their decease, the profits of departed greatness; and on the other, the whole body of the people of England, whose opinions and character are necessarily formed by the highest class of its writers, and whose national destiny and future fate is mainly dependent upon the spiritual and exalted direction of their genius.

The only argument, founded upon public considerations, which is ever adduced against these views, is founded upon the assertion that, under the monopoly produced by the copyright to the author while it lasts, the price of works is seriously enhanced to the public, and they are confined to editions of a more costly description, and that thus the benefit of the spread of knowledge among the middle and humbler classes is diminished. If this argument were well founded, it may be admitted that it would afford, to a certain degree, a counterbalancing consideration to those which have been mentioned, although no temporary or passing advantages could ever adequately compensate the evils consequent upon drying up the fountains of real intellectual greatness amongst us. But it is evident that these apprehensions are altogether chimerical, and that the clamour devised about the middle classes being deprived of the benefit of getting cheap editions of works that have become standard, is now altogether unfounded. It may be conceded that, in the former age, when the rich and the affluent alone were the purchasers of books, and education had not opened the treasures of knowledge to the middle classes, the prices of books during the copyright were in general high, and were, for the most part, suited only to the higher class of readers. Nay, it may also be admitted, that some publishers have often, by the reprint of works of a standard nature, at a cheaper rate, the moment the copyright expired, of late years materially extended the circle of their readers, and thereby conferred an important benefit on society. But nothing can be plainer than that this circumstance has taken place solely because of the introduction of the middle classes into the reading and book-purchasing public; and experience had not yet taught authors or publishers the immense profits to be sometimes realised by adapting, during the continuance of the copyright, the varied classes of editions of popular works, to the different classes

of readers who have now risen into activity. But their attention is now fully awakened to this subject. Every one now sees that the greatest profit is to be realised during the copyright, for works of durable interest, by publishing editions adapted for all, even the very humblest classes. The proof of this is decisive. Does not Mr Campbell publish annually a new edition of the Pleasures of Hope, in every possible form, from the guinea edition for the duchess or countess, down to the shilling copy for the mechanic and artisan? Have not Sir Walter Scott's Novels been brought down, during the existence of the copyright, to an issue of the Waverley Novels, at four shillings each novel, and latterly to an issue, in numbers, at twopence a-week, avowedly for the working-classes? Moore's, Southey's, and Wordsworth's Poems, have all been published, by the authors or their assignees, in a duodecimo form, originally at five, but which can now be had at four, or three shillings and sixpence a volume. James's Naval History has already issued from the press in monthly numbers, at five shillings; and the eighth edition of Hallam's Middle Ages is before the public in two volumes, at a price so moderate, that it never can be made lower to those who do not wish to put out their eyes by reading closely printed double columns by candlelight. In short, authors and booksellers now perfectly understand that, as a reading and book-buying public has sprung up in all classes, it has become not only necessary, but in the highest degree profitable, to issue different editions even simultaneously from the press, at different prices, adapted to the rates at which purchasers may be inclined to buy ; just as the manager of a theatre understands that it is expedient not only to have the dress-circle for the nobility and gentry, but the pit for the people of business, and the galleries for the humbler classes. No one imagines that, because the seats in the dress-circle are seven shillings, he will close the pit, which is three and sixpence, or the gallery, which is one shilling. In this age of growing wealth and intelligence in the middle and humbler classes, there is no danger of their being forgotten, if they do not forget themselves. There is more to be got out of the pit and the galleries than the dress-circle.

Thus we have argued this great question of copyright

upon its true ground-the national character, the national interests, the elevation and improvement of all classes. We disdain to argue it upon the footing of the interests of authors; we despise appeals to the humanity, even to the justice of the legislature. We have not even mentioned the names of Serjeant Talfourd and Lord Mahon, the able and eloquent supporters of the claims of authors in this particular. We tell our legislators, that those who wield the powers of thought are fully aware of the strength of the lever which they hold in their hand they know that it governs the rulers of men; that it sways after a time the measures of Government; that it brought on the Revolution of France, and stopped the Revolution of England. The only class of writers to whom the extension of the present copyright would be of any value, are actuated by higher motives to their exertions than any worldly considerations of honour or profit; those who aspire to direct or bless mankind, are neither to be seduced by courts, nor to be won by gold. It is the national character which is really affected by the present downward tendency of our literature; it is the national interests which are really at stake; it is the final fate of the empire which is at issue in the character of our literature. True, an extension of the copyright will not affect the interests of a thousandth part of the writers, or a hundredth part of the readers in the present age; but what then?—it is they who are to form the general opinion of mankind in the next; it is upon that thousandth and that hundredth that the fate of the world depends.

