and from Spenfer to Flecno, that is, from the top to the bottom of all poetry. But to return to Taflo; 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 those two Italians,

and fubject to a thousand more reflections, without examining their St. Louis, their Pucelle, or their Alarique. The English have only to boaft 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 raises 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 heen 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, notwithftanding 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 verses are fo numerous, fo various, and fo harmonious, that only Virgil, whom he profeffedly imitated, has furpaffed him among the Ro

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Shakespeare was the man who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and moft comprehenfive foul. All the images of nature were still present 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 bombaft. 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 rest of Poets,

Quantùm lenta folent inter virburna cupreffi.

The confideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eaton 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 contemporaries with him Fletcher and Jonfon, never equalled them to him in their efteem." And in the last king's court, when Ben's reputation was at the higheft, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greatest part of the courtiers, fet our Shakespeare far above 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 Jonson, while he lived, fubmitted all his writings to his cenfure, and, 'tis thought, used 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 first play which brought Fletcher and him in esteem was their Philafter; for before that, they had written two or three very unfuccefsfully: and the like is re

ported

ported of Ben Jonfon, before he writ Every Man in his Humour. Their plots were generally more regular than Shakespeare's, especially those which were made before Beaumont's death; and they understood and imitated the converfation of gentlemen much better, whofe wild debaucheries, and quickness of repartees, no poet can ever paint as they have done. That humour which Ben Jonfon derived from particular perfons, they made it not their business to defcribe: they reprefented all the paffions very lively, but above all, love. I am apt to believe the English language in them arrived to its highest perfection: what words have been taken in fince, are rather fuperfluous than neceffary. Their plays are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage; two of theirs being acted through the year for one of Shakespeare's or Jonfon's: the reafon is, because there is a certain gaiety in their comedies, and pathos in their more serious plays, which fuits generally with all men's humour. Shakespeare's language is likewife a little obfolete, and Ben Jonfon's wit comes fhort of theirs.

As for Jonfon, to whofe character I am now arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself (for his last plays were but his dotages), I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. He was a moft fevere judge of himself as well as others. One cannot fay he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit and language, and humour alfo, in fome measure, we had before him; but fomething of art was wanting to the drama till he came. He managed his ftrength to more advantage than any who preceded him. You feldom find him making love in any of his fcenes, or endeavouring to move the paffions; his genius was too fullen and faturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came after thofe who had performed both to fuch an height. Humour was his proper fphere, and in that he delighted moft to reprefent mechanic people. He was deeply converfant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them: there is not a poet or hiftorian among the Roman authors of those times, whom he has not tranflated in Sejanus and Cataline. But he has done his robberies fo openly, that one may fee he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets, is

only victory in him. With the fpoils of thofe writers he fo reprefents old Rome to us, in its rites, ceremonies, and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had feen lefs of it than in him. If there was any fault in his language, 'twas that he weav'd it too closely and laboriously in his ferious plays: perhaps, too, he did a little too much Romanize our tongue, leaving the words which he tranflated as much Latin as he found them; wherein, though he learnedly followed the idiom of their language, he did not enough comply with ours. If I would compare with him Shakespeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakespeare the greater wit. Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets, Jonfon was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing; I admire him, but I love Shakespeare. To conclude of him: as he has given us the moft correct plays, fo, in the precepts which he has laid down in his difcoveries, we have as many and as profitable rules for perfecting the stage as any wherewith the French can furnish us. Dryden's Effays.

$79. The Origin and Right of exclufive Property explained.

There is nothing which fo generally frikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property; or that fole and defpotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in a total exclufion of the right of any other individual in the univerfe. And yet there are very few that will give themfelves the trouble to confider the original and foundation of this right. Pleafed as we are with the poffeffion, we seem afraid to look back to the means by which it was acquired, as if fearful of fome defect in our title; or at beft we reft fatisfied with the decision of the laws in our favour, without examining the reafon or authority upon which thofe laws have been built. We think it enough that our title is derived by the grant of the former proprietor, by defcent from our ancestors, or by the last will and testament of the dying owner; not caring to reflect that (accurately and ftrictly speaking) there is no foundation in nature or in natural law, why a fet of words upon parchment should convey the dominion of land; why the fon should have a right to exclude his fellow-creatures from a determinate spot of ground, because his father had done fo be

