Part 4

Many have been the conflicting opinions among naturalists with respect to the class of birds the dodo should be placed in. Space will not permit us to enter into these discussions. Suffice it to say, it is generally agreed now that the dodo was a gigantic, short-winged, fruit-eating pigeon. The English naturalist, Mr Strickland, who has devoted an amazing amount of labour and research to the elucidation of this mysterious question, and Dr Reinhardt of Copenhagen, were the first who referred the dodo to the pigeon tribe, having arrived almost simultaneously, by two distinct chains of reasoning, at the same conclusion; and their opinion is corroborated by a dissection that was lately made of part of the head at Oxford.

There can be no doubt that the dodo was one of those instances, well known to naturalists, of a species, or part of a species, remaining permanently in an undeveloped state. As the Greenland whale never acquires teeth, but remains a suckling all its life; as the proteus of the Carniolian caverns, and the axolotl of the Mexican lakes, never attain a higher form than that of the tadpole; so the dodo may be described as a permanent nestling covered with down, and possessing only the rudiments of tail and wings. Nor are we to consider such organisations as imperfect. Evidently intended for peculiar situations and habits of life, they are powerful evidences of the design displayed in the works of an All-wise Creator. Wandering about in the forests of the Mauritius, where, previous to the advent of man, it had not a single enemy, the dodo, revelling in the perpetual luxuriance of a tropical climate, subsisted on the nuts that fell from the surrounding trees. Its powerful bill enabled it to break, and its capacious, stone-supplied gizzard to digest, the hardest shells and kernels; and thus a kind of frugivorous vulture, it cleared away the decaying vegetable matter. In no other place than an island, uninhabited by man or any other animal of prey, could the helpless dodo have existed. Some fancy it may yet be found in Madagascar. Vain idea! 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 shape of the limited monopoly. But the indefinite or very long continuance of this would only levy a tax to enrich those who have performed no service, and would fill the country with endless litigation. To return, however, to our special subject.

It may be a new thing to some of our readers, to hear of a patent more than two hundred years old. The cause of the anomaly is, that this exclusive privilege was granted before the present patent-law was extended to Scotland by the Union. Anderson called the pills _Grana Angelica_. He published an account of their astonishing virtues in a little Latin essay, which bears date 1635; and as it is believed that there are not more than three copies of this in existence, it is worth more than its weight in gold. He did not profess to be the inventor or discoverer of the medicine, but stated that he had found it in use at Venice.

Small as was thus the service for which Anderson and his posterity were endowed with a perpetual monopoly in these pills, it would have been well for the Stuart dynasty of kings if all monopolies granted by them had been as well deserved and as innocent. On the matter of monopolies, our ancestors had a hard struggle, and they acquitted themselves like men of sagacity and courage. The word monopoly is derived from the Greek. It means, sole-selling, and expresses itself at once. It is almost unnecessary at the present day to announce the law of political economy, that wherever a small number of individuals acquire the exclusive privilege of selling any commodity, or undertaking any particular kind of service, the public will be ill served. The price demanded will be high, and the commodity or the work will be bad in proportion. Thus much, indeed, of political economy our ancestors of the reign of King James knew. But it must be admitted, that they strangely confounded it with a totally different matter--with that forestalling of which we lately gave an account. The difference is, that in the one case there is the right to buy and sell as much of a commodity, or as little of it, as you please; and, in the other, the right to be the sole seller of the commodity. It is as great as the difference between freedom and slavery. No man can ever obtain a monopoly through money, unless it be by underselling all others; and that is a form in which it need not be grudged. However wide may be the field occupied by the forestaller, he cannot prevent others from competing with him, if he sell so dear that they can undersell him. The effect of an enforced monopoly is to drive competitors away, and give the monopolist the whole market on his own terms.

