tal. They could not
diminish the immortality of a book, but only its reward. In all the
litigations respecting literary property, authors were little
considered--except some honourable testimonies due to genius, from the
sense of WILLES, and the eloquence of MANSFIELD. Literary property was
still disputed, like the rights of a parish common. An honest printer,
who could not always write grammar, had the shrewdness to make a bold
effort in this scramble, and perceiving that even by this last
favourable award all literary property would necessarily centre with
the booksellers, now stood forward for his own body--the printers.
This rough advocate observed that "a few persons who call themselves
_booksellers_, about the number of _twenty-five_, have kept the
_monopoly of books and copies_ in their hands, to the entire exclusion
of all others, but more especially the _printers_, whom they have
always held it a rule never to let become purchasers in _copy_." Not a
word for the _authors_! As for them, they were doomed by both parties
as the fat oblation: they indeed sent forth some meek bleatings; but
what were AUTHORS, between judges, booksellers, and printers? the
sacrificed among the sacrificers!

All this was reasoning in a circle. LITERARY PROPERTY in our nation
arose from _a new state of society_. These lawyers could never
develope its nature by wild analogies, nor discover it in any
common-law right; for our common law, composed of immemorial customs,
could never have had in its contemplation an object which could not
have existed in barbarous periods. Literature, in its enlarged spirit,
certainly never entered into the thoughts or attention of our rude
ancestors. All their views were bounded by the necessaries of life;
and as yet they had no conception of the impalpable, invisible, yet
sovereign dominion of the human mind--enough for our rough heroes was
that of the seas! Before the reign of Henry VIII. great authors
composed occasionally a book in Latin, which none but other great
authors cared for, and which the people could not read. In the reign
of Elizabeth, ROGER ASCHAM appeared--one of those men of genius born
to create a new era in the history of their nation. The first English
author who may be regarded as the founder of our _prose style_ was
Roger Ascham, the venerable parent of our _native literature_. At a
time when our scholars affected to contemn the vernacular idiom, and
in their Latin works were losing