between the above 
 date and the peace of 1815. They amount to two hundred 
 and fifty-eight, and include several plays universally sup- 
 posed to be original. Several, however, are French novels 
 dramatized, and several others are duplicates and triplicates 
 from the same French play. The number seems large, but 
 spread over one hundred and fifty years it is not large, 
 and we know by other evidence it was not large, viz., that 
 it was not large enough to lower the price of invention. 
 The vague statements of cotemporariea cannot outwash 
 arithmetic and fact. As to the current statement that our 
 ancestors translated but we adapt, it is a falsehood. Our 
 ancestors, I find, when they plagiarized, generally imitated 
 with great freedom and independence, rarely building on a 
 single French play, or without adding original scenes and 
 characters. Henry Fielding I find about the most servile. 
 He follows Moliere pretty close, merely extracting the wit, 
 the point, the grace, and entirely missing, probably not even 
 seeing, the idiomatic variety of the master's dialogue, and 
 flinging in certain ordure of profaneness and obscenity to fiU 
 these little gaps. But most of the old adaptations are free : 
 many are really "fair imitations." The common practice 
 was to combine two or three French plays, and connect 
 them by original scenes. Mere discolouration was the ex- 
 ception : now it is the rule. 
 
 Unfortunately I have not the same means of reducing 
 French plagiarism to figures ; but this I find, that, so long as 
 the English language was universally unknown, no French- 
 man plagiarized from us at all ; but that purely accidental 
 barrier to plagiarism removed, and our unsuspected treasures 
 
204 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 of philosophy and poetry made known (about 1720), the 
 French devoured us with all the zest of novelty, and plagia- 
 rized from us in every form. They took Farquhar's pieces, 
 Congreve's, Lillo's, Moore's, Sheridan's. They dramatized 
 Richardson and other novelists. If ever one nation was the 
 pupil of another nation, France, with " Le roi Voltaire " at 
 its head, was England's pupil in science, politics, and fiction 
 from 1720 to 1789. But now there is no dramatic exchange, 
 and England steals from France in one year as many plays 
 as she used to take from her in a century. 
 
 Nummiculture sustained the theatre under blasting op- 
 pression and idiotic tyi-anny. From the year 1737 to 1832 
 the English theatre was ground down, and invention nar- 
 rowed, by one of those gigantic forces bad legislation has at 
 its service, monopoly. 
 
 Arbitrary, vexatious, unconstitutional, unreasonable mon- 
 opoly. This blight descended at first in a curious form. 
 The minister of the day, having been lashed by a dramatist, 
 H. Fielding, contrived to get the three estates of the realm 
 to dethrone their sovereign and oppress the subject by one 
 stroke of legislation. They took away from the Crown the 
 . power of licensing any more theatres, and gave their impe- 
 rial power to a tool of the minister, the lord chamberlain of 
 the day (1737), together with the novel power of restraining 
 the peiformance of any play this imperial subject should 
 disapprove. It is a consoling circumstance, and shows the 
 advance of virtue, that this power, intended to be political 
 tyranny, is now used merely to guard good morals. Abused 
 as this power was for a whole century, the theatre would 
 have perished in any other nation but England under the 
 double oppression ; for nota bene, that the tyranny of kings, 
 emperors, czars, is tyranny in its mildest known form. 
 God protect us all from the tyranny of a subject ! It is a 
 thousand times more penetrating, grinding, withering, and 
 galling than Csesar's. 
 
 Asperius nihil est humili quum surgit in altum. 
 
 Would it be believed that for half a century this jack in 
 oflSce, whom they elected emperor of authors, used at first to 
 steal the pieces he refused to license. He stole one of the 
 best short comedies we possess, Macklin's "Man of the 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 205 
 
 World," and refused to let it be played, or to let the author 
 have it back. Ten years this British dictator swindled the 
 author out of the MS., as well as the public out of the play. 
 It was only got back by private interest at last ; and the 
 moment it was played the public pronounced the jack in 
 office an idiot as well as an oppressor. How many good 
 plays were thus lost in those days, who knows ? All secret 
 tribunals are dark, deep wells of undiscovered iniquity. 
 
 As civilization advanced, the personal oppression and seiz- 
 ure of property by the lord chamberlain relaxed. But the 
 frightful monopoly of the two theatres in a doubled popula- 
 tion remained, with all the evils that attend monopoly. 
 Gigantic rents demanded by the proprietors from the man- 
 agers ; gigantic prices required by the managers from the 
 public ; while a market, thus artificially contracted, left room 
 but for few authors, and so choked talent. Then, the public 
 groaning, came a juggle truly characteristic of an English 
 official of the last generation dealing with the fine arts ; a 
 hog in tulips. Other theatres were allowed to open, pro- 
 vided they would undertake to sell the public bad garbage 
 for good money, and not wholesome meat. " We, who have 
 assumed powers we don't concede to our sovereign, because 
 this is a free country (gammon !), and he is not, like us, a 
 god in wisdom, we decide- thus : we allow you to play low 
 buffoonery unmixed, or to sing rational dialogues provided 
 the fiddles are going all the time ; but you must not sell 
 good sense, still less the masterpieces of mind, in second-rate 
 theatres. Your audiences are low : it is a moral, and there- 
 fore a legal duty to keep them low, and not bring them and 
 the fine arts together, to degrade high things and raise low 
 minds. Keep things and men in their places.' ' Whatever 
 is, is right,' especially if irrational ; buzz ! " 
 
 At last, by the mercy of Heaven, an artist strayed into 
 the British House of Commons. He soon obtained a select 
 committee to examine dramatic literature. 
 
 The blue book lies before me. Forty-one authors, actors, 
 and managers are here examined on oath, and every^ in- 
 terest fairly represented, and severely cross-examined. Oa 
 the evidence thus collected the committee reported to the 
 house that there was a real decline in the literature of the 
 stage, and the taste of the public for theatrical performances; 
 and that the main causes were 
 
206 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 " The uncertain administration of the laws (a) ; the slen- 
 der encouragement afforded to literary talent to devote its 
 labours to the stage ; and the want of better regulations as 
 to the number and distribution of theatres." • 
 
 6. " In respect to the exclusive privileges claimed by the 
 two metropolitan theatres, it appears manifest that such 
 privileges have neither preserved the dignity of the drama, 
 nor been of much advantage to the proprietors of those 
 theatres." 
 
 7. "In regard to dramatic literature, an author at present 
 is subjected to indefensible hardship and injustice ; and the 
 disparity of protection afforded to his labours, when com- 
 pared even with that granted to authors in any other branch 
 of letters, seems alone sufficient to divert the ambition of 
 eminent and successful writers from that department of 
 intellectual exertion." 
 
 The sworn evidence fully bears out the report. 
 
 1st, It was sworn that for some years the good old systeBi' 
 of remunerating an author according to his merit, viz., by 
 the overplus of the third, sixth, ninth nights, had been dis- 
 continued here, and pieces purchased instead, generally for 
 a very low price. Thus merit was levelled with mediocrity, 
 
 2ndly, That the author was deliberately and habitually 
 swindled out of his pieces, sometimes in London, in the 
 country nearly always. 
 
 Mr. Moncrieff deposed that he produced " Giovanni in 
 London " at a minor theatre. Drury Lane Theatre, one of 
 the monopolists of the legitimate, sent and stole this piece, 
 an illegitimate one, played it in the teeth of the author, and 
 laughed at the idea of any author's dramatic work being 
 property, like a carpenter's. Monopoly at one end of the 
 stick, theft at the other. 
 
 3132. " What did you receive for it? 
 
 " I was cheated of it altogether. I never got but 101. for 
 it." [The next answer explains that in consequence of the 
 theft and its success, the manager had engaged him to write 
 
 {a} See the evidence of managers Osbaldiston, 94, and Davidge, 76, 
 and all the authors, especially Moncrieff and Jerrold. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 207 
 
 for the theatre at 101. a week. But that was not buying 
 the piece ; on the contrary, Moncrieff was worth a great 
 deal more than 10?. a week to the theatre.] 
 
 3133. " Was it published ? 
 
 " Not till two booksellers applied to me, each to protect 
 himself against the other, neither of them having any right 
 to publish it at all." [N. B. Drowning thieves catch at a 
 straw, the author's rights.] 
 
 3140. "Mr. EUiston played the piece in defiance of you? 
 " Yes. 
 
 3141. " And made money by it ? 
 
 " A great deal of money. He brought out Madame Ves- 
 tris in it." [He paid her, I'll be bound. It is only the 
 benefactor, creator, and maker of all these puppets who is 
 swindled from generation to generation, and from age to 
 age.] 
 
 This EUiston is the same caitiff that stole a play of By- 
 ron's, and played it in defiance of the author's and publish- 
 er's rights in 1825. An injunction was applied for (Murray 
 V. EUiston). Chancery sent the question to law. The five 
 judges decided, " Refuse the injunction." They did not give 
 their reasons, which is most unusual in a case outlawing a 
 whole class of the community. But the fact is they dared 
 not give their reasons. The fraud was a thing to be done, 
 but not to be justified on any principle of law that would 
 bear a general application, therefore the court became a 
 secret, silent tribunal to work iniquity. The silent hog eats 
 the most authors. 
 
 A wheelbarrow they would have respected, because that 
 is a low kind of personal property ; but Lord Byron's child 
 was by law, during its period of existence, the highest kind 
 of personal property. How could they sympathize with it ? 
 And the man that created the property, how could any 
 human feeling for Mm enter their breasts? Neither Bob 
 EUiston, nor his confederates in iniquity, those five pickers 
 and stealers on the judgment-seat, were empty of human 
 kindness in general. But here the same cause steeled the 
 judges' hearts that had steeled the actor's heart ; the writer 
 was their intellectual superior. 
 
 These five tamperers with law and morality soon found 
 pupils to carry their principles into practice. 
 
 They say. Give a rogue an inch and he will take an ell. 
 
208 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 That is not true in copyright. Give an author swindler 
 half an inch, and he never has failed to take the whole piece 
 in any age or land. Those five author jugglers, and Lord 
 Kenyon (Colman v. Wathen), and Satan their leader, the 
 only one of the confederates who had the wit thoroughly to 
 comprehend what he was doing, begat Kenneth, and Ken- 
 neth begat pirates as a toad spawns tadpoles. 
 
 Kenneth, the son of Kenyon, and the five who bade swin- 
 dle Byron, is described at full in Richardson's " Eecolleo- 
 tions." 
 
 Extract from Douglas Jerrold's evidence. Blue Book, 
 p. 156: — 
 
 " ' The Kent Day ' was played in the country a fortnight 
 after it was produced at Drury Lane ; and I have a letter in 
 my pocket in which the manager (provincial) said he would 
 willingly have given me hi. for a copy had he not before 
 paid 11. for it to some stranger." [Mr. Jerrold goes on to 
 say he knew perfectly well who " some stranger " meant. 
 "Mr. Kenneth, at the corner of Bow Street, will supply 
 any gentleman with any manuscript on the lowest terms."] 
 
 2800. " How does he procure them ? is it by a short- 
 hand writer ? (a) 
 
 " He steals them somehow. 
 
 2801. " This is previous to publication ? 
 
 " Previous to publication. Authors receive a double in- 
 jury : in the first place they are not paid for their pieces, 
 and in the next place they are represented by the skeletons 
 of their dramas ; so that the author is not only robbed but 
 murdered." 
 
 This single pirate closed the provincial market to all the 
 dramatists in England, at a period when the vast decline of 
 prices in London made it more necessary than ever to their 
 bare existence. 
 
 Shallow dreamers, to whom the past is a dead letter, tell 
 you now that Englishmen cannot write plays. Forty years 
 ago shallow dreamers said Englishmen could not paint pic- 
 tures. Ask any old gentleman of taste you know whether 
 be does not remember the time when it was the creed of the 
 
 (a) Kenneth went to the theatre with a short-hand writer, who took 
 the words down and the " mise en scene " He had copyists ready 
 at homo to transcribe, and the stolen goods were on the way to the 
 provincial fences In a few hours. — Richardson, Vol. I., 272-6. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 209 
 
 upper classes in this country that only foreigners could paint 
 at all, and only a dead foreigner could paint fit to be seen. 
 If you have not access to such old gentlemen, consult Pye's 
 " Patronage of British Art," a standard work, and he will 
 show you that this was the creed of the country for more- 
 than a century, and was held to far more universally than, 
 the Thirty-nine Articles. It was imbedded in the English, 
 understanding like a pebble in a plum-pudding stone. Let 
 us knock the two cants together. I wish I could do the 
 same good turn for the canters' heads. 
 
 Knock the First. 
 
 There are now in this country more independent painters 
 viewing nature for themselves, and interpreting her their 
 way, than in any other nation. All the other schools in 
 Europe are stationary ; ours is striding on like a giant. In 
 one branch of the art, water colours, we are unrivalled. 
 In the other we very soon shall be. 
 
 Knock the Second. 
 
 Compare the prices Lord Northwick gave for his English 
 pictures with those they sold for the other day. There is the 
 solution. The prices of pictures have risen more than eight 
 hundred per cent, in fifty years, and the number and merit 
 in exact ratio. Mr. Holman Hunt has just spent three 
 years on a picture. The result is an immortal work.. How 
 could he have given three years to a picture fifty years ago? 
 The thing was impossible. 
 
 Prices of English Pictures and Plays now-a-days. 
 
 £ 
 Sunday in the Backwoods — Faed . . . 1,310 
 Sleeping Beauty — Maclise . . . • 900 
 
 Eastward Ho ! and companion, two pictures 
 
 — O'Neil 1,857 
 
 Uncle Tom and Wife, two little dogs, a wee¥s 
 
 work — Landseer ..... 800 
 
 II Duomo, Milan — Roberts . . . 1,010 
 
 Port na Spania — Stanfield .... 1,300 
 
 The above were sold under the hammer at Glasgow in 
 April last. 
 
 14 
 
210 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Sold at Christie's the other day. 
 
 Guineas. 
 
 Entrance to Calais Harbour — Cooke . . 350 
 
 Unloading a Smack — Walters 
 
 Almsdeeds of Dorcas — Dobson 
 
 The Passing Cloud — Hook 
 
 Perdita, a single figure — Leslie 
 
 A Landscape with Cattle — Troyon 
 
 Give, and ye shall receive — Philip . 
 
 Angelica Kaufiinan — Reynolds . 
 
 Bohemian Gipsies — Maclise . 
 
 The Storm — Linnell . 
 
 Pony and Boy, etc. — Landseer . . . 825 
 
 Solomon Eagle preaching in the Plague — 
 
 Poole . . . . . . .780 
 
 David slaying the Lion, with Landscape — 
 Linnell 770 
 
 At another sale, Titania, Bottom, etc. — Land- 
 seer 2,800 
 
 315 
 
 . 570 
 
 270 
 
 . 243 
 
 only 59 
 
 . 360 
 
 only 75 
 
 . 1,030 
 
 400 
 
 Knock the Third. 
 
 For " The Lady of Lyons," which in relative importance 
 is worth any four of the above pictures, Sir E. Bujwer is 
 said to have received 500/. Had he been a Frenchman it 
 would have been 6,000Z. 
 
 For the immortal " Rent Day " Douglas Jerrold received 
 150Z. (Blue Book, p. 157.) Born in France, he would have 
 received 3,000/. For " Black-eyed Susan," 60/. The actor 
 that played the principal part received 4,000/. for playing it 
 during its first run in London. 
 
 For the stock comedy of " Masks and Faces," Tom Tay- 
 lor and myself received 150/. It is worth, as a work of art, 
 about as much as the best of those pictures. Li France we 
 should have had 3,000/. at least for it. For the drama of 
 " Two Loves and a Life," we received 100/. In France a 
 play of that merit is worth 2,000/. 
 
 For a story inferior to either of these plays I have myself 
 received 1,100/. in England. 
 
 For "Tom and Jerry," Moncrieff received 200/. It 
 brought twenty thousand pounds profit to the theatre! 
 
 Now, if you please, we will look at the plays, and pic- 
 tures, and stories of the last century. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 211 
 
 Knock the Fourth, 
 
 Johnson. ~ 
 
 £ s. 
 
 " London," a short but immortal poem . 10 10 
 
 " Vanity of Human Wishes " . . . 15 15 
 
 " Irene," a wretched bad joZay . . . 315 
 
 "Livesof the Poets," worth 2,000Z. . 200 
 
 "Dictionary," eight years' labour, worth 
 
 6,000Z. 1,500 
 
 « Rasselas," worth 5001. .... 100 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 "i, Vicar of Wakefield," worth 3,000/. . . 60 
 Comedy, " Goodnatured Man " . . 500 
 Comedy, " She Stoops to Conquer ; " the- 
 atre, 5001 ; copyright, 3001. . . . 800 
 " A Short English Grammar " . . 5 5 
 
 Hogarth. 
 
 An account of his prices cotemporary with the above : — 
 
 Six pictures, " Marriage a la Mode " . . 120 guineas. 
 Deduct expensive frames, which cost him 
 four guineas each . . . . ■ 24 
 
 Profit ... 96 
 Worth 6,000Z. at least. 
 
 £ s. 
 Six pictures, being "The Harlot's Progress," 
 
 14 guineas each .... 88 4 
 
 Eight pictures, " The Rake's Progress " . 184 6 
 
 "Morning" 21 
 
 "Noon" 38 17 
 
 "Strolling Players" . . _. . 27 6 
 
 This picture, painted by one of his imitators 
 
 in this day, would fetch 800?. 
 Four " Election " pictures . . . . 210 
 In 1823 they fetched 1,700Z. under the ham- 
 mer ; now they would fetch 8,000?. 
 
 Gainsborough, from 1760-8, painted his lovely land- 
 scapes, and was fast dying of starvation, till he gave up art, 
 
212 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 and took to painting his customers' own faces. Then he 
 got a living, for tasteless vanity is of every age. Reynolds 
 comprehended his age from the first, carefully eschewed art, 
 and painted his brutal customers' faces. After twenty-five: 
 years disloyalty to art and fidelity to low vanity, he got high 
 prices. The great Wilson, who would not turn upholsterei^ 
 and paint looking-glasses for vain jackasses and jennyasses 
 to see themselves flattered in, lived and died in indigence. 
 He had often to sell his pictures to brokers, and they some- 
 times lost money by them. A shoemaker in Long Acre, 
 less blind and tasteless than many educated animals of the 
 day, used to buy them, and generally have one in his win- 
 dow, which he sold with diflficulty and for a few pounds. 
 Meantime — 
 
 Knock the Fifth. — Wilson's Dramatic Gotemporaries. 
 
 £ 
 " The Follies of a Day," comedy — Holcroft . 600 
 
 Copyright of ditto 300 
 
 "Road to Ruin" 900 
 
 Copyright of ditto 400 
 
 Coleman received 1,000Z. for the drama of "John Bull" 
 somewhat later. 
 
 Holcroft's receipts merely represent a very successful 
 play. He was not favoured. They all got the overplus of 
 three nights. « The Road to Ruin " filled the theatre, and 
 " Irene " did not : that is all the difference. 
 
 Copyright alone of two tragedies by Jephson, 150?. apiece. 
 — Malone in Prokgom. 
 
 Copyright alone of the " Heiress," by Lieut.-General Bur- 
 goyne, in 1786, 200?. 
 
 1750. « The Brothers," by Dr. Young. Stageright and 
 copyright, 1,000Z. 
 
 1728. "Beggar's Opera," 2,000?. Stageright, 1,600/.; 
 copyright, 400?. 
 
 "Polly." License refused by chamberlain. Copyright, 
 
 1723. "Mariamne," by Elijah Fenton. Stageright and 
 copyright, 1,000?. 
 
 This takes you back to a period already treated, supra. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 213 
 
 Knock the Sixth. 
 
 In France the dramatist has now for many years been 
 paid by a percentage on the gross receipts every night his 
 play is performed : this has a main feature in common with 
 our three night system ; it rewards in proportion to success. 
 It is the healthiest market the world has ever seen since 
 Shakspeare's day. It not only secures a large remuneration 
 to the author, but a mathematically just one. He is paid 
 in exact ratio with his merit, since a good piece runs many 
 nights, and fills the house, and a bad piece runs few nights^ 
 and does not fill the house. To this system, and just judges, 
 do the French owe their present dramatic superiority. 
 
 Under the French system a good first piece is worth 
 1,5001. to 3,000?. Ponsard received 4,000?. for "La 
 Bourse ; " Dumas fils must have received 5,000?. for " La 
 Dame aux Camillas." The consequence is, every master 
 of fiction in France writes for the stage. Talent always 
 follows the market. France has a great national drama, 
 and, while that system lasts, always will. So should we. 
 That system would raise a drama in Zahara. 
 
