were not prepared for the press is admitted. They were without index or preface, although, as alleged, they may have contained the substantial parts of the complainant's system-which, in due time, he intended to print. Copies of the manuscripts were taken for the benefit of his pupils, and to enable them to teach others. This, from the facts and circumstances of the case, seems to have been the extent of the complain

ant's consent.

"It is contended that this is an abandonment to the public, and is as much a publication as printing the manuscripts; that printing is only one mode` of publication, which may be done as well by multiplying manuscript copies. This is not denied; but the inquiry is: does such a publication constitute an abandonment? The complainant is, no doubt, bound by this consent; and no court can afford him any aid in modifying or withdrawing it. The students who made these copies have a right to them, and to their use as originally intended. But they have no right to a use which was not in the contemplation of the complainant and of themselves when the consent was first given. Nor can they, by suffering others to copy the manuscripts, give a greater license than was vested in themselves. Popular lectures may be taken down verbatim, and the person taking them down has a right to their use. He may not print them. The lecturer designed to instruct his hearers, and not the public at large. Any use, therefore, of the lectures, which should operate injuriously to the lecturer, would be a fraud upon him for which the law would give him redress. He cannot claim a vested right in the ideas he communicates, but the words and sentences, in which they are clothed, belong to him."

Analogous to this was a case where a parliamentary

agent has noted down at different times in the course of business, various observations as to the methods of passing bills through parliament, and his clerk, who had access to his papers, purloined them and published them with some trifling alterations, under the title, "Practical Instructions for Passing Private Bills Through Parliament. By a Parliamentary Agent.' It was held, that, although the substance of the plaintiff's manuscripts might not have been original, he was entitled to an injunction against the publication of an edition of the above-entitled work by a third party.1

1

188. The protection afforded by the common law to unpublished compositions cannot be evaded by translation, abridgment, summary, or even review.?

How complete the right of the author is to prevent even the slightest infringement of the property in his unpublished production is forcibly shown by the case which may now be considered the leading one on the subject. In Prince Albert v. Strange,3 it appeared that the queen and the prince her husband had. occasionally, for their amusement, made drawings and etchings, principally of subjects of private and domestic interest to themselves, and procured lithographic impressions thereof to be struck off by means of a private press kept for that purpose, for their own use,

4

1 Stevens v. Sherwood, cited Maugham on Literary Prop

erty, 139.

2

3

5 & 6 Vict. c. 45, sec. 20.

Per Knight Bruce, V. C., in Prince Albert v. Strange, 2 DeG. & Sm. 693.

4

2 DeG. & S. 652; 1 Mac. & G. 25; 13 Jur. 45, 109, 507. There was also an information filed by the Attorney-General v. Strange, for the purpose of protecting the interests of Her Majesty in those portions of the etchings which were the property of Her Majesty, and praying relief as to them similar to that prayed in the bill of Prince Albert.

and not for publication. Some few impressions had indeed been given to private friends, but no further publication was intended or desired. Some further copies being required, the plates for the purpose of printing them were sent to a printer at Windsor, and, while in his possession, one of his workmen surreptitiously took some impressions of them. These surreptitiously-procured impressions were subsequently obtained by one Judge, and from his possession they passed into that of the defendant, Strange, a London publisher. Strange printed a catalogue of the etchings, in which was expressed an intention of publicly exhibiting the impressions of them, which had come into his possession through Judge. The catalogue was entitled "A Descriptive Catalogue of the Royal Victoria and Albert Gallery of Etchings," and contained, after a long introduction stating the general nature of the subjects, a detailed list of sixtythree etchings, with observations upon them. The bill prayed that the defendant might be ordered to deliver up to the plaintiff all impressions and copies of the said several etchings made by the plaintiff; and that they, their servants, &c., might be restrained by injunction from exhibiting the said gallery or collection of etchings, and from selling or in any manner publishing, and from printing the said descriptive catalogue, or any work being or purporting to be a catalogue of the said etchings, and that all the copies of the said catalogue in the possession or power of the said defendants might be given up to be destroyed. An interim injunction having been granted, extending to Judge as well as Strange, the defendant Strange answered, stating, amongst other, his original be lief that the impressions had come honestly into Judge's hands that Judge wrote the descriptive cata

logue, which he (Strange) then printed, striking off only fifty-one copies, after which the type was broken up: that the catalogue had never been published or sold, or exposed for sale, and that on receiving the first information that the contemplated exhibition was disapproved of by her majesty and the prince, he had abandoned the whole scheme; and expressly denied any intention to make such exhibition, or to make any copies or engravings of the etchings. Upon motion made to dissolve the injunction granted against Strange, so far as it sought to restrain him from selling, or in any manner publishing or printing the descriptive catalogue of the etchings-leaving unquestioned the remaining portion of the injunction against exhibiting, publishing, or parting with the etchings described in the catalogue-it was contended, that although the owner of a print might prevent another from publishing a copy of it, it was impossible to prevent the other from describing it, and printing and publishing such description; that the law of England could not prevent a party obtaining knowledge through the medium of perceiving these etchings, from using that knowledge, and from conveying that information to others; nor could a court of equity, in the absence of contract, interfere with the use of that knowledge; that no one's rights could be interfered with by the making of a catalogue describing the articles and making remarks upon them in the shape of friendly, if not flattering criticism (for such appeared to be the general character of the observations); that if a spectator had a right to contemplate any of the productions of so exalted a personage (which he might do without any invasion of domestic privacy), he had a right to communicate full information connected with those productions; and this, sub

stantially, was all that had been done by the descriptive catalogue; that privacy was not essential to the right of property, for though the cwner of anything may use every means in his power to prevent that thing been seen by another, yet, if that other person sees it, the owner can have no right of property in the notion or idea created in the mind of the person who has seen it; that there is no property in the ideas created by seeing the etchings-the property is confined to the etchings; and no regard could be paid to a mere injury to private feelings, and that in substance the complaint is of an offense not against law but against manners.

Notwithstanding, however, the distinction between the publication of copies of the (unpublished) etchings themselves and that of a mere descriptive catalogue of them sought to be established, it was held that the plaintiff was entitled to restrain the publication of the one as well as the other. Though the fraudulent manner in which the impressions of the etchings had been originally acquired formed one of the grounds on which the decision rested, the right of the plaintiff to restrain the publication of the catalogue on the sole ground of his property in the things described, was unmistakably asserted by the judges. "Property in mechanical works or works of art," said the court, "executed by a man for his own amusement, instruction, or use, is allowed to subsist certainly, and may, before publication by him, be invaded, not merely by copying, but by description or by catalogue, as it appears to me. A catalogue of such works may in itself be valuable. It may also as effectually show the bent and turn of the mind, feelings, and taste of the artist, especially if not professional, as a list of his papers. The portfolio or the