CHAPTER XIII.

HISTORY OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND OF JURISPRUDENCE, FROM 1550 TO 1600.

SECT. I.--ON MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

_Soto--Hooker--Essays of Montaigne--Their Influence on the Public--Italian and English Moralists._

1. It must naturally be supposed that by far the greater part of what was written on moral obligations in the sixteenth century will be found in the theological quarter of ancient libraries. The practice of auricular confession brought with it an entire science of casuistry, which had gradually been wrought into a complicated system. Many, once conspicuous writers in this province, belong to the present period; but we shall defer the subject till we arrive at the next, when it had acquired a more prominent importance.

|Soto, De Justitia.|

2. The first original work of any reputation in ethical philosophy since the revival of letters, and which, being apparently designed in great measure for the chair of the confessional, serves as a sort of link between the class of mere casuistry and the philosophical systems of morals which were to follow, is by Dominic Soto, a Spanish Dominican, who played an eminent part in the deliberations of the council of Trent, in opposition both to the papal court and to the theologians of the Scotist, or, as it was then reckoned by its adversaries, the Semi-Pelagian school. This folio volume, entitled De Justitia et Jure, was first published, according to the Biographie Universelle at Antwerp, in 1568. It appears to be founded on the writings of Thomas Aquinas, the polar star of every true Dominican. Every question is discussed with that remarkable observation of distinctions, and that unremitting desire, both to comprehend and to distribute a subject, which is displayed in many of these forgotten folios, and ought to inspire us with reverence for the zealous energy of their authors, even when we find it impossible, as must generally be the case, to read so much as a few pages consecutively, or when we light upon trifling and insufficient arguments in the course of our casual glances over the volume.

|Hooker.|

3. Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity might seem more properly to fall under the head of theology; but the first book of this work being by much the best, Hooker ought rather to be reckoned among those who have weighed the principles, and delineated the boundaries of moral and political science. I have on another occasion,[1062] done full justice to the wisdom and eloquence of this earliest among the great writers of England, who, having drunk at the streams of ancient philosophy, has acquired from Plato and Tully somewhat of their redundancy and want of precision, with their comprehensiveness of observation and their dignity of soul. The reasonings of Hooker, though he bore in the ensuing century the surname of judicious, are not always safe or satisfactory, nor, perhaps, can they be reckoned wholly clear or consistent; his learning, though beyond that of most English writers in that age, is necessarily uncritical; and his fundamental theory, the mutability of ecclesiastical government, has as little pleased those for whom he wrote as those whom he repelled by its means. But he stood out at a vast height above his predecessors and contemporaries in the English church, and was, perhaps, the first of our writers who had any considerable acquaintance with the philosophers of Greece, not merely displayed in quotation, of which others may have sometimes set an example, but in a spirit of reflection and comprehensiveness which the study of antiquity alone could have infused. The absence of minute ramifications of argument, in which the schoolmen loved to spread out, distinguishes Hooker from the writers who had been trained in those arid dialectics, such as Soto or Suarez: but, as I have hinted, considering the depth and difficulty of several questions that he deals with in the first book of the Polity, we might wish for a little less of the expanded palm of rhetoric, and somewhat of more dialectical precision in the reasoning.[1063]

[1062] Constitut. Hist. Engl. chap. iv.

