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From some critical notes on Shakspeare, by Blackstone, published by Stevens, it would appear that, though he had forsaken the poetic muse, he still loved to live in the suburbs of her graces.'

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While he was prosecuting his legal studies, Blackstone kept up his connection with the university, and, in 1743, was elected to a fellowship in All Soul's College. In 1746, he was called to the bar, but remained in comparative obscurity, until 1753, when he began to deliver, at Oxford, his lectures on the English laws, which were published in 1765, and the four following years, under the title of Commentaries on the Laws of England. These Commentaries' exhibit a logical and comprehensive mind, and a correct taste in composition. They formed the first attempt to popularize legal knowledge, and were eminently successful. Their author has been charged with leaning too much to the side of prerogative, and abiding rather by precedents than by sense and justice; yet in the House of Commons, when he was once advocating what was considered servile obedience, he was answered from his own book!

From the period of the publication of his great work, Blackstone rapidly rose in his profession, to rank and fame. In 1770, he was knighted by the king, and offered the place of solicitor-general; but declining that office, he was made a judge of the king's bench, whence he was soon after transferred to the common pleas. His death occurred in 1780, in the fifty-eighth year of his age.

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The Commentaries' of Sir William Blackstone is a work of such rare excellence as not to have been superseded by any subsequent production of the same kind. As a specimen of the author's style we offer the following passage:

ON THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY.

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 sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.' This is the only true and solid foundation of man's dominion over external things, whatever airy metaphysical notions may have been started by fanciful writers upon this subject. The earth, therefore, and all things therein, are the general property of all mankind, exclusive of other beings, from the immediate gift of the Creator. And while the earth continued bare of inhabitants, it is reasonable to suppose that all was in common among them, and that every one took from the public stock to his own use such things as his immediate necessities required.

These general notions of property were then sufficient to answer all the purposes of human life; and might, perhaps, still have answered them, had it been possible for mankind to have remained in a state of primeval simplicity, 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 preserved in the golden age of the poets, or the uniform accounts given by historians of those times wherein erant omnia communia et indivisa omnibus, veluti unum cunctis patrimonium esset. Not that this communion of good seems ever to have been applicable, even in the earliest ages, to aught but the substance 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 transient property, that lasted so long as he was using it, and no longer; or, to speak with greater precision, the right of possession continued for the same time only that the act of possession lasted. 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 spot of it, for rest, for shade, or the like, acquired for the time a sort of ownership, from which it would have been unjust, and contrary to the law of nature, to have driven him by force; but the instant that he quitted the use or occupation of it, another might seize it without injustice. Thus also a vine or other tree might be said to be in common, as all men were equally entitled to its produce; and yet any private individual might gain the sole property of the fruit, which he had gathered for his own repast, a doctrine well illustrated 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 necessary to entertain conceptions of more permanent dominion; and to appropriate to individuals not the immediate use only, but the very substance of the thing to be used. Otherwise, innumerable tumults must have arisen, and the good order of the world been continually broken and disturbed, while a variety of persons were striving who should get the first occupation of the same thing, or disputing which of them had actually gained it. As human life also grew more and more refined, abundance of conveniences were devised to render it more easy, commodious, and agreeable, as habitations for shelter and safety, and raiment for warmth and decency. But no man would be at the trouble to provide either, so long as he had only a usufructuary property in them, which was to cease the instant that he quitted possession; if, as soon as he walked out of his tent, or pulled off his garment, the next stranger who came would have a right to inhabit the one, and to wear the other. In the case of habitation, in particular, it was natural to observe, that even the brute creation, to whom every thing else was in common, maintain a kind of permanent property in their dwellings, especially for the protection of their young; that the birds of the air had nests, and the beasts of the field had caverns, the invasion of which they esteemed a very flagrant injustice, and would sacrifice their lives to preserve them. Hence a property was soon established in every man's house and homestall, which seems to have been originally mere temporary huts or movable cabins, suited to the design of Providence for more speedily peopling the earth, and suited to the wandering life of their owners, before any extensive property in the soil or ground was established. And there can be no doubt but that movables of every kind became sooner appropriated than the permanent, substantial soil; partly because they were more susceptible of a long occupance, which might be continued for months together, without any sensible interruption, and at length by usage ripen into an established right; but principally because few of them could be fit for use, till improved and meliorated by the bodily labour of the occupant; which bodily labour, bestowed upon any subject which before lay in common to all men, is universally allowed to give the fairest and most reasonable title to an exclusive property therein.

