reprinted during five years, any person who wishes to reprint it
may give notice in the London Gazette: the advertisement must be
repeated three times: a year must elapse; and then, if the
proprietor of the copyright does not put forth a new edition, he
loses his exclusive privilege. Now, what protection is this to
the public? What is a new edition? Does the law define the
number of copies that make an edition? Does it limit the price
of a copy? Are twelve copies on large paper, charged at thirty
guineas each, an edition? It has been usual, when monopolies
have been granted, to prescribe numbers and to limit prices. But
I did not find the my honourable and learned friend proposes to
do so in the present case. And, without some such provision, the
security which he offers is manifestly illusory. It is my
conviction that, under such a system as that which he recommends
to us, a copy of Clarissa would have been as rare as an Aldus or
a Caxton.

I will give another instance. One of the most instructive,
interesting, and delightful books in our language is Boswell's
Life of Johnson. Now it is well known that Boswell's eldest son
considered this book, considered the whole relation of Boswell to
Johnson, as a blot in the escutcheon of the family. He thought,
not perhaps altogether without reason, that his father had
exhibited himself in a ludicrous and degrading light. And thus
he became so sore and irritable that at last he could not bear to
hear the Life of Johnson mentioned. Suppose that the law had
been what my honourable and learned friend wishes to make it.
Suppose that the copyright of Boswell's Life of Johnson had
belonged, as it well might, during sixty years, to Boswell's
eldest son. What would have been the consequence? An