rious that it is only possible to refer
the reader to the leading text-books.

Engravings.

The first Artists' Copyright Bill was passed in the interest of William
Hogarth, one of the greatest of English painters, who was engraver as
well as painter, and who devoted a considerable portion of his time to
engraving his own works. No sooner, however, were these published than
his market was seriously damaged by the issue of inferior copies of his
engravings by other publishers. To protect Hogarth from such piracy the
Engraving Copyright Act 1734 was passed, which provided that "every
person who should invent and design, engrave, etch, or work in
mezzotinto or chiaroscuro, any historical or other print or prints,
should have the sole right and liberty of printing and representing the
same for the term of fourteen years, to commence from the day of the
first publishing thereof, which shall be truly engraved with the name of
the proprietor on each plate, and printed on every such print or
prints." The penalty for piracy was the forfeiture of the plate and all
prints, with a fine of 5s. for every pirated print.

In 1766, in the reign of George III., a second Engraving Copyright Act
was passed "to amend and render more effectual" the first act, and "for
vesting and securing to Jane Hogarth, widow, the property in certain
prints," which extended the protection beyond the designer, who was also
engraver, to any person who, not being himself a designer, made, or
caused to be made, an engraving from any picture or other work of art.
Jane Hogarth, the widow of the painter, found herself nearing the
termination of the fourteen years' term of copyright grant by the first
act, with the probability that immediately on its expiry the engravings
of her husband then on sale, and on which her livelihood depended, would
be immediately pirated. It was mainly to save her from the loss of her
livelihood that this second Copyright Bill extended the term of the
copyright to twenty-eight years.

The engravers and publishers of the day were not over-scrupulous, and
they sought to evade the penalties of the copyright acts by taking the
designs, and adding to them or taking from them, or both, and producing
fresh engravings, seeking to make it appear that they were producing new
works. These practices assumed such proportions that it became
necessary, in 1777, to call upon parliament to put through another short
measure still further to prote