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the statute, namely, the sole liberty of printing and reprinting was granted for the term of fourteen years. The law was made for the encouragement of learning: ingenuity has endeavoured to puzzle it, but the legislature has given the exposition.

The notion of a perpetual privilege and monopoly, was within these few years hatched among the booksellers, who now come with glossing colours, and under a pretence of serving the cause of literature, mean only to get the fruits of genius into their own hands for ever. But the consequences of this new doctrine, were it established, would be fatal to the interest of letters, and the fame of every valuable author. Books may be held up at too high a price. Notes and illustrations may be wanted, and in thirty or forty years generally are; for not only the manners, but even science changes in the progress of time. Moral philosophy and mathematics should keep pace with the vicissitudes of the world. Useful commentaries upon valuable works, cannot be made without the licence of the bookseller who has purchased the copy: his avarice, his timidity, his want of sense, may tell even the original author, that he shall not reprint his own book, with further improvements. If the author should happily be permitted to do it, it must be upon the bookseller's terms; but more probably, the frugality of the bookseller will grudge an additional expence, and taking upon him to pronounce upon wit, he may say, that he likes the book as it is. Milton, in his famous speech, has thought this head of argument an important topic against a licenser of the press. His words are,

What if the author shall be one so copious of fancy, as to have many things well worth the adding, come into his mind after licensing, while the book is yet under the press, which not seldom happens to the best and diligentest writers, and that perhaps a dozen times in one book. The printer dares not go beyond his licensed copy; so often then must the author trudge to his leave-giver, that those his new insertions may be viewed; and many a jaunt will be made, ere that liscenser (for it must be the same man) can either he found, or found at leisure. Mean while either the press must stand still, which is no small damage, or the author lose his accurate thoughts, and send the book forth into the world worse than he could make it, which to a diligent writer is the greatest melancholy and vexation that can befall.

In the case of a perpetual privilege and monopoly, the bookseller becomes the author's leave-giver; many a jaunt may be made that his new insertions may be viewed, and at length he may sit down with the melancholy and vexation of leaving his book worse than he could make it. But should the work, pursuant to the statute of Queen Ann, revert to the author in fourteen years, he will become the guardian of his own fame; and in consequence, [143] learned and industrious men will be enabled to reap not only the fame, but the profits of their labours, to the honour and advantage of themselves and their families.

It has however been colourably said, that for a perpetual property, authors may rise in their demand, and gain a much larger sum for the copy; or they may publish on their own account, and feel the pulse of the public before they dispose of the copy. Except in one or two modern instances, a competent price has never been given. If booksellers have hitherto been dealing under the idea of a perpetual monopoly, they have not paid an adequate compensation for it, and the same phlegm will govern their future transactions. It is a melancholy consideration, that even a writer of Mr. Thomson's merit does not appear to have received £100 for the poems called the Seasons. The whole sum paid to him for a variety of articles was £242 13s. The tragedy of Sophonisba, at the old price of a play, was worth £105. The poem sacred to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton, Britannia, and an Essay on Descriptive Poetry, were worth a considerable sum. How much then remains for the Seasons? No work of late years has been more generally received. The profits to Millar must therefore have been large; and after all the copy sold for £505 at a public auction. If authors had always access to a Clarendon press, where the precise number ordered would be printed, and no more, the impression might be distributed to the London booksellers, and an author might stand the hazard. But authors are not often in that situation, and besides, the immediate expence of paper and print is not favourable to such experiments. A period of fourteen years is a sure test of every book. If after that time it be worth reprinting, the author's most accurate thoughts may be interwoven, and the fame and profit will accrue to the man of labour and invention. But if a perpetual privilege and monopoly are to interrupt his hopes, the purchasers of the copy will be enriched, and, in the emphatic words of Dryden, It will continue