[1063] It has been shown with irresistible proof by the last editor of Hooker, that the sixth book of the Ecclesiastical Polity has been lost; that which we read as such being, with the exception of a few paragraphs at the beginning, altogether a different production, though bearing marks of the same author. This is proved, not only by its want of relation to the general object of the work, and to the subject announced in the title of this very book, but by the remarkable fact, that a series of remarks by two friends of Hooker on the sixth book are extant, and published in the last edition, which were obviously designed for a totally different treatise from that which has always passed for the sixth book of the Ecclesiastical Polity. This can only be explained by the confusion in which Hooker’s manuscripts were left at his death, and upon which suspicions of interpolation have been founded. Such suspicions are not reasonable; and notwithstanding the exaggerated language which has sometimes been used, I think it very questionable whether any more perfect manuscript was ever in existence. The reasoning in the seventh and eighth books appears as elaborate, the proofs as full, the grammatical structure as perfect as in the earlier books; and the absence of those passages of eloquence, which we occasionally find in the former, cannot afford even a presumption that the latter were designed to be written over again. The eighth book is manifestly incomplete, wanting some discussions which the author had announced; but this seems rather adverse to the hypothesis of a more elaborate copy. The more probable inference is, that Hooker was interrupted by death before he had completed his plan. It is possible also that the conclusion of the eighth book has been lost like the sixth. All the stories on this subject in Walton’s Life of Hooker, who seems to have been a man always too credulous of anecdote, are unsatisfactory to any one who exacts real proof.

|His theory of natural law.|

4. Hooker, like most great moral writers both of antiquity and of modern ages, rests his positions on one solid basis, the eternal obligation of natural law. A small number had been inclined to maintain an arbitrary power of the Deity, even over the fundamental principles of right and wrong; but the sounder theologians seem to have held that, however the will of God may be the proper source of moral obligation in mankind, concerning which they were not more agreed then than they have been since, it was impossible for him to deviate from his immutable rectitude and holiness. They were unanimous also in asserting the capacity of the human faculties to discern right from wrong, little regarding what they deemed the prejudices or errors that had misled many nations, and more or less influenced the majority of mankind.

|Doubts felt by others.|

5. But there had never been wanting those who, struck by the diversity of moral judgments and behaviour among men, and especially under circumstances of climate, manners, or religion, different from our own, had found it hard to perceive how reason could be an unerring arbiter, when there was so much discrepancy in what she professed to have determined. The relations of travellers, continually pressing upon the notice of Europe in the sixteenth century, and perhaps rather more exaggerated than at present, in describing barbarous tribes, afforded continual aliment to the suspicion. It was at least evident, without anything that could be called unreasonable scepticism, that these diversities ought to be well explained and sifted before we acquiesced in the pleasant conviction that we alone could be in the right.

|Essays of Montaigne.|

6. The Essays of Montaigne, the first edition of which appeared at Bordeaux in 1580,[1064] make in several respects an epoch in literature, less on account of their real importance, or the novel truths they contain, than of their influence upon the taste and the opinions of Europe. They are the first _provocatio ad populum_, the first appeal from the porch and the academy to the haunts of busy and of idle men, the first book that taught the unlearned reader to observe and reflect for himself on questions of moral philosophy. In an age when every topic of this nature was treated systematically and in a didactic form, he broke out without connection of chapters, with all the digressions that levity and garrulous egotism could suggest, with a very delightful, but at that time, most unusual rapidity of transition from seriousness to gaiety. It would be to anticipate much of what will demand attention in the ensuing century, were we to mention here the conspicuous writers who, more or less directly, and with more or less of close imitation, may be classed in the school of Montaigne; it embraces, in fact, a large proportion of French and English literature, and especially of that which has borrowed his title of Essays. No prose writer of the sixteenth century has been so generally read, nor probably given so much delight. Whatever may be our estimate of Montaigne as a philosopher, a name which he was far from arrogating, there will be but one opinion of the felicity and brightness of his genius.

[1064] This edition contains only the first and second books of the Essays; the third was published in that of Paris, 1588.

|Their characteristics.|

7. It is a striking proof of these qualities, that we cannot help believing him to have struck out all his thoughts by a spontaneous effort of his mind, and to have fallen afterwards upon his quotations and examples by happy accident. I have little doubt but that the process was different; and that, either by dint of memory, though he absolutely disclaims the possessing a good one, or by the usual method of common-placing, he had made his reading instrumental to excite his own ingenious and fearless understanding. His extent of learning was by no means great for that age, but the whole of it was brought to bear on his object; and it is a proof of Montaigne’s independence of mind that, while a vast mass of erudition was the only regular passport to fame, he read no authors but such as were most fitted to his own habits of thinking. Hence he displays an unity, a self-existence, which we seldom find so complete in other writers. His quotations, though they perhaps make more than one half of his Essays, seem parts of himself, and are like limbs of his own mind, which could not be separated without laceration. But over all is spread a charm of a fascinating simplicity, and an apparent abandonment of the whole man to the easy inspiration of genius, combined with a good-nature, though rather too epicurean and destitute of moral energy, which, for that very reason, made him a favourite with men of similar dispositions, for whom courts, and camps, and country mansions were the proper soil.

