Further correspondence followed in The Times—a letter from Panizzi on the 3rd of February, 1853, and one from Mr. Bohn on the 8th of the same month. These letters possess no special interest; the former being Panizzi’s re-statement of his case, and the latter Mr. Bohn’s rejoinder to the fresh insinuations, and his own views on the subject.
On the 24th of February, 1853, Panizzi wrote to Sir Henry Ellis, requesting that, whenever the subject of the re-enforcement of the Copyright Act was again brought before the Trustees, he would “respectfully represent to them his strong wish of being excused from performing a duty which, in conformity with the arrangement of 1837, under which he holds office, was expressly assigned to the Secretary.”
The great remedy for getting rid of all difficulties, now-a-days, seems to be the taking up by Government of important schemes, and the biographer has seen it widely suggested:—“Let Government be the only publisher, because alone having perfect means of publicity—publishing for all alike (at their own expense) and giving all alike an equal chance.”
The Law of Copyright is about to come again under the consideration of Parliament, when, we cannot tell, but it would have delighted him whose “Memoirs” we write to have listened to, and advised fresh suggestions on, a subject with which he was so intimately acquainted, and where his disinterestedness (so far as he himself was concerned) led to so much mortification and such undeserved opprobrium.
CHAPTER X
Lord Vernon’s Dante; Sir G. Cornewall Lewis on Milton and Dante; Chi era Francesco da Bologna? John Harris.