 Now realize our position. Piracy cuts the English in- 
 ventor's throat by means of French justice. If the French 
 were a nation of thieves and idiots in re dramatics, as we 
 are, we could afford to remain the thieves and idiots we are 
 in re dramatics,. But their intelligence and probity enables 
 English rascality and folly to extinguish the English drama. 
 Paris, under her honest system, like the good soil in the 
 Scripture, is so fertile that she can enable thieves to supply 
 all the London theatres with stolen novelties. True, Lon- 
 don is larger than Paris ; but by monopoly the London the- 
 atres are reduced to the Parisian number, and the number 
 of pieces our theatres require is reduced below the Parisian 
 figure by piracy. As thus : in the honest city, that pro- 
 duces " Don Csesar de Bazan," by making it worth a man's 
 while to invent him, " Don Csesar " can only be played at 
 one theatre ; but in the Newgate-thief-cum-Bedlam idiot 
 city, that steals French plays instead of buying them, " Don 
 Csesar " can be played at all the theatres, alias fence houses, 
 at once. He was played at about seventeen London thea- 
 tres I believe, excluding sixteen other pieces. In Paris he 
 could exclude but one. " Corsican Brothers," ditto, and 
 many others. Probable effect on the London public may 
 
214 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 be inferred from this fact ; a stage-struck friend of mine left 
 England flying before the face of this single comedy. And 
 whither think you he fled for refuge from " Don C»sar " ? 
 
 To Paris. 
 
 " J am of to Paris," says he. " I shall see a dozen French 
 plays there. In this confounded hole I can only see one." 
 
 That was a voice from the English public. 
 
 This Englishman fled from a barbarous little French 
 province to the great French metropolis. Galliam Caesare 
 profugus Scribianaque venit littora. 
 
 The Parliamentary Committee led to an enactment which, 
 unlike most of our statutes, is clearly worded, by some man 
 oP genius, whose heart is with the honest author. This act 
 forbids the pirate to steal " a play or any part of a play." 
 
 The miserable scribblers, who word most of the statute 
 of the realm, can no more put such master words as that 
 into a statute, than a jelly-fish can fly. The half honest 
 men who pass most of our copyright acts are incapable of 
 such words. Their plan is this : twelve long paragraphs in 
 favour of the honest man, and thus worded, " Buzz ! buzz ! 
 buzz ! " Then one clear sentence, containing the master 
 swindle, that knocks all that buzz, buzz, buzz on the head (a). 
 The honest sentences are in Norman French and jargon ; 
 the swindle is in plain English. The reason is, their hearts, 
 the best thing they have about them, are with the pirate. 
 The heart speaks clear. Their heads and their consciences, 
 the two obscurest and feeblest things they possess, are with 
 the honest man. 
 
 On that rock of granite, the dramatic act of Will. IV., I 
 now invite the statesmen of the day to build a great and 
 glorious national drama in these islands, by repealing tyran- 
 nical monopoly and Cleptomania. Any man can set up a 
 
 (o) Such are the two international copyright acts of 1838 and 1844. 
 In favour of the foreign author, buzz ! buzz ! buzz ! Against him the 
 master swindle robbing him in a single sentence of all property in 
 his ideas ; permitting any man to translate him. Suppose a foreigner 
 relying on all that buzz printed his worlc in England, then the true 
 favourite of the legislature, the heartless pirate, translates it. And 
 pray what chance has the foreigner in that competition ? It is not 
 in nature that the public should buy enough copies to pay the ex- 
 penses of any work in a foreign language, when they can buy it trans- 
 lated and cheaper ; for the larger sale admits low price. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 215 
 
 publisher's shop, and any man ought to be able to open a 
 theatre. The distmction is unreasonable, un-English ; for 
 it gives unconstitutional powers to a subject, and is a mere 
 superstitious relic of a system of false legislation exploded 
 in these islands for blighting every plant it touched. Nor 
 has it any exceptional ground to respect. It was passed into 
 law by the most notorious rogue, as far as we know, that 
 ever administered public affairs in England, from a motive 
 purely personal; the means bribery direct, preceded by 
 theft ; for this minister used to bribe honourable gentlemen, 
 not with his own money, but the public money. In fact, if 
 he had not happened to be premier, he would have been 
 hanged nearly every month in those pendulous days. All 
 his cotemporaries, who loved the constitution or respected 
 the rights of Britons, cried shame on the measure in both 
 houses. Why, then, perpetuate an unconstitutional Act, 
 whose object exists no more, whose motive you despise, sind 
 whose originator is a by-word ? There is no reasonable ob- 
 jection to free trade in theatres that is not cured by a distinct 
 provision, the censure of plays. Let the plays be proper, 
 strictly proper, as much more proper than " Faust and Mar- 
 guerite " as you think proper ; but to limit the shops is 
 superfluous. It is Austrian legislation, not English, and 
 drives men to far worse places, and puts arbitrary, physical 
 limits to a whole class of productions of the human mind. 
 
 If this proposal is too strong a dose of common sense and 
 sound policy for my cotemporaries, why then leave that to 
 the next generation, my little dears, or the next after, and 
 let us at least cut off the other end of this rotten stick by 
 repeahng 
 
 Gleptomania. 
 
 " Gleptomania " is a term the doctors give to a certain 
 unreasonable itch for stealing, which affects respectable 
 people, overpowers common sense, religion, and their true 
 interest. True Gleptomania seldom occurs except during 
 pregnancy. Some persons in that interesting state are very 
 delicate, and cannot keep their hands off articles of com- 
 merce, so unstrung are they. They appropriate pastry, or 
 pocket handkerchiefs, or jewels out of shops, at a frightful 
 risk, with money in both pockets to pay for them. 
 
 It appears that a sort of physical craving for the article 
 
216 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 of commerce really comes over the sufferers hy this ailment. 
 There was a case years ago of a lady of high rank who 
 could not keep her hands off the things, but used to send 
 them back. Conscience revived the irresistible itch once 
 satisfied. I have heard on good authority of one whose dis- 
 order drove her upon cheese-cakes, and the sly pastry-cook 
 never said a word, but used privately to charge the husband 
 six cheese-cakes for every one she stole. The poor husband 
 always paid the bill blindfold, and only too glad. Thus the 
 British trader overpowered theft at its own weapons, in 
 which there is something grand. In one or two well-known 
 eases, recent ones, an iron shopkeeper has confounded this 
 disease with a moral disorder, whose external symptoms are 
 the same, and taken the sufferer up. In these cases her con- 
 duct never varies ; she comes to the bar dressed richly, but 
 plainly ; holds her tongue, and cries the whole time. Thus 
 nature, whose victim she has been, relents, and teaches her 
 to liquidate the debt she owes to justice. So bedewed we 
 turn syrup, and don't know what to do with her. When the 
 theft is thoroughly irrational (half as irrational as the satanic 
 proviso will do), and evidence is forthcoming that she was 
 really parturient, the magistrate is very lenient. But our 
 legislative chambers have not the same excuse : all the wo- 
 men there are old ones. Why then this Cleptomaniacal pro- 
 viso, which holds out one hand in friendship, and filches with 
 the other from the foreign dramatist and composer, and 
 stains the national honour in order to gain a loss by robbing 
 the English inventor of a fair remuneration, and the Eng- 
 lish public of a national drama, and original music, and the 
 true text of foreign composers ? 
 
 It cannot seriously be pretended that this proviso was in- 
 serted to balance interests. What single interest is benefited 
 in any proportion to the loss those three great interests suffer ? 
 If the trader gained all those three gre^t interests lose, then 
 I admit it would not be Cleptomania, but an old acquaintance 
 in England, — swinish partiality for the godlike shopkeeper, 
 swinish antipathy to the immortal («) author. But there i? 
 
 (a) Whenever copyright is at stake, it's the immoital author whose 
 interest is at stake. The ephemeral scribbler cannot be pirated, and his 
 labour is always paid in proportion to the time bestowed on it. It is 
 therefore only by means of severe copyright you can raise the im- 
 mortal author to as good a commercial position as ephemeral writers fill 
 without a copyright. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 217 
 
 not that excuse. The godlike shopkeeper, whether theatri- 
 cal manager or publisher, is not profited in the same ratio 
 as the three great interests suffer. My Lords Beaumont 
 and Cranworth seem to think he is (April 30, 1852, Han- 
 sard) ; but they are misled by a hasty glance at a subject, 
 which lies in a fog because genius has never shone on it. 
 They were deluded by two errors: 1st, they fancied that 
 under international copyright the godlike shopkeeper would 
 have to make the low dog of a foreign Shakspeare a present. 
 Pure hallucination, my lords ! 2nd, they mistook one small 
 figure in a complicated account for the sum total an edition 
 costs the godlike shopkeeper. 
 
 Let us come out of the fog into figures. 
 
 I begin with the publisher. It matters little what figures 
 we select to deal with, so that the proportion is kept. Take 
 Longman's, furnished to M'Culloch's " Dictionary," p. 161. 
 Expenses of a thousand copies of a 12«. book : — 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 Printing and 
 
 correcting 
 
 . 101 
 
 10 
 
 Paper 
 
 . 
 
 64 
 
 
 
 Boarding 
 
 . 
 
 . 32 
 
 
 
 Advertising 
 
 • 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 257 10 
 
 Now suppose this to be a foreign work, then we must add, 
 say 251. to the translator ; total 282?. For this sum the pub- 
 lisher in the year 1850 would get what? The books and 
 publicity, and nothing more. Comes the international copy- 
 right in 1851, and for 25Z. more to be paid the inventor, 
 or 307?. instead of 282Z., gives him something of gigantic 
 value — gives him property, i. «., the sole right of selling 
 those copies and creating others. 282Z. for the right of 
 grazing with all the parish on a common ; 307Z. for the right 
 of enclosing the whole common for your own use. 
 
 In dealing with an English author of reputation, copyright 
 is by far the heaviest of all the publisher's investments, yet 
 it is the most profitable. In deaUng on the square with a 
 foreign author, it is the lightest of all the publisher's invest- 
 ments, yet infinitely the most profitable. Now suppose a 
 publisher that knows his business, as a hosier always knows 
 his. Such a man selects good and popular foreign works. 
 
218 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 He goes to Freytag, and gives him 40?. for the copyright of 
 " Debit and Credit." He sells thirty thousand copies, and 
 makes 3,000Z. This was on the cards. Instead of that, out 
 of mere Cleptomania, the first publisher took the ideas 
 without the copyright, instead of buying the ideas with the 
 copyright. This enabled three or four more to steal from 
 him, and so Bedlam-cum-Newgate tore the profits limb 
 from jacket. Latro Lunaticus No. 1 sacrificed probity and 
 thousands of pounds, and saved 401. Pure Cleptomania. 
 
 It costs the manager of a first-class theatre about 80?. to 
 lift his curtain. We will add authorship. The average price 
 of a stolen adaptation (first piece) at the Haymarket is about 
 60?., and runs about forty nights. This raises the manager's 
 nightly expenses to 81Z. 10s. If the S. P. had not been in- 
 serted, the French piece, and consequently the adaptation, 
 could have been made English property for 30Z. This would 
 have raised the nightly expenses from 81?. 10«. to nearly 
 82?. 10s. But for the higher of these sums the manager 
 plays the piece, and is not pirated. For the lower he only 
 gets the right of playing it, with the absolute certainty that 
 he won't be allowed to keep it to himself six days, if it is 
 worth stealing. Will any theatrical manager pretend that 
 the sole use of an adaptation of a good French piece does 
 not draw 10?. per night more into the house than the joint 
 use of it with competing theatres ? My friend Mr. Ben- 
 jamin Webster will not say so. He has told me again and 
 again he would much rather buy of the Frenchman, and 
 have the piece to himself. 
 
 Take the above figures to Newgate, and ask any ordinary 
 thief there his opinion on the satanic proviso, and he will 
 turn his nose up at his own business when you show it 
 him degraded so low in intelligence as this. It is a sad 
 waste of immorality. But perhaps you think the English 
 adapter would be ruined by legislative honesty. In the 
 first place the adapter is not a godlike shopkeeper ; so we 
 need not sacrifice French and English authors and the pub- 
 lic to him. But in truth he would not be much affected by 
 a pure law ; say that instead of 60?. he was offered 40?. by 
 the manager. The country copyright would become his, 
 instead of a mere joint right shared with a dozen competi- 
 tors, and that provincial copyright is worth the odd 20?. to 
 him. Under this system the manager's payment to the 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 219 
 
 French author would be reduced one-half. In his character 
 bf an ally, swindler, and fence, he paid 60Z. to a thief for a 
 no property. In his character of an honest trader he would 
 pay the Frenchman 40^., and an honest adapter 40/. ; total, 
 80Z. ; receiving for the odd 20/. a property, worth in some 
 cases 4,000/. To return to the nightly figures : 81/. 10s. 
 per night for actors, fiddlers, rent, gas, and a stolen play 
 that anybody could rob him of; 82/. per night for actors, etc., 
 and a bought play that nobody could rob him of. 
 
 What do you think of the adaptation swindle reduced to 
 figures ? Are we not indebted to the doctors for teaching 
 us that word, Cleptomania ? Did ever a word so fit a thing ? 
 
 1. The national honour stained. 
 
 2. The national drama artificially suppressed. 
 
 3. The petty pirate in rags. 
 
 4. The EngHsh musical inventor driven out of the theatre 
 by stolen inventions. 
 
 5. The musical public duped and defrauded by the foreign 
 composer's text being sold in a filthy, impure, degraded, 
 garbled state, at the price of a pure text. 
 
 And all for what ? 
 
 In my first part I appealed to such of my readers as are ca- 
 pable of a sense of honour in matters that touch the fine arts. 
 
 I now appeal to such of my readers as don't believe in 
 honour where the immortal arts are concerned, and those who 
 live by them. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, take the lowest level. I ask you, is 
 this suicidal swindle creditable to so wide-awake a nation as 
 ours, and one that knows the money value of character ? 
 
 Let us now trace the S. P., and the probable consequences 
 of removing it. 
 
 Gentlemen whose names are never heard by the public 
 but as adapters of French plays tell you, under the friendly 
 cover of the anonymous, that adaptation requires dramatic 
 talent. But this is the pipe of vanity and ignorance : they 
 have never invented, or they wpuld know the difference. 
 Now I have done both. I have adapted French pieces with 
 invariable success, and I have invented. I am therefore a 
 better authority ; and I pledge you my honour that to invent 
 good pieces is very hard (a), and to adapt them is quite as 
 
 (a) A French dramatist, one of the most successful, made the same 
 remark to me in conversation : " II est trfes-difficile ecrire des b ^nnes 
 pieces du theatre." 
 
220 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 easy as shelling peas. The S. P. enables men of no dra- 
 matic genius, nor even talent, to steal plays and sell them. 
 The managers, knowing any fool can do it, propose to 
 themselves to get the stolen goods for nothing. They work 
 in two classes. The second-rate theatres (three-fourths of 
 the whole) pay some low scribbler 51. to steal them a French 
 piece. It runs fifty nights, which is 2«. per night for author- 
 ship. The gas, the carpenters, the actors, the fiddler^, the 
 rent, cost the manager say iOl. a night. The work of art, 
 to play which the actors mouth and rant, to set off which the 
 painters paint and the fiddlers fiddle, costs 2s. per night 
 Thus does the English prig profit by swindling the French 
 author. God is just to Frenchmen if we are not, and does 
 not smile on those who swindle men of merit merely be- 
 cause they are in England what he was in Abraham's tent 
 The respectable manager deals in larger figures, and drives 
 a more complicated bargain, but quite as keen and silly a 
 one. He gives iOl. - lOOZ. for a stolen piece ; but to whom? 
 In most cases to a journalist that steals French pieced 
 This journalist is one of a camaraderie, a gang of prigs and 
 venal judges, sworn to mutual protection, and to exclude, if 
 possible, all interlopers. Under the apparent bargain then 
 lies the real bargain, an interchange of bribes between a 
 prig and a fence ; 60Z. for the piece, i. e. 101. for the French- 
 man's intellect and 50/. for the Englishman's immorality, and 
 his pals'. The thing is too notorious to requu-e proof. 
 However, here is an independent witness for you : — 
 
 Chambers's Journal, July 24, 1858. 
 
 " He sees the true relation between the London dramatic 
 author and the critic of the daily paper, and sometimes 
 stares to find them one and indivisible. Most of our play 
 and farce writers are on the press ; and a shrewd manager 
 takes care to select his authors accordingly, knowing that 
 they form a clique, of which each member is bound to puff 
 the other's production, because all in their turn need a sim- 
 ilar favour [i. e., laudari a laudato]. Outsiders seldom get 
 a piece accepted ; but when they do, what a gauntlet of 
 criticism they have to run ! " 
 
 This is virtually a monopoly. Theatres limited by ty- 
 ranny ; number of writers limited by conspiracy. Most 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 221 
 
 traders would buy the press if thexcould ; "and pay high ; 
 but they cannot. Indirectly th© manager can. Hence it is 
 that London theatrical criticism wallows in fraud and cor- 
 ruption, like a hog in a sty. Its impudent venality is not of 
 our age. It is what political criticism used to be under 
 Harley and Walpole, and for the same cause. And so the 
 public is duped and defrauded. English genius excluded 
 from the stage, and the dramatic art pines for want of honest 
 criticism. 
 
 " Pessimum inimicorum genus laudantes, 
 Alitur vitiura vivit que tegendo," etc. 
 
 For though this artificial bolstering up of mediocre art by 
 venal praise seduces what Mr. Chambers is polite enough to 
 call " shrewd " men, yet wise and well-read men know by 
 the history of the arts, that under this clique protection they 
 always lose their popularity through declining in merit. 
 Shrewd indeed ! to lay down their sick man under the shel- 
 ter of the upas tree. 
 
 ..AU this the removal of the adaptation swindle would cure 
 by slow degrees. Fences' prices (which cannot exist in 
 trade hut by crime') would be abolished with that mean 
 fraud, and the false and inverted scale of remuneration, 
 which has shocked every upright mind and feeling heart, 
 would receive its death blow. 
 
 In England the tailor who cuts is paid more than the 
 tailors who sew his work, and in France the author draws 
 about one-tenth of the nightly receipts of the theatre that 
 plays his piece. At fifteen London theatres out of twenty 
 he draws about one five-hundredth of the nightly receipts of 
 his play ; yet the theatres thrive far better in Paris than 
 here. Hence I infer that God looks upon an author and his 
 dependent family as human, though these brutes do not. 
 Compelled to buy from France instead of stealing, the man- 
 agers would cease to narrow their unconstitutional monopoly 
 by closing those few theatres to original English talent. 
 They would no longer play mediocre French pieces rather 
 than read an original MS., which is confessedly the case 
 now. They would select the best French plays, and pay for 
 them such a price as the poor English inventor might just 
 manage to compete with without dying of absolute starva- 
 tion. And they would not play quite so many French pieces 
 
222 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 as they do, and so English talent, being essentially dramatic, 
 would creep in through the two chinks. ^ 
 
 When this had lasted five years, those indications of na- 
 tive talent, which I can see already, would crop visibly out 
 in all directions, and in twelve years from date of believing 
 in God, Father of French and English authors, as well as 
 of tinkers and tailors, genius would follow. In less than 
 twenty years some great writer, finding himself freed from 
 the massacring competition of stolen goods, would either 
 take a theatre, or insist upon a fair share of the receipts of 
 one in return for his plays. This system, the old Shak- 
 sperian and modern French, once established, a great and 
 glorious national drama would speedily follow by a law as 
 certain as that which raises pictures or potatoes the moment 
 a good market is open to the grower. If we could get the 
 kidnapping swindle put down as well as the adaptation 
 swindle, then the national drama in question would rise in a 
 smaller number of years ; that is all. 
 
 Will any member of the House of Commons oblige me 
 and honour himself by founding a national drama — a drama 
 more glorious than ever shone in this country — with two 
 strokes of the pen, each through an acknowledged swindle ? 
 
 Four attempts will be made, sooner or later, to evade the 
 conclusions in this book : — 
 
 1st. Cephalomancy. Herr Cant will tell you, in poly- 
 syllables, that an intuition so inveterate as his, viz., that 
 England is not dramatic by nature, is not to be put down by 
 a miserable mass of legal evidence extending over eight 
 centuries. 
 
 2nd. The sham sample swindle. A few prices and figures 
 will be brought forward, which will seem to muddleheads to 
 contradict my averages. The answer is, 1st, look in the 
 encyclopaedias for the meaning of the word " average." 
 2nd, examine on oath those who contradict me. 
 
 Srd. Personal impertinence. 
 
 4th. That copyright is a monopoly. That we live in an 
 age of free trade, the spirit of which is averse to monopo- 
 lies : therefore Parliament ought not to interfere. Now this 
 is a fallacy that will not take in Mr. John Stuart Mill, nor 
 Mr. Mansell, nor my Lords Lyndhurst and Campbell ; but 
 I know by history that it will guU every puny lawyer, every 
 petty statesman, and every sloppy-headed merchant in the 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 223 
 
 island, if those easy victims of loose language are not put on 
 their guard. 
 
 Truth has as many enemies on earth as a herring has at 
 sea. But in matters of discussion her most terrible foe, 
 perhaps, is the giant Equivoque, — a giant omnipotent in 
 England, because our language is infested with so many of 
 his myrmidons, words bearing two senses. 
 
 Receipt to make an Ass. 
 
 Take a countryman ! a beer-drinker is the surest. Then 
 catch a word that bears two meanings. Construct an argu- 
 ment : use your double-faced word in one sense in one of 
 your premises, and in the other sense in your conclusion, 
 and, diaboli gratia, you shall make an ass of a fellow- 
 creature. 
 
