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Frank. It is so, sir; but I could bear her loss better, had I not so often been ungrateful for her kindness. She was my only friend, and I knew not her value.

Cur. It is too late to repent, Master Millington. You will now have a chance to earn your own bread.

Swipes. Ay, ay, by the sweat of your brow, as better people are obliged to. You would make a fine brewer's boy, if you were not too

old.

Cur. Ay, or a saddler's lackey, if held with a tight rein.

Frank. Gentlemen, your remarks imply that my aunt has treated me as I deserved. I am above your insults, and only hope you will bear your fortune as modestly, as I shall mine submissively. I shall retire. [Going: he meets 'SQUIRE Drawl.] 'Squire. Stop, stop, young man. We must have your presence. Good morning, gentlemen; you are early on the ground. Cur. I hope the 'Squire is well today.

'Squire. Pretty comfortable, for an invalid.

Swipes. I trust the damp air has not affected your lungs again. 'Squire. No, I believe not. But since the heirs at law are all convened, I shall now proceed to open the last will and testament of your deceased relative, according to law.

Swipes. [While the 'Squire is breaking the seal.] It is a trying thing, to leave all one's possessions, 'Squire, in this manner.

Cur. It really makes me feel melancholy, when I look round and see every thing but the venerable owner of these goods. Well did the preacher say, "all is vanity."

Squire. Please to be seated, gentlemen. [He puts on his spectacles, and begins to read slowly.] + Imprimis; whereas my nephew, Francis Millington, by his disobedience and ungrateful conduct, has shown himself unworthy of my bounty, and incapable of managing my large estate, I do hereby give and bequeath all my houses, farms, stocks, bonds, moneys, and property, both personal and real, to my dear cousins, Samuel Swipes, of Malt-Street, brewer, and Christopher Currie, of Fly-Court, saddler." [The' Squire takes off his spectacles, to wipe them.] Swipes. Generous creature! Kind soul! I always loved her. Cur. She was good, she was kind;-and, brother Swipes, when we divide, I think I'll take the mansion-house.

Swipes. Not so fast, if you please, Mr. Currie. My wife has long had her eye upon that, and must have it.

Cur. There will be two words to that bargain, Mr. Swipes. And, besides, I ought to have the first choice. Did I not lend her a new chaise, every time she wished to ride? And who knows what influence

Swipes. Am I not named first in her will? and did I not furnish her with my best small beer, for more than six months? and who knows

Frank. Gentlemen, I must leave you. [Going.].

'Squire. [Putting on his spectacles very deliberately.] Pray, gentlemen, keep your seats, I have not done yet. Let me see; where was I? Ay, "All my property, both personal and real, to my dear cousins, Samuel Swipes, of Malt-Street, brewer,"

Swipes. Yes!

'Squire. "And Christopher Currie, of Fly-Court, saddler,"

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Cur. Yes!

Squire. "To have and to hold, IN TRUST, for the sole and exclusive benefit of my nephew, Francis Millington, until he shall have attained the age of twenty-one years, by which time, I hope he will have so far reformed his evil habits, as that he may safely be intrusted with the large fortune which I hereby bequeath to him."

Swipes. What all this? You do n't mean that we are humbugged? In trust! How does that appear? Where is it?

'Squire. There; in two words of as good old English as I ever penned.

Cur. Pretty well too, Mr. 'Squire, if we must be sent for, to be made a laughing stock of. She shall pay for every ride she has had out of my chaise, I promise you.

Swipes. And for every drop of my beer. Fine times! if two sober, hard-working citizens are to be brought here, to be made the sport of a graceless profligate. But we will manage his property for him, Mr. Currie; we will make him feel that trustees are not to be trifled with. Cur. That we will.

'Squire. Not so fast, gentlemen; for the instrument is dated three years ago; and the young gentleman must be already of age, and able to take care of himself. Is it not so, Francis?

Frank. It is, your worship.

'Squire. Then, gentlemen, having attended to the breaking of the seal, according to law, you are released from any further trouble about the business.

ANONYMOUS.

LESSON CLXXXVII.

THE TRAVELER AT THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.

1. IN sunset light, o'er Afric thrown,

A wanderer proudly stood

Beside the well-spring, deep and lone,
Of Egypt's awful flood;

The cradle of that mighty birth,

So long a hidden thing to earth.

2. He heard its life's first murmuring sound,
A low, mysterious tone;

A music sought, but never found

By kings and warriors gone.
He listened, and his heart beat high;
That was the song of victory!

3. The trapture of a conqueror's mood
Rushed burning through his frame,
The depths of that green solitude
Its torrents could not tame,

Though stillness lay, with eve's last smile,
Round those calm fountains of the Nile.

4. Night came, with stars; across his soul
There swept a sudden change,

Even at the pilgrim's glorious goal,
A shadow, dark and strange,

Breathed from the thought, so swift to fall
O'er triumph's hour-and is this all?

5. No more than this? What seemed it now,
First by that spring to stand?

A thousand streams of lovelier flow
Bathed his own mountain land!

Whence, far o'er waste and ocean track,
Their sweet, wild voices called him back.

6. They called him back to many a glade,
His childhood's haunt of play,

Where, brightly through the beechen shade,
Their waters glanced away;

They called him, with their sounding waves,
Back to his fathers' hills and graves.

7. But, darkly mingling with the thought
Of each familiar scene,

Rose up a fearful vision, +fraught
With all that lay between;

The Arab's lance, the desert's gloom,
The whirling sands, the red +simoom!

8. Where was the glow of power and pride?
The spirit born to roam?

His weary heart within him died
With yearnings for his home?
All vainly struggling to repress
That gush of painful tenderness.

9. He wept?-the stars of Afric's heaven
Beheld his bursting tears,

Even on that spot where fate had given
The meed of toiling years.

Oh happiness! how far we flee

Thine own sweet paths, in search of thee!

1.

LESSON CLXXXVIII.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE.

WHAT constitutes a state?

Not high-raised battlements, or labored mound,
Thick wall, or +moated gate;

Not cities proud with spires and +turrets crowned.

HEMANS.

2.

Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride
Not starred and +spangled courts,

Where low-born baseness wafts perfume to pride.

No; men, high-minded men,

With power as far above dull brutes indued,

In forest, brake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude:
Men, who their duties know,

But know their rights; and knowing, dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aimed blow,

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain:
These constitute a state;

And sovereign law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate,

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill:
Smit by her sacred frown,

The fiend Discretion,* like a vapor, sinks,

And e'en the all-dazzling crown

Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

LESSON CLXXXIX.

ORIGIN OF PROPERTY.

+

1. 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 fishes of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moved 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 on this subject. The earth, therefore, and all things therein, are the general property of 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.

2. These general notions of property were then sufficient to answer all 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 all." Not that this communion of goods seems ever

*Discretionary or arbitrary power.

to have been applicable, even in the earliest stages, 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 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 he quitted the use or occupation of it, another might seize it without injustice. Thus, also, a vine or a 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.

3. 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 grew more and more refined, many 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.

4. 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 in the preservation of which, they would sacrifice their lives. Hence a property was soon established in every man's house and +homestead; which seem to have been originally mere temporary

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