So it has been held, that where a person had adapted words of his own to an old air and added a prelude and accompaniment he was entitled to a copyright for the entire combination. Lover v. Davidson, 1 C. B. (n. s.) 182.

(p) Pope v. Carl, 2 Atk. 342; Millar v. Taylor, 4 Burr. 2303; Oliver v. Oliver, 11 C. B. (n. s.) 139; Palin v. Gathercole,

1 Coll. 666; Thompson v. Stanhope, AmbL 737; Earl of Granard v. Dunkin, 1 Ball & Beatty, 207; Gee v. Pritchard, 2 Swanst. 403; Folsom v. Marsh, 2 Story, 100; Woolsey v. Judd, 4 Duer, 379. A distinction was drawn, in Perceval v. Phipps,

2 V. & B. 19, between letters having the characteristics of literary productions and those of a merely personal or business nature; and it was held that the publication of the latter would not be restrained upon the ground of there being a right of property m them, but only when such publication would be a breach of confidence. The correctness of this distinction was doubted by Lord Eldon, in Gee v. Pritchard, supra, and it is not supported by the subsequent English authorities. In New York it was approved in Wetmore v. Scovill, 8 Edw. Ch. 616, and in Hoyt v. McKenzie, 3 Barb. Ch. 820; but it was afterwards rejected in the same State, in Woolsey v. Judd, 4 Duer, 379. It was rejected also in Folsom v. Marsh, 2 Story, 100, by Story, J., who held that, "the author of any letter or letters, or his representatives, whether they are literary compositions, or familiar letters, or letters of business, possess the sole and exclusive copyright therein; and no persons, neither those to whom they are addressed, nor other persons, have any right or authority to publish the same upon their own account or for their own benefit. But, consistently with this right, the persons to whom they are addressed may have, nay, must by implication possess, the right to publish any letter or letters addressed to them upon such occasions as require or justify the publication or public use of them, but this right is strictly limited to those occasions." That the receiver may use letters for the purpose of justification or defence, see also Perceval v. Phipps, 2 V. & B. 19; Gee v. Pritchard, 2 Swanst 408.

For a distinction between literary letters and business or personal letters, see our note.

As the law cannot be called upon to enforce or protect rights founded upon a violation of law, no copyright is valid for a book of which the character and purpose are immoral, (q) or blasphemous, (r) or treasonable, (s) or otherwise illegal, or where the work is in any way a fraud upon the public. (ss) But the English cases have gone farther * in the refusal to al protect copyrights for these causes, than any cases in this country, and, we think, farther than the courts of England would now go.

It is now settled that the decisions of courts cannot be the subject of copyright, although the reporter may protect his own abstracts of cases or arguments. (t) We should say he might protect reports, prepared by him, in his own words, of the judgments rendered by judges. (u)