The article of food was a more immediate call, and therefore a more early consideration. Such as were not contented with the spontaneous product of the earth, sought for a more solid refreshment in the flesh of beasts, which they obtained by hunting. But the frequent disappointments incident to that method of provision, induced them to gather together such animals as were of a more tame and sequacious nature; and to establish a permanent property in their flocks and herds, in order to sustain themselves in a less precarious manner, partly by the milk of the dams, and partly by the flesh of the young. The support of these their cattle made the article of water also a very important point. And therefore the book of Genesis (the most venerable monument of antiquity, considered merely with a view to his

common.

tory) will furnish us with frequent instances of violent contentions concerning wells, the exclusive property of which appears to have been established in the first digger or occupant, even in such places where the ground and herbage remained yet in Thus we find Abraham, who was but a sojourner, asserting his right to a well in the country of Abimelech, and exacting an oath for his security, because he had digged that well.' And Isaac, about ninety years afterwards, reclaimed this his father's property; and after much contention with the Philistines was suffered to enjoy it in peace.

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All this while the soil and pasture of the earth remained still in common as before, and open to every occupant; except, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of towns, where the necessity of a sole and exclusive property in lands [for the sake of agriculture] was earlier felt, and therefore more readily complied with. Otherwise, when the multitude of men and cattle had consumed every convenience on one spot of ground, it was deemed a natural right to seize upon and occupy such other lands as would more easily supply their necessities. This practice is still retained among the wild and uncultivated nations that have never been formed into civil states, like the Tartars and others in the East, where the climate itself, and the boundless extent of their territory, conspires to retain them still in the same savage state of vagrant liberty which was universal in the earliest ages, and which Tacitus informs us continued among the Germans till the decline of the Roman empire. We have also a striking example of the same kind in the history of Abraham and his nephew Lot. When their joint substance became so great, that pasture and other conveniences grew scarce, the natural consequence was, that a strife arose between their servants, so that it was no longer practicable to dwell together. This contention Abraham thus endeavoured to compose:-'Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between thee and me. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If thou wilt take the left hand, then will I go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then will I go to the left.' This plainly implies an acknowledged right in either to occupy whatever ground he pleased, 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 everywhere, even as the garden of the Lord. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan, and journeyed east, and Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan.'

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Upon the same principle was founded the right of migration, or sending colonies to find out new habitations, when the mother-country was overcharged with inhabitants; which was practiced as well by the Phoenicians and Greeks, as the Germans, Scythians, and other northern people. And so long as it was confined to the stocking and cultivation of desert, uninhabited countries, it kept strictly within the limits of the law of nature. But how far the seizing on countries already peopled, and driving out or massacring the innocent and defenceless natives, merely because they differed from their invaders in language, in religion, in customs, in government, or in colour; how far such a conduct was consonant to nature, to reason, or to Christianity, deserved well to be considered by those 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 spots to inhabit, without encroaching upon former occupants; and, by constantly occupying the same individual spots, the fruits of the earth were consumed, and its spontaneous produce destroyed, without any provision for a future supply or succession. It therefore became necessary to pursue some regular method of providing a constant subsistence; and this necessity produced, or at least promoted and encouraged, the art of agriculture, by a regular connection and consequence; introduced and established the idea of a more permanent property in the soil than had hitherto been received and adopted. It was clear that the earth would not produce her fruits in sufficient quantities, without the assistance of tillage; but

