Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/309

254 nor yet if they contravene, by this practice, the injunction so frequently heard from them in set discourses, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do unto them."—When the copy-right Act was revised, the two Universities (it is understood) deputed each one of their body to town to prevent prejudice to their rights—to wit, the privilege of levying so unfeeling a tax on authors, proverbially an unfortunate race altogether—and of extending the same, as if by tile advice of Ignatius Loyola, to the labours of the painter and the engraver, till, as we have said, it operates absolutely aa a veto on various works that would do honour to the state of the arts in the country, and the sale of which on the continent would be beneficial to all concerned.

That knowledge is power, has been often said, and we will not disturb the proposition; but that it is synonymous with liberality of sentiment in corporations aggregate, it would be doing violence to the commonest sense of equity to admit—while the example of our two elder Universities is wanting to do away with the mercenary privilege that brings them so often in hostile contact with ingenious men, engaged in those arts that—

Soften the rude, and calm the savage mind.

It was not to have been expected, in the nineteenth century, that the respectable class of persons concerned in those speculations would be constrained, by this odious exaction, to resort to such expedients as the following, which refers to a set of picturesque views of English cities, superintended by Mr. Britton, who says—'This volume I published as a collection of prints, alone, without any letter-press, for the purpose of escaping the unjust penalty of giving eleven copies to certain public and private institutions, some of which are rich, and ought to purchase every new literary work, for the encouragement of authors.'

Setting aside the recommendation in the conclusion; to the indiscriminate encouragement in which there are manifest objections, will the gentlemen pointed at, continue, in forma