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. The case was memorable both from its intrinsic importance, and from the celebrity of the plaintiff. In his answer, on the 13th of June, Curll admitted that nobody had authorised his work. He rested his defence on three propositions. He maintained that private correspondence did not come within the Copyright Act of Queen Anne, because the Act was declared in the title to be for the "Encouragement of _Learning_," whereas letters on familiar subjects were not _learned_ productions; and because the Act was designed to protect books which were avowedly composed for the press, whereas letters were written without the intention of converting them into a literary commodity. He said that he was informed, and believed, that the letters were first "printed"[154] at Dublin, and he contended that all persons in England had a right to reproduce books which were first "published" in Ireland. He finally argued that letters were in the nature of a gift to the receiver, and that after they were delivered to the Dean they became his property. On the motion to dissolve the injunction on these grounds, Lord Hardwicke decided that they were none of them valid. He refused to recognise a distinction between letters and other compositions. He denied that a prior publication in Ireland could deprive an English author of his English rights. He, above all, determined that though the paper on which the letter was written might possibly be the property of the receiver, the matter remained the property of the writer. For the same reason that he admitted Pope's title to his own letters, he declined to continue the injunction with respect to the letters addressed to him, which had never ceased to belong to the persons who penned them.[155] The celebrated Murray was one of the counsel for the poet,[156] and afterwards, when Lord Chief Justice, he quoted and confirmed the decision of the Chancellor. "The question," he said, "was whether the property was not transferred to the correspondent. Lord Hardwicke thought not, and that the writer was still the proprietor."[157] "Dean Swift," he said subsequently, "was certainly the proprietor of the paper upon which Pope's letters to him were written; but no disposition, no transfer of paper upon which the composition is written can be construed a conveyance of the copy, without the author's express consent to print and publish, much less against his will."[158] Just and valuable as is the rule of law which proh
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