International Copyright Law, Part I [pp. 7-17]

12 Inentoa oyigtLwJNAY
free from foreign dominion, it matters little that
our thoughts, our feelings, our souls, should still
remain in bondage. The noble and emphatic sentiment, already quoted, of Dr. Channing,-" We
say, let others spin and weave for us, but let them
not think for us!"-suggesting, as it does, the only
great, true and patriotic principle, upon which the
opinions of a citizen should be moulded, in all that
concerns such a relation, would have shocked the
genius of the spinning Jenny, and caused the
throes of a moral earthquake in every manufacturing mart from Passamaquoddy to Pittsburg.
The slavish nature, however, which thus preferred
the most ordinary interests of humanity, to those
which are calculated to lift it into excellence, and
to the rarer walks of achievement, was rebuked by
the better genius of the nation; and, without any
protection from government, without a tax on any
other branch of business, that of American Literature was begun. To the genius of Fennimore
Cooper, we feel confident in saying, we owe the
first signs of a power, the first unfoldings of a.
wing, which has since soared so famously, and
which is destined to still higher flights, if not denied and delayed by untoward and unfriendly circumstance. The first writings of this author appeared in 1819. How closely upon the footsteps
of war! How soon was the question of the British Reviewer —,' who reads an American book!"answered by the writer, whose works, but a few
years after, were read in the language of every
nation in Christendom! As if to illustrate the contest through which the nation had just gone, and
to maintain the vigorous spirit which she had shown
in dealing with an enemy equally insolent and
powerful, the earliest work of his pen, which drew
the eyes of the country upon him, was founded
upon events in the great struggle, with the same
enemy, in 1776! The publication of "The Spy,"
which was the work in question, had an effect upon
the American people, infinitely beyond any pleasure which they might have gathered from its perusal, as a romance. It was contemporaneous, in
publication, with "The Pirate" of Walter Scott —
a work which did not give such ample development to the powers of its author, and thus afforded
an additional opportunity to the American reader,
to institute comparisons between them, not unfavorable to the native writer. Even as a suecessfuil
imitation only of Walter Scott, it was an event to
rejoice a youthful people, hitherto doubtful of their
resources-nay, denying them-ashamed, for the
first time, of their own previous unperfurmance,
and solicitous of fame in new departments;-when
they discovered, suddenly rising in their midst, a
genius-until then unknown —full of vigor, and
marching, with admirable bearing, upon the very
track hitherto trodden only by the "Great Un known!" The event opened the eyes of the nation,
already anxious to give the lie to the scornful re
12
International Copyright Law.
[JANUARY,
proacli of incapacity, urged, not more by the British
reviewer, than the European reader. Her eyes
suddenly be(-,ame unscaled, purged, like those of
the eagle, whose michty youth had been mewed up;
and the universal feeling of her people might be
compared, without extravagance of figure, to that
of the,.xplorer,-IODg despondina, wearied!in his
search and hopeless of success,-wlio, at the-least
expected moment, sees land!-sees the green slopes,
the wild, gorgeous shrubbery, and the huge mountains of the UDkDown empire, suddenly standing
out upon his sio,,ht! The " adch' io son pitt-ore!" of
the niodest painter, was suddenly ours. We, too,
could have our possessions in the intellectual, as in
the natural world. All was not a blank in taste
and Literature. Europe sball yet receive us, and
we sliall have our word in her high places of politeness and refidement! The COIlViCtiOD, that we
too might put in our claims to appear arnon(, those
nations which had long before been endowed with
the universal tongues of art and son,,, was one, of
those convictions that Dever sleep until they have
realized all the proofs which are necessary to the
full establishment and recognition of their pre
tensions.
It does -not militate against the claim here advanced for Mr. Cooper to show that the novels of
Charles Brockdon Brown-works in fiction of a
rarely imaginative and highly oriainal complexion
were published in America so far back, as 1798,
1801. We could show, with little difficulty, that
there were other names of men of genius, at periods equally remote, by who.-n-the mere date of
their publication being alone considered-the writings of Mr. Cooper.were anticipated. But, so
far as their effect upon the public taste and spirit
is concerned, they might as well have remained
unpublished to this day. Their works bad no circulation, did-T6t, in the least degree, affect the
popular feelingf and prompted no farther search
after a vein which was equally rich in quantity and
kind. It is to their misfortune and'to the reproach
of the country that this was the case. But the
truth is, the nation was not then vrepa?,ed to recognize its own geni,.us-had not then the couraoe to
assert a genius at all, without first sectiring the
British imprimatur. lier training for this, from
necessity, the hands of the foe-defeat, shanie,
foreian arid domestic reproach-was yet to come.
The genius (,f American Literature was born and
could only be born, when the American people were
prepared to receive and entertain her, to acknowledge her charms anti to assert her vretensions.
Such seed is seldom wasted-it comes with the occasion that demands it, and is very apt to come,
broad cast,",Lvhen the soil is ready for its growth.
There is a potential significance in this last little
paragraph, upon whicli we have need to linger.
The, Literature of a'nation, having but the single
audience, cannot long exist, or must exist under