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right and property of printing the said copies for his and their sole use and benefit, and also all benefit of all additions, corrections, and amendments which should be afterwards made in the said copies.

Mr. Thomson was also the author of several other poems, intitled, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Britannia, a Poem sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, an Hymn on the Succession of the Seasons, and an Essay on Descriptive Poetry: and in consideration of £105 which by a receipt under his hand, dated the 28th of July 1729, he acknowledged to have received from Mr. John Millan, bookseller, Mr. Thomson sold to Millan the copies of the said several poems, with the sole right of printing and publishing them, together with such alterations and additions as the author should afterwards occasionally make.

About June 1738, Andrew Millar contracted with the said John Millan for the purchase of the several poems last mentioned, so sold to him by Mr. Thomson; and by an indenture dated the 16th of June 1738, John Millan, in consideration of £105 paid to him by Andrew Millar, did assign to the said Andrew Millar, his executors, administrators, and assigns, the several copies of the said poems, with all the corrections, alterations, and additions which the author had made or should make; and all the right, title, interest, property, claim, and demand of the said John Millan to or in the said copies; and also the several plates of the prints of the seasons, and the plate of the print of Sir Isaac Newton's monument; all which prints had been usually bound up with the said poems.

[130] By virtue of this indenture, Andrew Millar became lawfully entitled to all the profits arising by the printing and publishing of the several poems before mentioned, and to all the sole and exclusive property and right of printing copies of them, and of vending and disposing of the same.

Andrew Millar died in June 1768, having first made his will, dated the 20th of February 1768, and thereof appointed his wife Jane Millar, William Millar, Thomas Longman, and the respondent Thomas Cadell, executors. And soon after his death, his will was duly proved by his widow, and the said William Millar and Thomas Cadell, who thereby became entitled to the several copies of the poems before mentioned, and to the sole right of printing, publishing, and vending the same.

On the 13th of June 1769, the copy-right of the said several poems, with the sole right of printing, publishing, and vending them, was sold by order of Andrew Miller's executors, by auction, at the Queen's Arms Tavern, in St. Paul's Church-yard, London and at this sale the respondents purchased the copy right of the said poems in certain proportions, for £505.

After this purchase of the copy-right in the said poems, the appellants published and sold several thousand copies of the poems called Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, and the Hymn on the Succession of the Seasons, in a volume intitled The Seasons, by James Thomson; Edinburgh, printed by A. Donaldson, 1768 and thereby acquired considerable profits, to the great loss and prejudice of the respondents. Whereupon the respondents, on the 21st of January 1771, filed a bill in Chancery against the appellants, thereby stating the several facts before mentioned, and praying that the appellants might come to an account with the respondents, for the money which the appellants had received by the sale of the said poems and hymn; and that the appellants might for ever after be restrained, by the injunction of the court, from publishing the said poems and hymn, and from selling any copies of them in future.

On the 16th and 20th of July 1771, the appellants put in their answers, and thereby admitted, that Mr. Thomson was the author of the several poems mentioned in the bill, but denied all knowledge of the several assignments which the bill stated, and said they believed, that Andrew Millar, by virtue of the several indentures mentioned in the hill, or by any other means, did not become entitled to the copy-right in the poems before mentioned, for a longer time than the several terms limited by an act passed in the eighth year of her Majesty Queen Ann, intitled, An act for the encouragement of learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies, during the times therein mentioned. The clauses relied upon in the answers of the appellants were, that by which it is enacted,

That the author of any book or books, then already composed and not printed or published, or that should thereafter be composed, and his assignee or assigns, should have the