time afterwards, this branch of duty was so trifling, that there was no necessity for either a distinct officer or building, to accomplish the purposes of the law. But the business gradually became more onerous, and it was found necessary to employ a clerk to perform the duties of this office exclusively; and out of courtesy he has been considered as the superintendent of the Patent Office. Still, however, the law recognises only the Secretary of State as the true superintendent, and other appointments are only viewed as clerkships, to aid in the discharge of his duties.

The space required by these duties became equal to all that was necessary for the other functions of the department of state, and a portion of the large building assigned for the general post office was appropriated for this purpose. Thus the state department has been, in a degree, disincumbered of details and operations, very incompatible with its other, more exalted trusts. But both this, and the patent office, have grown with the growth of the nation, and the duties of each have multiplied so thickly, that circumstances seem imperiously to require, that the Secretary of State should be more entirely relieved from the perplexing details of this office, locally separated from his own, and of a nature peculiarly incongruous with the other objects of his solicitude.

If, indeed, the suggestion so repeatedly made, of dividing the department of state into a home and foreign office should be ever carried into execution, then the Patent Office would fall under the control of the home department. But whether it be so, or not, it appears to us that the business would be much simplified, by placing the Patent Office on precisely the same footing in relation to the department of state, as the Register's and Auditor's offices bear to the treasury. Let all the business relative to the patents be transacted, from first to last, in the office itself, and accounts be regularly returned to the department of state, by the official head of the subordinate office. Besides the person, who has for so many years acted under the Secretary of State, as superintendent of this office, there has been another authorized by law for ten years; and a messenger was found necessary about five years since. In 1824 a machinist was added to take charge of the models, and keep them in repair; and, as the business of obtaining patents has increased with unprecedented rapidity, two more clerks, for extraordinary writing, have been employed, and paid out of the contingent fund, during the last year.

To impress the necessity of reducing this important and growing office, to some regular and intelligible system of operation, we shall here state its progress for the last five years.

These patents, at thirty dollars each, produced a revenue to the treasury of $30,690. Yet, we are assured, the salaries of clerks, and contingent expenses in the patent office, did not exceed $4000 a year, leaving a balance unapplied to the purposes for which the money was actually paid of $10,000. Why, then, should any part of this business be neglected, or slovenly performed? That no falling off, but on the contrary a large increase, of the business of this office is to be anticipated, may be inferred from the fact, that a hundred and fifty patents were applied for in the first quarter of the year 1826; and there seems no reason to doubt, that at least four hundred will be granted in the course of the current year, yielding a revenue of $12,000. To meet this state of things, Congress will, doubtless, at the approaching session, make considerable alterations in the Patent Law. We will take the liberty to suggest what appears to us to be necessaay.

The Secretary of State should be relieved from the trouble of superintending this office, except so far as to receive an annual return of the state of the office from the actual superintendent, to be laid before Congress. The clerks in the Patent Office should be sufficiently numerous to discharge all its duties, without applying to another department, or its contingent fund, for extraordinary assistance which is altogether needless. What the requisite number may be, Congress will of course ascertain by their committee. But it seems to us that a superintendent will have enough to do, in receiving and answering letters, and transacting the money affairs of the office with the treasury. A principal clerk will also be fully employed in examining specifications, and reading and correcting patents before they are issued. Then for engrossing four hundred patents in a year, there cannot be less than two clerks required; and the same VOL. XXIII.-NO. 53. 39

number, of course, for recording them. This will make two principal and four inferior clerks, besides the machinist and a messenger. This is the least augmentation that can be adequate to the current business of the office, and any increase of that business will require a larger establishment.

To prevent an error heretofore fallen into, we should suppose it necessary for the law to make it imperative, that every patent shall be duly recorded before it is issued to the patentee. We see no reason for that haste, by which we understand many patents have been hurried through, and issued on the very day they were applied for. Many evils arise from this precipitancy. And if there can be any danger from delay, it may be prevented by making it lawful to enter a caveat, to prevent any other interfering patent from superseding the one first applied for. In all cases thirty days, at least, should elapse, between the presentation of the petition and specification, and the issuing of the patent. There is no necessity for the present plan of sending them to the attorney general for examination, and to be certified by him as issued according to law. The truth is, that he can know, no more than any other man, whether they are issued according to law or not; and it is an undoubted fact, that all which have been issued, without being duly recorded, have been issued in violation of the law, the certificate of the attorney general to the contrary notwithstanding. The only thing he knows about the matter is, that the printed form with the blanks filled up, to which he has set his name, is the regular and legal form in which such documents are issued. But whether all other parts of the patent law have been complied with, is a thing of which he knows nothing. No one can imagine for a moment that he, with all his other important avocations, can read through in a day, specifications which frequently fill a score of sheets of parchment, embracing objects the most various and dissonant from his usual train of thought and action, and then pronounce any deliberate opinion upon them at all. This part of the Patent Law is a most objectionable and useless one, and the attorney general ought to be relieved from it.

