824 LTTE R 
knowledge. If former works contained a greater variety 
and richnefs of matter, there were few perfons only to 
whom it could be imparted ; now we have books level 
■with every capacity, and adapted to diffufe knowledge 
through all ranks. The elaborate refinement and f'cru- 
pulous exactnefs, which care and long meditation gave to 
the productions of part times, are now to be hoped from 
frequency of practice and repetition of trial 5 and, when 
the experiments are numerous beyond computation, we 
may allow for many failures. 
If we turn from the convenience of thefe literary pro¬ 
ductions to the effects of their influence on fociety, the 
advantage will evidently appear to be with modern times; 
for, if knowledge exifteu formerly, in larger feparate 
maffes, it is now without doubt more generally diffufed ; 
and what moralift will deny that knowledge contains the 
germs of virtue and happinefs ? If, in the luxury of pre¬ 
fent times, the temptations to vice be increafed, exhorta¬ 
tions to goodnefs are more frequent; and moral depra¬ 
vity is affailed on every fide, and under every form, in 
profe and in poetry, by novels and by ferious effays. In 
pad: times, men were rarely impelled to the queft of know¬ 
ledge, and never allured; fcience was difficult of accefs, 
and her features were harfii and forbidding. Now (lie ad¬ 
vances to meet the ftudent, and drives to captivate by 
every art; the curiofity of the inquifitive is excited, the 
idle are tempted to ufeful occupation, and the bufy refort 
to her for relaxation. 
The general objefts of intellectual purfuit are not only 
different, but each objeCt is purfued with different means 
and views; language, poetry, antiquities, mathematics, 
•are the claffes into which the objeCts of mental inquiry 
are didributed ; but each of thefe (the fcience of mathe¬ 
matics for indance) is dudied under a difference of views 
and circumdances ; for fome dudents are ambitious of a 
variety of knowledge, while others only aim at correCt- 
mefs ; fome are contented with the fpiritual and philofo- 
phical utility of mathematical fcience, others demand a 
grofs and material utility ; fome feek for truth, truth 
naked and abdraCt; and fome require that it fhould be 
clothed with power, and fubfervient to the purpofes of 
common life. Adapted to the diffimilitude of tade and 
capacities, books have been written, which are either fyf- 
tematical and coherent, or familiar and illudrative; fpe- 
cnlative, or applied to practical purpofes ; either exaCl in 
their logical deduction, or copious in the variety of their 
matter. 
It now only remains to inquire what are the encou¬ 
ragements to literature; we mean on the fcore of profit 
to the profeffors. And we (hall prefently find, that lite¬ 
rary property is of a nature different from every other ; 
lefs permanent, of courfe lefs profitable. 
The right which an author may be fuppofed to have in 
l.is own original literary compofitions, (o that no other per- 
fion without his leave may publidi or make profit of the co¬ 
pies, is claffed by Blackdone among the fpecies of pro¬ 
perty acquired by occupancy ; being grounded on labour 
and invention. He expreffes however fome doubt whe¬ 
ther it fubfids by the common law ; and, this being dill, 
after all the determinations on the fubjeff, in fome mea- 
i’ure, a doubtful quedion, the following remarks may de- 
ferve attention. When a man, by the exertion of his ra¬ 
tional powers, has produced an original work, he feems to 
have clearly a right to difpofe of that identical work as he 
pleafes; and any attempt to vary the difpofition he has 
made of it, appears to be an invafion of that right. Now 
the identity of a literary compofition confids entirely in 
the fentiment and the language. The fame conceptions 
clothed in the fame words, mud neceffarily be the fame 
compofition ; and, whatever method be taken of exhibit¬ 
ing that compofition, to tlie ear or the eye of another, by 
recital, [fee the cafe of Colman v. Wathen,] by writing, 
or by printing, in any number of copies, or at any period 
of time, it is always the identical work of the author 
which is To exhibited; and no other man, it has been 
ATURE. 
