is by means of copyright. You cannot depend for literary
instruction and amusement on the leisure of men occupied in the
pursuits of active life. Such men may occasionally produce
compositions of great merit. But you must not look to such men
for works which require deep meditation and long research. Works
of that kind you can expect only from persons who make literature
the business of their lives. Of these persons few will be found
among the rich and the noble. The rich and the noble are not
impelled to intellectual exertion by necessity. They may be
impelled to intellectual exertion by the desire of distinguishing
themselves, or by the desire of benefiting the community. But it
is generally within these walls that they seek to signalise
themselves and to serve their fellow-creatures. Both their
ambition and their public spirit, in a country like this,
naturally take a political turn. It is then on men whose
profession is literature, and whose private means are not ample,
that you must rely for a supply of valuable books. Such men must
be remunerated for their literary labour. And there are only two
ways in which they can be remunerated. One of those ways is
patronage; the other is copyright.

There have been times in which men of letters looked, not to the
public, but to the government, or to a few great men, for the
reward of their exertions. It was thus in the time of Maecenas
and Pollio at Rome, of the Medici at Florence, of Louis the
Fourteenth in France, of Lord Halifax and Lord Oxford in this
country. Now, Sir, I well know that there are cases in which it
is fit and graceful, nay, in which it is a sacred duty to reward
the merits or to relieve the distresses of men of genius by the
exercise of this species of liberality. But these cases are