Many governments raise a revenue by granting monopolies. They levy a large sum from the individuals to whom they concede the privilege of selling or making certain articles. It need hardly be said, that it is a very costly revenue, causing much more loss to the people than the amount it brings to the public purse; but it is a tempting resource, as it costs no trouble, and does not at least immediately bring the government to issue with the country. Queen Elizabeth did not overlook the convenience of this source of revenue. In fact, she pushed the system of monopolies very far, and nearly endangered the stability of her power. But she was a very wise ruler, and always stopped short at the point of endurance. Hallam gives the following animated account of a parliamentary contest in 1601. When we reflect on the departed corn-laws, the allusion to bread is certainly curious.

'The grievance of monopolies had gone on continually increasing; scarce any article was exempt from these oppressive patents. When a list of them was read over in the House, a member exclaimed: "Is not bread among the number?" The House seemed amazed. "Nay," said he, "if no remedy is found for them, bread will be there before the next parliament." Every tongue seemed now unloosed, each as if emulously descanting on the injuries of the place he represented. It was vain for courtiers to withstand this torrent. Raleigh, no small gainer himself by some monopolies, after making what excuse he could, offered to give them up. Robert Cecil, the secretary, and Bacon, talked loudly of the prerogative, and endeavoured at least to persuade the House, that it would be fitter to proceed by petition to the queen than by a bill; but it was properly answered, that nothing had been gained by petitioning in the last parliament. After four days of eager debate, and more heat than had ever been witnessed, this ferment was suddenly appeased by one of those well-timed concessions by which skilful princes spare themselves the mortification of being overcome. Elizabeth sent down a message, that she would revoke all grants that should be found injurious by fair trial at law; and Cecil rendered the somewhat ambiguous generality of this expression more satisfactory by an assurance, that the existing patents should be repealed, and no more be granted.'

The speeches of the members are a very favourable specimen of the parliamentary oratory of Queen Elizabeth's reign, as may be seen from the following delivered by Mr Martin. He is no philosopher, it will be observed, in political economy, but speaks from the actual grievances witnessed by him. 'I speak for a town that grieves and pines--for a country that groaneth and languisheth under the burden of monstrous and unconscionable substitutes to the monopolitans [meaning sub-monopolists, who paid so much for enjoying the monopoly in a certain district] of starch, tin, fish, cloth, oil, vinegar, salt, and I know not what--nay, what not? The principal commodities both of my town and country are engrossed into the hands of those blood-suckers of the commonwealth. If a body, Mr Speaker, being let blood, be left still languishing without any remedy, how can the good estate of that body long remain? Such is the state of my town and country. The traffic is taken away. The inward and private commodities are taken away, and dare not be used without the licence of these monopolitans. If these blood-suckers be still let alone to suck up the best and principal commodities which the earth hath given us, what shall become of us from whom the fruits of our own soil and the commodities of our own labour--which, with the sweat of our brows, even up to the knees in mire and dirt, we have laboured for--shall be taken by warrant of supreme authority which the poor subjects dare not gainsay?' Another member, Sir Andrew Hobby, on the opposite side, started up, and said, 'that betwixt Michaelmas and St Andrews tide, where salt before the patent was wont to be sold for 16d. a bushel, it is now sold for 14d. or 15d. a bushel.'[4]

The Stuart monarchs were not, as the world too well knows, so wise as Queen Elizabeth. King James found the granting of monopolies a very convenient way of making a revenue. It saved him from coming in contact with a discontented parliament; and whatever heartburnings it might create, did not immediately affect his own royal comfort. Accordingly, he granted a number of monopolies both of necessaries and luxuries. This created a system of the grossest oppression; since the great monopolists not only made as much as they could at the expense of the people, but sold portions of their monopolies to grasping, rapacious underlings, who conveyed the grievance into every corner of the land. These people became a hated and oppressive class, like the farmers of the revenue in France. According to a well-known anecdote, Voltaire, when in a company, each member of which had to tell some tragic story, was called upon in his turn. He said: 'There was once a farmer-general--you know the rest!' The same might have been said of the monopolists in the time of King James. One of them, indeed, has become in a manner illustrious in literature, by standing for the character of Sir Giles Overreach in the play of _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_. His prototype was Sir Giles Mompesson, a person whose oppressions created so much indignation, that parliament at last resolved to impeach him. In the proceedings, it was stated that Sir Giles, for the purpose of effectually carrying out his patent of monopoly, held the power of imprisoning those who infringed it, without judicial authority or the privilege of trial; and that he thus had many persons in private prisons--a proceeding ever justly odious in England, and contrary to the spirit of the constitution.