8. Montaigne is superior to any of the ancients in liveliness, in that careless and rapid style, where one thought springs naturally, but not consecutively, from another, by analogical rather than deductive connection; so that, while the reader seems to be following a train of arguments, he is imperceptibly hurried to a distance by some contingent association. This may be observed in half his essays, the titles of which often give us little insight into their general scope. Thus the apology for Raimond de Sebonde is soon forgotten in the long defence of moral Pyrrhonism, which occupies the twelfth chapter of the second book. He sometimes makes a show of coming back from his excursions; but he has generally exhausted himself before he does so. This is what men love to practise (not advantageously for their severer studies) in their own thoughts; they love to follow the casual associations that lead them through pleasant labyrinths--as one riding along the high road is glad to deviate a little into the woods, though it may sometimes happen that he will lose his way, and find himself far remote from his inn. And such is the conversational style of lively and eloquent old men. We converse with Montaigne, or rather hear him talk; it is almost impossible to read his essays without thinking that he speaks to us; we see his cheerful brow, his sparkling eye, his negligent, but gentlemanly demeanour; we picture him in his armchair, with his few books round the room, and Plutarch on the table.

9. The independence of his mind produces great part of the charm of his writing; it redeems his vanity, without which it could not have been so fully displayed, or perhaps, so powerfully felt. In an age of literary servitude, when every province into which reflection could wander was occupied by some despot; when, to say nothing of theology, men found Aristotle, or Ulpian, or Hippocrates, at every turning to dictate their road, it was gratifying to fall in company with a simple gentleman who, with much more reading than generally belonged to his class, had the spirit to ask a reason for every rule.

10. Montaigne has borrowed much, besides his quotations, from the few ancient authors he loved to study. In one passage he even says that his book is wholly compiled from Plutarch and Seneca; but this is evidently intended to throw the critics off their scent. “I purposely conceal the authors from whom I borrow,” he says in another place, “to check the presumption of those who are apt to censure what they find in a modern. I am content that they should lash Seneca and Plutarch through my sides.”[1065] These were his two favourite authors; and in order to judge of the originality of Montaigne in any passage, it may often be necessary to have a considerable acquaintance with their works. “When I write,” he says, “I care not to have books about me; but I can hardly be without a Plutarch.”[1066] He knew little Greek, but most editions at that time had a Latin translation: he needed not for Plutarch to go beyond his own language. Cicero he did not much admire, except the epistles to Atticus. He esteemed the moderns very slightly in comparison with antiquity, though praising Guicciardini and Philip de Comines. Dugald Stewart observes, that Montaigne cannot be suspected of affectation, and therefore must himself have believed what he says of the badness of his memory, forgetting, as he tells us, the names of the commonest things, and even of those he constantly saw. But his vanity led him to talk perpetually of himself; and, as often happens to vain men, he would rather talk of his own failings than of any foreign subject. He could not have had a very defective memory so far as it had been exercised, though he might fall into the common mistake of confounding his inattention to ordinary objects with weakness of the faculty.

[1065] l. ii. c. 32.

[1066] l. ii. c. 10.

