ht is daily increasing. Indeed, it is a matter of
consideration for our publishers, whether Canada may not before long
retaliate upon them, and by cheaper reprints become as troublesome to
them as Belgium once was to France.

It is not creditable that America should be the last of civilized
nations to acknowledge the justice of an author's claim to a share in
the profits of a commercial value which he has absolutely created.
England is more liberal to our authors than we to hers, but it is
only under certain strictly limited contingencies that an American
can acquire copyright there. Were all our booksellers as scrupulous
as the few honorably exceptional ones among them now are, there would
be no need of legislative regulation; but, in the present condition
of things, he who undertakes to reprint an English book which he has
honestly paid for is at the mercy of whoever can get credit for poor
paper and worse printing. There is no reason why a distinction should
be made between copy-right and patent-right; but, if our legislators
refuse to admit any abstract right in the matter, they might at least
go so far as to conclude an international arrangement by which a
publisher in either country who was willing to pay for the right of
publication should be protected in its exercise. No just objection
could be made to a plan of this kind, which, if not so honest as a
general international law of copyright, would be profitable to our
publishers, and to such of our authors at least as had acquired any
foreign reputation.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS

RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

The Church of the First Three Centuries; or, Notices of the Lives and
Opinions of Some of the Early Fathers, with Special Reference to the
Doctrine of the Trinity; illustrating its Late Origin and Gradual
Formation. By Alvan Lamson, D.D. Boston. Walker, Wise, & Co. 8vo. pp.
xii., 352.

Plato's Apology and Crito; with Notes, by W.S. Tyler, Graves
Professor of Greek in Amherst College. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo.
pp. 180. 75 cts.

Poems. By William H. Holcombe, M.D. New York. Mason Brothers. 12mo.
pp. 360. $1.25.

Science in Theology. Sermons preached in St. Mary's, Oxford, before
the University. By Adam S. Farrar, M.A., F.G.S., F.R.A.S., Michel
Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford; late One of the Select Preachers
to the University; and Preacher at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall.
Philadelphia. Smith, English, & Co. 12