"'I have a great interest in this question, and I think the interest of science and literature in this question are by no means inconsiderable. I sincerely wish our legislature would come at once to the line of right and justice on this subject, and pass a new act, the preamble to which shall admit the principle that an author has, by common law, or natural justice, the sole and _permanent_ right to make profit by his own labor, and that his heirs and assigns shall enjoy the right unclogged with conditions. The act thus admitting the right would prescribe only the _mode_ by which it shall be ascertained, secured, and enjoyed, and violations of the right punished; and perhaps make some provisions for the case of attempts to elude the statute by slight alterations of books by mutilations and transpositions.' "To this letter Mr. Webster returned the following answer:-- "'BOSTON, _October 14, 1826_. "'DEAR SIR,--I have received yours of the 30th of September, and shall, with your permission, lay it before the committee of the judiciary next session, as that committee has in contemplation some important changes in the law respecting copyright. Your opinion, in the abstract, is certainly right and uncontrovertible. Authorship is, in its nature, ground of property. Most people, I think, are as well satisfied (or better) with the reasoning of Mr. Justice Yates as with that of Lord Mansfield in the great case of Miller and Taylor. But after all, property, in the social state, must be the creature of law; and it is a question of expediency, high and general, not particular expediency, how and how far the rights of authorship should be protected. I confess frankly that I see, or think I see, objections to make it perpetual. At the same time I am willing to extend it further than at present, and am fully persuaded that it ought to be relieved from all charges, such as depositing copies, etc. "'Yours, D. WEBSTER.' * * * * *