perty; for bookfellers know well, that many a publication is attended with lofs. In moft cafes, it would be but petty larceny; at worst, in a very few, the most aggravated and capital crime.--Who fteals from common authors, fteals trafh; but he who fteals from a Spencer, a ShakeSpeare, or a Milton, steals the fire of heaven, and the most precious gifts of nature. So we must have new ftatutes to regulate thofe literary felonies.

Let us push this analogy of the principle of property in other subjects a little farther. If the publication of a whole work is theft, to publish parts of it muft alfo be theft; as a man is undeniably a thief who fteals five guineas out of my purfe, in which there is twenty :-quotation is therefore literary theft. I have always believed that the author of a book called the Elements of Criticism is an inge nious man, and a very honeft gentleman; but in this view of the matter, he lies

under a very criminal charge; every page of his book is enriched with quotations from the inoft claffical poets and other authors.

The moft perplexing difficulties would arife by the tranfmiffion of this property from the dead to the living. By the principles of our law, a man's moveable eftate is understood to lie in bonis defuncti, until it is vefted in proper form in the perfon who is intitled to take that fucceffion. It founds oddly, that a man's ideas and his literary compofitions fhould lic in bonis defuncti. Shall learning and genius be vefted in an idiot by confirmation? But there are more ferious inconveniencies and incongruities from this perpetual fucceffion in literary property. By the law of Scotland, poffeffion of moveables prefumes property, and this property is unembarraffed by any written titles; but the literary property muft for ever be tranfmitted by titles in writing, and a perpetual progrefs of titledeeds will be neceffary. Though landfates are fecured by a proper title, and forty years poffeffion, which cannot be applicable to this fpecies of property; in the courfe of time, and various fucceffs, it must happen, that the property of books must be split and divided among ift and indefinite number of fharers. No publication can be legally made without the concurrence of all the common proprietors; for it is an indivifible property, and the inextricable inconveniendes arifing from this are apparent. - VOL. XXXVI.

As to the authorities from the law of England, I fhall fay little. We must judge from our own laws, and our own ideas of property. I cannot however think, that the injunctions in chancery are to be confidered as judgements upon the right. Confiderations of equity in particular cases may afford fufficient ground for a temporary injunction, without fuppofing a perpetual property. The ftatute of Queen Anne, which no doubt extends to Scotland, is, in my opinion, no foundation of a juft argument on either fide of the queftion; for the faving claufe exprefsly leaves the point of any feparate right which authors may claim, entire and undetermined.

Upon the whole, I am of opinion, that by the common law of Scotland, authors have no property or perpetual right in their works after publication; and that it would neither be juft nor expedient to allow it.

Henry's hiftory of G. Britain. [xxxiv.654.] Book 2. chap. 4. Learning.

EXTRACTS.

Though the English began to apply to learning in the former part of the feventh century, yet it was near the conclufion of it before any of them acquired much literary fame. Aldhelm, a near relation, if not the nephew, of Ina, King of the Wefl-Saxons, was the firft who did fo. Having received the first part of his education in the fchool which one Macdulf, a learned Scot, had fet up in the place where Malmsbury now ftands, he travelled into France and Italy for his improvement. At his return home, he ftudied fome time under Adrian, Abbot of St Auguftin's in Canterbury, the most learned profeffor of the feiences who had ever been in England. In these different feminaries, he acquired a very uncom mon ftock of knowledge, and became famous for his learning, not only in England, but in foreign countries; whence feveral learned men fent him their writings for his perufal and correction; particularly Prince Arcivil, a fon of the King of Scotland, who wrote many pieces, which he fent to Aldhelm, " intreating him to give them the laft polifh, by rubbing off their Scotch ruft." He was the firft Englishman who wrote in the Latin language both in profe and verfe, and compofed a book for the inftruction of his countrymen in the profody of that language. Besides this, he wrote feveral

C

other

and lay open all the secrets of the art of metre, concerning letters, fyllables, poetic feet and figures, verfes, tones, time, &c. Add to this the doctrine of the feven divifions of poetry, with all their variations, and what number of feet every different kind of verfe muft confift of. The perfect knowledge of all this, and feveral other things of the like kind, cannot, I imagine, be acquired in a fhort fpace of time. But what fhall I fay of arithmetic, whofe long and intricate calculations are fufficient to overwhelm the mind, and throw it into defpair? For my own part, all the labour of my former ftudies, by which I had made myself a complete mafter of feveral fciences, was trifling, in comparison of what this coft fo that I may fay, with St Jerome, upon a fimilar occafion,-Before I entered upon that ftudy, I thought myself a mafter; but then I found I was but a learner. However, by the bleffing of God, and affiduous reading, I have at length overcome the greateft difficulties, and found out the method of calculating fuppofitions, which are called the parts of a number. I believe it will be better to fay nothing at all of aftronomy, the zodiac, and its twelve figns revolving in the heavens, which require a long illufration, than to difgrace that noble art by too fhort and imperfect an account; efpecially as there are some parts of it, astrology, and the perplexing calculation of horoscopes, which require the hand of a mafter to do them juftice."

me;