 I have seen the united intellect of a whole party in the 
 House of Commons baffled by this precious piece of reason- 
 ing : " How can you object to Jews sitting in this house 
 when St. Paul himself was a Jew ? " 
 
 Here, in the premises, the Jew means a Christian born of 
 Jewish parents. In the conclusion it means a Jew by creed. 
 
 Not a creature in that brilliant assembly could answer this 
 clumsy quibble. It was repeated a dozen times, too. 
 
 There is a religious sect, called Puseyites, — a most re- 
 spectable sect, on whom I would not for the world cast a 
 general reflection. 
 
 Their clergy practise self-mortification ; and blandly aspire 
 to set the clergy above the gospel. One fine day they cited 
 holy writ to that purpose ; which was adroit. " The Bible 
 bids you ' hear the church ' ! " said they : " therefore you of 
 the laity cease to think in religion : shut your eyes and fol- 
 low your Heaven-appointed leaders." 
 
 The equivoque turns on the word "church." In the 
 premiss or cited passage it means " the congregation of the 
 faithful," i. e., the laity and the clergy. It carries no other 
 meaning in any part of holy writ, when applied to living 
 creatures. In modern history some drunken fool got up one 
 day after dinner and proposed this monstrous toast, " Church 
 and State." From that date the word " church " got to be 
 used sometunes to mean " the clergy." But the Bible was 
 not written after dinner: so there the church means the 
 
224 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 church. The equivoque was not I think quite so clumsy as 
 the Jew (a) quibble, but it did its work. About five hun- 
 dred thousand insular understandings succumbed under this 
 thing like one very small child kicked hard in the abdomen 
 by a giant. 
 
 I could cite you a melancholy list of this stupid giant's 
 triumphs over the mind; but to the equivoque on hand. 
 The word " monopoly " means an arbitrary restriction of the 
 right of sale to certain persons limited and specified. But 
 one fine day one of those addlepates, that infest legislation, 
 applied the term monopoly to any restricted right of sale, 
 no matter how acquired, or how open to acquisition. But in 
 this sense the term was sure to get confounded with " prop- 
 erty" by sloppy thmkers ; for every man has by nature the 
 sole right to sell his own property.. 
 
 " Cheek by jowl " is the antidote to equivoque. 
 
 Monopoly applied to 
 French tobacco. 
 
 Tobacco, no matter how ac- 
 quired, can by law only be sold, 
 to the French public by certain 
 persons limited and specified by 
 the government. On any in- 
 fraction of their monopoly the 
 law will interfere with special 
 remedies. 
 
 French tobacco, put on 
 the basis of Copyright. 
 
 Here is a piece of ground 
 common to the whole nation. 
 Whoever applies his labour to 
 this, and rears tobacco, shall 
 have the sole right of selling 
 so much and no more of it than 
 he produces. This sole right 
 he can sell to any dealer in to- 
 bacco and pipes; and as there 
 are special facUities for evading 
 this right, the law will interfere 
 for its protection with special 
 
 Monopoly, 
 
 as it applies to English 
 
 tobacco. 
 
 Copyright applied to 
 English tobacco 
 (hypothetically) . 
 
 No man, woman, nor child Any man, woman, or child 
 must grow tobacco for sale in may grow tobacco for sale on 
 
 (o) For Heaven's sake don't think I am putting my nose into poli- 
 tics ; and objecting to the admission of Jews into Parliament. I don't 
 trouble my head about such trifles. What I object to is bad logic 
 bbmg admitted thera Where there are sound reasons for a measure, 
 that is not exactly an excuse for advancing rotten ones. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 225 
 
 the British isles. Imported to- 
 bacco, after duty paid, is free. 
 The foreign grower has a sort of 
 monopoly, it seems. 
 
 Monopoly applied to 
 
 mental productions 
 
 (hypothetically) . 
 
 1. Only certain specified per- 
 sons must write, and create 
 copyright. 
 
 2. Anybody may create copy- 
 right, but only certain persons 
 must deal in it, between author 
 and public, i. e. Certain per- 
 sons only must publish, 
 
 or. 
 
 Anybody may publish, but 
 the wholesale or else the retail 
 booksellers must be limited. 
 
 3a. The number of theatres 
 selling plays must be limited. 
 
 common lands in the British 
 isles. So grown it becomes 
 property : no pirate must gather 
 for sale what his neighbour has 
 so grown, and he has been too 
 lazy to grow. 
 
 Copyright proper. 
 
 There are twenty-eight mil- 
 lion people in the British isles. 
 Every one of these human crea- 
 tures, by bestowing his labour 
 so as not to rob his neighbour, 
 is permitted by law to create 
 an intellectual production. This 
 he, she, or it, has the sole right 
 of selling. The right is trans- 
 ferable by sale, to a pubhsher 
 or any dealer, who then takes 
 the producer's place. It is a 
 right resting on the same moral 
 basis as that of a man building 
 a house with his own hands out 
 of allowed materials. The man 
 has the sole right to let or sell 
 the fruit of his honest labour. 
 
 Copyright then you see has all the essentials of property, 
 and lacks all the essentials of monopoly. In the single in- 
 stance marked 3a monopoly exists, but is adverse to copy- 
 right, not protective of it : rather suppressive of its natural 
 growth. There never was a monopoly in creation open to 
 every individual in a nation upon any terms ; still less open as 
 an uniform and legal consequence of honest labour, or pur- 
 chase from labour. But we can all create copyright, and we 
 can all set up as booksellers. Mr. Justice Talfourd knew 
 perfectly well what he was saying when he wrote into the 
 Act of 5th and 6th Victoria that " all copyright is personal 
 property." 
 
 The blunder perhaps arose by confounding the mode of 
 protection, which is exceptional (to meet an exceptional at- 
 tack), with the basis of the right, which is universal, being 
 15 
 
226 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 simply a man's exclusive right to the fruits of his unsalaried 
 labour. 
 
 The equivoque I have here briefly exposed will be pre- 
 sented to you thus. In the premises " Monopoly " will be 
 used in the sense of " property : " in the conclusion it will 
 figure in the sense of " Monopoly." This dialectical fraud 
 has duped most English minds for the last ninety years. It 
 will surely dupe no reader of mine, whose brains are not 
 made of train oil. 
 
 I am not a freebooter : I am not a protectionist. I am a 
 free trader. I don't want a duty on French plays. Heaven 
 forbid. I want them to be admitted under the banner of 
 Free Trade, i. e., honest purchase, and entry into our ports 
 duty free. Most of our producers are still protected by duty 
 being laid on the foreign production. iVb one of our pro- 
 ducers, from John o' Groat's house to Idzard Point, is svh- 
 jected to the competition of goods not only duty free, but puv^ 
 chase free — the dramatist excepted. Why separate the dra- 
 matic author, English and French, from all creation"? Why 
 outlaw Shakspeare pro virili ? You pretend to revere him ! 
 yet if God let him come on earth again to-morrow, here is a 
 swindle that outlaws him, with no motive but the holy itch for 
 outlawing Victor Hugo. What an act, with what an excuse ! 
 They improve but little by being reversed. In that view the 
 Cleptomaniacal proviso outlaws French genius, with no earthly 
 motive but to outlaw English genius. With this I commit 
 " the Monopoly equivoque " for the present to the care of 
 Mr. John Bright. 
 
 Patent right is own brother to Copyright. It also has 
 been too harshly called a monopoly. It is a property not so 
 utterly (a) helpless as copyright : but still it is so easily invad- 
 
 (d) The printing press is an invention almost supernataral, and has 
 no parallel in creation. It is by forgetting this, men wander into hol- 
 low comparisons. A great genius with ten years' labour produces a 
 masterpiece of the mind, and prints it for his remuneration. The next 
 day three quiet idiots in Bedlam, by means of that astonishing machine 
 go to work and reproduce exactly the intellectual effort of the master. 
 You can't tell the idiots' copy from the author's. But the author has 
 got not only the expense of printing and paper to recover by the price 
 of his book, but also the ten years' labour, say 4,0002., putting him at 
 the rate of a merchant's clerk. The three idiots therefore can sell their 
 copies at a profit three or four times as cheap as he can, copies that are 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 227 
 
 ed and speedily destroyed that the law preferring the lasting 
 interest of the public, viz., the encouragement of inventors 
 to its immediate interest, which is, to steal every existing 
 copyright, patent right, volume, machine, and outlying shirt 
 in creation, does wisely and justly protect it by special rem- 
 edies. 
 
 Extract from a Weekly. 
 
 " In the Court of Chancery the suit for declaration of rights 
 between Mr. John Bright, M.P., and other parties, for working a 
 patent in carpet printing, came to a conclusion after having occu- 
 pied six days. [Good gracious ! they had been and printed every 
 living creature on wool. And the Court took them all in the 
 order of Genesis.] The decision was in the main in favour of Mr. 
 Bright, etc. No costs allowed." 
 
 Mr. Bright then holds a mechanical copyright, or a share 
 in one. He holds it either by invention or honest purchase 
 (1 '11 bet a thousand guineas to a shilling he does not hold it 
 by piracy), and he can tell the difference between monopoly, 
 which he dislikes as much I do, and property, which we all ~ 
 love, and don't like to be done out of it. Then why do Du- 
 mas and Scribe out of it ? My French brethren and I trust 
 to Mr. Bright never to let the house confound stage right, 
 patent right, and copyright, with arbitrary monopolies such 
 as tobacco in Austria, and the London theatres in England. 
 
 Generally, I advise the lovers of equivoque to study our 
 only contemporary who uses it intelligently : " Punch." The 
 pun is the one sensible form equivoque is capable of So 
 applied it amuses even the wise, and wrongs nobody. 
 
 But to take what Heaven has given us for our innocent 
 amusement, and gravely to level it against the sacred rights 
 of property and skilled labour, is to be damnably wicked and 
 silly, yet not a bit funny. 
 
 worth just as much. The idiots can even print cheaper than he can : 
 for it costs less to compose from printed matter than MS., and does 
 not require a fortieth part of the intelligence. The Patentee is subject 
 to a similar attack, but not quite so massacring a one. There is no 
 demi-supernalural machine for reproducing mechanical inventions ; and 
 I read with gusto that some of the attempts to swindle James Watt 
 failed. They could not pirate his work always. It needed too much 
 brains even to imitate it. The poor author has no such safeguard, and 
 the Legislature in first giving or conferring literary property, not mo- 
 nopoly, comprehended perfectly the alternatives ; Copyright, or stania- 
 tion, or no more immortal works. 
 
228 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 CAP. XVIII. 
 
 Ephemebai. legislation is an anomaly. It is more mon- 
 strous than an ephemeral epic poem. Yet in the immortal 
 arts nothing greater nor wiser than ephemeral legislation is 
 usually attempted in England. Look at the century and a 
 half of unteachable stupidity our statute book reveals. How 
 many copyright acts each in its turn have proved mere rot^ 
 ten reeds, and have been repealed, and another rotten law 
 substituted, till its turn came to be displaced for inefflcacy 
 and replaced by something inefficacious. Our legislation on 
 other matters is not like this. In fact these brainless laws 
 are not like any acts of the human mind, where intelligence 
 and power meet in a legislative body : they are more like 
 geese following one another across a common. 
 
 The main reason is, the legislator has never yet reaUy 
 loved virtue nor hated vice in this particular matter. He 
 has also underrated the pirate, his stony (a) heartlessness, 
 his diabolical cunning, and plausibility, and his mendacity, 
 which has never in a single known instance recoiled from 
 perjury in a court of justice ; so keeps giving the pirate an 
 inch, and the pirate keeps taking a thousand ells. 
 
 Would you be an immortal legislator for the immortal 
 arts : instead of underrating your antagonist, which is the 
 first step towards reducing your defeat to a dead certainty, 
 picture to yourself Michael the Archangel binding Satan ! 
 I swear to you by Heaven you have got just such a job in 
 hand whenever you frame a patent act or a copyright act, 
 to defend author, painter, or engraver. Yet Michael did. 
 bind the Arch Pirate ; but not by underrating his slipperi- 
 ness : not by making the nooses easy for fear he should 
 
 (a) Pirates have repeatedly seen the author die of starvation, or kill 
 himself, or go mad, as a natural consequence of the ruin brought on 
 him by the act of piracy : in no single instance has one syllable of re- 
 morse escaped the murderer. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 229 
 
 have no chance of slipping^ out at all. He bound him in 
 earnest : and it is only so English law will ever prevail to 
 bind the pirate, Satan's true type upon earth, supple, plausi- 
 ble, a thief, hot pro bono suo, oh dear, no, pro bono publico : 
 up to every move, but inventive labour, adapting, comment- 
 ing, varying, imitating, discolouring, lying, equivocating, per- 
 jured, and remorseless as Hell itself. 
 
 The next step towards immortal legislation, is to believe 
 in God quite, instead of half or one third. To ask yourself 
 ■whether it can be pleasing to the Father of us all, that any 
 human being should be picked out of all mankind and struck 
 by his fellow-creatures off the roll of humanity, condemned 
 to be robbed of the fruits of his inventive, unsalaried labour, 
 though no other human creature can be robbed of the fruits 
 of his unsalaried labour ; and this to his ruin and that of those 
 who depend (a) upon him. 
 
 That he is only robbed of " incorporeal rights " (J) is the 
 pettifogger's answer ; but it is no answer at all. His body 
 and his children's are starved by the infraction of his " incor- 
 poreal rights." When Scapula and Henri Estienne come to 
 eompt, and that ill-fated scholar accuses Scapula of ruining, 
 maddening, and killing him by " the abridgment swindle," 
 will Scapula look up in that judge's face and say, "Oh ! it 
 was only an 'incorporeal right' I swindled him out of" ? 
 
 A nice argument to offer to a judge who is himself incor- 
 poreal. 
 
 On this rock you may build anti-piratical legislation as 
 immortal as your " Acts against cutting and maiming." But 
 you must begin with four granite blocks : — 
 
 1. The habit of inventing is a far richer national treasure 
 than a pyramid of stolen inventions. 
 
 2. Invention is, on the average, the highest and hardest 
 
 (a) Every able workman, in theory of legislation, and in average of 
 fact, has a wife and children depending on his labour. 
 
 (6) Query whether even this term is not maddleheaded. Is the ex- 
 clusive right to a piece of land corporeal ? No more so, I apprehend, 
 than the exclusive right to printing a set of ideas and words. Say 
 that my father has a piece of land, and dies intestate, where does my 
 right to that land exist in a bodily form 1 And if I occupy and till 
 waste land not illegally, I obtain a physical property ; but ray right to 
 it is incorporeal, and not very distinguishable from copyright. 
 
230 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 form of mental labour. It is the offspring of necessity, and 
 nursed by toil. 
 
 3. Hence it follows that in whatever country inventions 
 can be appropriated by theft direct, or adaptation, or any 
 easy process, except purchase, the habit of invention is far 
 tally discouraged, and each act of invention undersold. 
 
 4. Therefore, by pirating from foreign inventors, a nation 
 scratches the foreign inventor's finger, but cuts the native 
 inventor's throat, and robs its public of the true sun of in- 
 vention, the national habit of inventing, a far richer national 
 treasure (a) than a pyramid of stolen inventions. 
 
 On this basis, legislation, as immortal as the arts them- 
 selves, is quite within the power of the human mind ; only 
 to be immortal it must be clear, and, to be clear, it must be 
 worded by an artist, not by a fumbler with words (J). 
 
 A single great nation has spared me feeble illustrations. 
 The United States of America, a country young enough to 
 make fanciful experiments in law, and elastic enough to 
 survive them, has drawn an arbitrary distinction, in the 
 teeth of her own excellent jurists, and all great lawyers 
 
 (a) The figures in the calculation have been mistaken. By steal- 
 ing a foreigner's invention a nation saves itself a much smaller sum 
 than dreamers fancy. The inventor's fee is seldom 10 per cent, on the 
 gross receipts from the article as sold to the public ; much oftener 5 
 per cent., or 2, or 1, and this in the foreign author would be reduced 
 one half, and justly, because he shares with the translator or adapter, 
 who is a native. To choke the habit of invention, merely to save 
 those petty and temporary fees, is vile arithmetic, as well as bad 
 morals and policy. Moreover, the habit of invention once formed, 
 you will sell to the nation you have been buying from. Tour slight 
 self-denial paves the road to interchange. 
 
 (6) The three estates of the realm have often employed scribblers to 
 word their statutes. This is preposterous. Every act of legislation is 
 a masterpiece of language as well as thought, or it is an insult to the 
 nation and to common sense. Writing is almost as much an art as 
 painting. The French would as soon think of employing house-painters 
 to describe their wars as scribblers to draw their statutes. Read their 
 patent acts, and then read ours. You seem to descend from the heights 
 of intelligence to the bas.s string of humanity. On their side, a master- 
 piece of construction and arrangement, sequent, articulate, clear, point- 
 ed ; in a word, science expressed by art ; on our side, a great, sloppy, 
 verbose, obscure, shapeless blop, more like a jelly-fish half buried in 
 sand than a production of the mind. Thinking is one art; expression 
 is another. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 231 
 
 alive or dead, between the mechanical inventor and the 
 literary inventor. They are brothers throughout creation ; 
 but she chooses to take a nap, and dream that they are no 
 relations at all. Strange to say, she has selected the elder 
 brother for her victim. She will not allow any foreigner 
 copyright, and she concedes to any foreigner patent right. 
 And as she is not one of those who do things by halves, she 
 is generous, as well as just, to the foreign mechanical inven- 
 tor; with respect to fees, she regulates them by the price 
 charged her people in the foreign nation. And when a 
 foreigner's patent shall happen to be declared invalid, she 
 returns two-thirds of the money. — Coryton, p. 353. 
 
 A British holder of an American patent has surer and 
 easier remedies against piracy in the United States than he 
 has in his own island. Now here is a double phenomenon 
 of legislation, which, being opposed to reason, to equity, to 
 all theory of law, to common sense, and also to almighty 
 cant, never occurred before, and probably never will happen 
 again while man shall be upon the earth. Whilst it lasts, 
 then, let us put it to profit. 
 
 What is the effect on the American author and on the 
 American mechanical inventor respectively ? 
 
 The Mechanical Inventor. 
 
 American genius is at this moment at the head of all the 
 nations for mechanical invention. I learn from Coryton, the 
 last English writer on patents, that she took out her first 
 patent in 1790; in 1800, took out 39 patents; in 1810, 222; 
 in 1830, 551 ; in 1840, 452 ; in 1849, 1,076. At this last 
 date she headed Great Britain, and has maintained the lead 
 ever since (a). 
 
 Europe teems with the products of her mechanical genius. 
 Her inventors draw large percentages from England, and 
 no Englishman grudges them, for they leave us still their 
 debtor. The pre-eminence this nation has attained in me- 
 chanical invention rests on the rock of statistics, and my 
 little paltry experience can neither contradict nor confirm 
 statistics.: still I cannot help remarking, that I am sitting m 
 
 (a) Mr. Coryton compares three years, 1847-49. The American 
 average was 769; The British under 500. — Coryton on Patents, 
 p. 351. 
 
232 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 London at this moment in a shirt which I happen to know 
 was sewed by Mr. Singer's patent, and that there are three 
 English newspapers on the table, two of which, the " Times " 
 and •' Lloyd's," were printed by Mr. Hoe's patent ; the other 
 probably was worked off either by the Adams' press, in- 
 vented, I think, at Boston, U. S., or else by the Columbian 
 press, which is still in vogue here, though long ago exploded 
 in the leading nation. 
 
 The constructive genius of this people, stimulated by 
 sound legislation, teaches us lessons at every turn. Look at 
 their hotels, — the wonder of the world : ours are only the 
 terror. Look at their cities, reticulated with telegraphic 
 wires, so that at the first alarm of fire an engine is rung for: 
 here it is run for, and that is why it often finds the house on 
 the ground floor, and drenches the smoking ruins, which hiss 
 it for not managing better. I go through the docks at Liv- 
 erpool, and point out the biggest and smartest ships, and 
 ask a sailor from what ports they come. It is always 
 " Yankee, sir. Yankee. Yankee." We had been sailing 
 yachts many years more than they had when they sent over 
 the " America," and beat our fleet ; and observe, the victory 
 was achieved by mechanical construction, not by an extra 
 cloud of canvas. 
 
 Oh ! but the " America " was a wonder ! a happy hit ! a 
 lusus artis, just as Shakspeare was a lusus naturae. 
 
 Stuff and nonsense. She was a boat built on principle 
 and no material wasted, by Mr. George Squeers, a mortal 
 like ourselves ; and when we legislate on principle, and 
 economize words as he did wood, we may come to be as 
 good men in our way as George Squeers is in his. 
 
 The " America " was built for a gentleman of Hoboken, 
 on the understanding she was to beat the " Maria," a famous 
 sailer in that part. She tried the " Maria " before she came 
 here, and the " Maria " beat her. 
 
