29 OCTOBER 1965, Page 13

Question of Copyright

Sla,—Mr. Seymour-Smith is not quite fair to Dr. Rowse in describing as 'an elementary error' the assumption 'that in Elizabethan times it was publica- tion that established copyright.' That it did so is a minority view, and it is certainly imprudent to assume its truth. But it is a view argued by one eminent scholar, the late Leo Kirschbaum, as by H. T. Price earl icr.

J. c. MAXWITI.

Department of English, The University, Newcastle upon Tyne