and from Spenfer to Flecno, that is, from the top to the bottom of all poetry. But to return to Tallo; he borrows from the invention of Boyardo, and in his alteration of his poem, which is infinitely the worst, imitates Homer fo very fervilely, that (for example) he gives the king of Jerufalem fifty fons, only because Homer had beftowed the like number on king Priam; he kills the youngest in the fame manner, and has provided his hero with a Patroclus, under another name, only to bring him back to the wars, when his friend was killed. The French have performed nothing in this kind, which is not below thofe two Italians, and fubject to a thousand more reflections, without examining their St. Louis, their Pucelle, or their Alarique. The English have only to boast of Spenfer and Milton, who neither of them wanted either genius or learning to have been perfect poets, and yet both of them are liable to many cenfures. For there is no uniformity in the defign of Spenfer; he aims at the accomplishment of no one action; he raifes up a hero for every one of his adventures, and endows each of them with fome particular moral virtue, which renders them all equal, without fubordination or preference. Every one is most valiant in his own legend; only we must do them the juftice to obferve, that magnanimity, which is the character of Prince Arthur, fhines through the whole poem, and fuccours the reft, when they are in diftrefs. The original of every knight was then living in the court of queen Elizabeth; and he attributed to each of them that virtue which he thought moft confpicuous in them: an ingenious piece of flattery, though it turned not much to his account. Had he lived to finish his poem, in the fix remaining legends, it had certainly been more of a piece; but could not have been perfect, because the model was not true. But Prince Arthur, or his chief patron, Sir Philip Sidney, whom he intended to make happy by the marriage of his Gloriana, dying before him, deprived the poet both of means and fpirit to accomplish his defign. For the reft, his obfolete language, and ill choice of his ftanza, are faults but of the fecond magnitude: for, notwithtanding the first, he is ftill intelligible, at leaft after a little practice; and for the laft, he is the more to be admired, that labouring under fuch a difficulty, his verfes are fo numerous, 'fo various, and fo harmonious, that only Virgil, whom he profeffedly imitated, has furpafied him among the Ro

Shakespeare was the man who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largeft and moft comprehenfive foul. All the images of nature were fill prefent to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily when he defcribes any thing, you more than fee it, you feel it too. Thofe who accufe him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the fpectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there, I cannot fay he is every where alike; were he fo, I fhould do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and infipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches; his ferious, fwelling into bombait. But he is always great, when fome great occafion is prefented to him: no man can fay he ever had a fit fubject for his wit, and did not then raife himself as high above the reft of Poets,

Quantùm lenta folent inter viburna cupreffi.

The confideration of this made Mr. Hales of Faton fay, that there was no fubject of which any poet ever writ, but he would produce it much better treated in Shakespeare; and, however others are now generally preferred before him, yet the age wherein he lived, which had contempo raries with him Fletcher and Jonfon, never equalled them to him in their eftcem. And in the laft king's court, when Ben's reputation was at the higheft, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater part of the courtiers, fet our Shakespeare far abové him.

Beaumont and Fletcher, of whom I am next to speak, had, with the advantage of Shakespeare's wit, which was their precedent, great natural gifts, improved by ftudy; Beaumont efpecially being fo accurate a judge of players, that Ben Jonfon, while he lived, fubmitted all his writings to his cenfure, and, 'tis thought, ufed his judgment in correcting, if not contriving, all his plots. What value he had for him, appears by the verfes he writ to him, and therefore I need fpeak no farther of it. The firft play which brought Fletcher and him in eftcem was their Philafter; for before that, they had written two or three very unfuccefsfully: and the like is re

ported

fore him; or why the occupier of a particular field or of a jewel, when lying on his death-bed, and no longer able to maintain poffeffion, fhould be entitled to tell the rest of the world, which of them fhould enjoy it after him. These enquiries, it must be owned, would be ufelefs and even troublefome in common life. It is well if the mass of mankind will obey the laws when made, without fcrutinizing too nicely into the reasons of making them. But, when law is to be confidered not only as matter of practice, but also as a rational fcience, it cannot be improper or useless to examine more deeply the rudiments and grounds of these pofitive constitutions of fociety.

"

In the beginning of the world, we are informed by holy writ, the all-bountiful Creator gave to man, "dominion over all the earth; and over the fish of the fea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth *.' This is the only true and folid foundation of man's dominion over external things, whatever airy metaphyfical notions may have been started by fanciful writers upon this fubject. The earth therefore, and all things therein, are the general property of all mankind, exclufive of other beings, from the immediate gift of the Creator. And, while the earth continued bare of inhabitants, it is reasonable to fuppofe that all was in common among them, and that every one took from the public ftock to his own ufe fuch things as his immediate neceflities required.

Thefe general notions of property were then fufficient to answer all the purposes of human life; and might perhaps ftill have anfwered them, had it been poffible for mankind to have remained in a state of primæval fimplicity: as may be collected from the manners of many American nations when first discovered by the Europeans; and from the ancient method of living among the first Europeans themselves, if we may credit either the memorials of them preferved in the golden age of the poets, or the uniform accounts given by hiftorians of those times wherein erant omnia communia et indivifa omnibus, veluti unum cunctis patrimonium effet t. Not that this communion of goods feems ever to have been applicable, even in the earliest ages, to aught but the fubftance of the thing; nor could be extended to the use of it. For,

by the law of nature and reason, he who first began to use it acquired therein a kind of tranfient property, that lafted fo long as he was ufing it, and no longer : or, to fpeak with greater precifion, the right of poffeffion continued for the fame time only that the act of poffeffion lafted. Thus the ground was in common, and no part of it was the permanent property of any man in particular: yet whoever was in the occupation of any determinate fpot of it, for reft, for fhade, or the like, acquired for the time a fort of ownership, from which it would have been unjust, and contrary to the law of nature, to have driven him by force; but the inftant that he quitted the ufe or occupation of it, another might feize it without injuftice. Thus also a vine or other tree might be faid to be in common, as all men were equally entitled to its produce; and yet any private individual might gain the fole property of the fruit, which he had gathered for his own repaft. A doctrine well illuftrated by Cicero, who compares the world to a great theatre, which is common to the public, and yet the place which any man has taken is for the time his own ||.

