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under the protection of the law of nations. This is not the principal subject we have now before us. But we allude to it in order to point out the propriety, in anticipation of some international arrangements of this kind, of studying as far as is possible to introduce some sort of conformity between the laws of literary property in Europe. That conformity is not indispensable, indeed, to a system of reciprocal benefit. But we are persuaded that nothing would tend to facilitate the acknowledgement of a community of literary interests more than the analogy of literary rights. From twenty-five to thirty-five years from the death of the author is the term sanctioned by France, Prussia, Russia, and other countries. The period of twenty-eight years, allowed by the law of the United States, and by our own existing law, comes within these limits--with the important change that the posthumous privilege should be reckoned from the close of the author's life-right. On this ground alone we think it exceedingly inconsistent that the persons who are most clamorous for international copyright should propose a term of sixty years, to which the laws of copyright in all other countries are opposed.

There is not one point connected with this very complicated subject upon which we might not engage in protracted discussion. But to spare our readers we will endeavour to resume, in the fewest possible words, the result at which we have arrived, after a good deal of inquiry into the laws of other countries, and the wants of our own in this matter.

Copyright is, we think, to be regarded as a privilege justly bestowed upon authors as a remuneration for their labour. We say their labour, because we think that literary remuneration should be assimilated to the ordinary rate of remuneration bestowed on the labours of a liberal profession-not measured by the standard of the mighty achievements of genius or the extraordinary productions of the rarest minds. To them extraordinary recompenses are due; and the state is honoured in bestowing such. We think that this remunerative privilege or monopoly ought to be extended for such a time as to benefit the widow and children of the author. The fortunes of one generation are seriously influenced by the occupations of the one immediately preceding it; but no man is impoverished

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by the adversity, as few are enriched by the affluence, of their grandfathers. The duration of the term we would fix at twentyeight years, to begin from the date of the author's death,-not, as is now the case, from the date of publication. Twenty-eight years are an ample provision for one generation; but if more be desired, we think some plan might be adopted for prolonging the term, either on the Russian and American plan, by the operation of the law, if the copyright be worth any thing at the end of the first period; or, as was suggested by Lord Brougham's bill last year, by giving the Privy Council the same power in cases of copyright which it now has in cases of patent. The important and just change, however, consists in the substitution of the date of the author's decease for the date of publication as the time from which the extent of the privilege is to be reckoned. This creates a certain provision for the immediate survivors; it obviates the possibility of a man's dying with the consciousness that his literary fortune dies with him, though he should have been only overtaken by success upon the verge of the grave; and it renders the privilege more certain and equal. If this were the state of the law, it would, we think, be difficult to show cause for further extensions of copyright. But as we totally dissent from Serjeant Talfourd's proposal of making any retro-active changes, or of applying them to existing copyrights, it would perhaps be advisable to vest in the Privy Council a power of prolonging copyrights now in existence at its discretion-reserving all future literary property to the future operation of the law.

In these remarks we have had the general question of copyright in view more than the bill at this moment before Parliament. We cannot tell what shape that proposed enactment will assume in committee; but we hope that the attention of both Houses will be called to oppose the protracted term of sixty years, which is suggested by its learned author; to resist the extension of the term in cases of part assignment of copyright already made; and especially to disencumber the measure of the formidable machinery for litigation with which it is armed (like most of Serjeant Talfourd's measures), to the dismay of the Judges and the terror of literary men.

ARTICLE II.

André. Par GEORGE SAND. Paris. 1835.
Lettres d'un Voyageur. Par GEORGE SAND.
Les Maitres Mosaistes. Par GEORGE SAND.
Mauprat. Par GEORGE SAND. Paris. 1837.
Spiridion. Par GEORGE SAND. Paris. 1839.

Paris. 1837. Paris. 1837.

THOSE who have applied themselves to consider the moral state of English literature, cannot but have remarked the large encroachments recently made, by a Spirit wearing the disguise of universal sympathy and benevolence, but so strangely confounding the lapses of weakness or passion with the efforts of self-sacrifice and high principle, as to render them only distinguishable by the larger measure of support and love lavished on the former. But it is observable that the disciples of this Spirit shrink from a distinct profession of faith; either because they are not altogether convinced of the creed they espouse, or because they compassionately regard the general public as not ripe for a liberty so expanded as their own, or because they are restrained by prudential considerations from braving the attack or neglect of society. Hence they are timid in holding out the right hand of fellowship to each other in public:-above all things, eager to avoid any appearance of union with those who exceed by a hair's breadth the law of their own consciences. It will readily be imagined why the class in question have always avoided any special analysis or commendation of the writings of Madame Dudevant.