One of Sir Giles's monopolies related to the licensing of inns and the selling of horse-provender. Strangely enough, however, that monopoly which created the chief indignation was for the preparation and sale of gold and silver lace. He 'sophisticated' it, as the parliamentary documents call it--that is, he used base metal instead of bullion. One could imagine such a monopoly existing without the people being greatly oppressed by it. But gold and silver lace was much used by the aristocracy, and it seems probable that the indignation of parliament was considerably excited by feelings of a somewhat personal character. It is well known, that the person who chiefly supported these monopolies, and had the largest share of advantage from them, was the infamous favourite, the Duke of Buckingham. Instead of standing by his accomplice, however, he no sooner saw the wrath of parliament seriously and dangerously roused, than he gave up the monopolist as a victim. King James, too, who had bullied and insulted all who complained, seeing that parliament was in a truly formidable humour, went sneaking there, and boasted of having done his best to apprehend Sir Giles. 'For I do assure you,' he said, 'in the heart of an honest man, and on the faith of a Christian king, which both ye and all the world know me to be, had these things been complained of to me before the parliament, I would have done the office of a just king, and out of parliament have punished them as severely, and peradventure more, than ye now intend to do. But now that they are discovered to me in parliament, I shall be as ready in this way as I should have been in the other. For, I confess, I am ashamed--these things proving so as they are generally reported to be--that it was not my good-fortune to be the only author of the reformation and punishment of them, by some ordinary course of justice.'

Parliament, however, wisely kept the matter in its own hands, and immediately passed one of the most remarkable laws in the statute-book. This was no other than the act of 1623, establishing our system of patents for inventions. The original and main object of this act, was to take from the crown the power of granting monopolies. An exception was introduced, which is supposed to be owing to the enlightened foresight of Bacon, authorising the crown to grant for a limited period monopolies to inventors.

This law did not extend to Scotland until the Union; and hence it is, that in the High Street we have at this day in existence a patent of the reign of Charles I.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] _Parliamentary History_, 1601.

A VENETIAN ADVENTURE OF YESTERDAY.

I was induced last summer to do rather a foolish thing for a middle-aged spinster--I undertook to chaperon a volatile young niece upon a continental tour. We travelled the usual course up the Rhine into Switzerland, which we enjoyed rapturously. Then passing the Alps, we spent a few days at Milan, and next proceeded to Verona. In all this journey, nothing occurred to mar our English frankness, or disturb our good-humour. We beheld, indeed, the subjection of the Lombardese people with pain. Still, it was no business of ours; and I may as well candidly state that, to the best of my recollection, we gave exceedingly little thought to the subject.

At Verona, the romance of Claudia's character found some scope. She raved at the so-called tomb of Juliet, was never tired of rambling among the ruins of the Roman amphitheatre, and made herself ill with the fresh figs and grapes presented in such abundance in the picturesque old market-place. I confess I should as soon have dreamed of danger from some ancient volcano of the Alps, as from the political system of the country which we were traversing. Indeed, it never could have occurred to us that a quiet lady of a certain age, and a young one just emancipated from frocks, were persons about whom a great empire could have been in any alarm. It was destined that we should find ourselves of much more consequence than we gave ourselves credit for.