 From the cradle to the grave American invention accom- 
 panies an Englishman. Singer clothes his body, and Hoe 
 gives his mind the news of his epoch an hour or two quicker 
 than he could have it otherwise. Meantime American clocks 
 are recording, up stairs and down, his waste of time and his 
 progress to the grave. The what ? That is an antique in- 
 vention, and worn out. Here is Mr. Cannon, ready to re- 
 ceive him in a glass coffin ; pumps out the air, seals him up 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 233 
 
 hermetically, and puts him respectfully out of people's way 
 in a vault. There for centuries he can be inspected through 
 the glass case, and so can the books he has written, " and so 
 can a mouldy pie f " Don't be impertinent, miss 1 
 
 We are not to be buried now, only shelved. 
 
 The other day an American hydraulist treated with Rus- 
 sia for wet goods ; bought her ships under water at Sebas- 
 topol. While he was getting ready his machinery to raise 
 them, and tow them away at his tail, he prepared his market. 
 His advertisement was to this effect : " Any second-rate 
 power that wishes to subjugate a third-rate country can have 
 a tidy little fleet for the purpose by treating with me, Jona- 
 than * *, in Sebastopol." One can gauge the intellects of 
 nations as well as of men, and there is not another nation 
 under the canopy of heaven capable of that advertisement, 
 and also of acting in the spirit of it. 
 
 Such are hydraulics in the hands of genius ; and such are 
 this ardent people, the leaders of the world in mechanical 
 invention and constructive skill. 
 
 27ie lAlerary Inventor. 
 
 This inventor, ly nature, abounds wherever the mechani- 
 cal inventor is abundant. The proportion is exact in France, 
 England, and Holland, and other countries, except in matters 
 dramatic and musical, where uneven legislation interferes 
 with nature. 
 
 Now what is the position of the American literary in- 
 ventor in the world ? Does it correspond with the American 
 patentees' position ? On the contrary, it is a complete con- 
 trast, — a contrast the more striking, that the American 
 mechanical inventor has only the same materials as our in- 
 ventor, yet leads him, and eclipses him ; whereas the Amer- 
 ican literary inventor, three times out of four, is content to 
 imitate us, though his own materials are so much larger, 
 more varied, and more abundant than ours. 
 
 There are invention and construction in all immortal 
 books ; but take the novelist and dramatist, who correspond 
 more obviously with the mechanical inventor than some 
 other writers do: what materials has an English novelist 
 compared with that gold mine of nature, incident, and char- 
 acter, real life in the great American republic ? 
 
234 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 At the Himalaya mountains you can have all the climates 
 of the world. Scorched at the foot by a vertical sun, you can 
 go up a little and pitch your tent in Spain. Another mile, 
 you can build your hut and live in France. Above, you 
 are braced by the air of Savoy; and you may mount to 
 Greenland. Here you command all the climates of the earth. 
 
 The United States offer to the writer of fiction a phe- 
 nomenon as rare. On one rail you may run from the 
 highest civilization to the very lowest, and inspect all the 
 intermediate phases. You may gather in a week, amidst 
 the noblest scenes of nature, the history of the human 
 mind; and watch its progress. Here are red man, black 
 man, and white man. Contrasts more piquant than occur 
 at all in England spring up like weeds in the United States. 
 Larger and more natural topics are discussed with larger 
 and freer eloquence ; and every moment the passions of 
 well-dressed men burst the bonds of convention ; and nature 
 and genuine character speak out in places, where with us 
 etiquette has long ago subdued them to a whisper. Yet 
 with all this their novelists produce no rich American fruit, 
 and the country does not possess a single famous dramatist. 
 
 Eead the American papers. You revel in a world of 
 new truths, new fancies, and glorious romance. 
 
 Read their fiction ! how little ! how stale by comparison ! 
 how unworthy of the swelling themes life supplies in this 
 nation that is thinking, working, speaking, living, on a scale 
 of grandeur, and at a rate of march, without a present 
 rival, or a past parallel beneath the sun ! 
 
 The reason is this : nine-tenths of their heaven-bom 
 writers are forced to be ephemeral writers, driven into the 
 newspapers by uneven legislation, the newspaper being the 
 only form in which intellectual labour cannot be undersold 
 by stolen labour. In Great Britain there are 505 news- 
 papers. In America, there are 4,000 ; and there lies buried 
 for the present many an immortal genius — buried, but to 
 me not hidden. I can see their fitful gleams in reading those 
 papers (a). 
 
 (o) Many of these are masterpieces of arrangement and method. 
 As a general rule, the constructive skill of the nation is clearly shown 
 in them. This production is worthy of the U. S. It utters thirty-nine 
 convictions for every one the English press delivers. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 235 
 
 Mr. Emerson, in course of a public speech last year, made 
 use of these words : 
 
 " There are men in this country who can put their thoughts in 
 brass, in iron, in stone, and in wood, who can build the best ships 
 for freight, and the swiftest for ocean race. Another makes re- 
 volvers" [many a British officer's life saved in the Crimea by 
 that patent], " another a power press," etc. But in another part 
 he said, " a New York novelist should regard the world in a dif- 
 ferent point of view from his London cotemporary. But the truth 
 is, scarcely one of our authors has yet thrown off English swad- 
 dling clothes. The great secret of the world-wide success of 
 ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' was the fact that it was a novelty ; that it 
 had something peculiarly American in it. The works of American 
 authors have been smothered under the works of English authors 
 in the American market. Not only has the wholesale system of 
 mal-appropriation most injuriously affected the interests of living 
 American authors, but it has had a tendency to dwarf down the 
 original literature of the United States to a servile copyism, and 
 to check the development of the natural mind." 
 
 Americans would at this moment be just as low in 
 mechanical invention if the statesmen of the United States 
 had encouraged the theft of foreign patents. And in one 
 generation under even rights they are as sure to beat our 
 h^ads off at fiction, as the sun is to rise to-morrow. 
 
 The habit of invention is a richer national'treasure than 
 a pyramid of stolen inventions. 
 
 The legislator that sets his people to steal from the foreign 
 inventor, scratches the foreign inventor's fingers, and cuts 
 the native inventor's throat. 
 
 Now here is sound statesmanship, and rotten statesman- 
 ship, offered by the United States to our inspection, together 
 with the results of each. 
 
 By her general experience of literature, as well as our 
 special experience (dramatic), it is clear that, while that 
 adaptation swindle lasts, great composers and great dram- 
 atists must never be looked for in England. The final 
 extinction of the national composer would be a national 
 disgrace and a national loss, not compensated by the holy 
 joy of swindling Meyerbeer and Rossini out of a few pounds. 
 The extinction of the dramatist would be a more general 
 
236 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 calamity. This nation invests about two thousand five- 
 hundred pounds a day in plays, or more than double what 
 it invests in stories. To pretend that it is no concern of 
 the legislator whether the public gets for all that money a 
 genuine article or a bastard one, a good article or a bad 
 one, is monstrous. I propose then to any legislator, who 
 can rise to the moral and intellectual level of the question, 
 to destroy the adaptation swindle and give Nature a chance. 
 If he will do so, I pledge him my honour, that in lesS' 
 than fifteen years, he shall see nature recover years of rotten 
 legislation. He shall see both great English dramatists 
 and a great composer rising, thanks to him and him alone. 
 Probably no act of statesmanship he may do will be less 
 appreciated at the time by our shallow cotemporaries ; but 
 none will be remembered and honoured so long after " dust 
 to dust " shall have been pronounced over the noisy nothings 
 of the day. For the arts, immortal themselves, confer im- 
 mortal fame or infamy on their friends and their foes : and 
 this day two noble arts plead for their very life upon these 
 pages. 
 
 CAP. XIX. 
 
 Now, then, what is the verdict on the Cleptomaniacal pro- 
 viso? Is it to go or stay? "Which of these maxims is to 
 rule the immortal arts? 
 
 Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile honesto, 
 
 or 
 Omne ferat punctum qui miscet inutile turpi. 
 
 In the Champs Elysees stands a building of peculiar con- 
 struction. The lower half is stone, and the upper a vault 
 of glass and iron. Methinks books should so be built. And, 
 to narrow the lesson to my purpose, a writer may use argu- 
 ments by way of superstructure, which would not do to build 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 237 
 
 upon. My appeal to you stands firm as a rock, on the gran- 
 ite of justice and sound commercial policy. What 1 shall 
 now add is but the glass roof, and stands because founded on 
 things more solid. Remember this when you hear some 
 muddlehead saying that this glass is my foundation. 
 
 My flimsiest objections to the Cleptomaniacal proviso, are 
 then as follows : — 
 
 A. It tends directly and indirectly to lower the moral 
 characters of writers ; a class so powerful that it is bad pol- 
 icy to demoralize them, and is true patriotism to elevate 
 their morals. 
 
 B. It checks the rise and security of a new property 
 which is wonderfully adapted to cement peace between civil- 
 ized nations : and it substitutes ill blood and the gnawing 
 sense of injury for that blessed peacemaker. 
 
 C. It mutilates and defiles the text of immortal authors 
 in two great arts, and palms brass upon the public for gold. 
 
 A. The legislature in this proviso tells a frail man, that if 
 he wants to steal the ideas a French dramatist has protect- 
 ed at a vast expense, he has only to do what no rogue ever 
 stuck at, lie as well as steal, and what most literary fools do 
 of their own accord, viz., garble the original author, (a) 
 Now this is no sacrifice ; for no mediocre writer has ever 
 been able to see more than a small part of a great author's 
 beauties. A clever horse-stealer has been known to dock a 
 stolen horse's tail, trim his mane, paint him, and sell Mm to 
 the owner for a strange horse. This last is a cut quite above 
 an adapter : yet I have never heard that it was accounted 
 to the horse adapter for righteousness, or patted on the back 
 by Law. 
 
 About the year 1780, a young gentleman of distinction 
 disappeared from the lawn of his forefathers in gorgeous 
 array. His sorrowing parents sought him high and low. A 
 month later, a little ordinary lad, with a dirty face and lofty 
 profile, was found in a gipsy's tent. It was the lost heir. 
 The children of Egypt had adapted him to their tent, as the 
 English pirate adapts the French plays, and indeed with the 
 
 (a) Almost every play of Shakspeare's has been at different epochs 
 adapted, and altered with flourishing prologues announcing the vast 
 improvement. Have those improvements, belauded each in its day, 
 stood the test of posterity t What has become of Tate's, Dryden's, 
 Bavenant's, Garrick's adaptations? 
 
238 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 same arts, dirt and fustian : but it was not accounted to them 
 for righteousness. 
 
 Mademoiselle L^onie Chereau was in love with a vaurien. 
 She succeeded in seducing his person, but not his affections. 
 After a while he broke off all commerce, except fitful re- 
 ceipt of articles of crockery from her : preferring, it would 
 seem, mere emblems of frailty to the genuine article. In 
 her despair she determined to anchor him. She announced 
 the approaching birth of an imaginary child, '• an infant of 
 the mind:" and with wonderful plausibility and address 
 (rus6e et bgte) she stole as pretty a boy as heart could de- 
 sire, from his nurse, in the garden of the Tuileries. Wretch- 
 ed girl ! thinking to appropriate a child, she had stolen a 
 lion's cub. The seeming kid was Master Hua, the son of a 
 judge. The first thing she did was to strip his fine clothes 
 off, and adapt him to her own stage, the town of Orleans : 
 but it was not confounded with righteousness (a). 
 
 Mr. Curtis, in his masterly work on Copyright, divides 
 Piracy into three main branches. The following is his re- 
 mark on No. 3 : — 
 
 No. 3. "Piracy by imitation, or by reproducing with colourable 
 alterations and disguises, assuming the appearance of a new work. 
 
 " This is by far the most frequent form in which the copyright 
 of authors is infringed." — P. 253. 
 
 The wrong therefore that unscrupulous dealers are most 
 prone to do an inventor of their own accord, on that the law 
 places a premium. 
 
 Now, I have denounced all monopolies except property : 
 but how hard it is to be severely consistent! There is a 
 monopoly so ancient compared with any other, and vested in 
 such competent hands, that it extorts protection. The mo- 
 nopoly I refer to rests indeed on no written law : but it is 
 founded on custom whereof the memory of man runneth not to 
 the contrary. I mean the sole and exclusive right Satan has 
 by long usage acquired to be the tempter of msmkind. Not 
 that I approve the practice even in his hands ; antiquity can- 
 
 la) In the course of her trial the public prosecutor said to her, " So 
 then you said to yourself, ' Je volerai un enfant.' " La Chereau turned 
 red, gave a toss, and said severely, " Monsieur, je me snis dite,je me 
 procuierai un enfant." 1 never knew a thief, in Newgate or out, that 
 did not draw that distinction. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 239 
 
 not make that right which was wrong from the first : but if 
 it is to be done, he is the party. The English Government 
 has no excuse for playing his part. Temptation is in capa- 
 ble hands : and he has an abundant staff. 
 
 The S. P. is an idle attempt to found good law on bad 
 morality. Morality says, " the French historian, novelist, 
 dramatist, are one citizen : " the S. P. draws an arbitrary 
 conventional distinction between them : but this is beyond 
 the power even of the legislator. You can't blot out the 
 great landmarks of morality, and substitute lines as bodiless 
 as the horizon. 
 
 There is very little fair dealing of any kind goes on be- 
 tween France and England in literary commerce ; and this 
 cursed proviso is the cause. It disturbs the balance of trade, 
 and it divests the whole statute of the moral dignity which 
 recommends law to that, without which law is a dead letter ; 
 public opinion. It demoralises doubly. The adapter, hith- 
 erto called a pirate in our courts, is here for the first time 
 told by the legislature that he is an honest man. What is 
 the consequence? The pirates are now robbing English 
 dramatists and English composers, and calling it " adaptor 
 tion." 
 
 " They thank the law for teaching them that word." 
 
 But the honest man does not. 
 
 A manager of a Manchester theatre has been playing a 
 play called " It is Never too Late to Mend " 100 consecutive 
 nights. He puts in his bill that Mr. Johnstone (a) is the 
 author of this. It is a kidnappery of two properties of 
 mine, my play, " Gold," and my novel, " It is Never too Late 
 to Mend." I wrote to the manager. His answer is, " Any- 
 body has a right to adapt another person's novel to the 
 stage." 
 
 " We thank thee, law, for teaching us that fraud." 
 
 And who is this Johnstone ? The same pirate that robbed 
 the French authors and me, by the same dodge, of " Les 
 Pauvres de Paris." The Legislator cannot say to Fraud, 
 
 (a) I have seen in the Era Mr. Johnstone spoken of as the author of 
 "Never too Late to Mend" twentytimes to once that I have been called 
 its author. 
 
240 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 thus far shalt thou swindle and no further, and here shall 
 thy base waters be stayed — by a breakwater of sand, con- 
 ventional morality. 
 
 God is too just to let a nation breed a gang of pirates 
 only to infest an ally. The miscreants are sure to prey 
 upon her own bowels as well. 
 
 Before this Cleptomaniacal clause came to confound virtue 
 and vice, as well as labour and theft, the English musical 
 composer had the inestimable advantage of getting his prop- 
 erty defined in court by a great judge. Puny judges are 
 always for baffling the honest intellectual labourer. Great 
 judges, from Mansfield and Blackstone downwards, are al- 
 ways for protecting him. They sympathize with brains, be- 
 cause they have got them. In Boosey v. D'Almaine, a 
 clear case of adaptation, the defence was 1st, that defendant 
 " had not taken the whole of each air ; " and 2d, that " what 
 he had taken he had adapted to dancing only. And that 
 some degree of art is needed for the purpose of so adapting, 
 and that but a small part of the merit belongs to the original 
 composer." 
 
 In this case Lord Lyndhurst delivered a famous judgment. 
 He would not allow either that a considerable and recogniz- 
 • able part of a melody could be taken without piracy, or that 
 adaptation of the composer's invention in any way was law- 
 ful. Amongst other things he laid down that " the original 
 air requires genius for its construction ; but a mere mechanic 
 in music can make the adaptation. In conclusion he gave 
 the adaptation swindle its coup de grSce thus : " Substanti- 
 ally, the piracy is where the appropriated music, though 
 adapted to a different purpose from that of the original, may 
 still be recognized by the ear. The adding variations makes 
 no difference in the principle." 
 
 Thus Lord Lyndhurst interpreted the law loyally, and in 
 so doing secured the musical composer against those who 
 reap where they have not sown, more firmly than preceding 
 judges had secured the literary inventor, but I think not 
 more so than this great judge would have protected the lit- 
 erary inventor in pari casu. 
 
 Now I find that since the S. P. the English musical com- 
 poour is defrauded as he never was before. And how ? 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 241 
 
 always by discolouration and garbling. The thing is notori- 
 ous. But agreeably to my plan of always calling a witness, 
 I select one that must be disinterested. This is clearly a 
 voice from the public. 
 
 " A Violinist " thus writes to the " Evening Herald " : " Allow 
 me to relieve my agony by a word of denunciation of certain pub- 
 lishers who obtain our money on false pretences. No sooner does 
 a song prove itself saleable, than forthwith the melody is seized 
 upon and published in a marvellously cheap form — till it is tried, 
 when it is found to be very dear. We then learn that it is spuri- 
 ous ; that the melody has been altered for the worse to save copy- 
 right penalties ; that the accompaniment has been levelled to an 
 unmeaning iteration, which the author of the original would hear 
 with horror ; and that the old tune, in fact, has been tortured to 
 suit the cash-book of the enterprising publisher. Is there no rem- 
 edy for this ? For a thing to be cheap it must be true and good ; 
 pirated copyrights and ' popular ' collections are generally neither. 
 There is another nuisance about this music for Sie billion ; much 
 of it is so painfully small, that two people cannot by any clever- 
 ness even sing from the same piece, far less play from it. The 
 printers of the folio music at least print as if they were not 
 ashamed of themselves ; but others, although they might sing in 
 chorus, ' Oh, I am a pirate bold,' seem to have a horror of bold 
 type. Deliver me from music which, with gopd eyesight, I can 
 see with difficulty, and from which, when I hear, I start back with 
 horror e'en at the sound myself hath made, thanks to the printed 
 variations never intended by the original author." 
 
 A little poison will corrupt a well ; and that proviso is 
 moral arsenic, deadly, cumulative. 
 
 Bring your mind to bear on this ! I am a father, with 
 twelve sons, who learn their moral duties from me. I pun- 
 ish eleven of them with fines, prison, stripes, shame, when- 
 ever they break the eighth commandment or the golden rule. 
 When they steal, I hit them. When they lie as well to 
 cover it, I hit them and then kick them ; and so I keep 
 them in the straight path. 
 
 To the eleventh I say, " Wh^t in your brothers, the sol- 
 dier, sailor, tinker, tailor, would be theft (an honest word of 
 one syllable) in you is ' appropriation.' Don't be frightened, 
 my little man ; I won't hit you for appropriation ; and if you 
 lie to cover it, that is adaptation, and you shall receive more 
 halfpence than kicks for it." 
 
 To the eleven I say, "My sons, be just to the stranger, the 
 fatherless, and the widow ; for to be unjust to them is to be 
 16 
 
242 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 unmanly as well as wicked : and, to encourage you in these 
 good sentiments, if you take a Frenchman's life here I '11 
 hang you ; if you prig his watch, or forge his name, I '11 im- 
 prison you ; and if you slander him substantially I '11 clap a 
 four times heavier fine on you than his own tribunals would 
 inflict on his compatriot for the same offence." 
 
 To the writing son I say, " Don't trouble your head with 
 what you find in the Old Testament about strangers, or in 
 the New about doing to your neighbour as you would he 
 should do unto you. Neither your brothers' morality nor 
 their religion apply to you and your business : pillage the 
 stranger without fear of God or man ! You can say you do 
 it pro bono publico, and I '11 believe it. Oh ! you may 
 laugh ; I will believe it ; c'est convenu." 
 
 Result : I rear eleven honest sons, and one heartless, un- 
 principled vagabond. And that is how the state is rearing 
 its writers with that proviso so help me God. This twelfth 
 son, in his intervals of legalized rascality, is teacher of mo- 
 rality to the family. 
 Wise paterfamilias ! 
 
 The indirect demoralization of writers by the S. P. is 
 more subtle and diflScult to explain. It operates in two 
 ways : it saps character by undermining property, and it 
 undermines all our property by the recoil of piracy on the 
 nation that breeds pirates ; and it has fatally obstructed a 
 noble international measure that, if not defiled with this 
 fraud, would have done much to unbohemianize writers, 
 and make honest, sober citizens of them. 
 
 There are two great classes of writers, salaried writers 
 and independent writers. Legislation apart, the former of 
 these is in far the best position. His remuneration is cer- 
 tain : it does not matter a straw to him whether he is pirated 
 or not : his labour is as sacred as a carpenter's. Not so with 
 the independent author, though he is the glory of letters. 
 The work of art he produces is either mediocre, and then, 
 unlike the salaried writer, he gets nothing for his labour ; 
 or it is good, and in that case the pirate instantly undersells 
 his labour by theft, and swindles him into unmerited penury. 
 To equalize matters copyright steps in, and, by stopping 
 piracy, raises the immortal author to the commercial level 
 of the ephemeral writer, the independent to the level of the 
 salaried writer. But where disloyal judges or sloppy legis- 
 lators give the pirates an inch, independent writing sinks in 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 243 
 
 the market, salaried writing rises. Ephemeral rises, immor- 
 tal declines. 
 