11. Montaigne seldom defines or discriminates; his mind had great quickness, but little subtlety; his carelessness and impatience of labour rendered his views practically one-sided; for though he was sufficiently free from prejudice to place the objects of consideration in different lights, he wanted the power, or did not use the diligence, to make that comparative appreciation of facts which is necessary to distinguish the truth. He appears to most advantage in matters requiring good sense and calm observation, as in the education of children. The twenty-fourth and twenty-eighth chapters of the first book, which relate to this subject, are among the best in the collection. His excellent temper made him an enemy to the harshness and tyranny so frequent at that time in the management of children, as his clear understanding did to the pedantic methods of overloading and misdirecting their faculties. It required some courage to argue against the grammarians who had almost monopolised the admiration of the world. Of these men Montaigne observes, that though they have strong memories, their judgment is usually very shallow, making only an exception for Turnebus, who, though in his opinion, the greatest scholar that had existed for a thousand years, had nothing of the pedant about him but his dress. In all the remarks of Montaigne on human character and manners, we find a liveliness, simplicity, and truth. They are such as his ordinary opportunities of observation, or his reading suggested; and though several writers have given proofs of deeper reflection or more watchful discernment, few are so well calculated to fall in with the apprehension of the general reader.

12. The scepticism of Montaigne, concerning which so much has been said, is not displayed in religion, for he was a steady Catholic, though his faith seems to have been rather that of acquiescence than conviction, nor in such subtleties of metaphysical Pyrrhonism as we find in Sanchez, which had no attraction for his careless nature. But he had read much of Sextus Empiricus, and might perhaps have derived something from his favourite Plutarch. He had also been forcibly struck by the recent narratives of travellers, which he sometimes received with a credulity as to evidence, not rarely combined with theoretical scepticism, and which is too much the fault of his age to bring censure on an individual. It was then assumed that all travellers were trustworthy, and still more that none of the Greek and Roman authors have recorded falsehoods. Hence he was at a loss to discover a general rule of moral law, as an implanted instinct, or necessary deduction of common reason, in the varying usages and opinions of mankind. But his scepticism was less extravagant and unreasonable at that time than it would be now. Things then really doubtful have been proved, and positions, entrenched by authority which he dared not to scruple, have been overthrown;[1067] truth, in retiring from her outposts, has become more unassailable in her citadel.

[1067] Montaigne’s scepticism was rightly exercised on witchcraft and other supernatural stories; and he had probably some weight in discrediting those superstitions. See l. iii. c. 11.

13. It may be deemed a symptom of wanting a thorough love of truth when a man overrates, as much as when he overlooks, the difficulties he deals with. Montaigne is perhaps not exempt from this failing. Though sincere and candid in his general temper, he is sometimes more ambitious of setting forth his own ingenuity than desirous to come to the bottom of his subject. Hence he is apt to run into the fallacy common to this class of writers, and which La Mothe le Vayer employed much more--that of confounding the variations of the customs of mankind in things morally indifferent with those which affect the principles of duty; and hence the serious writers on philosophy in the next age, Pascal, Arnauld, Malebranche, animadvert with much severity on Montaigne. They considered him, not perhaps unjustly, as an enemy to the candid and honest investigation of truth, both by his bias towards Pyrrhonism, and by the great indifference of his temperament; scarcely acknowledging so much as was due the service he had done by chasing the servile pedantry of the schools, and preparing the way for closer reasoners than himself. But the very tone of their censures is sufficient to prove the vast influence he had exerted over the world.

14. Montaigne is the earliest classical writer in the French language, the first whom a gentleman is ashamed not to have read. So long as an unaffected style and an appearance of the utmost simplicity and good nature shall charm, so long as the lovers of desultory and cheerful conversation shall be more numerous than those who prefer a lecture or a sermon, so long as reading is sought by the many as an amusement in idleness, or a resource in pain, so long will Montaigne be among the favourite authors of mankind. I know not whether the greatest blemish of his Essays has much impeded their popularity; they led the way to the indecency so characteristic of French literature, but in no writer on serious topics, except Bayle, more habitual than in Montaigne. It may be observed, that a larger portion of this quality distinguishes the third book, published after he had attained a reputation, than the two former. It is also more overspread by egotism; and it is not agreeable to perceive that the two leading faults of his disposition became more unrestrained and absorbing as he advanced in life.