Again, these works have been abstained from by that larger section of the literary and critical public, to which belong those champions of order and morality, who, in one breath, will denounce a whole school of foreign writers as poisonous and blasphemous; and, in the next, avail themselves of the profligate fabrications of the scandal-monger, to raise a prejudice at home against all who differ from them in opinion: who will laugh down all protestations against the prurient jokes of the or the unblushing falsehoods of

the

; and, while the smile is still on their lips, will

call down judgements upon Young France, for the sake of the fanatical phrenzies of a portion of its novelists.

It is not without having weighed the amount of expediency and justice in the abstinence of both parties, that we-bound to neither-have decided upon noticing some of the works of Madame Dudevant. The English have so often heard described the half-sibylline, half-animal countenance poetically rendered by M. Calamatta-have so often been amused by details of that masculine costume, and those habits de garçon, which caused their wearer to be summoned from the Quai Malaquais to take part in the duty of the National Guardhave so often listened to travellers' tales of "the man-woman," now seen in the court of some French jail, on the day when the convicts are stripped and despatched to the galleys, now startling some party of sober Swiss tourists at the head of a whimsically equipped cavalcade-that a strong curiosity has been naturally excited concerning the writings of one whose brilliant genius and scrambling habits of life seem at first sight as oddly at variance with each other as the well-trained rapier and furbelowed petticoat of the Chevalier d'Eon! It appears to us not only admissible, but wise, to gratify this curiosity as far as is possible, without availing ourselves of what is noxious and unworthy to give piquancy to our essay. To any one who derives from the study of contemporary imaginative literature some aids to his knowledge of the progress of belief and intelligence, a certain acquaintance with the works of Madame Dudevant is almost essential; inasmuch as her flights are not those of a comet-solitary in its eccentricity. A thousand feverish and bold and ill-regulated spirits have borne her company, and will follow her steps. Again, if we are right in regarding these works as a chronicle of the strangest career ever ventured by woman,-there is instruction as well as illustration to be derived from them; some insight not merely into things struggled for, but also into the results of the struggle.

It is superfluous once again to trace the course of events by which the imaginative literature of France was precipitated into that unfathomed chaos of mingled beauty and corruption, in the deepest depths of which it was struggling at the time when Madame Dudevant began to write. That ferment, whose more perfect results have been a Chateaubriand, a Lamartine,

a Victor Hugo, a De Vigny-could not fail also to cast up specimens far more irregular in their structure, shining only, as it were, by reason of their dross. To meet the exigencies of a period when the necessity for belief and repose was owned by the thinkers and poets in France, the Spirit of Infidelity -aware that the court-ruffles and calembourgs of the courtier and the wit were a mode gone by-adroitly snatched up, in imitation of his betters, a priestly garment and a laurel crown, and began to announce a Millenium, wherein the earthly desires and the heavenly aspirations of all should be together and for ever gratified. No wonder, that from the ranks of a society so shaken by circumstances, so impressible by nature, a train should start up at once ready to follow Mephistopheles thus masquerading as an apostle-too thankful to embrace a mimic creed which required so little of its professors. Among these was a being endowed with a like impetuosity of bodily temperament and of poetical genius, masculine self-will and female mobility; the eloquence of De Stäel, without her didactic earnestness; the besoin d'être aimée of Ninon d'Enclos, without the prudent coquetries which enabled that enchantress so long to maintain her enchantments; audacious in availing herself of the excuses offered by a loveless home and an ill-assorted marriage to cast every tie of sex and custom aside; credulous in abandoning her whole self of passion and aspiration to a herd of men, who were all the more triumphant to number her among their sullied crew, because she was young -a poetess and a woman! Such, in a few words, was the time-such the manner of Madame Dudevant's appearance as an authoress.

It would be hard to determine how far the peculiar opinions to which her works are devoted have been the consequence, how far the cause, of the startling life into which she flung herself, on assuming the garments and the name of George Sand. But something may be guessed from the changes of sentiment and judgement and even manner which those works register. It may be divined that in proportion as the physical passions wore themselves out, or as the change of worldly fortunes made further outrage and struggle against the ordinances of society distasteful, the poetess gradually passed onward from advocating the sensualism of the body to that of the

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