CXVII. THUNDER-STORM ON THE ALPS.

CLEAR, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwell in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring
Sounds sweet, as if a sister's voice reproved,

That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep-
All heaven and earth are still: from the high host
Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast,

All is concentered in a life intense,

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense

Of that which is of all Creator and defense.

The sky is changed! and such a change! O night,
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light

Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!

And this is in the night.-Most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be

A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,-
A portion of the tempest and of thee!

How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea!
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again, 't is black, and now, the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.

Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene,

That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted;
Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted,
Love was the very root of the fond rage,

Which blighted their life's bloom, and then-departed! Itself expired, but leaving them an age

Of years, all winters,-war within themselves to wage.

Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way,
The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand!
For here, not one, but many make their play,
And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand,
Flashing and cast around! Of all the band,

The brightest through these parted hills hath forked
His lightnings, -as if he did understand,
That in such gaps as desolation worked,

There, the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked.

-Byron.

NOTE.-Lake Leman (or Lake of Geneva) is in the southwestern part of Switzerland, separating it in part from Savoy. The Rhone flows through it, entering by a deep narrow gap, with mountain groups on either hand, eight or nine thousand feet above the water. The scenery about the lake is magnificent, the Jura mountains bordering it on the north-west, and the Alps lying on the south and east.

CXVIII. ORIGIN OF PROPERTY.

Sir William Blackstone, 1723-1780, was the son of a silk merchant, and was born in London. He studied with great success at Oxford, and was admitted to the bar in 1745. At first he could not obtain business enough in his profession to support himself, and for a time relinquished practice, and lectured at Oxford. He afterwards returned to London, and resumed his practice with great success, still continuing to lecture at Oxford. He was elected to Parliament in 1761; and in 1770 was made a justice of the Court of Common Pleas, which office he held till his death. Blackstone's fame rests upon his "Commentaries on the Laws of England," published about 1769. He was a man of great ability, sound learning, unflagging industry, and moral integrity. His great work is still a common text-book in the study of law.

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, in which "all things were common to him." Not that this communion of goods seems ever to have been applicable, even in the earliest ages, to aught but the substance of the thing; nor could it 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 determined 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 theater, 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 a 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 an 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 by would have a right to inhabit the one and to wear the other.

In the case of habitations, in particular, it was natural to observe that even the brute creation, to whom every thing else was in common, maintained 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 fields 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 homestead; which seem 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.

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 occupancy, 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 labor of the occupant; which bodily labor, 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