ing alone I ask from the legislature, and in
the name of justice,--that the injurious law of copyright should be
repealed, and that the family of an author should not be deprived of
their just and natural rights in his works when his permanent reputation
is established._ This I ask with the earnestness of a man who is
conscious that he has labored for posterity."

The publication of this letter, and of the correspondence between
Southey and Sir Robert Peel, in which the poet declines being knighted,
on account of his poverty--a correspondence eminently honorable to the
late Prime Minister, has occasioned an eloquent letter from Walter
Savage Landor to Lord Brougham on the same subject.

CLASSICAL NOVELS.

The _Edinburgh Review_ rebukes the daring of those uneducated
story-tellers who profane by their intrusion the holy lands, the sacred
names, and golden ages of art. We have acceptable specimens of the
"classical novel" by Dr. Croly, Lockhart, Bulwer, and Collins (the
author of "Antonini"), and in this country by Mrs. Child and William
Ware; but nineteen of every twenty who have attempted such compositions
have failed entirely. The Edinburgh Reviewer, after showing that the
writers whom he arraigns have merely parodied the exterior life of our
own time, proceeds--

"It is not uncommon to excuse such deviations from historical propriety
by saying, that if the mere accidents have been neglected, the essential
humanity has been only more fully realized: and those who quarrel with
the neglect are stigmatized as pedants having no eyes except for the
external. We think, however, that it will be found, in most cases where
the plea is set up, that the humanity for which the sacrifice has been
made is equally external with that which has been disregarded, and much
more commonplace and conventional; being in fact, only the outer life of
existing society. We are met, of course, by the triumphant answer that
Shakspeare wrote Roman plays with a very slender knowledge of the
classics. It would be sufficient to reply, that we are speaking of cases
where ignorance of antiquity is not counterbalanced by any very
exuberant or profound knowledge of human nature. Possibly posterity may
have to deal with another myriad-minded dramatist whose poverty is
better than other men's riches; but it must not be rashly presumed that
he is likely to appear at all; or, if at all, with the same deficiency
of learning which was not unnatural