at least fourfold.

The advantages arising from a system of copyright are obvious. It is
desirable that we should have a supply of good books; we cannot have
such a supply unless men of letters are liberally remunerated; and the
least objectionable way of remunerating them is by means of copyright.
You cannot depend for literary instruction and amusement on the
leisure of men occupied in the pursuits of active life. Such men may
occasionally produce compositions of great merit. But you must not look
to such men for works which require deep meditation and long research.
Works of that kind you can expect only from persons who make literature
the business of their lives. Of these persons few will be found among
the rich and the noble. The rich and the noble are not impelled to
intellectual exertion by necessity. They may be impelled to intellectual
exertion by the desire of distinguishing themselves, or by the desire
of benefiting the community. But it is generally within these walls that
they seek to signalise themselves and to serve their fellow-creatures.
Both their ambition and their public spirit, in a country like this,
naturally take a political turn. It is then on men whose profession is
literature, and whose private means are not ample, that you must rely
for a supply of valuable books. Such men must be remunerated for their
literary labour. And there are only two ways in which they can be
remunerated. One of those ways is patronage; the other is copyright.

There have been times in which men of letters looked, not to the public,
but to the government, or to a few great men, for the reward of their
exertions. It was thus in the time of Maecenas and Pollio at Rome,
of the Medici at Florence, of Louis the Fourteenth in France, of Lord
Halifax and Lord Oxford in this country. Now, Sir, I well know that
there are cases in which it is fit and graceful, nay, in which it is a
sacred duty to reward the merits or to relieve the distresses of men of
genius by the exercise of this species of liberality. But these cases
are exceptions. I can conceive no system more fatal to the integrity and
independence of literary men than one under which they should be taught
to look for their daily bread to the favour of ministers and nobles. I
can conceive no system more certain to turn those minds which are formed
by nature to be the blessings and ornaments of our species into public
scandals and pests.

We have, then, only one resou