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SUPPLEMENT

TO VOLUME LXXXVIII. PART I.

Embellished with a View of EGHAM CHURCH, SURREY.

June 1. very ancient

Mr. URBAN, HE curious and Church of Egham, in Surrey, (see the Plate) was wholly demolished last year. It consisted of a body and chancel, with a square Tower at their junction, standing on the North side, and was entered by a venerable and handsomely ornamented, timber Porch on the same side. The body comprised two ailes of Saxon architecture (which was massy and without decoration), opening to each other by three irregularly proportioned arches, resting on cylindrical columns. It is probable that the chancel walls were Saxon, as well as those of the body, or not less antient than the basement half of the Tower, which appeared by its windows to have been built in the style immediately succeeding the circular arch. All the original windows of the Church have however been altered, and, except that at the East end, are of small dimensions, and mostly in two openings, with varied and not inelegant tracery. Beneath the Porch was a Saxon door, which preserved its columns and ornaments unusually perfect till the day of its total destruction. The upper story of the Tower, and the slender shingle spire on its summit, were the most modern parts of the Church. By the demolition of this picturesque and interesting building, the County of Surrey is deprived of one out of the few curious structures with which it was ornamented. J. T. B.

REPORT from the Select Committee on the COPYRIGHT ACTS.

The Select Committee appointed to examine the Acts 8 Anne, c. 19; 15 Geo. III. c. 53; 41 Geo. III. c. 107; and 54 Geo. III. c. 116, respecting

GENT. MAG. Suppl. LXXXVIII, PART I.

A

Copyright of Books; and to report any or what Alterations are requisite to be made therein, together with their Observations thereupon, to the House, and to whom the Petitions regarding the Copyright Bill, and all Returns from Public Libraries, and from Stationers Hall, presented in the present Session, were referred; and who were empowered to report their Opinion thereupon to the House; - Have examined, the matters to them referred, and have agreed upon the following Report and Resolutions.

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HE earliest foundation for a claim from any Public Library, to the gratuitous delivery of new publications, is to be found in a decd of the year 1610, by which the Company of Stationers of London, at the request of Sir Thomas Bodley, engages to deliver a copy of every book printed in the Company (and not having been before printed) to the University of Oxford. This however seems to be confined to the publications of the Company in its Corporate capacity, and could in no case extend to those which might proceed from individuals unconnected with it.

Soon after the Restoration, in the year 1662, was passed the "Act for preventing Abuses in printing seditious, treasonable, and unlicensed books and pamphlets, and for regulating of printing and printing-presses;" by which, for the first time, it was enacted, that every printer should reserve three copies of the best and largest paper of every book new printed, or reprinted by him with additions, and shall, before any public vending of the said book, bring them to the Master of the Company of Stationers, and deliver them to him; one whereof shall be delivered to the Keeper of His Majesty's Library,

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It has been stated by Mr. Gaisford, one of the curators of the Bodleian Library, "that there are several books entered in its register, as sent from the Stationers Company subsequent to the expiration of that Act;" but it is probable that this delivery was by no means general, as there are no traces of it at Stationers Hall, and as Hearne, in the preface to the "Rebquiæ Bodleianæ," printed in 1703, presses for benefactions to that library as peculiarly desirable, "since the Act of Parliament for sending copies of books, printed by the London booksellers, is expired, and there are divers wanting for several years past." During this period, the claim of authors and publishers to the perpetual Copyright of their publications, rested upon what was afterwards determined to have been the common law, by a majority of nine to three of the Judges, on the cases of Millar and Taylor in 1769, and Donaldson and Becket in 1774. Large estates had been vested in Copyrights; these Copyrights had been assigned from hand to hand, had been the subject of family settlements, and in some instances larger prices had been given for the purchase of them (relation being bei

had to the comparative value of money) than at any time subsequent to the Act of the 8th of Queen Anne t. By this Act, which in the last of these two cases, has since been determined to have destroyed the former perpetual Copyright, and to have substituted one for a more limited period, but protected by additional penalties on those who should infringe it, it is directed, that nine copies of each book that shall be printed or published, or reprinted and published with additions, shall, by the printer, be delivered to the warehouse-keeper of the Company of Stationers, before such publication made, for the use of the Royal Library, the libraries of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the libraries of the Four Universities of Scotland, the library of Sion College in London, and the library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh.

