works were ever expected with more impatience by the public than
those of Lord Bolingbroke, which appeared, I think, in 1754? In
1814, no bookseller would have thanked you for the copyright of
them all, if you had offered it to him for nothing. What would
Paternoster Row give now for the copyright of Hayley's Triumphs
of Temper, so much admired within the memory of many people still
living? I say, therefore, that, from the very nature of literary
property, it will almost always pass away from an author's
family; and I say, that the price given for it to the family will
bear a very small proportion to the tax which the purchaser, if
his speculation turns out well, will in the course of a long
series of years levy on the public.

If, Sir, I wished to find a strong and perfect illustration of
the effects which I anticipate from long copyright, I should
select,--my honourable and learned friend will be surprised,--I
should select the case of Milton's granddaughter. As often as
this bill has been under discussion, the fate of Milton's
granddaughter has been brought forward by the advocates of
monopoly. My honourable and learned friend has repeatedly told
the story with great eloquence and effect. He has dilated on the
sufferings, on the abject poverty, of this ill-fated woman, the
last of an illustrious race. He tells us that, in the extremity
of her distress, Garrick gave her a benefit, that Johnson wrote a
prologue, and that the public contributed some hundreds of
pounds. Was it fit, he asks, that she should receive, in this
eleemosynary form, a small portion of what was in truth a debt?
Why, he asks, instead of obtaining a pittance from charity, did
she not live in comfort and luxury on the proceeds of the sale of
her ancestor's works? But, Sir, will my honourable and learned