copyright. For that extraordinary woman died young: she died
before her genius was fully appreciated by the world. Madame
D'Arblay outlived the whole generation to which she belonged.
The copyright of her celebrated novel, Evelina, lasted, under the
present law, sixty-two years. Surely this inequality is
sufficiently great--sixty-two years of copyright for Evelina,
only twenty-eight for Persuasion. But to my noble friend this
inequality seems not great enough. He proposes to add twenty-
five years to Madame D'Arblay's term, and not a single day to
Miss Austen's term. He would give to Persuasion a copyright of
only twenty-eight years, as at present, and to Evelina a
copyright more than three times as long, a copyright of eighty-
seven years. Now, is this reasonable? See, on the other hand,
the operation of my plan. I make no addition at all to Madame
D'Arblay's term of sixty-two years, which is, in my opinion,
quite long enough; but I extend Miss Austen's term to forty-two
years, which is, in my opinion, not too much. You see, Sir, that
at present chance has too much sway in this matter: that at
present the protection which the State gives to letters is very
unequally given. You see that if my noble friend's plan be
adopted, more will be left to chance than under the present
system, and you will have such inequalities as are unknown under
the present system. You see also that, under the system which I
recommend, we shall have, not perfect certainty, not perfect
equality, but much less uncertainty and inequality than at
present.

But this is not all. My noble friend's plan is not merely to
institute a lottery in which some writers will draw prizes and
some will draw blanks. It is much worse than this. His lottery