In May, 1850, the Trustees conferred on Panizzi, by power of attorney, the unthankful duty of enforcing, in their name, the provisions of the Copyright Act. With his accustomed energy, with a firm sense of duty, and with a zeal, in some instances almost amounting to harshness, did he face the difficulties of the situation. Were it simply to record the success which attended his devotion to the interests of the Institution he served so faithfully, we should have to quote his own words. “The Trustees testified to their sense of the value of my services in this matter by awarding me £100 a year;” but, as must be admitted on the testimony of documents now before us, in his own handwriting, his zeal was rather excessive; his battles with the publishers brought him odium, and, at times, even personal vituperation, although he himself undoubtedly intended to act with forbearance, and with that courtesy which was one of his chief characteristics. Did it ever occur to Panizzi that the noblest literature, that of Greece and Rome, knew no such law? that, even supposing it might be necessary, in the nascent state of literature in the sixteenth century, this more than protection may be most injurious in more modern times, exactly as the state protection of a given manufacture might primarily be good, but, for a permanency, would be unsound policy? On April 20th, 1852, Panizzi wrote:— “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).