The head of the Patent Office, whoever he may be, whether the Secretary of State, or any other person, is the proper officer for certifying that the patent is issued in all respects conformably to law. The signature of the President of the United States,

of course, accompanies the seal, which stamps the instrument with legal validity.

There is a particular difficulty arising from the very first paragraph of the first section of the act, which we have cited above, that demands rectification; not known or used before the application.' What is the antecedent of this word application? We do not perceive that it has any. And although we may conjecture what it means, yet nothing in a law should be left to conjecture. What a noble field for litigation is here opened; and what a mass of property is involved in the consequences of judicial decisions on such ambiguous phraseology. Some patentees have valued their rights at many thousand dollars, and have actually sold them for as much; but if on an average they should not be worth more than four or five hundred dollars apiece, here is the amount of a million of dollars or more depending on the construction of an equivocal sentence. We need say no more. We are sure that this matter can remain no longer unrevised. In our free government, such usages as we have commented on, will not be suffered to prevail long in defiance of common sense and of justice.

If any of our legislators have been so mistaken, as to view the subject of this article as trifling, and unworthy of their serious attention, we trust they will soon see it otherwise; and that while they are bound by the constitution and laws to attend to the interests of the arts and sciences, and have funds placed at their disposal so much more than adequate to the object proposed, they will not suffer an institution so important to the cause of internal improvement, and so gratifying to a curious and intelligent public, to remain in disorder and insecurity. If it be thought advisable to erect a separate building, on the fireproof plan, for the better security of these valuable treasures of American genius, we believe it is only necessary for some member of Congress to call for the amount of moneys received from the Patent Office, and disbursed on account of it, to show that there is somewhere an actual balance quite sufficient for the purpose.

ART. IV.-Geschichte der Democratie in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nord America, von JOHANN GEORG HÜLSEMANN. Göttingen. 1823.-The History of Democracy in the United States of North America. By JOHN GEORGE Hul

SEMANN.

THIS work, as far as its historical contents go, is a meagre compilation from Ebeling's Geography and History of North America. Its object is, to present the most unfavorable picture, which can possibly be borne out by a semblance of facts, of the origin, progress, and present state of the American institutions. In the earlier periods of our history, for obvious reasons, more impartiality is observed, or rather the libel is in those portions of the work composed with less relish. The author throws in his red pepper as he proceeds; till at last, not merely the seasoning but the entire composition of his dish, is borrowed from the hottest pages of Turreau, Bristed, Felix Beaujour, and other gentlemen of that cast. The performance is wholly destitute of merit, even of that of being tolerably well composed, with a reference to the object in view; for with all the curiosity, with which scandal is almost sure to be read, we would defy Sir Benjamin Backbite himself, to read any one chapter in this work, without a yawn. It possesses none of the sturdy, heart of oak defamation of the Quarterly; none of Blackwood's flippant insolence; none of the romancing calumny of the French libellers; but is a tame imitation of the Baron Von Fürstenwärther and the excellent Messrs Schmidt and Gall. In a word, it is the most narcotic lampoon we ever read.

We have been induced to notice it, not for the three or four hundred pages of text, of which it consists, and of which we have now given the character, but for the preface of some fifteen or twenty pages, which introduces it, and is apparently from a different hand. The author of the book purports to be a Mr Hülsemann, which is, being interpreted, a man of husks;' we incline also to the opinion that he is a man of straw, a fictitious being, fabricated to disguise the real personality of the author. The preface breathes the air of authority; it does not expressly claim an official origin; but there is a chancery pomp about it, which no one can mistake. It unquestionably came from the bureau of a minister, and from the pen of a first under secretary; and some starveling bookseller's drudge was hired to put the