|Writers on Morals in Italy.|

15. The Italians have a few moral treatises of this period, but chiefly scarce and little read. The Instituzioni Morali of Alexander Piccolomini, the Instituzioni di Tutta la Vita dell’Uomo Nato Nobile e in città Libera, by the same author, the Latin treatise of Mazzoni de Triplici Vita, which, though we mention it here as partly ethical, seems to be rather an attempt to give a general survey of all science, are among the least obscure, though they have never been of much reputation in Europe.[1068] But a more celebrated work, relating indeed to a minor department of ethics, the rules of polite and decorous behaviour, is the Galateo of Casa, bishop of Benevento, and an elegant writer of considerable reputation. This little treatise is not only accounted superior in style to most Italian prose, but serves to illustrate the manners of society in the middle of the sixteenth century. Some of the improprieties which he censures are such as we should hardly have expected to find in Italy, and almost remind us of a strange but graphic poem of one Dedekind, on the manners of Germany in the sixteenth century, called Grobianus. But his own precepts in other places, though hardly striking us as novel, are more refined, and relate to the essential principles of social intercourse, rather than to its conventional forms.[1069] Casa wrote also a little book on the duties to be observed between friends of equal ranks. The inferior, he advises, should never permit himself to jest upon his patron; but, if he is himself stung by any unpleasing wit or sharp word, ought to receive it with a smiling countenance, and to answer so as to conceal his resentment. It is probable that this art was understood in an Italian palace without the help of books.

[1068] For these books see Tiraboschi, Corniani, and Ginguéné. Niceron, vol. xxiii., observes of Piccolomini, that he was the first who employed the Italian language in moral philosophy. This must, however, be taken very strictly, for in a general sense of the word, we have seen earlier instances than his Instituzioni Morali in 1575.

[1069] Casa inveighs against the punctilious and troublesome ceremonies, introduced, as he supposes, from Spain, making distinctions in the mode of addressing different ranks of nobility. One of these innovations was the use of the third person for the second in letters.

|In England.|

16. There was never a generation in England which, for worldly prudence and wise observation of mankind, stood higher than the subjects of Elizabeth. Rich in men of strong mind, that age had given them a discipline unknown to ourselves; the strictness of the Tudor government, the suspicious temper of the queen, the spirit not only of intolerance, but of inquisitiveness as to religious dissent, the uncertainties of the future, produced a caution rather foreign to the English character, accompanied by a closer attention to the workings of other men’s minds, and their exterior signs. This, for similar reasons, had long distinguished the Italians; but it is chiefly displayed, perhaps, in their political writings. We find it, in a larger and more philosophical sense, near the end of Elizabeth’s reign, when our literature made its first strong shoot, prompting the short condensed reflections of Burleigh and Raleigh, or saturating with moral observation the mighty soul of Shakspeare.

|Bacon’s Essays.|

17. The first in time, and we may justly say, the first in excellence of English writings on moral prudence are the Essays of Bacon. But these, as we now read them, though not very bulky, are greatly enlarged since their first publication in 1597. They then were but ten in number:--entitled, 1. Of Studies; 2. Of Discourse; 3. Of Ceremonies and Respects; 4. Of Followers and Friends; 5. Of Suitors; 6. Of Expense; 7. Of Regimen of Health; 8. Of Honour and Reputation; 9. Of Faction; 10. Of Negotiating. And even these few have been expanded in later editions to nearly double their extent. The rest were added chiefly in 1612, and the whole were enlarged in 1625. The pith indeed of these ten essays will be found in the edition of 1597; the editions being merely to explain, correct, or illustrate. But, as a much greater number were incorporated with them in the next century, we shall say no more of Bacon’s Essays for the present.

SECT. II.--ON POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.