But when mankind increased in number, craft, and ambition, it became neceffary to entertain conceptions of more permanent dominion: and to appropriate to indivi duals not the immediate ufe only, but the very fubftance of the thing to be used. Otherwife innumerable tumults must have arifen, and the good order of the world been continually broken and difturbed, while a variety of perfons were ftriving who should get the firit occupation of the fame thing, or difputing which of them had actually gained it. As human life also grew more and more refined, abundance of conveniences were devifed to render it more easy, commodious, and agreeable; as, habitations for fhelter and fafety, and raiment for warmth and decency. But no man would be at the trouble to provide either, fo long as he had only an ufufructuary property in them, which was to ceafe the instant that he quitted poffeffion;-if, as foon as he walked out of his tent, or pulled off his garment, the next ftranger who came by would have a right to inhabit the one, and to wear the other. In the case of habita

Barbeyr. Puff. l. 4. c. 4.

Quemadmodum theatrum, cum commune, fit recte, tamen dici poteft, ejus effe eum locum quem quifque occuparit. De Fin. 1. 3. c. 20.

well watered every where, even as the garden of the Lord. Then Lot chofe him all the plain of Jordan, and journeyed eaft, and Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan."

Upon the fame principle was founded the right of migration, or fending colonies find out new habitations, when the mother country was over-charged with inhabitants; which was practifed as well by the Phoenicians and Greeks, as the Germans, Scythians, and other northern people. And fo long as it was confined to the flocking and cultivation of defart uninhabited countries, it kept ftrictly within the limits of the law of nature. But how far the feizing on countries already peopled, and driving out or maffacring the innocent and defenceless natives, merely because they differed from their invaders in language, in religion, in cuftoms, in government, or in colour; how far fuch a conduct was confonant to nature, to reafon, or to chriftianity, deferved well to be confidered by thofe who have rendered their names immortal by thus civilizing mankind.

As the world by degrees grew more populous, it daily became more difficult to find out new fpots to inhabit, without encroaching upon former occupants; and, by conftantly occupying the fame individual fpot, the fruits of the earth were confumed, and its fpontaneous produce deftroyed, without any provifion for a future fupply or fucceflion. It therefore became neceffary to purfue fome regular method of providing a conftant fubfiftence; and this neceffity produced, or at leaft promoted and encouraged, the art of agriculture. And the art of agriculture, by a regular connexion and confequence, introduced and eftablished the idea of a more permanent property in the foil, than had hitherto been received and adopted. It was clear that the earth would not produce her fruits in fufficient quantities, without the affiftance of tillage but who would be at the pains of tilling it, if another might watch an opportunity to feize upon and enjoy the product of his industry, art, and labour? Had not therefore a feparate property in lands, as moveables, been vested in some individuals, the world must have continued a foreft, and men have been mere animals of prey; which, according to fome philofophers, is the genuine ftate of nature. Whereas now (fo graciously has Provi

dence interwoven our duty and our happinefs together) the refult of this very neceflity has been the ennobling of the human fpecies, by giving it opportunities of improving its rational faculties, as well as of exerting its natural. Neceffity begat property; and, in order to infure that property, recourfe was had to civil fociety, which brought along with it a long train of infeparable concomitants; ftates, government, laws, punishments, and the public exercife of religious duties. Thus connected together, it was found that a part only of fociety was fufficient to provide, by their manual labour, for the neceffary fubfiftence of all; and leifure was given to others to cultivate the human mind, to invent ufeful arts, and to lay the foundations of science.

The only queftion remaining is, How this property became actually vefted; or what it is that gave a man an exclufive right to retain in a permanent manner that specific land, which before belonged generally to every body, but particularly to nobody? And, as we before obferved that occupancy gave the right to the temporary ufe of the foil, fo it is agreed upon all hands, that occupancy gave alfo the original right to the permanent property in the fubftance of the earth itfelf; which excludes every one elfe but the owner from the ufe of it. There is indeed fome difference among the writers on natural law, concerning the reafon why occupancy fhould convey this right, and inveft one with this abfolute property: Grotius and Puffendorf infifting, that this right of occupancy is founded upon a tacit and implied affent of all mankind, that the first occupant fhould become the owner; and Barbeyrac, Titius, Mr. Locke, and others, holding, that there is no fuch implied affent, neither is it neceffary that there fhould be; for that the very act of occupancy, alone, being a degree of bodily labour, is, from a principle of natural juftice, without any confent or compact, fufficient of itself to gain a title. A difpute that favours too much of nice and fcholaftic refinement! However, both fides agree in this, that occupancy is the thing by which the title was in fact originally gained; every man feizing to his own continued ufe fuch spots of ground as he found most agreeable to his own convenience, provided he found them unoccupied by any one else.

Blackftone's Commentaries.