Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/198

Now put the matter thus: whate'er is bought
And duly paid for, is our own, we're taught:
Consult a lawyer, and he'll soon produce
A case where property accrues from use.
The land by which you live is yours; most true,
And Orbius' bailiff really works for you;
He, while he ploughs the acres that afford
Flour for your table, owns you for his lord;
You pay your price, whate'er the man may ask,
Get grapes and poultry, eggs and wine in cask;
Thus, by degrees, proceeding at this rate,
You purchase first and last the whole estate,
Which, when it last was in the market, bore
A good stiff price, two thousand say, or more.
What matters it if, when you eat your snack,
'Twas paid for yesterday, or ten years back?
There's yonder landlord, living like a prince
On manors near Aricia, bought long since;
He eats bought cabbage, though he knows it not;
He burns bought sticks at night to boil his pot;
Yet all the plain, he fancies, to the stone
That stands beside the poplars, is his own.
But who can talk of property in lands
Exposed to ceaseless risk of changing hands,
Whose owner purchase, favour, lawless power,
And lastly death, may alter in an hour?
So, with heirs following heirs like waves at sea,
And no such thing as perpetuity,
What good are farmsteads, granaries, pasture-grounds