embarrassed and utterly confounded him; occasioning him infinitely
greater annoyance and mortification than he ever experienced in his
life. A highly respectable firm of law booksellers, the publishers of
his "Compendium of Mercantile Law," and to whom he had also offered the
publication of his "Leading Cases," which they had declined, without the
slightest intimation of any objection to the principle of selecting the
"Cases," which he had explained fully to them, suddenly took it into
their heads, that in thus selecting some few cases from "Reports"
published by them, as mere texts for his masterly legal discussions, he
had been guilty of PIRACY! and actually filed a bill in Equity against
him and his publisher, to restrain them "from printing, selling, or
publishing any copies of the first part of the second volume." I never
saw Mr. Smith exhibit such intense vexation as that occasioned him by
this proceeding: he felt at once his own honour impugned, and that he
might have seriously compromised the character and interests of his
publisher. Such, however, was the confidence in the justice of his case
felt by the latter, that he resolved to resist this attack upon his own
rights and those of Mr. Smith to the very last; and he did so, at his
own expense, and with triumphant success. The Vice-Chancellor of
England, (Sir Launcelot Shadwell,) after an elaborate argument, refused
to grant the desired injunction--expressing his very decided opinion
"that on the substance of the case, and on the conduct of the
plaintiffs, (the publishers in question,) they were not entitled to the
injunction which they had asked." Against this decision the plaintiffs
immediately appealed to the present Lord Chancellor, Lord Cottenham,
who, after another very elaborate argument, and taking time to consider,
delivered a luminous judgment confirming the decision of the
Vice-Chancellor, triumphantly vindicating the propriety of both author
and publisher's conduct, and supporting the right which Mr. Smith had
thought proper to exercise; and his lordship dismissed the appeal with