“Mr. Panizzi cannot help feeling that, in deference to the wish of the Trustees, he has proceeded with too much leniency in the enforcement of the Act. Respectable publishers, who cheerfully and punctually comply with its provisions, as well as the readers who are disappointed in not finding English publications in this library, seem to have a right to more severe measures, not only towards refractory publishers within the bills of mortality, but against those living in the country against whom Mr. Panizzi will at last be forced to employ the means which were some time ago approved of by the Trustees for securing their right to books published out of London.”
These words as they stand clearly show the real state of Panizzi’s inward determination to persevere in his object; and on the 14th of August, 1852, we find a letter from the Principal Librarian, approving of the steps he had “taken for the enforcement of the Copyright Act in Scotland,” on the part of the Trustees.
In the same year, a certain Mr. Davis, of Shelton, forwarded a prospectus of a work entitled “Crania Britannica,” with a request that, as the book was to be “privately printed,” the Keeper of the Printed Books should subscribe for a copy of the work. Panizzi submitted the prospectus to the Trustees, who declined the purchase, whereupon Panizzi communicated this decision to Mr. Davis, and added:—“In my opinion you are bound to send a copy of that work to this Library in compliance with the Copyright Act (5 and 6 Vic., cap. 45).
In September, 1852, in company with Mr. Henry Stevens, the American book agent, Panizzi visited Oxford, Dublin, and Cork, and rendered signal service to the Library by his unsparing exertions to detect defaulters, and uphold the interests of the Museum. Amongst his remarks when in Dublin was one that he “saw a number of important new works exposed for sale of which he did not know the existence, and even in the case of publications of no great general importance, he noticed many which ought to be in the National Collection.” Innumerable difficulties met him in his task. At Derby, “There are,” he says, “many works published, but the two principal publishers having a house in London, it is this house which, should it be necessary, will be held responsible for the infringement of the Copyright Act.” Of course, his presence was in all places which he visited attended with dislike; and it seems hardly fair that, whilst acting from the purest motives in the public service, any obloquy of a personal nature should have attached to him; yet, to say the least, had not a sense of duty sustained him, his would have been a most thankless errand.