Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/619

 n s. vi. DEC. 28, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

511

This evidently refers to a copyright existing in some one. By the provisions just men- tioned that only members of the Stationers' Company could print, and that no member could print a book registered in the name of another, the printer had a protected interest.

But when did the author come to have a protected interest in his work ? I am not aware of any Elizabethan plays or books being entered on the Stationers' Register in the name of the author as distinct from that of the printer.

By Art. 7 of the Star Chamber Decree, 11 July, 1637, no one may print or import a book which the Company hath or shall, by any letters patent, orders, or entrance *in their Register book or otherwise, have the right, privilege, authority, or allowance solely to print. This decree has been con- strued as expressly supposing a copyright to exist otherwise than by patent, order, or entry in the Register of the Stationers' Company, which could only be bv common law (Millar v. Taylor, 4 Burr., p. 23 14 ). In this case (decided 1769) the majority of the Court was of opinion that there was a common-law right to copyright in the author.

Numerous decrees (e.g., Star Chamber Ordinance, 1586 ; Prothero, ' Constitutional Documents,' p. 169) forbade the print- ing of any book unless licenced, and unless it complied with the allowed ordinances of the Stationers' Company. The author's right of publishing his own composition was, therefore, far from absolute. The only cases on copyright I know of are subsequent to the Copyright Act of 8 Anne, c. 19. I know of no definite assertion of the author's copyright prior to that statute, and Yates, J., in a dissenting judgment in Millar v. Taylor, denied that copyright existed at common law. Indeed, Willes, J., at p. 2313 of this report said :

" No case of a prosecution in the Star Chamber, for printing without licence .... or printing another man's copy.... has been found. Most of the judicial proceedings of the Star Chamber are lost or destroyed."

The orders that all books be submitted to the Stationers' Company were " to prevent improper publications, and have no view to establishing the right of copy in authors" (Yates, J., at p. 2377). Ten pages earlier Yates, J., pertinently remarks :

" If authors have a right at common law, they need not enter their books at all with the Sta- tioners' Company : they may waive that. And in case they do not enter them, by what marks, then, must this property in ideas be distin- guished ? "

The author was evidently unable to pre- vent " divers stolen and surreptitious copies " of his works being published.

It would appear that the right of copy- right in an author qua author, and apart from membership of the Stationers' Com- pany, was not discovered till lor.g a'ter Shakespeare's time, though, of course, an author could sell his MS. to a printer, like any other chattel, and the printer's rights were protected if he was a member of the Stationers' Company.

P. A. McELWAINE. Dublin.

"FINSTALL" (11 S. vi. 411). This no doubt means a " fine-stall," a place or shed for refining salt by boiling brine. A similar compound, fine-still (name of a vessel used in distilling), is recorded in the ' N.E.D.' As to the word stall, cf. ; ' una sails coqui- naria hoc est .1. sealtern steall " in a Kentish charter dated A.D. 863 (Birch, ' Cartularium Saxonicum,' No. 507). Much information about the salt industry is given by Walter de Gray Birch, ' Domesday Book,' London (S.P.C.K.), 1887, pp. 276-9.

L. R. M. STRACHAN.

Heidelberg.

If the ' Calendar of Charter Rolls ' quoted at this reference is correct, it may throw further light on the etymology of the place-name Finstall, formerly a hamlet in the parish of Stoke Prior ; Worcestershire, but since 1868 a separate ecclesiastical parish. I can offer no suggestion as to what ' a finstall " was, but it has struck me that, with the omission of " a," the quo- tation would read

" and of the whole tithe of all the salt of the said Peter in Wichia [i.e. Droitwich] with two saltpans and Finstall."

A. C. C.

LORD TRURO'S UNIVERSAL INFORMATION BUREAU: THE DUTCH ELL (11 S. vi. 251, 335, 412). May I point out that in my reply (ante, p. 335) I was not inquiring about a Dutch ell ? I addressed that inquiry to " The Knowledge and Informa- tion Office " some quarter of a century ago. My reason for mentioning that one and only inquiry was to show how signally that office, which offered to answer questions " on any conceivable subject, great and small," failed to answer my question.

Those who are interested as to the com- parisons of ells with English measures may, among other books, refer to P. Kelly's