On returning from our ramble, and entering the great _sala_ of the _Due Torre_, I remember experiencing a slight sense of alarm at sight of the large proportion of Austrian officers amongst those sitting down to dinner. Still, as the feeling sprung from no definite cause, I readily gave up my wish for a separate dinner; and, yielding to the solicitations of an officious waiter, allowed myself and niece to take seats at table. My first feeling returned in some force when I saw a tall, bearded officer, after depositing his sword in a corner of the room, seat himself next to Claudia. A request on her part for the salt sufficed to open a conversation between them; but as it was in German, I could not follow its meaning. I observed, however, that it by and by waxed rather more warm than is customary in the languid hour of a _table-d'hôte_; and, what was more, a silence ensued amongst a considerable number of those within hearing, as if the subject of their conversation were of an interesting character. A kind-looking English gentleman on the opposite side of the table seemed to become uneasy, and he soon telegraphed to me with a look which I could not misunderstand. In real alarm, I touched Claudia's arm, and indicated my wish to retire. As soon as we reached our own apartment, I anxiously asked her what she had been saying, and what that animated conversation was about. 'Oh, nothing particular, Tantie dear. We were talking politics; but I am not a Republican, you know. You need not look afraid. I am a Royalist, and I told him so. Only, I said I thought it would be better for Italy to have an Italian king than an Austrian emperor. He did not seem to think so; but you know every one cannot think alike.'

'Oh, you unfortunate little girl!' I exclaimed; 'you little know the imprudence of which you have been guilty;' and I bitterly regretted my ignorance of German, which had allowed her to make such a demonstration of her sentiments. Still, she was but a child--what she had said was but a foolish sentiment. I could scarcely, after all, think that any serious consequences would ensue from so simple a matter; nevertheless, I felt that the sooner we left Verona the better. We accordingly started next morning for Venice.

It was a most lovely day. The sun shone richly on the thousands of grape-bunches that hung on the vines, and on the wild-flowers that grew at their feet; and then the beautiful languid way in which the vines grow added another charm to the scene: apparently overcome by heat and lassitude, they throw themselves from one tree to another for their support, and hang between them in graceful festoons. We were not long, however, in the region of the green, and now slightly autumn-tinted leaves; our steam-engine seemed suddenly to have conceived the idea of drowning us, for we darted into the sea, and with nothing but water on either side, we appeared to be hurried on by some gigantic rope-dancer, so light was the bridge over which we were carried. Involuntarily, I seized hold of Claudia's arm; but gradually I saw in the distance so beautiful a thing--such a silent, white, fairy-like city, under such a brilliant sky, that I lost all earthly fear, and, in spite of the tangible railway carriage in which I was, I felt as if, like King Arthur, I was being borne by fairies to their fairy home.

At last we arrived, and entered by a long dusty passage the Dogana, in order to be examined. All romantic visions had now faded away: ordinary mortals were in attendance to look over our boxes; and it being the middle of a hot day, I began to feel both thirsty and tired, and most anxious to arrive quickly at the hotel, in order to secure comfortable apartments. Claudia stood for some time with the keys in her hand, vainly endeavouring to induce one of the custom-house officers to look at our boxes. The examination did not appear very strict, and we observed many of our fellow-passengers had their boxes just opened, and then were allowed to depart, with scarcely any delay. At last, one of the men approached us, and Claudia pointed to her open box, and asked him to examine it. The man looked up into her face--I thought, in a very scrutinising manner--then at the name on the box, and then retired, and whispered to one of his companions, who came back with him, and asked in Italian for our passport. This I immediately produced. They examined it, and said something to each other in German; upon which Claudia, who was more familiar with that language than with Italian, asked them in it to be kind enough to examine our boxes quickly, as her aunt was much tired. I saw the men exchange glances, and then they came forward to examine us. Being utterly unconscious of any necessity for concealment, we had left several English books at the very top of the box. These they carefully took out, and laid on one side, and then proceeded to rummage the boxes from top to bottom. By this time, as most of our fellow-passengers had been examined, and had proceeded to their hotels, I was getting fatigued and nervous, when it struck me that a small douceur would perhaps set matters right. This idea I communicated to Claudia, and she, speaking privately to a superior sort of man, who was overlooking the other, assured him that we were two perfectly unoffending English ladies travelling for pleasure, having nothing whatever to do with politics, and entreated him to let us go, at the same time putting some money in a hand conveniently placed for its reception. No sooner, however, had it been safely pocketed, than the man assured her that he could do nothing whatever for us, and that he must take some opportunity, when nobody was looking, of giving her back the money. It is needless to say, that this opportunity never arrived; and in the meantime, we were taken into a small room, to be more particularly examined.