_Freedom of Writing on Government at this Time--Its Causes--Hottoman-- Languet--La Boetie--Buchanan--Rose--Mariana--The Jesuits--Botero and Paruta--Bodin--Analysis of his Republic._

|Number of political writers.|

18. The present period, especially after 1570, is far more fruitful than the preceding in the annals of political science. It produced several works both of temporary and permanent importance. Before we come to Bodin, who is its most conspicuous ornament, it may be fit to mention some less considerable books, which, though belonging partly to the temporary class, have in several instances survived the occasion which drew them forth, and indicate a state of public opinion not unworthy of notice.

|Oppression of Governments.|

|And spirit generated by it.|

19. A constant progress towards absolute monarchy, sometimes silent, at other times attended with violence, had been observable in the principal kingdoms of Europe for the last hundred years. This had been brought about by various circumstances which belong to civil history; but among others, by a more skilful management, and a more systematic attention to the maxims of state-craft, which had sometimes assumed a sort of scientific form, as in the Prince of Machiavel, but were more frequently inculcated in current rules familiar to the counsellors of kings. The consequence had been, not only many flagrant instances of violated public right, but in some countries, especially France, an habitual contempt for every moral as well as political restraint on the ruler’s will. But oppression is always felt to be such, and the breach of known laws cannot be borne without resentment, though it may without resistance; and there were several causes that tended to generate a spirit of indignation against the predominant despotism. Independent of those of a political nature, which varied according to the circumstances of kingdoms, there were three that belonged to the sixteenth century as a learned and reflecting age, which, if they did not all exercise a great influence over the multitude, were sufficient to affect the complexion of literature, and to indicate a somewhat novel state of opinion in the public mind.

|Derived from classic history.|

20. I. From the Greek and Roman poets, orators, or historians, the scholar derived the principles, not only of equal justice, but of equal privileges; he learned to reverence free republics, to abhor tyranny, to sympathise with a Timoleon or a Brutus. A late English historian, who carried to a morbid excess his jealousy of democratic prejudices, fancied that these are perceptible in the versions of Greek authors by the learned of the sixteenth century, and that Xylander or Rhodomann gratified their spite against the sovereigns of their own time, by mistranslating their text in order to throw odium on Philip or Alexander. This is probably unfounded; but it may still be true that men, who had imbibed notions, perhaps as indefinite as exaggerated, of the blessings of freedom in ancient Rome and Greece, would draw no advantageous contrast with the palpable outrages of arbitrary power before their eyes. We have seen, fifty years before, a striking proof of almost mutinous indignation in the Adages of Erasmus; and I have little doubt that further evidence of it might be gleaned from the letters and writings of the learned.

|From their own and the Jewish.|

21. II. In proportion as the antiquities of the existing European monarchies came to be studied, it could not but appear that the royal authority had outgrown many limitations that primitive usage or established law had imposed upon it; and the farther back these researches extended, the more they seemed, according to some inquirers, to favour a popular theory of constitutional polity. III. Neither of these considerations, which affected only the patient scholar, struck so powerfully on the public mind as the free spirit engendered by the Reformation, and especially the Judaizing turn of the early Protestants, those at least of the Calvinistic school, which sought for precedents and models in the Old Testament, and delighted to recount how the tribes of Israel had fallen away from Rehoboam, how the Maccabees had repelled the Syrian, how Eglon had been smitten by the dagger of Ehud. For many years the Protestants of France had made choice of the sword, when their alternative was the stake; and amidst, defeat, treachery, and massacre, sustained an unequal combat with extraordinary heroism, and a constancy that only a persuasion of acting according to conscience could impart. That persuasion it was the business of their ministers and scholars to encourage by argument. Each of these three principles of liberty was asserted by means of the press in the short period between 1570 and 1580.

|Franco-Gallia of Hottoman.|

22. First in order of publication is the Franco-Gallia of Francis Hottoman, one of the most eminent lawyers of that age. This is chiefly a collection of passages from the early French historians, to prove the share of the people in government, and especially their right of electing the kings of the first two races. No one, in such inquiries, would now have recourse to the Franco-Gallia, which has certainly the defect of great partiality, and an unwarrantable extension of the author’s hypothesis. But it is also true that Hottoman revealed some facts as to the ancient monarchy of France, which neither the later historians, flatterers of the court, nor the lawyers of the parliament of Paris, against whom he is prone to inveigh, had suffered to transpire.