THE DECLINE OF TURKEY

[BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, JUNE 1833]

THE long duration and sudden fall of the Turkish Empire is one of the most extraordinary and apparently inexplicable phenomena in European history. The decay of the Ottoman power had been the perpetual theme of historians; its approaching downfall, the unceasing subject of prophecy for a century; but yet the ancient fabric still held out, and evinced on occasions a degree of vigour which confounded all the machinations of its enemies. For eighty years the subversion of the empire of Constantinople had been the constant object of Muscovite ambition; the genius of Catherine had been perseveringly directed to that great object; a Russian prince had been christened after the last of the Palæologi expressly to receive his throne: but yet the black eagle made little progress towards the Danube; the Mussulman forces arrayed on its banks were still most formidable, and a host arrayed under the banners of the Osmanleys, seemingly capable of making head against the world. For four years, from 1808 to 1812, the Russians waged a desperate war with the Turks; they brought frequently 150,000, sometimes 200,000 men into the field; but at its close they had made no sensible progress in the reduction of the bulwarks of Islamism. Two hundred thousand Mussulmans had frequently assembled round the banners of the Prophet; the Danube had been stained with blood, but the hostile armies still contended in doubtful and desperate strife on its shores; and on the glacis of Roudschouck the Muscovites had sustained a bloodier

Travels in Turkey. By F. SLADE, Esq. London: 1832.

defeat than they ever received from the genius of Napoleon. In the triumph of the Turks at that prodigious victory, the Vizier wrote exultingly to the Grand Seignior, that such was the multitude of the Infidel heads which he had taken, that they would make a bridge for the souls of the Faithful from earth to heaven.

But though then so formidable, the Ottoman power has within these twenty years rapidly and irrecoverably declined. The great barrier of Turkey was reached in the first campaign of the next war, the Balkan yielded to Russian genius in the second, and Adrianople, the ancient capital of the Osmanleys, became celebrated for the treaty which sealed for ever the degradation of their race. On all sides the provinces of the Empire have revolted. Greece, through a long and bloody contest, has at length worked out its deliverance from all but its own passions; the ancient war-cry of Byzantium, "Victory to the Cross!" has been again heard on the Ægean Sea;* and the Pasha of Egypt, taking advantage of the weakness consequent on so many reverses, has boldly thrown off the yoke, and, advancing from Acre in the path of Napoleon, shown to the astonished world the justice of that great man's remark, that his defeat by Sir Sidney Smith under its walls made him miss his destiny. The victory of Konieh prostrated the Asiatic power of Turkey; the standards of Mehemet Ali are rapidly approaching the Seraglio; and the discomfited Sultan is driven to take refuge under the suspicious shelter of the Russian legions. Already the advanced guard of Nicholas has passed the Bosphorus; the Muscovite standards are floating at Scutari; and, to the astonishment alike of Europe and Asia, the keys of the Dardanelles, the throne of Constantine, are laid at the feet of the Czar.

The unlooked-for rapidity of these events is not more astonishing than the weakness which the Mussulmans have evinced in their last struggle. The Russians, in the late campaign, never assembled 40,000 men in the field. In the battle of the 11th June, which decided the fate of the war, Diebitsch had only 36,000 soldiers under arms; yet

* When the brave Canaris passed under the bows of the Turkish admiral's ship, to which he had grappled the fatal fireship, at Scio, the crew in his boat exclaimed "Victory to the Cross!" the old war-cry of Byzantium.-GORDON'S Greek Revolution, i. 274.