This account of the ftudies of the youth of England who applied to learning, as it was written by one of themfelves, exactly 1100 years ago, is really curious, though we have no reason to conclude that it contains a complete enumeration of all the fciences that were then cultivated in England, but only of thofe in the ftudy of which the writer was then engaged. Abp Theodore read lectures on medicine; but Bede hath preferved one of his doctrines, which doth not ferve to give us a very high idea of his knowlege in that art, viz. « That it was very dangerous to perform phlebotomy on the fourth day of the moon; because both the light of the moon, and the tides of the fea, were then upon the increafe." Mufic, logic, rhetoric, &c. were then taught and ftudied; but in fo imperfect a manner, that it is unneceffary to be more particular in our account

of them.-

One thing that greatly retarded the progrefs of learning among the English, and made the acquifition of literary knowledge extremely difficult in the feventh century, was the prodigious scarcity of books, which had been either carried away by the Romans, or fo entirely deftroyed by the Scots, Picts, and Saxons, that it is a little uncertain whether there was fo much as one book left in England before the arrival of Auguftin [in the preceding century]. Nor was this deficiency eafily supplied, as there was a neceffity of bringing them all from foreign countries, and chiefly from Rome, where they could not be procured without great difficulty, and a moft incredible expence. One example will be fufficient to give the reader fome idea of the price of books in England in this century. Benedict Bifcop, founder of the monaftery of Weremouth in Northumberland, made no fewer than five journies to Rome to purchase books, veffels, veftments, and other ornaments, for his mo naftery; by which he collected a very valuable library; for one book out of which, (a volume on cofmography), King Aldfred gave him an estate of eight hides, or as much land as eight ploughs could labour. This bargain was concluded by Benedict with the King a little before his death, A. D. 690; and the book was delivered, and the eftate received by his fucceffor Abbot Ceolfred. At this rate, none but kings, bishops, and abbots, could be poffeffed of any books; which is the reafon that there were then no fchools but in kings palaces, bishops feats, or monafteries. This was alfo one reafon why learning was then wholly confined to princes, priests, and a very few of the chief nobility.

The eighth century feems, upon the whole, to have been the most dark and difmal part of that long night of igno rance and barbarifm that fucceeded the fall of the Roman empire. This is acknowledged by all the writers of literary hiftory, who reprefent the nations on the continent as in danger of finking into the favage ftate, and lofing the fmall remains of learning that had hitherto fubfifted amongst them.-

The fciences commonly taught and ftudied in the eighth century were few and imperfect. It seems to have been in this period that the famous divifion of the feven liberal arts or sciences into the trivium and quadrivium took place. 2 C

The

duction of the Arabian figures, when the teachers of this fcience had no other marks for numbers but the following feven letters of the Roman alphabet, MDCLX VI, or the twenty-feven letters of the Greek alphabet? We are apt to be furprised to hear Aldhelm, the moft learned and ingenious man of the age in which he lived, speaking of arithmetic as a fcience almoft exceeding the utmoft powers of the human mind, when we know that it is now acquired by every boy of a common capacity, with great eafe, and in a little time. But our furprile will ceafe, when we reflect on the great facility of expreffing and managing numbers by the help of the Arabian figures, which were then unknown, but are now in common ufe. "The ufefulnefs (fays Wallis, Algeb. c. 5. an excellent judge) of thefe numeral figures, which we received from the Arabs, and they from the Indians, is exceeding great in all parts of arithmetic; infomuch that we, to whom it is now known, cannot but wonder how it was poffible for the ancients to manage great numbers withcut it. And certainly, fuch vaft numbers as we are now wont to confider, could not in any tolerable way be managed, if we had no other way of defigning numbers than by the Latin numeral letters M DCLXVI. "Tis true the an

cients had the fame way of diftributing numbers that we have, collecting units intotens, and tens into hundreds, and hundreds into thousands, and thoufands into myriads, &c.; but they wanted a convenient way of notation or defignation of them, proportional to that diftris bation; infomuch that when they came to thoufands or myriads, they had fcarce any more convenient ways of defigning them than by words at length for want of figures. It was probably this want of figures that gave rife to digital or manual arithmetic; in which numbers were expreffed, and calculations made, by the different pofitions of the hands and fingers. This appears to us a childish play; but it was then a ferious ftudy, and is explained at great length by Venerable Bede: for mankind commonly fall upon various contrivances for accomplishing their defigns, before they hit upon that which is at once the moft eafy and the moft effectual. In this period, mufic was a moft important part of a learned education, and one of the four fciences which conftituted the quadrivium, or

highest clafs of philofophical learning. But the modes of teaching both the theory and practice of mufic, were fo imperfect and incommodious, that the youth commonly spent nine or ten years in the ftudy of it, to no great purpose, until Guydo Aretin, a monk of St Croix in Italy, in the eleventh century, invented the scale or gamut now ufed, which greatly facilitated the acquifition of this fcience. The fame obfervation might be made concerning the methods of teaching geometry, aftronomy, and all the other fciences. These methods were fo imperfect and perplexed, that it required much longer time, and greater degrees of genius and application, to make any proficiency in thefe fciences, than it doth at prefent. For these reasons, we ought rather to felicitate ourselves on the happinefs of our circumstances for the acquifition of knowledge, than to boast of our fuperior talents, or infult the memory of our ancestors on account of their ignorance, which was in a great measure unavoidable.

The hiftorian quotes his authorities regularly: but for thefe we refer to the book.

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