poorly executed that in his later years he did not like to hear
it mentioned. Boswell once picked up a copy of it, and told his
friend that he had done so. "Do not talk about it," said
Johnson: "it is a thing to be forgotten." To this performance
my noble friend would give protection during the enormous term of
seventy-five years. To the Lives of the Poets he would give
protection during about thirty years. Well; take Henry Fielding;
it matters not whom I take, but take Fielding. His early works
are read only by the curious, and would not be read even by the
curious, but for the fame which he acquired in the latter part of
his life by works of a very different kind. What is the value of
the Temple Beau, of the Intriguing Chambermaid, of half a dozen
other plays of which few gentlemen have even heard the names?
Yet to these worthless pieces my noble friend would give a term
of copyright longer by more than twenty years than that which he
would give to Tom Jones and Amelia.

Go on to Burke. His little tract, entitled the Vindication of
Natural Society is certainly not without merit; but it would not
be remembered in our days if it did not bear the name of Burke.
To this tract my noble friend would give a copyright of near
seventy years. But to the great work on the French Revolution,
to the Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, to the letters on
the Regicide Peace, he would give a copyright of thirty years or
little more.

And, Sir observe that I am not selecting here and there
extraordinary instances in order to make up the semblance of a
case. I am taking the greatest names of our literature in
chronological order. Go to other nations; go to remote ages; you