rked.
--Byron.

NOTE.--Lake Leman (or Lake of Geneva) is in the south-western 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 northwest, and the
Alps lying on the south and east.

CXVIII. ORIGIN OF PROPERTY. (410)

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 everyone
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 ha