friend tell me that this event, which he has so often and so
pathetically described, was caused by the shortness of the term
of copyright? Why, at that time, the duration of copyright was
longer than even he, at present, proposes to make it. The
monopoly lasted, not sixty years, but for ever. At the time at
which Milton's granddaughter asked charity, Milton's works were
the exclusive property of a bookseller. Within a few months of
the day on which the benefit was given at Garrick's theatre, the
holder of the copyright of Paradise Lost,--I think it was
Tonson,--applied to the Court of Chancery for an injunction
against a bookseller who had published a cheap edition of the
great epic poem, and obtained the injunction. The representation
of Comus was, if I remember rightly, in 1750; the injunction in
1752. Here, then, is a perfect illustration of the effect of
long copyright. Milton's works are the property of a single
publisher. Everybody who wants them must buy them at Tonson's
shop, and at Tonson's price. Whoever attempts to undersell
Tonson is harassed with legal proceedings. Thousands who would
gladly possess a copy of Paradise Lost, must forego that great
enjoyment. And what, in the meantime, is the situation of the
only person for whom we can suppose that the author, protected at
such a cost to the public, was at all interested? She is reduced
to utter destitution. Milton's works are under a monopoly.
Milton's granddaughter is starving. The reader is pillaged; but
the writer's family is not enriched. Society is taxed doubly.
It has to give an exorbitant price for the poems; and it has at
the same time to give alms to the only surviving descendant of
the poet.

But this is not all. I think it right, Sir, to call the