From the passing of this Act until the decision of the cases of Beckford and Hood in 1798, and of the University of Cambridge and Bryer, in 1813, it was universally understood, that neither the protection of copyright, nor the obligation to deliver the eleven copies, attached to the publication of any book, unless it was registered at Stationers Hall, an act which was considered as purely optional and unnecessary, where it was intended to abandon the claim for copyright: and in conformity to this construction, the Act of 41 Geo. III. expressly entitled the libraries of Trinity College, and the King's Inn, Dublin, to copies of such books only as should be entered at Stationers Hall .:

* Upon reference to the continuing Act of 17 Ch. II, c. 4, the clauses respecting the delivery of the three copies appear to be perpetual, yet it should seem that they were not so considered, not being adverted to in the Act of Anne.

+ Birch, in his Life of Archbishop Tillotson, states, that his widow, after his death in 1695, sold the copyright of his unpublished sermons for 2,500 guineas.

‡ The whole number of entries during the 70 years from 1710 to 1780, does not equal that which has taken place in the last four years.

1710 to 1812.

Books and Music entered at Stationers Hall from the passing of the Act & Anne, April 1710 to April 1720 (10 years) 872 | April 1770 to April 1780 (10 years) 1,033

1730 (do.) 492 1740 (do.) 343 1750 (do.) 618 1760 (do.) 417 (do.)

1770

433

Very little if any Music was entered at Stationers Hall till legal dispute arose respecting the Copyright of Music; and

1790 (do.) 2,606

1800 (do.) 5,386 1810 (do.) 3,076 1814 (4 do.) 1,235 1818 (do.) 4,353 1776-7, when some single Songs do not

appear

In Beckford versus Hood, the Court of King's Bench decided, that the omission of the entry only prevented a prosecution for the penalties inflicted by the statutes, but it did not in any degree impede the recovery of a satisfaction for the violation of the copyright. The sanime Court further determined, in the case of the University of Cambridge against Bryer in 1812, that the eleven copies were equally claimable by the public libraries, where books had not been entered at Stationers Hall as where they had.

The burthen of the delivery, which by the latter decision was for the first time established to be obligatory upon publishers, produced in the following year a great variety of petitions to the House of Commons for redress, which were referred to a Committee; and in 1814 the last Act on this subject was passed, which directed the indiscriminate delivery of one large paper copy of every book which should be published (at the time of its being entered at Stationers Hall) to the British Museum, but limited the claim of the other ten libraries to such books as they should demand in writing within twelve months after publication; and directed that a copy of the list of books entered at Stationers Hall should be transmitted to the librarians once in three months, if not required oftener. It appears, so far as Your Com

mittee have been enabled to procure information, that there is no other country in which a demand of this nature is carried to a similar extent. In America, Prussia, Saxony, and Bavaria, one copy only is required to be deposited; in France and Austria two, and in the Netherlands three; but in several of these countries this is not necessary, unless copyright is intended to be claimed.

The Committee having directed a Statement to be prepared by one of the witnesses, an experienced bookseller, of the retail price of one copy of every book entered at Stationers Hall between the 30th July 1814 and the 1st of April 1817, find that it amounts in the whole to £.1,419. 38. 11d. which will give an average of

£.532. 4s. per andum; but the price of the books received into the Cambridge University Library from July 1914 to June 1817, amounts to £.1,145. 10s, the average of which is £.381. 168. 8d. per annum.