 Hence it is that in France, where neither the kidnapping 
 swindle, nor the abridgment swindle, nor any copyright sap- 
 ping swindle, is allowed, three writers are now labouring for 
 immortality to one that works with so arduous an aim in this 
 island. Frenchmen feel secure that the property their vast 
 labour shall create will be safe as a rock to them and their 
 children. And hence in America, where genius and labour 
 are swindled by the competition of stolen genius, five great 
 writers out of six retire from that unfair competition to sal- 
 aries and ephemeral comments on passing events. Here 
 they are safe from fraudulent competition. But this lowers 
 the moral status of the author. Salaried writers on current 
 events are subjected to peculiar temptations ; and no class 
 was ever yet subjected to temptation without falling, as a 
 class. Besides, they are constantly obliged to say the thing 
 they' don't feel, and forbidden to say the thing they do feel. 
 And this always lowers a man more or less. 
 
 Whatever glory or lustre shines round modern letters, 
 whatever respect encircles the names of writers, will be 
 found to be connected with copyright authors rather than 
 salaried writers ; yet the latter write one hundred pages to 
 one the former produce. 
 
 See the opposite system at work under the fostering hand 
 of power. The substance of the following facts is taken 
 from Mr. D'Israeli's " Miscellanies of Literature " : — 
 
 Henry Carey (p. 92) was a man of genius. He wrote 
 for the theatre with immediate and lasting success. Next 
 he handled satire ; and Pope took his verses for Swift's, 
 and Swift for Pope's. Lastly, he settled down to lyrical 
 art : with a rare combination of two rare talents he invented 
 immortal melodies and the immortal words to them : inter 
 alia, he wrote the words and music of " Sally in our Alley," 
 and the words and melody of the National Anthem (a). 
 For this last he deserved a pension and a niche in West- 
 minster Abbey. 
 
 In a loose age he wrote chastely (5). He never failed 
 
 (a) The bass bj J. Smith. Vide the Biographia Dramatica, sub 
 tit. " Carey." , ., . ^. 
 
 (5) P. 92, col. 2. Hawkins, cited by Reed and Jones in Biographia 
 Dramatica. 
 
244 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 to hit the public. He was of his age, yet immortal. No 
 artist can be more. 
 
 But there was no copyright in songs. 
 
 Mark the consequence of that gap in law ! While the 
 theatre and the streets rang with his lines and tunes, while 
 the fiddlers fiddled him and were paid, and the songsters 
 sang him and were richly paid, the genius that set all those 
 empty music pipes a-flowing, and a miUion ears listening 
 with rapture, was fleeced to the bone. All shook the fruit 
 tree except the planter. All reaped the com except the 
 sower. For why ? The sower was an author ; an inventor. 
 And so, in the midst of successes that enriched others and 
 left him bare, in the midst of the poor unselfish soul's at- 
 tempts to found a Charity for distressed performers (a), 
 Nature suddenly broke down under the double agony of a 
 heart full of wrongs and an empty belly, and the man 
 hanged himself. 
 
 They found him cold, with skin on his bones, and a half- 
 penny in his pocket. 
 
 Think of this when next you hear " God save the Queen!" 
 
 Now see how the system under which immortals are 
 starved breeds the scum of the pen, and fattens them. 
 
 Those who dispensed the favours of the nation in Carey's 
 age paid venal scribblers with all the small Government 
 places, down to the Excise (p. 52), and some fifty thousand 
 pounds in money to boot. 
 
 " The captain of this banditti was Amall, a young attor- 
 ney ; this hireling was ' the Free Briton^ and wrote in ' the 
 Gazetteer' as Francis Walsingham" (two good names for 
 one weasel). " It is said he received ' above ten thousand 
 pounds for his obscure labours,' and this patriot retired with 
 a pension." 
 
 The public writings of all these great men have gone 
 with the toadstools of the epoch ; but a private letter of one 
 of them to the new minister survives. 
 
 Dealing now with Mr. D'Israeli's text, I place cheek by 
 jowl the two characters, the author who must have copy- 
 right, or starve, and the scribbler who can do just as well 
 without copyright as with it, since his work runs into the 
 port of annihilation quicker than pirate can launch praam 
 
 (a) MnsicaL 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 245 
 
 to attack it : the writer for a nation and mankind, and the 
 writer for any party that can afford to buy a scribbler's soul ; 
 or, in other words, give gold for dirt. The immortal and 
 the ephemeral. 
 
 Carey. Guthrie. 
 
 "Cursed be the wretch that 's bought 
 
 and sold, 
 And barters liberty for gold. 
 For he who sells his single right, 
 Would sell his country if he might. 
 
 "Learn, learn, ye Britons, to unite. 
 Leave off the old exploded bite. 
 Henceforth let Whig and Tory cease. 
 And turn all party rage to peace. 
 Bouse, and revive your ancient 
 
 glory, 
 Urate, and drive the world before 
 
 ye." 
 
 " At the time that this poet 
 could neither walk the streets, 
 nor be seated at the convivial 
 board without listening to his 
 own songs, and his own music ; 
 for in truth the whole nation was 
 echoing his verse, and crowded 
 theatres applauding his wit and 
 humour. While this very man, 
 urged by his strong humanity, 
 founded a ' Fund for Decayed 
 Musicians,' he was so broken- 
 hearted, and his common com- 
 forts so utterly neglected, that 
 in despair, not waiting for Na- 
 ture to relieve him from the 
 burden of existence, he laid 
 ■violent hands on himself; and, 
 when found dead, had only a 
 halfpenny in his pocket. Such 
 was the fate of the author of 
 some of the most popular pieces 
 in our language. He left a son 
 who inherited his misery and a 
 gleam of his genius." 
 
 Un bouvreuil, 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 In the year 1745-6, Mr. 
 Pelham, then First Lord of the 
 Treasury, acquainted me that 
 it w£is his Majesty's pleasure I 
 should receive, till better pro- 
 vided for, which never has hap- 
 Eened, 200Z. a year, to be paid 
 y him and his successors in the 
 Treasury. I was satisfied with 
 the august name made use of, 
 and the appointment has been 
 regularly and quarterly paid me 
 ever since. I have been equally 
 punctual in doing the Govern- 
 ment all the services that fell 
 within my abihties, especially in 
 those critical situations that call 
 for unanimity in the service of 
 the Crown. 
 
 Your Lordship may possibly 
 now suspect that " / am an au- 
 thor (a) hy profession." You 
 are not deceived ; and will be 
 less so, if you believe that I am 
 disposed to serve his Majesty 
 under your Lordship's future 
 patronage and protection with 
 greater zeal, if possible, than 
 ever. 
 
 I have the honour to be. 
 My Lord, &c., 
 William Guthrib. 
 Pp. 51, 52. 
 
 un corbeau, 
 
 chacun dans une cage, 
 
 (o) Here Mr. Guthrie was mistaken ; he was not an author in any 
 sense. 
 
246 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Habitaient le m§me logis ; 
 
 L'un enchantait par son raraage 
 La femme, le mari, les gens, tout le manage ; 
 L'autre les fatiguait sans cesse de ses cris : 
 II demandait du pain, du roti, du fromage 
 
 Qu'on se pressait de lui porter 
 
 Afin qu'il vouliit bien se taire. 
 
 Le timide bouvreuil ne faisait que chanter, 
 Et ne demandait rien :' aussi pour I'ordinaire 
 On I'oubliait : le pauvre oiseau 
 Manquait souvent de grain et d'eau. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 247 
 
 Ceux qui louaient le plus de son chant rharmonie 
 
 N'auraient pas fait le moindre pas 
 
 Pour voir si I'auge 4tait remplie. 
 lis I'aimaient bien pourtant, mais ils n'y pensaient pas. 
 Un jour on le trouve mort de faim dans sa cage. 
 Ah ! quel malheur ! dit-on : las ! il chantait si bien. 
 De quoi done est-il mort ? Certes, c'est grand dommage. 
 
 Le corbeau crie encore, et ne manque de rien. 
 
 Now reverse the argument. Copyright made secure 
 would be better worth the patient labour that alone can create 
 it in its valuable forms. More authors would aspire to pos- 
 sess it : once possessed, it steadies the moral character just 
 like any other property. The higher dignity, stability, and 
 moral and social status of the French author is mainly 
 owing to this, that he is commonly a proprietor. To be 
 sure it is literary property : but that does not matter, since 
 in France literary property is as solid and secure as house 
 or land. 
 
 In my novel, " It is Never too Late to Mend," the thief's 
 conversion is finally settled by his becoming a proprietor. 
 This was true to nature, I assure you. If property will 
 unbohemianize a thief, it will surely unbohemianize artists. 
 
 The present swindling proviso therefore affects the morals 
 of authors, directly by temptation, and also indirectly by 
 loosening the foundations of their property, and so keeping 
 them Bohemians, instead of anchoring them to the state. 
 But writers were never so powerful as now ; therefore it is 
 good and timely statesmanship to make them as moral as 
 we can, and let them acquire a durable property, and conse- 
 quently a stake in the peace and prosperity of the nation. 
 
 B. The ladies and gentlemen that have governed nations 
 appear to have assumed as a self-evident maxim, that it 
 would be unsafe to let foreigners hold real property in a 
 country. 
 
 I have little confidence in the self-evident. I would 
 rather trust to one good tangible reason than to the light of 
 ages : it so often turns out moonshine. How many thousand 
 years was it self-evident that this little ball is the centre of 
 the planetary system ? It is assumed that foreign landhold- 
 ers would gain too much power over the natives. Heaven 
 
248 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 forgive me ! but I suspect the natives would gain the power 
 over them. A hostile foreigner holding largely in the funds 
 could surely do more harm than a foreign landholder, whose 
 English acres look to me more like hostages than weapons 
 of war. But I confine myself to what is certain, viz., that 
 international copyright is a property more unobjectionable 
 than either consols or acres international, and like land gives 
 hostages for peace, and, unlike the consols, does not encour- 
 age a hostile foreigner to raise a mercantile panic. Here 
 then is a property which a statesman equal to the times 
 would do well to nurse. Without this the balance of the 
 pen tends towards war. The ephemeral writer is always 
 inflaming the passions that end in bayonets. What does he 
 care ? he has no property in the country. Certain miscre- 
 ants of the English press insulted Napoleon I. beyond bear- 
 ing, and stirred up that ill blood which in time and opportu- 
 nity leads to bloodshed. Their successors, following that 
 good example, have steadily misrepresented and insulted 
 Napoleon III., and, in his person, the great nation whose will 
 and choice he is. Poor scribblers of an hour, incapable 
 themselves of a noble action or a noble sentiment, they look 
 at this man, but never see him : his fortitude shown so often 
 in the face of death ; his patience in long and varied adver- 
 sity ; his resolution, unbroken by defeat, prison, ridicule ; his 
 calmness and sobriety under a swift elevation, that would at 
 once have overbalanced a mind less imperial and native to a 
 throne ; his rare accessibility, his easy affability ; his ready 
 wit, a quality that scarce exists amongst his cotemporary 
 sovereigns ; his magnanimity and tenderness towards old 
 friends, however humble ; his masterly pen ; his weighty 
 speech ; the aspiring eye, that takes in France and her pop- 
 ulation, not mere classes ; — all these great qualities, more 
 than ever met before in any sovereign alive or dead, are 
 thrown away on these his inflated, ignoble judges, who, them- 
 selves too cowardly to fight, except anonymously, i. e., 
 behind a wall, too sloppy to write as he writes, and too vain 
 and shallow to hold their tongues, and think, as he can, have 
 never spoken a great word, nor done a great thing, nor suf- 
 fered — even their own paltry deserts, and so are no more 
 fit to describe to the great English people such a Hero as 
 this Napoleon III., who can fight, and write, and speak, and 
 be silent, and look at death, and think for a great nation, 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 249 
 
 and converse with a subject, and dare, and suffer, and forgive, 
 than a cur is to measure the moon, whose height and bright- 
 ness sets him yelping at it. 
 
 Perhaps the fools think that a great sovereign is not a 
 man, and will accept any amount of scurrility. " Que voulez- 
 vous ? — a genius judged by dunces ? " Humbug ! these 
 great potentates are but men : great actors are they on the 
 world's vast stage, and as little insensible to justice and in- 
 justice, to public applause and censure, as other actors. Na- 
 poleon III. left these shores our friend ; but the bad-hearted, 
 empty-headed, venomous part of the press has made it im- 
 possible for a prince of flesh and blood to retain any kindly 
 feeling for us. These inksters are the enemies, not only of 
 the country, but of the human race ; they have toiled at 
 scurrility day by day, year by year, like vendors of night 
 soil, not like writers ; and if ever the natural result of their 
 injustice, rudeness, interfering impudence, and weary in- 
 decent insolence, should be inflicted upon mankind, I hope 
 a just God will not let the scourge fall on their innocent 
 victims alone, but first and heaviest upon these d — d cow- 
 ardly backbiters' backs. Meantime there is no more direct 
 way to balance these enemies of the human race and- to 
 cement peace, than by giving writers international prop- 
 erty. 
 
 I find that of the French dramatists about sixty are publi- 
 cists. Here then the S. P. has provided an element of dis- 
 cord, where fair dealing would have cemented our alliance. 
 These sixty French publicists have every right to make 
 war on us ; for we, a nation of twenty-eight millions, have 
 picked their small though glorious band out of all France, 
 and made war on them under cover of a treaty. 
 
 Is it in nature that these men's hearts should not be bitter 
 against England ? Let us remove this just cause of ill 
 blood, and substitute the peaceful effect of property, and the 
 friendly communications and better understanding that fair 
 commerce between writers of two countries must bring 
 about. Rely on it, French writers will not be in a hurry to 
 cry " Havoc," when they have property to lose in England. 
 Amity between nations is composed of various elements, 
 and in a world so full of firebrands why despise a single 
 peacemaker ? These gentle but subtle and penetrating in- 
 fluences are not so weak as coarse but feeble thinkers fancy. 
 
250 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Even men's bodies succumb under epidemics too subtle in 
 their approach for any of their senses to discern, and often, 
 when all the doctor's remedies fail, the sick man is cured by 
 mere change of air. How much more must the minds of 
 men be open to parallel influences ! Eemember, it is the 
 heart that conceives war, and the mind that declares war : 
 and the pens are crossed before the bayonets. 
 
 yiaKapiot 01 eiprjvoiroioi. 
 
 C. I come now to the last of my flimsier objections to 
 Cleptomania in the fine arts. And here I cannot but pause 
 and ask myself, is this really the nineteenth century, and is 
 it left for me to tell the men of it that wholesale mutilation 
 and destruction of works of art is a crime that belongs to 
 barbarous epochs? 
 
 Sufficient to an age are the vices thereof. 
 
 But this proviso raises from the dead the raw brutality of 
 Vandals, and Tartars, and monks, allies it to the finicking 
 roguery of the modern, and launches the pair against the 
 head and the very life of two beautiful arts. This proviso 
 tells vain dunces and slippery traders, that, if they will so 
 far yield to their natural itch as to garble and mutilate two 
 noble arts, if they will but mix their own putrescences of 
 thought and expression with the burning lines of foreign 
 dramatists, and the immortal score of foreign composers, 
 then they shall juggle their benefactors, they shall have all 
 that real turtle — to turn by cleaver and self-admixture into 
 hashed calves' head — for nothing ; whereas the honest and 
 reverent dealer, who neither swindles nor garbles, shall 
 smart twice ; once for not being a rogue, once for not being 
 a beast ; shall pay the inventor, and be undersold by the 
 mangling and chartered thief 
 
 In matters dramatic this system must always rob the 
 English public of the choicest beauties of the foreign au- 
 thor ; but I have said enough about the drama, and shall 
 now confine myself to the other art. 
 
 Here then is music outlawed in all her forms. Is there 
 any good reason for this brutal antipathy ; for this arbitrary 
 distinction enforced with so amazing a stretch of power ? 
 Is music an ignoble art ? Is it a petty and unpopular art ? 
 Is it an art confessedly inferior to painting, which last is far 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 251 
 
 better protected (a) de facto than the writer's art. True 
 it is that in the last century the strains of Handel inspired 
 an English writer with an epigram conceived in the spirit 
 of this proviso : it ends — 
 
 " Strange that such diflference should be 
 'Twixt tweedle dum and tweedle dee." 
 
 But setting aside that tweedle dum and tweedle dee hap- 
 pen not to be musical notes, but silly words, who was this 
 writer who valued himself so on having no ear, and had- a 
 pair of long ones all the time ? It was Byrom. Did you 
 ever hear of Byrom's art ? No ! nor will the men of the 
 next generation ever hear of any artist who despises any 
 fine art. They are sisters, and alike in heart though not in 
 the face. Wherefore he who hates any one of them can- 
 not really be in the secrets of her sister. 
 
 Parvis omnia parva. To the little great things are small. 
 
 Scribbler Byrom, or any other scribbler, can be matched 
 on the other side of the hedge. What think you of this ? 
 
 Extract from a paper called the " Musical World " : — 
 
 " Be it recollected that a book is not a mere ethereal creation of 
 the mind ; though even in this capacity it has to be paid for (else 
 how would poets, historians, essayists, and such like rabble live) ; 
 but that it is printed on costly paper with costly type, and bound in 
 a costly cover. 
 
 " Now all these items of expenditure have been defrayed by 
 the Publisher. He has purchased the copyright of the poet, 
 historian, essayist (whichever of the rabble-dom it may be) : he 
 has paid the bills of stationer, printer, and binder." 
 
 Now there is a musician that will never write a line of 
 music worth a straw. 
 Parvis omnia parva. 
 
 (a) The author has no source of remuneration but copyright. The 
 painter has two markets. He receives about three times as much for 
 his picture as an author does for a copyright acquired by equal labour, 
 and he has copyright into the bargain ; nobody can steal a foreign 
 painter's picture. French painters often paint a duplicate for the 
 English market, which duplicate does not take half the labour or skill 
 of the original : yet it can't be stolen, even in England. 
 
252 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Shakspeare, who did master a profound and difficult art, 
 must be a better guide than scribbler Byrom, and how does 
 he speak of the sister art of Music ? He has consecrated 
 one of his loveliest similes to paint a melody, " Oh it came 
 o'er my ear like the sweet south, that breathes upon a bank 
 of violet, stealing and giving odour : " again, speaking of 
 the art itself, in terms of enthusiastic admiration, he ends by 
 affirming that the man, whose soul does not harbour it, is 
 morally as well as intellectually defective. 
 
 This sounds exaggerated : but he was a bon^ fide ob- 
 server, and not to be pooh-poohed. The Adaptation proviso 
 at all events wiU never explode his daring theory. 
 
 " The man that hath no music in his soul 
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. 
 
 Let no such man be trusted," 
 
 for in the S. P. we find a soul that scorns music, and takes 
 to treachery, stratagem, and pillage, like a duck to pond- 
 water. 
 
 I cannot (like that legislator, or rather that earwig im- 
 posing on legislators) consent to forget what mankind owes 
 to this noble art. We can step but a little way in History 
 without learning (unless we are blind as well as deaf) that 
 Music is a glorious, a salutary, a humanizing, and civilizing 
 art. 
 
 " But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an 
 evil Spirit from the Lord troubled him. 
 
 " And Saul said unto his servants. Provide me now a man 
 that can play well, and bring him unto me. 
 
 " And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was 
 upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his 
 hand : so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil 
 spirit departed from him." 
 
 Is not this a beneficent and potent art, which in a master 
 hand could quell an evil spirit in single combat, and drive 
 him out of the bosom of an autocrat ? 
 
 This is not related as a miracle. The foul fiend was there 
 by Divine permission ; and the potent art, which comes from 
 God like all our good gifts, was too strong for him, who was 
 too strong for a king. The art was no greater then than it 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 253 
 
 is now. Whatever man tas done man may do, with harp, 
 or brush, or pen. 
 
 This art too was the nursing mother of Poetry, the high- 
 est of all arts. The verse did not create itself: it arose in 
 all its primitive forms out of musical division. For cen- 
 turies after its birth Poetry could not walk alone, either 
 in the East or in the West. Those incomparable lyrics 
 which are called the " Psalms of David," where description 
 and moral teaching, piety and nature, earth and heaven, 
 blend so sweetly, were songs, composed in happy moments 
 of musical as well as poetic heat, by David and many other 
 harpers : and but for music, these gems of Poetry and praise 
 had never embellished language. And it is not too much to 
 say, that here alone, where Poetry and music meet, is the 
 spirit of the Old Testament as manifestly and constantly 
 Divine as that of the New. Many forgotten harpers sang 
 before Homer, and to their divisions we owe the majestic 
 Hexameter. Homer, like his own Achilles, was a harper : 
 
 &€i8e t' apa icXca avBpav, 
 
 The Iliad was sung or chanted, and where the same 
 words are repeated, there I take it was a sort of refrain 
 with a more marked melody. But for music then the great- 
 est Poem would never have been created ; but for music 
 again might well have slipped off the memory of the hear- 
 ers. 
 
 Poetry came West at Music's apron string. The Arabs 
 who brought it into JEurope were songsters. The Spanish 
 trobadores who caught it from them were songsters ; so were 
 the French trouvferes, who had it from them ; so the Dutch 
 minstrels, and the Welsh bards. 
 