who would be at the pains of tilling it, if another might watch an opportunity to seize upon and enjoy the product of his industry, art, and labour? Had not, therefore, a separate property in lands, as movables, been invested in some individuals, the world must have continued a forest, and men have been mere animals of prey; which, according to some philosophers, is the genuine state of nature. Whereas now (so graciously has Providence interwoven our duty and our happiness together), the result of this very necessity has been the ennobling of the human species, by giving it opportunities of improving its rational faculties, as well as of exerting its natural. Necessity begat property; and, in order to insure that property, recourse was had to civil society, which brought along with it a long train of inseparable concomitants-states, governments, laws, punishments, and the public exercise of religious duties. Thus connected together, it was found that a part only of society was sufficient to provide, by their manual labour, for the necessary subsistence of all; and leisure was given to others to cultivate the human mind, to invent useful arts, and to lay the foundations of science.

The only question remaining is, how this property became actually invested; or what it is that gave a man an exclusive 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 observed, that occupancy gave the right to the temporary use of the soil, so it is agreed upon all hands that occupancy gave also the original right to the permanent property in the substance of the earth itself, which excludes every one else but the owner from the use of it. There is, indeed, some difference among the writers on natural law concerning the reason why occupancy should convey this right, and invest one with this absolute property; Grotius and Puffendorf insisting that this right of occupancy is founded upon a tacit and implied assent of all mankind, that the first occupant should become the owner; and Barbeyrac, Titius, Mr. Locke, and others, holding that there is no such implied assent, neither is it necessary that there should be; for that the very act of occupancy alone being a degree of bodily labour, is, from a principle of natural justice, without any consent or compact, sufficient of itself to gain a title, a dispute that savours too much of nice and scholastic refinement! However, both sides agree in this, that occupancy is the thing by which the title was in fact originally gained; every man seizing to his own continued use such spots of ground as he found most agreeable to his own convenience, provided he found them unoccupied by any one else.

Lecture the Forty-Sirth.

SAMUEL JOHNSON-JAMES HARRIS-WILLIAM MELMOTH-JAMES BURNET-JOHN HAWKESWORTH-EARL OF CHATHAM-EDMUND BURKE-LETTERS OF JUNIUS.

F all the writers of the present period, none, perhaps, exerted so great

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force of understanding, variety of knowledge, sagacity, and moral intrepidity, he has rarely been equalled. His various works, with their sententious morality and sonorous periods, his manly character, and noble appearance, his great virtues and strong prejudices, his early and severe struggles, his love of argument and society, into which he poured the treasures of his rich and well-stored mind, his rough manners and his kind heart, have all been brought so vividly before us by his biographer, Boswell, that to most readers the great lexicographer is almost as well known as the members of their own family. His heavy form seems still to haunt Fleet-street and the Strand, and he has stamped his memory on the remote Hebrides.'

In literature, Dr. Johnson's influence has been scarcely less extensive. No prose writer of that day escaped the contagion of his peculiar style. He banished, for a long time, the naked simplicity of Swift, and the idiomatic graces of Addison; he depressed the literature and poetry of imagination, while he elevated that of the understanding; he based criticism on strong sense and solid judgment, not on scholastic subtleties and refinement; and though some of the higher qualities and attributes of genius eluded his grasp and observation, the withering scorn and invective with which he assailed all affected sentimentalism, immorality, and licentiousness, introduced a pure, healthful, and invigorating atmosphere into the crowded walks of literature. As an author, Dr. Johnson's course was singularly pure, high-minded, and independent. At every step in his progress, his passport was talent and virtue; and when munificence was at length extended to him, it was but a ratification by the sovereign of the wishes and opinions entertained by the best and wisest of the English nation.

SAMUEL JOHNSON was the son of a bookseller, and was born at Lichfield,

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