Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/451

 Letters of Dr. Johnson.

��The Authour has a natural and peculiar right to the 1 profits of his own work x.

But as every Man who claims the protection of Society, must

��on the subject of literary Property, which contains my real Sentiments, so far as it goes. However, I shall tell you the truth ; I do not foresee any such bad Consequences as you mention from laying the Property open. The Italians and French have more pompous Editions of their Classics since the Expiration of the Privileges than any we have of ours : And at least every Bookseller who prints a Book will endeavour to make it as compleat and correct as he can.' Letters of Hume, p. 274.

The following is an abridgement of my notes on this letter : ' On Feb. 22, 1774, a decision was given in the House of Lords on the question of literary property or copyright, by which, to use the words of the Annual Register (XVll.'i. 9$), "Near ^200,000 worth of what was honestly purchased at public sale, and which was yesterday thought property, is now reduced to nothing. The English booksellers have now no other security in future for any literary purchases they may make but the statute of the 8th of Queen Anne, which secures to the author's assigns an exclusive property for 14 years, to revert again years more." The works of Shake speare, Milton, Dryden, Bunyan, Locke, had hitherto been copyright. Boswell, under date of July 20, 1763, tells how Donaldson, an Edinburgh bookseller, * had for some years opened a shop in London, and sold his cheap editions of the most popular English books, in defiance of the supposed common-law right of Lite rary Property/ Life, i. 437. The booksellers got a verdict against him in 1769 in the Court of King's Bench,

��but the judgement, upon an appeal from a decree of the Court of Chan cery founded on it, was reversed by the House of Lords on Feb. 22, 1774. A copyright Bill in protection of the booksellers was the same session carried through the House of Com mons, but it was lost in the House of Lords. The London booksellers pro tected themselves by an 'honorary copyright, which/ wrote Boswell in 1791, ' is still preserved among them by mutual compact.' Ib. iii. 370. See also ib. i. 437 ; ii. 272.

1 ' There is (writes Blackstone) still another species of property, which (if it subsists) being grounded on labour and invention, is more properly re ducible to the head of occupancy than any other.' Commentaries, ed. 1775, ii. 405. It is this view which Johnson attacked when he said : ' There seems to be in authours a stronger right of property than that by occu pancy ; a metaphysical right, a right, as it were, of creation, which should from its nature be perpetual ; but the consent of nations is against it, and indeed reason and the interests of learning are against it/ &c. Life, ii. 259. Lord Camden attacked * the metaphysical refinements ' which were brought into the arguments. Meta physics * lent its artful aid ' to both sides. ' It has/ said Mr. Justice Aston, 'been ingeniously, meta physically, and subtilly argued on the part of the defendant, "That there is a want of property in the thing itself" ' Letters of Hume, p. 279. Blackstone says that ' it is urged that the right is of too subtile and unsub stantial a nature to become the sub ject of property at the common law.' See also ante, i. 382 n. ; ii. 437 n.

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