 For centuries Poetry could not walk alone, nor please by 
 its own rhythm. And even that rhythm it owes to primaeval 
 Music. 
 
 This is but a small part of the debt mankind owe to this 
 art, now outlawed by a caprice of demi-civiUzation. That 
 debt is hundreds and thousands of years older than any claim 
 painting can put in to our gratitude. Why pick our old 
 benefactor out from among a hundred pettier arts, to outlaw 
 her? Her modem feats are they so very contemptible? 
 The brilliant operas, the mighty oratorios, the learned quin- 
 tets, the profound symphonies, the pious masses and an- 
 
254 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 thems, where the boys' sweet mellow voices rise so young 
 and pure above the pealing organ, and waft the soul to 
 Heaven ; the thrilling songs that nations take to heart, and 
 love, and sing and feel for centuries : are all these trash, and 
 their creators to be outlawed the moment their souls are 
 caught stepping across a frontier or a ditch ? 
 
 Music is an universal language. Unlike the writer's, the 
 composer's text can be printed or played by all the human 
 race pure as it came from the master's mind. God has given 
 the lovely art this world-wide advantage over the writer's, 
 to compensate its inferiorities ; a noble compensation. For 
 thus Music mitigates the curse of Babel : a terrible curse to 
 man. Think of the perverse madness that rejects Heaven's 
 bounty, and says, " No ! thank you : impurity suits our taste, 
 as well as our morals," and with a low cunning of the Ldonie 
 Chereau chic (rusfe et bete), secures an artificial impurity 
 by tempting the illiterate brutes, who conduct speculations 
 in the fine arts, to mutilate musical masterpieces ; tempting 
 them I say with a bait that is to their intellects and con- 
 sciences what toasted cheese is to a rat. For to pay only the 
 tributary artists and mechanics, and swindle the one imperial 
 artist who sets all these puppets going, and whose solitary 
 merit just equals all theirs combined, this is elixir to all 
 two-legged pigs. 
 
 Injustice and barbarity have met together, Attila and 
 Judas have kissed one another. 
 
 So then in the nineteenth century a law has passed enact- 
 ing by equivoque, that garbled melodies, and mutilated de- 
 fcedated works of musical art, shall be the food of the 
 wretched Englishman ; and to this filthy hotch-potch, which 
 the foreign composer would disown by advertisement and 
 bellman in the streets, the rascally English cook may forge 
 thai Master's name. The law invites him to do it. By 
 which forgery the wretched English public is duped into 
 paying thousands and thousands of pounds for a vile hotch- 
 potch. Alas ! is not our bodily food adulterated enough ? 
 Must the soul's food be adulterated too ? 
 
 The fatal result of Attila cum Judas legislation would be 
 uniform : the works of great men have never been tampered 
 with by little men without being defiled. In art the less 
 never yet comprehended the greater. The smaller thinker 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 255 
 
 therefore is sure to spoil the greater, where both are of a 
 trade. Besides, in art the expression of thought is half tiie 
 battle: now immortal music and immortal verse have this 
 quality in common, there is not an unnecessary note in the 
 one nor a superfluous word in the other. The immortal 
 writer is a man, or woman, who crams syllables, or notes, 
 with sense ; the ephemeral is one who overlays sense with 
 notes or syllables. And these opposite instincts and habits 
 in the two artists are invincible. The ephemeral is in the 
 world to amplify ; the immortal to condense. The epheme- 
 ral is a bladder ; the immortal a silver bullet. Ephemeral 
 is a pound of flesh to an ounce of salt, and time flyblows him 
 in a summer ; immortal is a pound of flesh to two pounds of 
 salt, and sweet for ages. Therefore an ephemeral can no 
 more garble an immortal composer to the tune of S. P., 
 without spoiling him, than pitch can mix with snow and spare 
 its whiteness. He wiU still dilute the immortal down to his 
 own sloppy, expletive loving, cadence loving, feebleness, 
 besides vulgarizing and defiling his leading ideas. 
 
 Look at the Masterpieces of painting that have been 
 restored by inferior artists. Has any one of them been 
 improved to console the world for the million murders done 
 by those presumptuous ephemerals on immortals ? 
 
 Look at the long chain of Shakspeare's adapters and 
 improvers. Read their cock-a-doodle prologues, see their 
 self-reverence, their ill-concealed disdain of the man whose 
 brains they were stealing : what has been the ultimate fate 
 of all these self-satisfied mutilators ? Ephemeral musicians 
 have adapted and altered Handel too, and in every case 
 obscured his ori^nal brightness^for a time : but the immor- 
 tal text survives and revives- to expose their brutal vanity 
 and ignorance, and the loss they inflicted on their cotempo- 
 rary public. 
 
 An immortal work of art adapted and altered by an ephem- 
 eral is like an opening rose crushed in a hot coalheaver's 
 hand. Therefore, if we steal at all from the foreign Master, 
 we ought to steal honestly, and sensibly, and not by halves. 
 Why not rise to the intellectual level of the Newgate thief? 
 That appropriator has an excuse : he gets the thing he sins 
 for. We don't. Shall there be economy of candles' ends, 
 and none of crime ? If we are to go to Hell for a song, hang 
 it all let us have the notes of the song. 
 
256 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Now comes a strange anomaly, and an instructive one. 
 This sentence, condemning two great arts to the rack and to 
 the mangle, was not signed by the Huns and Vandals, nor 
 by the Goths and the Visigoths, but by the Peers and Com- 
 mons of England. 
 
 Of these gentlemen nine out of ten were educated at Cam- 
 bridge or Oxford ; and there nothing was hammered harder 
 into their intelligence than the inestimable value of a great 
 artist's every syllable ; there, in rich libraries, or reclined on 
 classic turf, such as Athens never dreamed of, they saw and 
 compared the learned labours of great scholars for three hun- 
 dred years past — a mass of industry, enthusiasm, and saga- 
 city quite unparalleled ; and devoted to what ? To recover 
 the pure text, the minutest meaning, the ipsissima verba, of 
 those immortal writers. Here must have reached most of 
 them the sigh of the great Bentley over the text of so small 
 an author as Velleius Paterculus, of whom he says that but 
 a single cotemporary MS. exists, and, therefore, deprived of 
 the light of collation, " the text must remain a mass of errors 
 to the end of time." Here, too, they heard scorn heaped 
 upon the Tartars who mutilated the Parthenon, and on the 
 mediaeval monks who disfigured Greek MSS. with their 
 ephemeral twaddle. 
 
 Their academic education completed, they cannot have 
 mixed much in society, nor dipped at all into English learn- 
 ing, without finding out that the text of Shakspeare is infi- 
 nitely more corrupt than the surviving text of any Greek or 
 Latin author, or indeed of any famous writer of any age, 
 except Mahomet ; and that this is matter of profound regret 
 among civilized Englishmen : and that vast learning and 
 sagacity have been employed to recover his lines, with very 
 little success: and that, disfigured not by subtraction only 
 but by addition, the wrecks of his immortal verse overlaid 
 with the wretched gag of two generations of actors, are, and 
 must remain, " a mass of errors to the end of time." They 
 must have heard too the groans of artists and critics over the 
 great Venetian pictures, and other masterpieces, robbed of 
 their native lustre by miserable restorers, ephemerals, who 
 revering themselves as all ephemerals do, and in the shallow 
 recesses of their hearts clandestinely underrating immortals 
 as all ephemerals do, thought they could not alter the mira- 
 clesi of art without improving them, as now thinks the modem 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 257 
 
 adapter, and as coming dunces will think, and say, and do, if 
 not hindered by law. 
 
 The same situation comes round in the whirligig of time, 
 and, with all this accumulated wisdom in their heads, these 
 highly-educated men do, in their generation, the work of the 
 barbarians they abhor in another age, and of the blind devas-- 
 tating cur puppies they scorn in a third. To raw legislators 
 history is a dead letter. There are accidental and' superfl- 
 ciar distinctions that confuse sloppy minds; and there are 
 real distinctions which sense and science approve : now, if 
 you bring your mind to bear, you will see that between those 
 enormities so universally abhorred, and this miserable piece 
 of Cleptomania, the distinctions are all accidental and appar- 
 ent ; the similarity is essential, substantial, and to the core. 
 
 The great art of mutilation has its physical laws like any 
 other art, and its processes must vary with the nature of the 
 masterpiece earth is to be robbed of. The temple smasher 
 does n't do his butchery with the pen ; but why ? only because 
 the pickaxe is the fitter tool. The oratorio mangier, opera 
 garbler, and song soiler does not his butcheries with the 
 pickaxe ; but why ? because for that the pen is the more 
 effective tool. The picture defiler does his "mortal mur- 
 ders " with the brush. Why ? because with this alone could 
 he do the trick, and escape fine or imprisonment. But all 
 these acts are at bottom the same, and spring from an irrev- 
 erent heart, and a mind with no lively sense of beauty in art, 
 nor of justice in morals. In fact, prejudice apart, the mild- 
 est form of mutilation is the utter barbarian's. Many a col- 
 umn is gone from the Parthenon ; but the gaps are not filled 
 with Turk styes ; so the great and pure design survives, and 
 still hovers over the pillars that stand. But the adapting 
 barbarian, like the old picture restorers, not only strikes out 
 the native beauties, but sticks in his own trash, and so effaces 
 the design ; for in art the dirt and gold that man has once 
 joined together, no mental alchemy can put asunder. 
 
 When an immortal has been adapted by an ephemeral, 
 criticism may safely be confined to a single word — a word 
 often uttered in England over a quadruped, the most intel- 
 ligent and high-spirited in the country, who ends, adapted, 
 i. e., mangled, by his intellectual inferiors, " et ne dit mot." 
 
 Who-op ! ! 
 
 17 
 
258 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Thus then we have lived to see a system of mutilation 
 established by law, which, the act of an enlightened age, 
 leaves the Tartars that wrecked the Grecian temples, the 
 Puritans that mutilated English cathedrals, and monks, and 
 rats, and picture slayers, far, far behind. 
 
 O miseras hominum menteis, O pectora cffica ! 
 
 Is no lesson of wisdom to be learned from this revival of 
 pure vandalism in the year of our Lord a. d. 1851 ? 
 
 At least let us learn this much, that a greater effort ought 
 to be made to realize our knowledge. Knowledge is but 
 knowledge's fleeting shadow unless realized. It is truly 
 pitiable to see how little practical wisdom the human race 
 reaps from its own history. One reason is that men, though 
 they babble about the immortality of the soul, don't half be- 
 lieve in it, and never let themselves feel it in dealing with 
 earthly topics. And therefore their minds get bandaged 
 by dates and epochs ; and they have eyes, yet see not. 
 An old situation, practice, or principle pops up again after 
 a few hundred years ; but they cannot recognize it (and 
 profit by its past history), because, forsooth its date is 
 changed. The bare years seem somehow to come between 
 the object and their judgment like furlongs of fog. This 
 could never be if we were not sham immortals. For to a 
 true immortal what are the petty tracts of time human his- 
 tory deals with, that they should have power to obscure the 
 essential character of any transaction that comes round to 
 us in so small a whirligig ? 
 
 The legislator at least should strive to rise above this 
 pitiable weakness. Like the epic poet, he is either an im- 
 mortal, or an imposter. Therefore if he catches his im- 
 mortal part feeling like a daisy, and disposed to confound 
 the immortal arts with dandelions, he should go to the Bible, 
 or, if he has outgrown the apron-strings of omniscience, to 
 cotemporary science, to cure himself Let geology precede 
 legislation. A mighty little red sandstone will rub out his 
 notion that it is a long time since Miriam struck the lyre, 
 and David played a royal fiend away, and Tyrtaeus sang a 
 defeated tribe to victory, and the Turks and others man- 
 gled marble porticoes, pictures, and MSS., and some hog 
 turned " Aileen aroon " into a thing called " Robin Adair," 
 etc., etc. 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 259 
 
 Now, then, what is the ■verdict on this count ? Are we 
 to be Tartars, Huns, Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, and idiots 
 and brutes of a past age : or men of our own century ? If 
 the latter, we must not leave a proviso standing that reduces 
 the wholesale mutilation of masterpieces of art to a system, 
 and gives it the name, and the force, and the dignity of 
 law. 
 
 I objected on the part of the public to the half measure 
 of stealing a song or opera, yet not getting the notes. The 
 foreign composer gains nothing by this half measure, and 
 we lose much. It would be better to go the whole hog. But 
 the best of all would be to go the whole Christian. 
 
 Hebrews, chap xiii. 15 and 16 Vict., chap. 12. 
 
 " Be not forgetful to enter- Who is that ? 
 
 tain strangers ; for thereby A stranger, 
 
 some have entertained angels Eave arf a brick at un. 
 unawares." 
 
 Here we have the two theories. Let us skim a fact or 
 two just to test them. The Athenians sent Tyrtaeus by way 
 of a practical joke : he was a little hump-backed songster. 
 But the simpler tribe, that, advised by the oracle, had sent 
 to Athens for a leader, thought more of his art than his 
 person, and entertained him. They conquered their enemies 
 under the leader Athens flung them in contempt. 
 
 The French people entertained Gluck. They did not 
 pirate him, nor heave arf a Newgate brick at him. He 
 wrote at first for Italian words. A notion prevailed in 
 France that French words were not fit for music. The evi- 
 dence of a few centuries contradicted this theory ; but who 
 takes evidence in such matters ? The notion stood firm as a 
 rock, rooted and grounded in Cephalomancy. 
 
 Gluck studied the music of Corneille and Racine, and soon 
 found he could wed immortal strains to their immortal lines. 
 He did so, and with complete success. Thus a stranger 
 rewarded this generous nation. A man born in Bohemia, 
 but treated like a brother in Paris, turned more French than 
 the French of his day, and showed them the powers of a 
 language which was not his but theirs. Thus was French 
 opera founded by a stranger. 
 
 Handel was entertained in England. He was not pirated 
 nor swindled for being a foreigner. To-day he would be, 
 
260 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 and driven out of the country in a year or two. He pro- 
 duced fifteen mediocre pieces before he got as high as " Acis 
 and Galatea." So you see, with a little rascality, we could 
 easily have lost all his oratorios, which were the fruit of his 
 mature and long-encouraged labours. In time he grew to 
 the nation that treated him like her son : he studied her lan- 
 guage profoundly and lovingly as Gluck did French, and 
 no composer has fitted music so well to English syllables as 
 has this German. He lived and died amongst us, and was 
 buried in Westminster Abbey. He bequeathed his vast 
 compositions to the world ; but impregnated with the genius 
 of the English language, and echoing the simplicity and un- 
 theatrical character of English piety, they must always be 
 a richer heaven to the English soul than to any other. 
 
 Here then we entertained an angel unawares. 
 
 Handel, not being swindled, died worth 20,000i, of which 
 he left 19,000?. to Ms relations and 1,000A to our fund for 
 decayed musicians. But for many years before his death he 
 gave always a gratuitous performance of the " Messiah " for 
 the benefit of the Foundling Hospital. Seven thousand 
 pounds did those unfortunates receive from this one work of 
 art and from the foreign master's hands. Since his decease 
 it is not by thousands, but by tens of thousands, that we 
 must compute the money gathered for the English poor from 
 this dead master's works. 
 
 Was not he an angel, this foreigner, so tuneful, so charita- 
 ble, so immortal, who being dead yet liveth, since his works 
 still feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and lift the soul to 
 heaven ? What did we ever do cleverer than not pirating 
 this stranger ? Would it have been better to heave half a 
 swindle at his head ? What is the verdict on this ? Is St. 
 Paul the best guide, or are St. Attila and St. Iscariot the 
 best guides in legislating for the fine arts ? 
 
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 261 
 
 CAP. XX. 
 
 I EETURN to the place I set out from. The adaptation pro- 
 viso, being a contrivance, under cover of a professedly equal 
 treaty, to exclude the main intellectual export of France 
 from the benefit of that treaty, is unjust, and unchristian : 
 and the double-faced artifice by which it was done without 
 alarming the French plenipotentiaries, was Punic, not Eng- 
 lish. The question now is, who is to have the honour of 
 knocking this Punism on the head. My business is to un- 
 earth such polecats as this : but there I must stop, not being 
 in Parliament. Other honest men must do the rest. It is 
 time it was done. 
 
 It is the opinion in France as well as England, and has 
 often been publicly stated, that our national honour is here 
 stained. Can this be doubted ? Well, we have in this coun- 
 try a body of gentlemen, whom, even were I not an Eng- 
 lishman, I should pick out of the whole world as the men 
 fittest to decide a question of honour and good faith, personal 
 or national. Need I say I mean the House of Peers ? In a 
 private matter it would be highly improper to intrude on the 
 notice of that august assembly. But the French dramatic 
 poets and writers generally stand in this age at the head of 
 the human intellect, and even the English House of Peers 
 may without impropriety be appealed to, where the just in- 
 terest of so illustrious a body and the honour of the British 
 name are both at stake. And therefore, my Lords, I do sol- 
 emnly appeal to you to decide this question, on the sole 
 ground of honour and nobility, of which sentiments here in 
 England you are the repositories and the judges. And if I 
 do not take the usual course, and solicit you to this effect in 
 MS., to be received with your invariable courtesy,^ and con- 
 signed to an honourable resting-place, it is that I think those, 
 whose interests I have the honour to represent, are more 
 likely to attract your Lordship's notice by flying about the 
 world appealing to you in two or three printed languages, 
 than by the mute eloquence of a solitary parchment reposing 
 upon etiquette in a pigeon-hole. 
 
262 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 If in either house of Parliament there should be a single 
 member, whom any work of mine may have inspired with 
 some little confidence in me, I beg to push that influence as 
 far as ever it will go ; and I invite him earnestly to act upon 
 the conclusions of this book. Time will confirm them all : 
 and even now he will find little difficulty, meet little opposi- 
 tion, in so great a work. His main difficulty will be to get 
 a house. Great, quiet, and immortal things are easily done 
 in legislative assemblies : it is little temporary noisy nothings 
 that are fought over tooth and nail. Parliamentary battles 
 are like those in the Rape of the Lock ; when they are not 
 about a hair, they are about the deuce of clubs ; and vice 
 versa. The noble, or honourable friend I have perhaps too 
 hastily imagined, will find it worth his while to ponder my 
 words ere it be too late, and that is asked for by France 
 which might now with so much more grace be spontaneously 
 given her from love of justice. 
 
 Here then on this page true honour goes a begging. 
 
 The ai'ts, immortal themselves, confer immortal fame or 
 infamy, on friend and foe. Parties come, and parties go, but 
 these flow on forever; and though no greasy palms ever 
 applaud on the instant their champion, to the bray of tin 
 trumpets and the flare of gas, a mild but lasting light, still 
 brightening as civilization marches on, hovers around his liv- 
 ing head, and gilds his memory when dead. 
 
 Here I say true glory goes a begging ; for here is justice 
 to be done, and here is the tarnished escutcheon of a great 
 nation to be brightened, and two noble arts to be saved from 
 Huns, and Vandals, and death. It is as if I should, say, 
 here. Sir, or, here, my Lord, take this diamond ; it has cost 
 me many a good head-ache, many a good heart-ache, and 
 many a good pound (a) : it shall cost you nothing but the 
 trouble of putting out your hand and fixing it in your coro- 
 net. There it will not dazzle the immediate bystanders as 
 many a paste gem does : but it has a virtue, rare among 
 parliamentary brilliants, ay, rare among the jewels of earth : 
 it will cast its modest lustre a long, long way into space and 
 time : into a noble nation where, but for it, you might live 
 and die unknown ; and into unborn ages. 
 
 (a) Besides my losses at Croydon, it costs me at least 1,000Z. to write 
 such a book as this, the sale of which will not pay its expenses. Yet 
 with the same labour I could have produced three volumes of lucrative 
 fibs. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 p. 12. It is saleable per se, etc. 
 
 The first recorded sale of intellectual property was by Homer, 
 who delivered the Hiad at banquets and festivals, and so made 
 his bread, receiving probably,- in a time so rude, not money, but 
 food and presents. The mediaeval minstrels were equally inde- 
 pendent of attors and publishers : so was Boccacio ; so was Jean 
 Froissart ; so, in point of fact, is Mr. Dickens, who can read his 
 own lines to crowded and paying audiences. Were he to deliver 
 a new work from MS., instead of old printed ones, would the 
 attraction diminish — or increase ? 
 
 Lord Mansfield saw this clearly, and tried hard to make petty 
 lawyers and loose thinkers comprehend it. Millar v. Tayor, 4 
 Burroughs. Nor will any man understand the moral right, on 
 which copyright and stage right are based, if he begins by being 
 wiser than Lord Mansfield m this. Some persons, in whom the 
 senses tyrannize over the understanding, have got to argue as if 
 the intellectual production were but an effluvia from the paper, 
 print, and binding. They forget it was created before these, 
 and could have been communicated to other minds without the 
 help of these, whereas these without it what ideas can they com- 
 municate ? 
 
