no doubt was the right decision. Then the question is whether, the right of property being vested in authors for certain periods, the common law remedy for a violation of it does not attach within the times limited by the act of parliament. Within those periods the act says that the author shall have the sole right and liberty of printing &c. Then, the statute having vested that right in the author, the commonlaw gives the remedy by action on the case for the violation of it. Of this there could have been no doubt made, if the statute had stopped there. But it has been argued that, as the statute in the same clause that creates the right has prescribed a particular remedy, that and no other can be resorted to. And if such appeared to have been the intention of the Legislature, I should have subscribed to it however inadequate it might be thought. But their meaning in creating the penalties in the latter part of the clause in question certainly was to give an accumulative remedy: nothing could be more incomplete as a remedy than those penalties alone; for without dwelling upon the incompetency of the sum the right of action is not given to the party grieved, but to any common informer. I cannot think that the Legislature would act so inconsistently as to confer a right, and leave the party whose property was invaded without redress. But there was good reason for requiring an entry to be made at Stationers' Hall, which was to serve as a notice and warning to the public, that they might not ignorantly incur the forfeitures or penalties before enacted against such as pirated the works of others: but calling on a party who has injured the civil property of another for a remedy in damages cannot properly fall under the description of a forfeiture or penalty. Some stress was attempted to be laid on the acts passed for preserving the property of engravers in their works, in which a special provision is made to meet such a case as the present, and to give the same right of action as is here contended for. But it is well known that provisions of that kind are frequently inserted in acts of parliament pro majori cautela; and no argument can be drawn from them to affect the construction of other acts of parliament. On the fair construction of this act therefore I think it vests the right of property in the authors of literary works for the times therein limited, and that consequently the common law remedy attaches if no other be specifically given by the act; and I cannot consider the action given to a common informer for the penalties, which might be pre-occupied by another, as a remedy to the party grieved within the meaning of the act. ASHHURST J. In the case alluded to of Donaldson v. Becket in the House of Lords, I was one of those who thought that the invention of literary works was a foundation for a right of property independently of the act of Queen Anne. But I shall not enter into the discussion of that point now, as the question in the present case is much narrowed. And upon the construction of that act I entirely concur with my Lord that, the act having vested the right of property in the author, there must be a remedy in order to preserve it. Now I can only consider the action for the penalties given to a common informer as an additional protection, but not intended by the Legislature to oust the common law right to prosecute by action Y 4 any any person who infringes this species of property, which would otherwise necessarily attach upon the right of property so conferred. Where an act of parliament vests property in a party, the other consequence follows of course, unless the Legislature make a special provision for the purpose; and that does not appear to me to have been intended in this case. I am the more inclined to adopt this con'struction, because the supposed remedy is wholly inadequate to the purpose. The penalties to be recovered may indeed operate as a punishment upon the offender, but they afford no redress to the injured party; the action is not given to him, but to any person who may get the start of him and sue first. It is no redress for the civil injury sustained by the author in the loss of his just profits. GROSE J. The principal question is whether within the periods during which the exclusive right of property is secured by the statute to the author he may not sue the party who has invaded his right for damages up to the extent of the injury sustained; and of this I conceive there can be no doubt. In the great case of Millar v. Taylor Mr. Justice Yates gave his opinion against the common law right contended for in authors; but he was decisively of opinion that an exclusive right of property was vested in them by the statute for the time limited therein. No words can be more expressive to that effect than those used by him. But it is to be observed that the penalties given by the act attach only during the first fourteen years of the copyright; and during that time only is the offender liable for such penalties if he invade the author's right: but he is liable during the whole period prescribed by the act to make good in an action for damages any civil injury to the author. If this construction were not to prevail, during the last fourteen years of the term the author would be wholly without remedy for any invasion of his property. But there must be a remedy, otherwise it would be in vain to confer a right. I was at first struck with the consideration that six to five of the judges, who delivered their opinions in the House of Lords in the case of Donaldson v. Becket, were of opinion that the common law night of action was taken away by the statute of Anne: but upon further view it appears that the amount of their opinions went only to establish that the common law right of action could not be exercised beyond the time limited by that statute. • LAWRENCE J. I entirely concur with the opinions delivered by my Brethren upon the principal point, and the case of Tonson v. Collins, 1 Blac. Rep. 330. is an additional authority in support of it; for there Lord Mansfield said that it had been always holden that the entry in Stationers' Hall was only necessary to enable the party to bring his action for the penalty, but that the property was given absolutely to the author, at least during the term. Fostea to the Plaintiff." We should have been happy to have transcribed the report of the case of Banerman v. Rodenius, Trin. 38 Geo. III. p. 663, had not the confined nature of our limits prevented us. It was there decided that the defendant might give in evidence the declarations or admissions of the plaintiff on the record to defeat the the action, although such plaintiff appear to be only a trustee for a third person. We refer the reader particularly to this report, for the masterly and eloquent judgment delivered by the Chief Justice; and for the able manner in which he has pointed out some of the differences subsisting between the mode of proceeding in courts of law and courts of equity, with the advantages resulting from such differences. ART. X. Considerations on the Doctrines of a Future State, and the Resurrection, as revealed, or supposed to be so, in the Scriptures; on the Inspiration and Authority of Scripture itself; on some Peculiarities in St. Paul's Epistles; on the Prophecies of Daniel, St. John, &c. To which are added some Strictures on the Prophecies of Isaiah. By Richard Amner. 