dea! Its carnivorous enemies among the lower animals, would have cut
short the existence of the dodo, even if man had never planted his
conquering footsteps upon that island.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Walgen_, to nauseate; _vogel_, a bird.

[2] _Waerachtigh Verhael van de Schipvaert op Ost-Indien, Ghedaen by
de Acht Schepen in den Jare 1598._

[3] A hole is here burned in the manuscript, as if by the ash of a
tobacco-pipe. At the first hiatus, the word wanting is, without doubt,
_saw_; and at the second, the letters, _of can_.

MONOPOLIES.

In the High Street of Edinburgh, not many doors further up than the
premises of the publishers of this Journal, there is a curious
memorial of an old and now generally abolished economic grievance. It
is a portrait of a certain Dr Patrick Anderson, a physician of the
reign of Charles I. It is an old portrait, or rather the
representative of an old portrait, since it has necessarily been
repainted from time to time, the atmosphere of Scotland not being
favourable to the preservation of works of art in the open air. It
serves as the sign of an ancient shop, where for generation after
generation has been sold the medicine known as Andersen's Pills. What
renders the portrait and the establishment with which it is connected
so interesting to our present purpose is, that there is still an
existing patent for the making and selling of Andersen's Pills. In
whose hands it may now be, we are not aware; but we know that, ten
years ago, the right of succession to this patent was the subject of a
keenly-contested litigation. The question of course was--who was
entitled to hold it, as representative of the physician of the reign
of Charles I.? The event is suggestive of the effects that would arise
from extending patents and copyrights over a great series of years, or
to perpetuity, as some have considered desirable. If we suppose the
pills to be a very great blessing, is not every human being as well
entitled, in justice and humanity, to have the benefit of them, as
those who are fighting for the succession? What have they ever done to
deserve a monopoly? If there were a perpetual copyright, who at the
present day would be the representatives of Shakspeare or Milton; and
what right would they have to reap great rewards from the riches with
which the illustrious dead desired to endow all mankind? The inventors
and authors themselves, it is true, deserve reward; and they obtain it
in the sh