 The gas and the inflated balloon seem one to a baby ; yet they 
 are what they were before they came together, distinct proper- 
 ties ; and so are the intellectual production, and the volume, that 
 seems one with it to a judicial baby, but is only attached to it. 
 The same applies to the theatrical adjunct. I can write a play, 
 and read it to the public for money, or I can sell to actors the 
 right to deliver it for sale. In the first case I am entitled to 
 all the profits, for I do two distinct acts of labour ; the long and 
 weighty labour of the author, and the trivial but oft repeated 
 labour of the speaker. In the second case, I shirk the latter 
 labour, and consequently lose all claim to its profits, but for the 
 superior labour I ought to be paid by those who reap my fruits as 
 
264 APPENDIX. 
 
 well as their own. This claim in the case of the foreign dramatist 
 has to be subdivided. The translator or adapter is his collabora- 
 teur, and entitled to share with him. This is justice, and some 
 day will be law. 
 
 1. Letter from the French Consul, enclosing No. 2. 
 
 Londres, le 13 Aout, 1857. 
 Consulat G^n^ral de France en 
 Angleterre. 
 
 MONSIEDK, 
 
 Je m'^tais empresse de communiquer k S. E. M. le Ministre 
 des Affaires Etrangferes les observations que vous m'avez fait 
 I'honneur de me pr&enter, il y a quelque temps ddjk, au sujet de 
 la poursuite que vous dirigez, en Angleterre, centre un soi-disant 
 imitateur du drame de MM. Brisebarre et Nus, Les Pauvres de 
 Paris. 
 
 Transmises par le Comte Walewski h la Commission des Auteurs 
 et Compositeurs Dramatiques, ces observations ont trouve dans 
 cette socidtd I'accueil le plus favorable, et je suis heureux de 
 pouvoir vous transmettre ci-joint copie d'une pifec8, par laquelle 
 le comite declare prendre k sa charge les frais du procfes excedant 
 la somme de mille francs que vous avez offerte comme contribution 
 personnelle dans cette affaire. 
 
 Vous remarquerez, Monsieur, que cette declaration est adressde 
 au Ministre de I'lntdrieur dans les attributions duquel se trouve 
 plac^e la Soci^te des Auteurs Dramatiques. 
 
 Je vous prie de m'accuser reception de cette communication. 
 
 Recevez, Monsieur, I'assurance de ma consideration trfes-dis- 
 tingu^e. 
 
 Gaillard de Ferry. 
 
 Monsieur Charles Eeade. 
 
 2. Copy of a Document addressed to the Minister of the 
 Interior by the Committee of French Dramatic 
 Authors. 
 
 ■Paris, ce 2 Aout, 1857. 
 Commission des Autem"s et 
 
 Compositeurs Dramatiques. 
 
 A son Excellence Monsieur le Ministre de I'lntdrieur. 
 Monsieur le Ministre, 
 
 Les membres composant la Commission des Auteurs et 
 Compositeurs Dramatiques ont I'honneur d'informer votre excel- 
 lence de la decision qu'ils ont prise relativement au procfea 
 intente par Monsieur Charles Reade, devant la justice anglaise, 
 k un traducteur qui se pretend imitateur de bonne foi du drame 
 de Messieurs Brisebarre et Nus, intitule Les Pauvres de Paris. 
 
APPENDIX. 265 
 
 La Commission estimant que dans le traitd international, des- 
 tine k prot^ger les droits des auteurs francais en Angleterre, la 
 reserve faite en faveur des soi-disants imitations de bonne foi n'est 
 qu'une voie ouverte au plagiat k peine d^guisd, et que, par conse- 
 quent, la loyale intention des deux gouvemements de sauvegarder 
 les droits sacr^s de la propriety htteraire sera continuellement 
 fauss^e tant que certains traducteurs anglais pourront invoquer le 
 droit d'appropriation ou d'imitation de bonne foi de nos oeuvres 
 dramatiques, 
 
 De plus, la Commission, convaincue qu'il y a n^cessitd pour 
 les intdrSts g^n&aux qu'elle reprdsente k ce qu'un arr@t de jus- 
 tice demontre jusqu'k quel point le traits international est rendu 
 inefficace par suite de cette reserve des imitations de bonne foi, et 
 quel abus la fraude peut faire de ce mode d'emprunt littdraire non 
 ngoureusement ddfini, 
 
 Declare — 
 Que Taction intent^e, en Angleterre, par Mr. Charles Eeewie, 
 centre le traducteur du drame qui a pour titre : Les Pauvres de 
 Paris, touche k I'int&et gdn^ral des membres de la Soci^td des 
 Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques, 
 
 Decide — 
 Qu'elle prend k la charge de sa caisse les frais du procfes excedants 
 la somme de millb francs^ ofFerte par Mr. Charles Reade comme , 
 contribution personnelle dans cette affaire. 
 
 Nous sommes avec respect, &c.. 
 
 Pour les membres de la Commission, 
 (Signd) . Michel Masson, Vice-Prdsident. 
 
 3. Letter from Khe President of the Committee to 
 Mr. Reade. 
 
 Paris, 6 Aout, 1857. 
 MoN CHER Rkade, 
 
 Votre courageuse attitude dans le procfes qui va s'engager 
 a provoqud de la part de la Commission des Auteurs et Composi- 
 teurs Dramatiques une vive reconnaissance. Si la cause de la 
 litt^rature doit triompher, il faut que le triomphe soit du aux litte- 
 rateurs eux-memes, invoquant leur droit et faisant appel k la lo- 
 yaute de la nation anglaise. 
 
 Aussi la Commission, dont j'ai I'honneur d'etre President, a-t-elle 
 ddcide que les frais du proces seraient support^s par les auteurs 
 fran9ais ; et la part que tous annoncez vouloir prendre dans les 
 d^penses de cette affaire, sera un titre nouveau k Testime et k la 
 gratitude de vos confreres d'outre-manohe. 
 
 Nous acoeptons, en consequence, et votre tribut et votre con- 
 cours. Soyez assur^ d'dtre suivi sur le terrain par toutes nos 
 sympathies, et surtout par notre cooperation energique ; car, je 
 le rlpfete, vous soutenez en cette circonstance la cause de la 
 
266 APPENDIX. 
 
 litt^rature glorieuse et honndte. Votre exemple entrainera cer- 
 tainement I'approbation de vos concitoyens. 
 
 Reoevez, mon cher Eeade, I'assurance de mes sentim'eiits par- 
 ticuliferement distinguds et affectueux. 
 
 A. Maquet. 
 
 Perpetual Attacks on my own Copyrights. — P. 122. 
 
 Besides all the battles recorded in this book, I have had to file 
 an injunction in Ireland. 
 
 One fine day a young gentleman, a perfect stranger to me, 
 wrote to let me know that the editor of a newspaper in Dublin 
 was printing and selling " It is Never too Late to Mend," in his 
 coRimns under the title of " Susan Merton." 
 
 Some people write notes to pirates, civilly remonstrating. I do 
 not ; nor to a burglar, nor to a pickpocket. K I had taken this 
 course the attack on my property would have been public, the 
 cure private, and I should have been swindled from John-o'- 
 
 Groats to Plymouth Sound. I filed a bill against Mr. . I 
 
 forget his name now : it was not " legion," though, as it ought to 
 have been. There was no legal defence, as you may suppose; 
 and my Lord Chancellor put his stopper on that bottle. The 
 moral defence was that he had found the story in the " New York 
 ' Despatch," published as an American story, and headed " Susan 
 Merton, a Tale of the Heart ; " with no author's name : which was 
 true. That twenty or thirty people did not on the appearance of 
 this story in his columns tell the Dublin editor he was pirating 
 one of the best known novels of the day, is what I profoundly 
 disbelieve. At the same time I beg to draw the attention of the 
 American press. Why disguise an act of piracy which the law 
 allows y Why rob my work of its ideaed title, and substitute an 
 unideaed title V I am sure such of my good friends over there as 
 do me the honour to accept my talent gratis, cannot wish to get 
 me pillaged in my native country. 
 
 In the year 1853, I produced a drama called " Gold" at Drury 
 Lane, which theatre it saved from closing. It did not, however, 
 run a hundred nights, and therefore I took the characters and 
 some of the scenes, and incorporated them into a novel — " It is 
 Never too Late to Mend." Here then by two honest acts of labour 
 I possess (in theory of law) two properties : and in France I cer- 
 tamly should possess two properties. But Mr. Conquest, of the 
 Grecian theatre, kidnaps my novel and dramatizes it, and takes 
 indifferently the original scenes of the novel and those which first 
 saw the light as dramatic property. Thus he robs me of one 
 property entirely (the play), damages another, and deprives me of 
 the right to dramatize my story : my two properties are reduced 
 to half one. I have served him with a writ, and shall proceed 
 to trial ; but not with confidence as I should if the matter was to 
 
APPENDIX. 267 
 
 be tried before a French or Prussian tribunal. For, in a free 
 country, public opinion not only dictates laws, but penetrates 
 the courts of law, and being inhaled, often unconsciously, by 
 judge and jury, enforces a law or deadens it ad libitvm. Now in 
 England public opinion is all for pillaging authors and murdering 
 their families. "Ahe Anglo-Saxon creed with respect to us has 
 two articles. 
 
 1. Thou Shalt not steal, except frum an author. 
 
 2. Whoso swindleth an author doeth the public service. 
 
 The first is all the Old Testament, and the second all the New 
 Testament, that ever comes our way. 
 
 Let me hope it is want of intelligence, not deliberate heartless- 
 ness. When an author's house is broken into, or his pocket 
 picked, he does not complain. He shares these wrongs with all 
 lis countrymen. Mr. Albert Smith has had his house three 
 times broken into ; twice robbed clean. He has mentioned it 
 publicly, but with perfect good temper. Moreover this sort of 
 fraud is a mere stroke with a feather, compared with piracy. The 
 burglar takes our luxuries and our loose cash. But the pirate 
 swindles us out of our capital. What would you feel if you were 
 liable every hour to be robbed of your consols (not the interest 
 but the stock) and Breadalbaned out of your family acres ? Yet 
 that is the exact position of an author in England ; not for want of 
 good laws, but of manly and Christian feeling in the population 
 towards those, who, deriving most of their power fi-om the width 
 of their sympathies with their fellow-creatures, are the last men 
 that ought to be outlawed from human sympathy. Let me add 
 that the precarious character of literary property is in part owing 
 to the rascality of those writers who earwigged the ministry in 
 1851. Our villainy towards our French brethren has recoiled 
 on our own property, and checked its progress towards stability. 
 Roguery is a bad gun : it seldom hits the object, and always 
 kicks the gunner. 
 
 The Abridgment Swindle. 
 
 The stupid blunders that combined to lead English judges to 
 this virtual repeal of the copyright acts are too numerous to be 
 handled here. The two main blunders may be thus stated : — 
 1st. They entirely ignored the plaintiif and his rights, and treated 
 the case as Rex v. Abridger ; consequently they accepted reasons, 
 which were a fair defence to an indictment by the Crown, but 
 valueless in a suit for property between two citizens, with rights 
 to be balanced. 
 
 2. These gentlemen had been taught that labour bestowed upon 
 open materials creates copyright ; in other words, labour, when- 
 ever it does not clash with a title, creates a title. Hence the don- 
 
268 APPENDIX. 
 
 keys inferred that when it clashes with a title, it creates a just 
 property all the same. But that distinction happens to make all 
 the difference between copyright and piracy. 
 
 It is only because the understandings of little men are low, 
 sordid, and sensual, that these stupid blunders are ever made. 
 Transfer the matter to anything the poor devils can see, hear, 
 smell, handle, and the fallacy evaporates of itself. _ Suppose a 
 piece of waste moor, and that all the natives of a district have (no 
 matter how) an equal right to do what they like with it. I dig 
 an acre ; I sow wheat ; I reap it and thrash it, and gamer the 
 grain. A lazy hound, who had the same right to make grain his 
 own, by tilling the common soil, prefers to steal my grain out of 
 my granary. Here you have the Dublin editor and all direct 
 pirates. Another pirate less lazy than the mere snatcher, but 
 much lazier than the honest cultivator, goes into my field and 
 reaps the corn he has not sown. Reaping is labour, and hard la- 
 bour too. Here you have the abridger, adapter, et id genus omne. 
 Does that act of labour give him a right to rob me of the fruits of 
 my far greater labour ? Those precious judges decided that it 
 does. Nor is it any answer here to urge the natural flaw of copy- 
 right as property, viz., that actual separation does not take place 
 as in case of material theft. This is a sound and just defence to 
 moderate plagiarism, but not to piracy that injures or supersedes 
 the original work ; for here actual separation does take place. We 
 will give these old gentlemen every chance. We will take the 
 very property they were dealing with in Strahan v. Newbery, viz., 
 Captain Cook's voyages. 
 
 Captain Cook sailed twice round the world, and made great 
 discoveries. But in his next voyage he was murdered by some 
 savage islanders, and left his log and his MSS. In that he was a 
 sailor his nation honoured, and wept him ; in that he was an au- 
 thor his nation rifled his dead body, and swindled his widow and 
 children : c'est de rigueur. The voyages pirated by Newbery 
 were Cook's voyages. 
 
 Compare now the acts of labour that created that copyright, 
 with the one paltry act of labour employed to steal it. The gal- 
 lant seaman did not skim his facts off another man's milk. He 
 wrought for them soul and body. He encountered wet, cold, 
 tempests, dangers innumerable, to write this book. He gathered 
 every page of it with his life in his hand. A miserable badger 
 that neier stirred a mile from his hole sits down by the fireside, 
 and with a few days' easy work shortens and condenses the bare 
 pages that years' labour, fortitude, courage, and suffering, had 
 produced, and undersells them hopelessly. Any judge worthy 
 to sit, except in a pillory, would have seen the lion's blood, and 
 sweat, and life on those sacred pages, and would have revolted 
 against the badger and his barefaced fraud. But no, these 
 judges could only sympathize with the brainless pilfering vermin 
 
hi 
 
 APPENDIX. 269 
 
 that prey on brave and honest authors. The pseudo labour of 
 the badger stealing by the fireside the travelled lion's mighty la- 
 bour, and his sweat, and his blood, that they could see and 
 reverence; it reminded them of a pettifogger. The lion and 
 his labour, and his rights, were too big for these puny judges to 
 see at all. 
 
 In their hands the balance had but one scale, and into it they 
 put the dirt, and flung the gold out of court. The French law is 
 ust the same at bottom as the English law ; only the French law 
 las been interpreted (in respect of abridgments) by judges worthy 
 of the name ; ours by judges with the heart of'^ a polecat and the 
 head of an ass. 
 
 The following is the law of the French courts : — 
 
 Les abrdges doivent §tre proscrits par les tribunaux avec 
 d'aiita^^t plus de s^vdrite, qu'ils etablissent une concurrence plus 
 redoutable pour I'auteur, puisqu'ils reproduisent la partie essen- 
 tielle de son oeuvre, et qu'ils se vendent k meilleur marchd. 
 Rwet V. Arnaud. Etienne le Blanc — De la Proprift^ Litteraire, 
 p. 176: 
 
 I have been thus severe upon a judgment delivered many 
 years age, because no living judge has as yet been lawyer enough 
 nor man enough to disown in his place that filthy doctrine, which 
 reflects so much shame on the English bench ; and till it is by 
 them publicly disowned, or by law repealed, copyright has no real 
 existence in England. Property is not property so long as it Ues 
 at the mercy of any kind, class, or description, of thief. For 
 piracy is supple as an eel, and can and will adapt itself to any 
 mode of working which disloyal or feeble tribunals select to 
 favour. Mr. Curtis has devoted several valuable pages to ex- 
 posure of the fallacies in those unjust judgments. — bee Curtis on 
 Copyright, 269-281. 
 
 The reasons why a piratical abridgment always supersedes and 
 destroys the honest book are these. A book is not sold, like a 
 picture, in consequence of inspection. The leaves are kept un- 
 cut, in order that it may be bought like a pig in a poke, i. e., by 
 advertisement. If the piratical sale is not checked, the abridger 
 advertises thus : " All that is really valuable in this learned and 
 useful work is here presented to the public at one-third the cost 
 of the original book." Whether this should be true or false mat- 
 ters little. It is irresistible. The public knows the value of a 
 shilling, and cannot possibly know the value of a book it has not 
 read ; wherefore it wiU always cease to buy the original in face of 
 such an advertisement. 
 
 The circumstances that enable the "abridging swindler" to 
 sell so cheap, yet make a profit, are two. 1. The original au- 
 thor's labour is upon the average not less than forty times as 
 long as the abridger's, and ofl;en combined with collateral ex- 
 penses, such as purchase of books, or money laid out on actual 
 
270 APPENDIX. 
 
 travel, &c. On this item therefore the swindler can undersell his 
 ■victim four thousand per cent. 2. Printing and paper are paid 
 for by quantity. An abridged volume of 150 pages can always 
 be sold at a profit for less than half the original of 350 pages. 
 Add to this the above saving in author's labour, and the swindle 
 can be sold for one-third the fair price of the honest production, 
 and by means of its merit, reputation, and title ; thus the eagle 
 was shot vrith au arrow feathered from his own bosom. On tms, 
 the worst, the impudentest, and the most inevitably fatal of all the 
 swindles with which mankind reward their great benefactor, the 
 honest, laborious author, the French judges have decided white, 
 and the English judges black. And why, because the French 
 judges were jurists, and the English judges attorneys in long wigs. 
 The French judges were impartial, and so to them one man's legal 
 property was as sacred as another's. The English judge% were 
 partial, and drew an arbitrary distinction false in law between an 
 author's " personal property " and a carpenter's, making the former 
 infinitely less secure than the latter. Finally the French judges 
 were loyal and independent, and the mouthpieces of law : the 
 EngUsh judges evaded the law's declared intention, and trucMed 
 to opinion as basely as Neapolitan judges truckle to power. They 
 saw justice on one side and popularity on the other ; and chose 
 the latter. It is a common preference where the heart is small 
 and the head is not big : but the judgment-seat is not the place for 
 it. There a man should judge property or life without respect of 
 persons, or else be flayed alive, and the seat leathered with him 
 for a better man to sit on. 
 
 The worst of it is that in England injustice done in open court 
 to unpopular proprietors (and an author though a popular man 
 is the most unpopular of all proprietors) is everlasting. It sur- 
 vives its cause. Probably there is not a Uving judge who does 
 not in his heart regard " the abridgment swinme " as I do, indig- 
 nation apart. It does not follow that, if you sued to-morrow a 
 cunning piratical abridger of your labours, the present judges 
 would have the courage to do you justice. The courts are gov- 
 erned (and for very good reasons) by precedent ; and our courts 
 look at the number of precedents, not at their justice nor injustice. 
 You would find that at Westminster a dead our or two can con- 
 b-ol five living lions. In copyright especially any author-swind- 
 ling shuffler that happened to die in horse-hair forty years ago 
 can put a bony hand up out of the grave, and still baffle law, and 
 corrupt justice, upon earth. 
 
 Wherefore until a fresh Act of ParKament shall be passed to 
 raise the English courts to the moral and intellectual level of the 
 French courts in respect of " the abridgment swindle " and " the 
 kidnapping swindle," &c., the French author remains a citizen, 
 the English author a demi-ouUaw ; the French author a propri- 
 etor, and honoured and elevated by that unbohemianizLng posses- 
 
APPENDIX. 271 
 
 sion : the English author a Bohemian malgr^ lui, discouraged 
 from honest labour by the insecurity of his production, and stim- 
 ulated to dishonourable courses by the sense of injustice, a temp- 
 tation of terrible force. For, in an English author, a fraud on his 
 felhw-citizens is an act of retribution. The low moral and social 
 status of the English professional author, as compared with the 
 French, are entirely owing to two causes, the comparative inse- 
 curity of literary property, and the mania for anonymous writing. 
 But these causes co-operate : for the insecurity of property leads 
 men to write for salaries instead of for property ; and the salaried 
 writer, having no personal interest in literary property, defends a 
 swindled shoemaker with zeal, to please the public, but looks on 
 with icy apathy when an author is pillaged. 
 
 Sloppy Translation. — P. 115. 
 
 It would not be difficult to produce a thousand instances in 
 which bad translators have adapted instead of translated. In 
 fact what the adapter now claims as a merit is the translator's be- 
 setting sin. 
 
 Monsieur Bignan, writing in the Journal des D^bats, June 21, 
 
 1859, remarks thus on the old translators : " On avait horreur 
 
 du mot propre ; et I'enluminure moderne denaturait k plaisir le 
 
 ooloris antique : c'^tait un anachronisme presque continual d'ex- 
 
 ' pression et des images." 
 
 Is there a single scholar whose observation does not bear out 
 the above summary ? 
 
 CoUaborateurs in England from 1580 — 1620, when the 
 Market was healthy as it now is in France. 
 
