APPENDIX C. CHARLES READE'S " EIGHTH COMMANDMENT," A TREATISE ON COPYRIGHT.-REMARKS THEREON. WHILST this work was going through the press, Mr. Charles Reade's volume, entitled the "The Eighth Commandment," has appeared, and turns out, much to the surprise of the numerous admirers of the eloquent and witty author of "Never too Late to Mend,” to be a treatise on Copyright, especially directed to the subjects of International Treaties and the Drama. Such being the case, his book is entitled to respectful notice here. Mr. Reade begins by saying that he pleads, not to angels, but to M.P.'s. It is, therefore, legislative enactments that he calls for. Now what are the wrongs which he would set right? In 1851 Europe agreed, by International Copyright Treaties, that intellectual property should pass frontiers and sheets of water and still be property. But these treaties, in his opinion, are marred by this proviso: It is understood that the protection stipulated by the present article is not intended to prohibit fair imitations or adaptations of dramatic works to the stage in England and France respectively, but is only meant to prevent piratical translations. The result, he complains, is a statute contradictory in terms, failing in its proposed object of abolishing international injustice, robbery of the French, and starvation of the English author. He then proceeds to denounce the abuse of the practice of abridgment, and claims for authors, British and foreign, the absolute property in their works, with exclusive power to abridge, dramatise, and metamorphose them at will, turning prose into poetry, romances into plays, and vice versa. All this is mixed up with narratives of expensive, vexatious, and unsatisfactory law proceedings, angry attacks on his critics, and other extraneous matter, filling 379 pages octavo, in which this charming writer, with much untoward and perverse ingenuity, has proved himself capable of writing an unpopular, disagreeable, unREADable book. We regret this result the more, because we sympathise to a certain, but moderate extent, in the object he so sincerely, but so injudiciously advocates. Mr. Reade proves very clearly that the theatre obtained greater success at an earlier period in England than in any other European country, that the nation has shown, at various epochs, a very remarkable genius and taste for the drama, that there is no reason why the dramatic spirit should have departed from the land, and yet, in the present day, dramatic literature is less cultivated than any other branch of imagination, whilst in France it is more flourishing than at any former period, and its authors equitably and richly rewarded. Whilst admitting these facts, we cannot allow, however, that the decadence of British dramatic art is to be ascribable, in any great extent, to the adaptation or piracy of French plays. The evil is certainly not of modern origin. Pope, in the prologue to Cato, written a century and a half ago, complains, "Our scenes precariously subsist too long Genius has a course so capricious, that it can with difficulty be accounted for by fixed rules.* Each age and each country has its distinguishing attributes; at one time war, at another legislation, at another commerce is the characteristic feature; now poetry, now painting, now sculpture, now music seem to absorb the intellect of the day. And this is equally true with regard to the kind of excellence which prevails in different countries and in different times. In early days the bard and the minstrel were the representative men of the poetic spirit of their age, and, unsuspicious of copyright, charmed the leisure of their rude contemporaries. Then the drama became the power which made "Mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold." At one period the epic was the form of the divine afflatus; then lighter verse usurped its place; again, poetry itself became distasteful to an age or a country, and romance assumed the sceptre vacated by its august predecessors. No law would have secured the permanency of any of these; no law was instrumental in effecting their downfall. Powerfully operating causes may be assigned, which are entirely independent of defective legislative protection against piracy, for the present decay of the drama in this country. A great change has taken place in the habits and hours of what are called the * Les idées sont des forces vives, mêlées à l'air que nous respirons; le vent les charrie et les sème à tous les points de l'horizon, et quoi qu'on puisse faire pour échapper à ces invisibles courans, si loin qu'on se tienne à l'écart, on s'en pénètre, on s'en imprègne; on est toujours l'enfant de son siècle.-Jules Sandeau. higher and middle classes of society, which renders attendance at the theatre generally inconvenient, whilst the increased taste of these classes for Italian music makes the opera a formidable foe to the ordinary drama; railroads and other facilities of locomotion withdraw a very influential and wealthy class from the theatrical centres; increased attachment to domestic life disinclines its votaries for outdoor amusement; the universal spread of literature makes the closet, rather than the theatre, the temple of the imagination; and, finally, the religious spirit of the age has set itself against the theatre with so strong a bias, as to place the whole dramatic world under the ban of its anathema. Those powerfully influential bodies, the low-church party in the establishment, and the various classes of dissenters, assuming the title of evangelical, are antitheatrical to a man. It is even wonderful how in Scotland, with the opinions generally prevalent there, the theatre can exist as an institution at all. The patronage of the theatre has now fallen to the humbler classes, less competent to appreciate merit and less able to reward it. The theatrical manager must, therefore, bow to the taste and intelligence of his patrons, and limit his expenditure to the amount they place at his disposal. In France the case is quite different. A greater national cheerfulness and a greater taste for amusement is everywhere remarkable, accompanied by a much less absorbing attachment to domestic life. The love of the French for outdoor recreation produces effects which are evident in various ways, besides their patronage of the drama. Witness the café, the restaurant, and other places of eager general resort, which have never been thoroughly acclimatised in this country. Again, the Government of France, by means of subventions gives a factitious stimulus to the theatre throughout the country. Similar encouragement does not exist in Great Britain. We need not inquire whether such be a desirable mode of employment for the national revenues. It certainly would never be permitted here. Dr. Johnson somewhere remarks, with his usual acumen, that the dullest book ever written, if the pure and entire conception of the mind of its author, would be a miracle of genius. We are hardly conscious how much we owe to our predecessors and contemporaries. The proportion we borrow, compared with the really original part of our works, may perhaps be in the ratio of Falstaff's unconscionable quantities of sack to his halfpennyworths of bread. The author should reflect, and the reflection should make him modest, that a very large part of that which he complacently publishes as his own must necessarily be derived from sources outside his own brain pan, and that it is consequently merely a return to the public and to posterity of matter which he himself has derived from those who have gone before him, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. It is true that the matter thus re-distilled through the mental alembic may come out as disguised as Bishop Butler's sermon when it was first translated by Mr. Reade's friend, the curate, into Welsh, and then retranslated into English, after which operation, as the worthy curate boasted exultingly, "the Devil himself would not know it again!" "An author is a venerable name, How few deserve it, and how many claim." It is on this ground that the Legislature is fully justified in limiting the exclusive privilege of author |