ed fifty-six years ago. If the law were what my
honourable and learned friend wishes to make it, somebody would now have
the monopoly of Dr Johnson's works. Who that somebody would be it is
impossible to say; but we may venture to guess. I guess, then, that
it would have been some bookseller, who was the assign of another
bookseller, who was the grandson of a third bookseller, who had bought
the copyright from Black Frank, the doctor's servant and residuary
legatee, in 1785 or 1786. Now, would the knowledge that this copyright
would exist in 1841 have been a source of gratification to Johnson?
Would it have stimulated his exertions? Would it have once drawn him out
of his bed before noon? Would it have once cheered him under a fit of
the spleen? Would it have induced him to give us one more allegory, one
more life of a poet, one more imitation of Juvenal? I firmly believe
not. I firmly believe that a hundred years ago, when he was writing our
debates for the Gentleman's Magazine, he would very much rather have had
twopence to buy a plate of shin of beef at a cook's shop underground.
Considered as a reward to him, the difference between a twenty years'
and sixty years' term of posthumous copyright would have been nothing or
next to nothing. But is the difference nothing to us? I can buy Rasselas
for sixpence; I might have had to give five shillings for it. I can buy
the Dictionary, the entire genuine Dictionary, for two guineas, perhaps
for less; I might have had to give five or six guineas for it. Do I
grudge this to a man like Dr Johnson? Not at all. Show me that the
prospect of this boon roused him to any vigorous effort, or sustained
his spirits under depressing circumstances, and I am quite willing to
pay the price of such an object, heavy as that price is. But what I do
complain of is that my circumstances are to be worse, and Johnson's none
the better; that I am to give five pounds for what to him was not worth
a farthing.

The principle of copyright is this. It is a tax on readers for the
purpose of giving a bounty to writers. The tax is an exceedingly bad
one; it is a tax on one of the most innocent and most salutary of human
pleasures; and never let us forget, that a tax on innocent pleasures
is a premium on vicious pleasures. I admit, however, the necessity of
giving a bounty to genius and learning. In order to give such a bounty,
I willingly submit even to this severe and burdensome tax. Nay, I am
ready to in