t the most enlarged and liberal
views--a readiness to sacrifice private considerations to publick and
general good. He wished the author to be adequately remunerated for his
labour, and tenderly protected from spoliation, but, by no means,
encouraged in monopoly. See Boswell's Life, i. ii. iv.

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE
CASE OF DR. T[RAPP]'S SERMONS.

ABRIDGED BY MR. CAVE, 1739.

1. That the copy of a book is the property of the author, and that he
may, by sale, or otherwise, transfer that property to another, who has a
right to be protected in the possession of that property, so
transferred, is not to be denied.

2. That the complainants may be lawfully invested with the property of
this copy, is likewise granted.

3. But the complainants have mistaken the nature of this property; and,
in consequence of their mistake, have supposed it to be invaded by an
act, in itself legal, and justifiable by an uninterrupted series of
precedents, from the first establishment of printing, among us, down to
the present time.

4. He that purchases the copy of a book, purchases the sole right of
printing it, and of vending the books printed according to it; but has
no right to add to it, or take from it, without the author's consent,
who still preserves such a right in it, as follows from the right every
man has to preserve his own reputation.

5. Every single book, so sold by the proprietor, becomes the property of
the buyer, who purchases, with the book, the right of making such use of
it as he shall think most convenient, either for his own improvement or
amusement, or the benefit or entertainment of mankind.

6. This right the reader of a book may use, many ways, to the
disadvantage both of the author and the proprietor, which yet they have
not any right to complain of, because the author when he wrote, and the
proprietor when he purchased the copy, knew, or ought to have known,
that the one wrote, and the other purchased, under the hazard of such
treatment from the buyer and reader, and without any security from the
bad consequences of that treatment, except the excellence of the book.

7. Reputation and property are of different kinds; one kind of each is
more necessary to be secured by the law than another, and the law has
provided more effectually for its defence. My character as a man, a
subject, or a trader, is under the protection of the law; but my
reputation, as an author, is at the mercy of the reader, who lies