 Dido — Marlow and Nash. Maiden's Holy day — Marlow and 
 Day. Arcadian Virgin — Chettle and Haughton. Black Batman 
 of the North — Chettle, Wilson, Drayton, and Dekker. Blind 
 Beggar of Bethnal Green — Chettle and Day. Fall of Ccesar — 
 Monday, Drayton, Webster, and Middleton. Tivo Noble Kins- 
 men — Shakspeare and Fletcher. Henry VI. — Shakspeare and 
 another. Hamlet — Shakspeare and another. Arden of. Fever- 
 sham — Another and Shakspeare. Titus Andronicus — Another 
 and Shakspeare. P«nc/es — Another and Shakspeare. TroUus 
 and Oessida — Shakspeare and others. Christmas comes but once 
 a Fear — Heywood, Dekker, John Webster, and Chettle. Earl 
 Godwin — Drayton, Dekker, Wilson, and Chettle. Friar Bush 
 and the Proud Woman of Antwerp — Haughton and Day. Hot 
 Anger soon cold — Ben Jonson, Chettle, and Porter. Jepthah — 
 Monday and Dekker. King Lear — Shakspeare and another. 
 The Widow — Ben Jonson, Fletcher, and Middleton. Jeweller of 
 Amsterdam — Fletcher, Massenger, and Field. Virgin Martyr — 
 
272 APPENDIX. 
 
 Massenger and Dekker. Fatal Bowry — Masaenger and Field. 
 Love parts Friendship — Smith and Chettle. Madman's Morris 
 — Wilson, Dekker, and Drayton. Wyal's History — Webster and 
 Dekker. Looking-glass for London and England — Lodge and 
 Robert Greene. Sir John Oldcastle (falsely attributed to Shak- 
 speare) — Monday, Drayton, Wilson, and Hathway. Orphan's 
 Tragedy — Day, Haughton, and Chettlo. The Woman Hater, 
 the Elder Brother, etc. etc., in a&ffiy-three plays — printed Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher. Of these plays, all printed under those two 
 names, forty at least were written by the two authors, the rest by 
 Fletcher alone, or with other collaborateurs. Owen Tudor — 
 Drayton, Monday, Hathway, and Wilson. Beech's tragedy — 
 Day and Haughton. The famous Wars of Henry \st — Drayton, 
 Dekker, and Chettle. Annihal and Scipio — Hathway and Ran- 
 kins. Civil Wars in France — Drayton and Dekker. Mother 
 Redcap — Monday and Drayton. The Black Dog of Newgate — 
 Hathway, Day, and Smith. Henry V. — Shakspeare and another. 
 Taming of a Shrew — Shakspeare and another. Troilus and 
 Cressida — Dekker and Chettle. In all probability the same play 
 that was afterwards retouched by Shakspeare. Unfortunate Gen- 
 eral — Hathway, Smith, and Day. Valentine and Orson — Mon- 
 day and Hathway. Two Harpies — Webster, Middleton, Dray- 
 ton, and Dekker. Cardinal Wolsey — Chettle, Monday, and 
 Drayton. The Witch of Edmonton — Forde, Rowley, and Dek- 
 ker. The Sun's Darling — Forde and Dekker. Fortune by Land 
 and Sea — Hey wood and Rowley. Laws of Nature — Lodge and 
 Greene. Worse afraid than hurt — Drayton and Dekker. Strange 
 News out of Poland — Pett and Haughton. The History of Car- 
 denio is ascribed by Reed and Jones to Shakspeare and Fletcher, 
 I know not on what authority. Spanish Moor's Tragedy — Haugh- 
 ton, Day, and Dekker. Jane Shore (or a play containing wiis 
 character) — Chettle and Day. Six Yeomen of the West — Haugh- 
 ton, Hathway, and Smith. Stepmother's Tragedy — Dekker and 
 Chettle. Westward Ho — Webster and Dekker. Guy of War- 
 wicke — Webster and Day. Travels of Three English Brothers — 
 Rowley, Day, and Wilkins. Lancashire Witches — Heywood and 
 Brome. The Life and Death of Sir Martin Skink — Heywood 
 and Brome. The Apprentices' Prize — Heywood and Brome. 
 Too Good to be true — Chettle, Hathway, and Smith. Eastward 
 Ho — Chapman, Ben Jonson, and Marston. The Spensers — 
 Porter and Chettle. Patient Man and Honest Jade — Middleton 
 and Dekker. Patient GrissiU — Chettle, Dekker, and Haughton. 
 Fair Constance of Rome — Monday, Drayton, and Haughton. 
 Chance Medley — Monday, Dekker, and Wilson. Cataline — 
 Wilson and Chettle. Agamemnon — Dekker and Chettle. Cox 
 of Collumpton — Haughton and Day. The Seven Wise Masters 
 — Day, Dekker, Haughton, and Chettle. As more than half the 
 above instances are found in Henslowe's diary, which is the log- 
 
APPENDIX. 273 
 
 book of a single manager during a period of 18 years, and never 
 would have been known but for that work, and as there were a 
 dozen (lieatres drinking new plays at this period, we may safely 
 multiply the above list by eight or ten, to approach even the ac- 
 tual amount of collaboration. In a word, it is plain that collabo- 
 ration was not less, but more general, than it now is in France. 
 I have heard some people very merry over a French play with 
 four authors. But Mr. Collier hints that he has encountered five 
 and even six English authors to a play, " when good old Bess was 
 Queen." — Preface to Henslowe's Diary, p. 19. Thus, you see, 
 that which has been, above all others, singled out as a French 
 characteristic, is no national nor natural characteristic whatever. 
 In this as in other signs of a flourishing drama, France merely 
 represents all human nature under just and efficient legislation, 
 and the demand for invention, which is its invariable result. 
 
 Time the best Standing Test of Labour throughout the World. 
 — FJWepp. 12,50, 162. 
 
 This is one of those obvious truths that do not require proof, 
 but do require to be enforced, because feeble minds invariably 
 forget it the moment justice depends on its being remembered. 
 Moreover, truth itself would wither if we never watered our tru- 
 isms. The ridiculous notion that intellectual labour is not meas- 
 urable has often blinded the English courts. Time is not a perfect 
 measure of labour either physical, or mental, but it is a good aver- 
 age measure of both, and as just a measure of one as of the other. 
 Genius has been before me here. Gerard Dow kept a note-book, 
 and used to price every picture he sold according to the number 
 of hours he had been employed on it. And this was pure justice 
 to his customer and to himseE No jurist will ever thoroughly 
 comprehend the relative position of the honest author and the in- 
 direct pirate, who does not admit time as the best meter of intel- 
 lectual labour. But apply this test, and the scales fall from your 
 eyes, and you soon see that the indirect pirate's labour is next to 
 nothing so compared with the inventor's labour, and is in fact 
 much smaller, than many a burglar's or great gold dust robber's 
 honest labours. A gang of thieves once travelled up and down 
 in the Manchester mail for two years, and paid the government 
 several hundred pounds. Here was honest labour far beyond any 
 literary pirate's. Yet when at last they succeeded in robbing the 
 mail of ten thousand pounds, it was not accounted to them for 
 righteousness. Yet they had a much stronger case than the pirate 
 in Strahan v. Newbery, prejudice and partiality apart. 
 
 It is a fatal, though almost universal error, to assume that there 
 
 are vital distinctions between the literary pirate and the Newgate 
 
 thief. There is not one vital distinction of any sort between them. 
 
 True, many of the latter are mere snatchers ; but so are many 
 
 18 
 
274 APPENDIX. 
 
 copyright thieves : true, the indirect pirate invests some little la- 
 bour ; but so do all the higher class of Newgate thieves_ : in fact, 
 they invest not only as much labour as the adapting, abridging, or 
 kidnapping pirate, but also capital, which the scribbling pirate 
 never invests, being a, much needier man than his Newgate 
 brother. 
 
 Nummus alit artes. 
 
 One would think so plain a truism need not to be argued. But 
 Cephalomants can unreahze this or any other truism the moment 
 truth needs it in argument. And in point of fact, this truism 
 has been steadily unrealized by most of the gentlemen that write 
 monthly moonshine about the drama. 
 
 To this there are honourable exceptions. Some three years 
 ago, a Writer in " Household Words " offered a common sense so- 
 lution of the decline in our drama, and the rise in the French. 
 He compared the prices paid for dramatic invention in France 
 and England ; and showed that under the present system a popu- 
 lar writer could not afford to invent plays here. There was a 
 howl of derision. Common sense was an entire novelty in dra- 
 matic criticism. The howl subsided ; and some of the ululators 
 have since put forth that piece of common sense as their own, 
 which is a common trick in literature, but none the less droll. 
 
 Thanks are also due to two respectable weeklies, the " Literary 
 Gazette " and the " Critic," which have steadily supported com- 
 mon sense, and the above truth. I have also seen flashes of 
 common sense and honesty in " The Universal Review ; " and 
 shall gladly see and acknowledge them elsewhere. 
 
 Money is not a luxury, it is the necessary of necessaries. 
 
 Bishops, judges, warriors are all rewarded with money as well 
 as honour. Were it not so, the scum of the earth would monopo- 
 lize those functions. 
 
 An autograph letter of Washington was sold the other day, de- 
 clining to reap any more glory for inadequate pay. 
 
 Lord Dundonald tells us, that the peculations of the Mediterra- 
 nean Courts absorbed the greater portion of our captures, and 
 that " this drawback generally disinclined officers find crews for 
 making extraordinary exertions." 
 
 Talent follows the market with the utmost fidelity. Goldsmith, 
 a greater novelist than dramatist, wrote but one novel, and two 
 dramas. For solution, see prices. Fielding, a great novelist, but 
 mediocre dramatist, wrote twenty-eight plays. Dryden, with a 
 genius for almost everything — except plays, wrote twenty-seven 
 plays. Bunyan and Defoe wrote fiction, but took good care not 
 to bring it unbaptized into the marketj Defoe, in particular, lied 
 like a tooth-drawer, to keep out of so low a market as untheatrical 
 fiction. See his prefaces to " Mrs. Veal," " Kobinson Crusoe," 
 " Voyage Kound the World," etc., etc., etc. These exceptions, 
 
APPENDIX. 275 
 
 therefore, prove nothing.! What is now the best market for fiction ? 
 The serial story. What are the great geniuses of the day writ- 
 ing ? Serials. ) Who laid the first stone of the great French 
 drama ? Beaumarchais. The actors were swindling the authors 
 out of the benefit of good laws, by fraudulent by-laws, just as the 
 old rabbis baffled the law of Moses by infinite exceptions. See 
 Lom^nie's " Life of Beaumarchais," published by Addey and Co., 
 vol. iii., pp. 16-65. A long and bitter struggle that great man 
 had; but from that date the French di-ama has risen steadily 
 though slowly with the rising prices. 
 
 Talent follows the market. Goldoni was the greatest Italian 
 dramatist. What was the end of all his talent and aU his suc- 
 cesses ? He was exiled from his native land ; and by whom ? by a 
 king, or his favourite ? No ! by literary pirates. See his "Auto- 
 biography." He fled from these miscreants — whither ? to the 
 arms of British justice ? Pas si bete : he was an author, not a 
 merchant. He fled for justice and human sympathy to Paris. He 
 ended by turning French author, wrote plays in French for the 
 theatre, and his " Autobiography " in French for the publishers ; 
 and there he died in peace and comfort, and not swindled as he 
 had been in his native land. Vive la France ! 
 
 So much for nature. Is it according to nature that the best 
 Italian writer should drop Italian and write French ? Nature be 
 hanged ! Talent snaps its fingers at nature, and follows the mar- 
 ket The French have dramatists because they deserve them. 
 Connect with the evidence already before you a piece of inde- 
 pendent testimony in Bulwer's " England and the English," vol. i. 
 There the author points out the cause that has determined similar 
 genius towards the professional chair in Germany, and in France 
 towards the ecclesiastical prizes. Same cause in both cases, — the 
 best market. 
 
 See also an admirable passage in '"The Autobiography of a 
 Rogue," " Household Words," describing the rise of English 
 painting in this century, and the means that brought it about. 
 
 In this book I have abused the quick and the dead like 
 pickpockets. 
 
 This is not altogether my fault, but partly their own, for 
 being pickpockets. 
 
 Still it is all the more pleasant to notice bright exceptions. 
 Mr. Nelson Lee, manager of the City of London Theatre, 
 and Mr. Johnson Towers, of the Victoria Theatre, declined 
 to follow the lead of the Surrey and Grecian managers, in 
 robbing me of my child by kidnapping " It is Never too Late 
 to Mend." I have letters on the subject from those gentle- 
 
276 APPENDIX. 
 
 men, the more honourable to their humanity and gentlemanly 
 feeling, that bad examples were at hand to seduce them. 
 
 I beg them to accept this public testimony of esteem ; and 
 invite my readers throughout the world to make a note of 
 their names, and of the worthy example tbey were the first 
 to set in this island. Johnson Towers. Nelson Lee. 
 
 There is a great deal of cant in print against the class 
 "publishers" in their dealing with authors. My personal 
 experience, and my researches into literary history, haVe not 
 confirmed this view. I have found some slippery tricks, but 
 quite as often on the author's side as the publisher's ; and, on 
 the whole, I have found no other human beings dealing so 
 fairly and liberally with authors as the publishers. Some 
 day I hope to hold that balance fairly before the public. At 
 present I confine myself to a single observation. The Eng- 
 lish and American publishers stand, with relation to Ameri* 
 can and English authors, much as the English managers do 
 with respect to French dramatists. But what a contrast 
 their conduct offers ! The first-class publishers in the Unit- 
 ed States, and particularly Messrs. Appleton, Messrs. Har- 
 per, Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, pay English authors liberal 
 sums — for what ? — for early sheets, a mere start of a week 
 or two in advance of the pirates. Messrs. Murray, Bentley, 
 Sampson Low, and, I hope, others, in England, are equally 
 just and liberal to American authors. 
 
 I am now sending out these sheets to Boston, U. S., with 
 a considerable fear that Messrs. Ticknor and Fields will lose 
 money by their spirit in publishing a well-meaning, unpopu- 
 lar work ; but with a royal sense of security that, if they 
 receive profits, they will fire as many dollars at me, or per- 
 haps more, than their balance sheet justifies. 
 
 THE END. 
 
tl^ Any Books in- this list will be sent free of postage, on receipt 
 of price. 
 
 Boston, 185 ■Washinqton Street, 
 September, I860. 
 
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 Greenwood Leaves. 1st and 2d Series. $1.25 each. 
 
 PoETiCAi, Works. With fine Portrait. 75 cents. 
 
 History op My Pets. With six fine Engravings. Scarlet 
 cloth. 50 cents. 
 
 Recollections of My Childhood. With six fine En- 
 gravings. Scarlet cloth. 60 cents. 
 
 Haps and Mishaps op a Tour in Europe. $1.25. 
 
 Merrie England. 75 cents. 
 
 A Forest Tragedy, and other Tales. $1.00. 
 
 Stories and Legends. 75 cents. 
 
 Stories prom Famous Ballads. Illustrated. 50 cents. 
 
 Mrs. Crosland. 
 
 Lydia : A Woman's Book. Cloth. 75 cents. 
 English Tales and Sketches. Cloth. $1.00. 
 Memorable Women. Illustrated. $1.00. 
 
 Characteristics op Women. 
 Loves op the Poets. 
 Diary of an Ennuy^e 
 Sketches op Art, &c. 
 Studies and Stories. 
 Italian Painters. 
 Legends op the Madonna. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson. 
 
 Blue and Gold. 
 
 cents, 
 cents, 
 cents, 
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 Mrs. Mowatt. 
 
 Autobiography op an Actress. $1.25. 
 Plays. Armand and Fashion. 50 cents. 
 Mimic Life. 1 vol. $1.25. 
 The Twin Roses. 1 vol. 75 cents. 
 
 Alice Gary. 
 
 Poems. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.00. 
 
 Clovbknook Children. With Plates. 75 cents. 
 
by TiCKNOR AND FlELDS. 9 
 
 Mrs. Howe. 
 
 Passion Floweks. 75 cents. 
 
 Words kor the Hour. 75 cents. 
 
 The World's Own. 50 cents. 
 
 A Trip to Cuba. 1 vol. 16mo. 75 cents. 
 
 Mrs. Eliza B. Lee. 
 
 Memoir of the Buckminstbrs. $1.25. 
 Florence, the Parish Orphan. 50 cents. 
 Parthenia. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.00. 
 
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 Life of George Stephenson : Engineer. $1.00. 
 Self Help ; with Illustrations of Character and 
 
 CoNDnCT. 1 vol. 75 cents. 
 Brief Biographies. With Plates. $1.25. 
 
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 Douglas Jebrold's Wit. 75 cents. 
 
 Life and Letters of Douglas Jerrold. $1.00. 
 
 Miss Cummins. 
 
 El FuREiDis. By the Author of " The Lamplighter," &c. 
 
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 Mrs. Judson. 
 
 Aldehbrook. By Fanny Forrester. 2 vols. $1.75. 
 The Kathayan Slave, and other Papers. 1 vol. 
 
 63 cents. 
 My Two Sisters : A Sketch from Memory. 50 cents. 
 
 John G. Saxe. 
 
 Poems. With Portrait. Boards. 63 cents. Cloth. 75 cents. 
 The Money King, and other Poems. 1 vol. 75 cents. 
 
lo A USt of Books Publiihed 
 G. A. Sala. 
 
 A JOUENEY DUE NoRTH. $1.00. 
 
 Charles T. Brooks. 
 
 German Lyrics. Translated. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. $1.00. 
 
 Tom Brown. 
 
 School Days AT KxJGBY. By An Old Boy. 1vol. 16mo, 
 
 $1.00. 
 The Same. Elustrated edition. $1.60. 
 The Scouring of the White Horse, or the Long 
 
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by TiCKNOR AND FlELDS. 11 
 
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 AvoLio. 1 vol. 75 cents. 
 
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 Arthur P. Stanley. - 
 
 Life and Correspondence of Dr. Arnold. With 
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 Poems op Home and Travel. Cloth. 75 cents. 
 Poems of the Orient. Cloth. 75 cents. 
 
12 A List of Books Publifhed 
 Horace Mann. 
 
 Thoughts pok a Young Majj. 25 cents. 
 
 Lord DufFerin. 
 
 A Yacht Voyage op 6,000 Milks. $1.00. 
 
 Owen Meredith. 
 
 Poetical Works. Blue and Gold. 76 cents. 
 LuciLB : A Poem. Blue and Gold. 75 cents. 
 
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 Poetical Works. 2 vols. $2.00. 
 
 Arago. 
 
 Biographies op Distinguished Scientific Men. 
 
 16mo. 2 vols. $2.00. 
 
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 True Womanhood. A Novel. 1 vol. $1.25. 
 
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 To Cuba and Back, a Vacation Voyage, by the Author of 
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 George B. Prescott. 
 
 History, Theory and Practice of the Electric 
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 Captain McCUntock. 
 
 Narrative of the Voyage in search of Sir John 
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 The Same. Cheaper Edition. With the same Maps and 
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 Charles Eliot Norton. 
 
 Notes op Travel and Study in Italy. 1 vol. l6mo. 
 
 $1.00. 
 
by TiCKNOR AND FlELDS. 1.3 
 
 Charles Robert Leslie, R. A. 
 
 Autobiographical Recollkctions. Edited by Tom 
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 Hans Christian Andersen. 
 
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 Wild Sports of India. 75 ceats. 
 
 Lake House. By Fanny Lewald. 75 cents. 
 
 C"ARLE8 Sumner's Orations. 2 vols. $2.50. 
 
 Tyndall's Glaciers of the Alps. 
 
 TtiAVKLs, IIesearches, and Missionary Labors in 
 
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 *1.2B. 
 Ltteria : A Dramatic Pt>EM. By Josiah Phillips Quincy. 
 
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 Charicles : A Dramatic Poem. By Josiah Phillips 
 
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 Recollections of Shelley and Byron. By E. J. Tre- 
 
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 Light on the Dark River : or, Memoirs op Mrs. 
 
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14 A Lift of Books Publifhed 
 
 Arabian Days' Entertainments. Translated from the 
 German of W. Hauff. By H. Felham Curtis. With Illustra- 
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 Hymns of the Ages. With a Preface by Rev. F. D. 
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 Sword and Gown. By the Author of " Guy Living- 
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 Almost a Heroine. By the Author of " Charles An- 
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 Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life : A Memoir of 
 THE Late Major W. S. R. Hodson, B. A. Edited by his 
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 The Life and Times of Sir Philip Sidney. 1 vol. 
 
 16mo. $1.00. 
 
 Ernest Carroll, or Artist Life in Italy. 1 vol. 
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 Memory and Hope. Cloth. $2.00. 
 
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 Rejected Addresses. A new edition. Cloth. 75 cents. 
 
 Warreniana : Companion to Rejected Ad- 
 
 dresses. 63 cents. 
 
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 Memoir of Robert Wheaton. 1 vol. $1.00. 
 
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 The Solitary of Juan Fernandez. By the Author 
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 Waldkn : OR, Life in the Woods. By Henry D. Tho- 
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 Village Life in Egypt. By Bayle St. John, the Author 
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by TiCKNOR AND FlELDS. I5 
 
 Wensley : A Story without a Mokal. By Edmund 
 
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16 A U§t of Books Publilhed. 
 
 Thorndale, or the Conflict of Opinioks. By Wil- 
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 Tennyson's Poetical Works. 1 vol. 75 cents. 
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 75 cents. 
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 Horace. Translated by Theodore Martin. 1 vol. 75 cts. 
 

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