In the course of the inquiry committed to them, the Contmittee have proceeded to examine a variety of evidence, which, as it is already laid before the House, they think it unnecessary here to recapitulate; but upon a full consideration of the subject, they have come to the following Resolutions:

1. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Committee, That it is desirable that so much of the Copyright Act as requires the gratuitous delivery of eleven copies should be repealed, except in so far as relates to The British Museum, and that it is desirable that a fixed allowance should be granted, in lien thereof, to such of the other public libraries, as may be thought expedient.

2. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Committee, That if it should not be thought expedient by the House to comply with the above recommendation, it is desirable that the number of libraries entitled to claim such delivery should be restricted to the British Museum, and the Libraries of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Dublin Universities.

3. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Committee, That all books of prints, wherein the letter-press shall not exceed a certain very small proportion to each plate, shall be exempted from delivery, except to The Museum, with an exception of all books of mathematics.

4. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Committee, That all books in respect of which claim to Copyright shall be expressly and effectually abandoned, d, be also exempted.

5. Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Committee, That the obligation imposed on Printers to retain one Copy of each Work printed by them, shall cease, and the Copy of The Museum be made evidence in lieu of it.

5 June 1818.

appear to have been entered till April 1783: since that period, Music, particularly single Songs, has formed a considerable portion of the articles entered.

Stationers Hall,

June 3d, 1812.5

Geo. Greenhill,

Warehouse-keeper of the Company of Stationers.

Mr.

Mr. URBAN,

one

Hackney, May 1. You TOUR pages are ever open to record Biography is of our pleasing studies, and we may trace the value of it up to the Sacred Volume. How many gratifying reflections arise from this source of contemplation! and what a stimulus for imitation, as characters are contiRually "leaving us an example that we may follow their steps!" The Rev. John Carter, whose Epitaph is below, was a man of sensibility and feeling-a Clergyman that was a credit to his profession; he had served repeatedly as Chaplain in the Navy, a situation peculiarly delicate, a situation on shipboard, singular. Going one day on shore on duty, his Master's Hood blew off, and "went adrift;" this produced a hearty but rude laugh from the quarter-deck: he looked up from the boat with his manly countenance, and with his well-toned voice said, "Gentlemen, you may laugh; but remember, that cost me as many years to obtain, as the white facings of your uniforms cost you." He was Chaplain with Admiral Christian in that tremendous gale they experienced in the Channel; and he was also Chaplain with Capt. Fancourt during that memorable and disgraceful mutiny at the Nore, when all the Officers were turned on shore except himself and the Surgeon. "My lads," says he to the Mutineers, "why detain me? why keep me a prisoner? can I do you any good, in the present state of your minds? are you fit to hear myadmovitions, or to join me in public worship?" * "God bless you, Sir, go below," was the reply. There is a certain trait in the character of British seamen of a superior cast to persons of similar stations in society on shore; for they possess an ingenuous open disposition, however dreadfully they swerved from their duty in that stance.

After quitting the Navy, he settled on shore, and became a useful instructor to Scholars whose pursuits were for the navy or merchant service. In the desk he was truly devout, in the pulpit sincere and faithful, the

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Original Letter from Dr. PARKHURST

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to a condemned Prisoner.

Mr. WATSON, Epsom, April 7, 1785. THIS morning received your letter, and assure you I should have been very happy if my application to the Judge on your behalf had been successful. His Lordship, however, having, for wise and good reasons I doubt not, thought proper to refuse my petition, it grieves me to add, that (notwithstanding any thing the woman you sent to me might tell you) I fear there are no longer left any hopes of mercy for you in this world!

You say the Judge is, as this day, to make his Report to the King of the prisoners under sentence, and most probably he will report that you were convicted upon the clearest evidence of stealing my two horses, and that

* This anecdote may shew forcibly the necessity of always having Chaplains on board our Ships of war; and if Chaplains support their characters as Christian Ministers and Clergymen, depend upon it, they are not useless characters on board.

the

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