thought, can have a right to exhibit it, efpecially for pro-' 
fit, without the author’s confent. This conlent may per¬ 
haps be tacitly given to all mankind when an author duf¬ 
fers his work to be publilhed by another hand, without 
any claim or referve of right, and without damping on it 
any marks of ownerfliip; it being then a prefent to the 
public, like building a church or bridge, or laying out a 
new highway. But, in cafe the author fells a (ingle book, 
or totally grants the copy-right, it has been fuppofed, in 
the one cafe, that the buyer has no more right to multi¬ 
ply copies of that book for fade than he has to imitate 
for the like purpofe the ticket which is bought for ad- 
miffion to an opera or a concert; and, in the other, that 
the whole property, with all its excludve rights, is perpe¬ 
tually transferred to the grantee. On the other hand it 
is urged, that though the exclufive property of the ntanu- 
feript, and all which it contains, undoubtedly belongs to 
the author before it is printed or publiflied; yet, from the 
indant of publication, the exclufive right of an author, or 
his affigns, to the foie communication of his ideas, imme¬ 
diately vanidies and evaporates; as being a right of too 
fubtle and unfubdantial a nature, to become the fubjeCt 
of property at the common law, and only capable of be¬ 
ing guarded by poiitive datutes and fpecial proviiions of 
the magidrate. 2 Comm. 4.05, 6. 
The Roman law adjudged, that, if one man wrote any 
thing on the paper or parchment of another, the writing 
(hould belong to the owner of the blank materials, mean¬ 
ing thereby the mechanical operation of writing, for which 
it direCled the feribe to receive a - fatisfa&ion ; for in works 
of genius and invention, as in painting on another man’s 
canvas, the fame law gave the canvas to the painter. As 
to any other property, in the works of the underdanding, 
that law is filent; though the fale of literary copies, for 
the purpofes of recital or multiplication, is certainly as 
ancient as the times of Terence, Martial, and Statius. 
2 Comm. 407. 
But, whatever inherent copy-right might have been fup¬ 
pofed to fubfid by the common law, the datute S Ann.c. 
19, has now declared, that the author and his affigns 
diall have the foie liberty of printing and reprinting his 
works for the term of fourteen years, and no longer [the 
words of the datute] ; and has protected that property 
by additional penalties and forfeitures-; directing farther, 
that if, at the end of that term, the author himfelf be liv¬ 
ing, the right (hall then return to him for another term of 
the fame duration. A fimilar privilege is extended to the 
new inventors of prints and engravings, by dats. 8 Geo. II. 
c. 13. 7 Geo. III. c. 38. 17 Geo. III. c. 57. The above 
parliamentary protections appear to have been fuggeded 
by the exception in the datute of monopolies, 21 jac. I. 
c. 3 ; which allows a royal patent of privilege to be grant¬ 
ed for fourteen years to any inventor of a new manufac¬ 
ture, for the foie working or making of the fame; by virtue 
whereof it is held, that a temporary property therein becomes 
vefted in the king’s patentee. See Letters Patent. 
Whether the productions of the mind could communi¬ 
cate a right of property, or of exclufive enjoymeni;, in 
reafon and nature; and, if fuch a moral right exided, 
whether it was recognifed and lupported by the com¬ 
mon law of England ; and whether the common law was 
intended to be redrained by the datute of queen Anne; 
are quedions upon which the learning and talents of the 
highed legal characters in this kingdom have been pow¬ 
erfully and zealoudy exerted. Thefe quedions have, by 
the fupreme court of judicature in the kingdom, been fo 
determined, that an author has no right at prefent beyond 
the limits fixed by that datute. See the cafe of Donald- 
fon v. Beckett; Bro. P.C. As that determination, how¬ 
ever, was contrary to the opinion of lord Mansfield, of 
Blackdone, and of feveral other judges, Mr. Chriltian has 
remarked, that every perl’on may dill be permitted to in¬ 
dulge his own opinion upon the propriety of it, without 
incurring the imputation of arrogance. But it is worthy 
of remark, that this decidon, which was fuppoied, at the 
tim?3 