8vo. pp. 312. 58. Boards. Johnson. 1797. THIS author now engages our attention for the third time during the course of between twenty and thirty years *. That he is a sincere inquirer we very readily acknowlege, and of this his writings bear testimony the most satisfactory: but we must rank him in the class of Doubters; and he is so very diffident, or at least expresses his doubts so often, as to become unpleasant to the reader who is expecting instruction. Yet, whatever his hesitations may be, it is evident that he investigates with a naccurate as well as modest attention; and though the result is not very favourable to some opinions which human authority has decided and pronounced to be orthodox, yet we are led to presume that he is not an Unitarian respecting the person of Christ; because, having mentioned in a note † some passages which denote inferiority, and others that indicate high characters and powers, we find him declaring- All which being admitted, I do not see for my own part, how that equality of the Son with the Father, which some contend for, can be maintained, on the one hand: nor how on the other, when the high characters and powers are adverted to, we are justified in taking away, as some now affect to do, every kind of religious worship, homage, veneration, or respect, call it what we will, from the character, authority, and lordship of Jesus.' However this be, Mr. A. doubtless inclines to materialism, so far as to regard death as the extinction of existence, and a future life as necessarily connected with a resurrection, or as being each expressions of the same state and event. In the course of this inquiry, he combats the opinion of the late very re * See M. Rev. for Feb. 1774, vol. 1. p. 159; also Aug. 1776, vol. lv. p. 113. † P. 67. spectable spectable Mr. Hugh Farmer, together with those of other writers, and scrutinizes also the Old Testament on the subject. It is well known that the celebrated passage in the book of Job, ch. xix. p. 25, has long with great probability been explained to signify that release from present distress and restoration to health and enjoyment, which Job expected and at length obtained :but, does it follow that all other passages, in the antient Jewish writings, which exhibit with apparent strength the signature of a future life, are to be limited to the short compass of mortal existence? Yet in this manner, though not without difficulty, our author explains and confines them. We incline, at present, to ask with Dr. Jortin, "who ever heard of such a thing as a devout Epicurean," and to say with him, "that the strain of piety and devotion which discovers itself in those books, and distinguishes them eminently from all Pagan compositions, is a proof that the authors entertained hopes beyond the present state and scene of things*." - Mr. Amner on the whole concludes ⚫ that, as the Mosaic system seems not to have taught, so neither did the thoughts of the antient Hebrews go so far as to the soul's immateriality or immortality:'-but here a question occurs: if it be thus, how is it that the Jews had those apprehensions of a resurrection and a future state which they certainly discover in the days of our Saviour? - After a quotation from the epistle to the Hebrews, ch. xi. ver. 8, and following, a reply is offered in these words-Here, I conceive, much more is 'supposed than the reader will be able to find in the book of Genesis-unless he shall be pleased to assume in the reading that principle of Cabbalism, allegory, or spiritual and recondite meaning, call it what we will, which seems to have been prevalent or popular among some of the Jews, and which it cannot, I think, be denied, that the writers of the New Testament had in some degree, and St. Paul and the author of this epistle had in no small degree adopted. And if so, why may we not suppose that something of a like proceeding may have been applied to some other passages of the Old Testament, which may seem to have been full as promising in their appearance and as proper for it, and of course a sense given to them more sublime, recondite, and spiritual, than might at first have been intended.' - To this should be added the author's remark that the Pharisees were much addicted to the Greek philosophy; with which therefore St. Paul, who had been so strictly and zealously united with that party, must have been well acquainted; and 'where (he asks) would be the wonder, if in such a mind, the principles of Christianity being received, the ideas of a former system should still, in some degree, remain (conceiving of the matter in a human way only) and even gain at some times the ascendancy?' These inquiries relative to the resurrection employ the six opening chapters of the volume; in the prosecution of which subject, most if not all of the scriptural passages relative to it are investigated. On the question whether the apostles and first Christians expected the coming of Christ before the end of the age in which they lived, this writer answers in the affirmative. He appears to apprehend that the coming of the Son of man in the destruction of Jerusalem, and what is farther termed the end of the world, are so blended together in the discourses of Jesus, that the early disciples mistook to such a degree as to explain each of one and the same period. When Mr. Amner places St. Paul in this number, we must confess that we hesitate, even though he reminds us of the apostle's own acknowlegement that the treasure was in earthen vessels, and asks, where then would be the wonder, if it should have received from thence some tincture?" For a farther view of these subjects, we must refer to the work; only remarking that the author is somewhat fastidious in his censure on Whitby and Doddridge, when he takes notice of the uncertain manner in which they have attempted an explication of 2 Cor. v. 1, and following: ' it may not (he says) be incurious to observe their needless, and almost wilful and blameable embarrassment; to which he adds; - the true account of the matter seems to be, that neither of these two pious and popular persons could be willing, for whatever reasons they were averse from it, that the meaning of the place should be what it is, and have accordingly embarrassed both themselves and their readers. In all inquiries after truth, says a celebrated writer, it is almost every thing to be once in the right road. Of the truth of this, and infclicity of the contrary, have we not in these instances some little illustration?? The difficult, and we may say delicate, subject of Inspiration is considered in the two next chapters. Mr. Amner attends to the facts, and then to the doctrines, recorded in the scriptures; and he asks whether that full and constant inspiration, for which divines have contended, was necessary? he apprehends that it was not.-Respecting the doctrine of Christ, he regards it as being not of that mysterious, difficult, and abstract nature, which would make this requisite. To illustrate this idea, he collects numerous summary passages of Christian truth, which clearly and fully, in his view, establish the point: proving that the instructions of the gospel are simple and plain, though practical and most important. According to this account, it may be asked, how shall we know what is or is not the |