and Sir Charles Grandison, to Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones and
Amelia, and, with the single exception of Waverley, to all the
novels of Sir Walter Scott, I give a longer term of copyright
than my noble friend gives. Can he match that list? Does not
that list contain what England has produced greatest in many
various ways--poetry, philosophy, history, eloquence, wit,
skilful portraiture of life and manners? I confidently therefore
call on the Committee to take my plan in preference to the plan
of my noble friend. I have shown that the protection which he
proposes to give to letters is unequal, and unequal in the worst
way. I have shown that his plan is to give protection to books
in inverse proportion to their merit. I shall move when we come
to the third clause of the bill to omit the words "twenty-five
years," and in a subsequent part of the same clause I shall move
to substitute for the words "twenty-eight years" the words
"forty-two years." I earnestly hope that the Committee will
adopt these amendments; and I feel the firmest conviction that my
noble friend's bill, so amended, will confer a great boon on men
of letters with the smallest possible inconvenience to the
public.

...


THE PEOPLE'S CHARTER. (MAY 3, 1842)

A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE THIRD OF MAY
1842.

On the second of May 1842, Mr Thomas Duncombe, Member for