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were to maintain their title to it at common law. But by that law, it was submitted on the part of the appellants, that the privilege and monopoly never did, nor ever could exist. For a right at common law must be founded on principles of conscience and natural justice. Conscience and natural justice are not local, or municipal. Natural justice is the same at Athens, at Rome, in France, Spain and Italy. Copies of books have existed in all ages, and they have been multiplied; and yet an exclusive privilege, or the sole right of one man to multiply copies, was never dictated by natural justice in any age or country; and of course the sole liberty of vending copies could not exist of common right, which gives an equal benefit to all. An exclusive privilege to exercise a natural faculty, is an encroachment upon the rights of man. A natural faculty differs from the execution of an office. An office is the work of civil policy, and being of positive institution, may be granted to one, without injury to the rest; but when that which of common right should be free to all, becomes confined to any one man, or any body of men, the rest of the community suffer an abridgement of their natural liberty; and such a restraint of the liberty of many, for the sake of one, was never established by natural justice. If it ever has existed, it has been the creature of the civil magistrate, upon principles of policy; but [135] the respondents disclaimed the aid of the Legislature upon the present question, and derived their claim from the common law.

The common law has ever regarded public utility, as the mother of justice and equity. Public utility requires, that the productions of the mind should be diffused as wide as possible; and therefore the common law could not, upon any principle consistent with itself, abridge the right of multiplying copies. When the common law took root in this kingdom, literary composition stood, in regard to the manner of making it public, upon the same footing as in Greece or Rome. Writing was, in those states, the only method of multiplying copies. To transcribe, or copy out a book, was the right of every individual; there was no other way of propagating knowledge; but of a perpetual right in one man to write out books, or to make copies, there is not a single trace in any author that has come down from antiquity. Atticus retained a number of slaves, who were trained up to writing; and it appears in Tully's Epistles, that Atticus transcribed not only for his own use, but to sell again to Cicero. In like manner, the natural liberty of transcribing books was never checked by the common law, From Ames, and other compilers of the History of Letters, we learn, that from the slow progress of transcribing, books were held up at an enormous price. Livy was sold for 120 crowns of gold for each book; and A French Romance, called La Romans de la Rose, was sold for £33 6s. 6d. The common law could not, with justice, uphold a price so prejudicial to the cause of learning. Accordingly, he who possessed a Bracton, or a Chaucer, had an undoubted right to make as many true copies as he pleased. A monopoly would have been pernicious, and learning, in consequence, must have gone to ruin. The common law is immemorial usage. If therefore there was a time, when the privilege and monopoly now contended for, could not, and in fact did not exist at common law, they never can exist by that law. But such a time has been, namely, from the beginning of our history, down to the great æra of printing and printing, which is only a more expeditious method of multiplying copies, could not change the principles of right and wrong, or innovate the law. Printing was invented at Mentz in Germany, anno 1458. In 1471, Caxton, a mercer of London, brought the art into this kingdom. In acts of parliament it is called a trade, or manufacture of the kingdom. To exercise the art, was the right of the subject; and in this light the first printers considered it. Chaucer's works were printed by Caxton in 1498, when the author had been long dead. Another edition of Chaucer was soon given by Thomas Godfrey. Littleton's Tenures were printed in 1481, by John Letton, and in a short period by Richard Pinson, 1526, by Thomas Berthelet in 1530, by William Rastall in 1534, and by Robert Redman in 1540. Pinson, indeed, says, in the wit of that ago, that Redman should be called Rudeman; quia hominum Rudiorem vix invenias. He abuses Redman's edition, but not a word about an invasion of property.

But it is said on the part of the respondents, that the name, copy of a book, has been a term used for many ages, to signify the [136] sole right of printing, publishing, and selling; and that this species of property has existed in usage, as long as the name. But as the respondents admit, that there is no bye-law, or ordinance