We have said nothing of the advantages which would accrue to our own authors from a definite settlement of the question of international copyright between England and America. How great these would be is plain from the fact that the editions of American books republished in England are already numbered by thousands. With the growth of the English Colonies the value to an American author of an English copyright is daily increasing. Indeed, it is a matter of consideration for our publishers, whether Canada may not before long retaliate upon them, and by cheaper reprints become as troublesome to them as Belgium once was to France.
It is not creditable that America should be the last of civilized nations to acknowledge the justice of an author's claim to a share in the profits of a commercial value which he has absolutely created. England is more liberal to our authors than we to hers, but it is only under certain strictly limited contingencies that an American can acquire copyright there. Were all our booksellers as scrupulous as the few honorably exceptional ones among them now are, there would be no need of legislative regulation; but, in the present condition of things, he who undertakes to reprint an English book which he has honestly paid for is at the mercy of whoever can get credit for poor paper and worse printing. There is no reason why a distinction should be made between copy-right and patent-right; but, if our legislators refuse to admit any abstract right in the matter, they might at least go so far as to conclude an international arrangement by which a publisher in either country who was willing to pay for the right of publication should be protected in its exercise. No just objection could be made to a plan of this kind, which, if not so honest as a general international law of copyright, would be profitable to our publishers, and to such of our authors at least as had acquired any foreign reputation.
[RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS]
RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
The Church of the First Three Centuries; or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, with Special Reference to the Doctrine of the Trinity; illustrating its Late Origin and Gradual Formation. By Alvan Lamson, D.D. Boston. Walker, Wise, & Co. 8vo. pp. xii., 352.
Plato's Apology and Crito; with Notes, by W.S. Tyler, Graves Professor of Greek in Amherst College. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 180. 75 cts.
Poems. By William H. Holcombe, M.D. New York. Mason Brothers. 12mo. pp. 360. $1.25.
Science in Theology. Sermons preached in St. Mary's, Oxford, before the University. By Adam S. Farrar, M.A., F.G.S., F.R.A.S., Michel Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford; late One of the Select Preachers to the University; and Preacher at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall. Philadelphia. Smith, English, & Co. 12mo. pp. 250. 85 cts.
Remembered Words from the Sermons of Rev. I. Nichols, late Pastor of the First Parish in Portland, Maine. Boston. Crosby, Nichols, Lee, & Co. 12mo. pp. viii., 141. 75 cts.