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tions, in particular, it was natural to observe, that even the brute creation, to whom every thing elfe was in common, maintained a kind of permanent property in their dwellings, efpecially for the protection of their young; that the birds of the air had netts, and the beafts of the field had caverns, the invafion of which they deemed a very flagrant injuftice, and would facrifice their lives to preferve them. Hence a property was foon established in every man's house and homefta'l; which feem to have been originally mere temporary huts or moveable cabins, fuited to the defign of Providence for more (peedily peopling the earth, and fuited to the wandering life of their owners, before any extenfive property in the foil or ground was established. And there can be no doubt, but that moveables of every kind became fooner appropriated than the permanent fubftantial foil; partly because they were more fulceptible of a long occupance, which might be continued for months together without any fenfible interruption, and at length by ufage ripen into an established right but principally becaufe few of them could be fit for ufe, till improved and meliorated by the bodily labour of the occupant: which bodily labour, bestowed upon any fubject which before lay in common to all men, is univerfally allowed to give the fairest and moft reasonable title to an exclufive property therein.

ground and herbage remained yet in common. Thus we find Abraham, who was but a fojourner, afferting his right to a well in the country of Abimelech, and exacting an oath for his fecurity, "because he had digged that well." And Ifaac, about ninety years afterwards, reclaimed this his father's property; and after much contention with the Philistines, was fuffered to enjoy it in peace .

The article of food was a more immediate call, and therefore a more early confideration. Such as were not contented with the fpontaneous product of the earth, fought for a more folid refreshment in the flesh of beafts, which they obtained by hunting. But the frequent difappointments, incident to that method of provifion, in duced them to gather together fuch animals as were of a more tame and fequacious nature; and to establish a permanent property in their flocks and herds, in order to fuftain themfelves in a lefs precarious manner, partly by the milk of the dams, and partly by the flesh of the young. The fupport of thefe their cattle made the article of water alfo a very important point. And therefore the book of Genefis (the most venerable monument of antiquity, confidered merely with a view to history) will furnish us with frequent inftances of violent contentions concerning wells; the exclufive property of which feems to have been established in the first digger or occupant, even in fuch places where the

All this while the foil and pafture of the earth remained ftill in common as before, and open to every occupant: except perhaps in the neighbourhood of towns, where the neceflity of a fole and exclufive property in lands (for the fake of agricultu e) was earlier felt, and therefore more readily complied with. Otherwife, when the multitude of men and cattle had confumed every convenience on one ipot of ground, it was deemed a natural right to leize upon and occupy fuch other lands as would more easily fupply their neceffities. This practice is ftill retained among the wild and uncultivated nations that have never been formed into civil ftates, like the Tartars and others in the Eaft; where the climate itfelf, and the boundless extent of their ter ritory, confpire to retain them still in the fame favage ftate of vagrant liberty, which was univerfal in the earliest ages, and which Tacitus informs us continued among the Germans till the decline of the Roman enpire . We have alfo a striking example of the fame kind in the history of Abraham and his nephew Lot. When their joint fubitance became fo great, that pafture and other conveniences grew fcarce, the natural confequence was, that a ftrife arofe between their fervants; fo that it was no longer practicable to dwell toge ther. This contention Abraham thus endeavoured to compofe; "Let there be no ftrife, I pray thee, between thee and inc. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyfelf, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the righ hand, then I will go to the left." This plainly implies an acknowledged right in either to occupy whatever ground he pleafed, that was not pre-occupied by other tribes. "And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was

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

Upon the fame principle was founded the right of migration, or fending colonies to 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 maflacring the innocent and defencelefs 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 fucceffion. 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 established 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 vefted in fome individuals, the world must have continued a forelt, 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 hap pinefs together) the refult of this very neceffity has been the ennobling of the human fpecies, by giving it opportunities of improving its rational faculties, as well as of exerting its natural. Neceflity 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 leisure 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 fpecific 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 alfo gave the original right to the permanent property in the fubftance of the earth itself: which excludes every one elfe but the owner from the use 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 firft occupant fhould become the owner; and Barbeyrac, Titius, Mr. Locke, and others, holding, that there is no fuch implied affent, neither is it necef fary 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.

Blackflone's Commentaries.