WHITEHALL, _February_ 6, 1843.

MY DEAR SIR,

I beg leave to thank you for the information contained in and
accompanying your note which reached me on Saturday. The view with which
the clauses relating to copyright in the Customs Act were framed was
that those interested in the exclusion of pirated works would take care
to supply the Board of Customs from time to time with lists of all works
under copyright which were at all likely to be reprinted abroad, and
that this would render the law upon the whole much more operative and
more fair than an enormous catalogue of all the works entitled to the
privilege, of which it would be found very difficult for the officers at
the ports to manage the use.

Directions in conformity with the Acts of last Session will be sent to
the Colonies.

But I cannot omit to state that I learn from your note with great
satisfaction, that steps are to be taken here to back the recent
proceedings of the Legislature. I must not hesitate to express my
conviction that what Parliament has done will be fruitless, unless the
_law_ be seconded by the adoption of such modes of publication, as will
allow the public here and in the colonies to obtain possession of new
and popular English works at moderate prices. If it be practicable for
authors and publishers to make such arrangements, I should hope to see a
great extension of our book trade, as well as much advantage to
literature, from the measures that have now been taken and from those
which I trust we shall be enabled to take in completion of them; but
unless the proceedings of the trade itself adapt and adjust themselves
to the altered circumstances, I can feel no doubt that we shall relapse
into or towards the old state of things; the law will be first evaded
and then relaxed.

I am, my dear Sir,

Faithfully yours,

W.E. GLADSTONE.

Here it is fitting that a few paragraphs should be devoted to the
closing years of Robert Southey, who for so many years had been the
friend and coadjutor of the publisher of the _Quarterly_.

Between 1808 and 1838, Southey had written ninety-four articles for the
_Quarterly_; the last was upon his friend Thomas Telford, the engineer,
who left him a legacy. He had been returned Member of Parliament for
Downton (before the Reform Bill passed), but refused the honour--a
curious episode not often remembered in the career of this distinguished
man of letters. When about fifty-five years old, his only certa