|Vindiciæ of Languet.|

23. An anonymous treatise, Vindiciæ contra Tyrannos, Auctore Stephano Junio Bruto Celta, 1579, commonly ascribed to Hubert Languet, the friend of Sir Philip Sydney, breathes the stern spirit of Judaical Huguenotism. Kings, that lay waste the church of God, and support idolatry, kings, that trample upon their subjects’ privileges, may be deposed by the states of their kingdom, who indeed are bound in duty to do so, though it is not lawful for private men to take up arms without authority. As kings derive their pre-eminence from the will of the people, they may be considered as feudally vassals of their subjects, so far that they may forfeit their crown by felony against them. Though Languet speaks honourably of ancient tyrannicides, it seems as if he could not mean to justify assassination, since he refuses the right of resistance to private men.

|Contr’Un of Boetie.|

24. Hottoman and Languet were both Protestants; and the latter especially may have been greatly influenced by the perilous fortunes of their religion. A short treatise, however, came out in 1578, written probably near thirty years before, by Stephen de la Boetie, best known to posterity by the ardent praises of his friend Montaigne, and an adherent to the church. This is called Le Contr’Un, ou Discours de la Servitude Volontaire. It well deserves its title. Roused by the flagitious tyranny of many contemporary rulers, and none were worse than Henry II., under whose reign it was probably written, La Boetie pours forth the vehement indignation of a youthful heart, full of the love of virtue and of the brilliant illusions which a superficial knowledge of ancient history creates, against the voluntary abjectness of mankind, who submit as slaves to one no wiser, no braver, no stronger than any of themselves. “He who so plays the master over you has but two eyes, has but two hands, has but one body, has nothing more than the least among the vast number who dwell in our cities; nothing has he better than you, save the advantage that you give him, that he may ruin you. Whence has he so many eyes to watch you, but that you give them to him? How has he so many hands to strike you, but that he employs your own? How does he come by the feet which trample on your cities, but by your means? How can he have any power over you, but what you give him? How could he venture to persecute you, if he had not an understanding with yourselves? What harm could he do you, if you were not receivers of the robber that plunders you, accomplices of the murderer who kills you, and traitors to your own selves? You, you sow the fruits of the earth, that he may waste them; you furnish your houses, that he may pillage them; you rear your daughters, that they may glut his wantonness, and your sons, that he may lead them at the best to his wars, or that he may send them to execution, or make them the instruments of his concupiscence, the ministers of his revenge. You exhaust your bodies with labour, that he may revel in luxury, or wallow in base and vile pleasures; you weaken yourselves, that he may become more strong, and better able to hold you in check. And yet from so many indignities, that the beasts themselves, could they be conscious of them, would not endure, you may deliver yourselves, if you but make an effort, not to deliver yourselves, but to show the will to do it. Once resolve to be no longer slaves, and you are already free. I do not say that you should assail him, or shake his seat; merely support him no longer, and you will see that, like a great Colossus, whose basis has been removed from beneath him, he will fall by his own weight, and break to pieces.”[1070]

[1070] Le Contr’Un of La Boetie is published at the end of some editions of Montaigne.

25. These bursts of a noble patriotism, which no one who is in the least familiar with the history of that period will think inexcusable, are much unlike what we generally expect from the French writers. La Boetie, in fact, is almost a single instance of a thoroughly republican character till nearly the period of the Revolution. Montaigne, the staunchest supporter of church and state, excuses his friend, “le plus grand homme, a mon avis, de notre siècle,” assuring us that he was always a loyal subject, though if he had been permitted his own choice, “he would rather have been born at Venice than at Sarlat.” La Boetie died young in 1561; and his Discourse was written some years before; he might have lived to perceive how much more easy it is to inveigh against the abuses of government, than to bring about anything better by rebellion.

|Buchanan, De Jure Regni.|

26. The three great sources of a free spirit in politics, admiration of antiquity, zeal for religion, and persuasion of positive right, which separately had animated La Boetie, Languet, and Hottoman, united their streams to produce, in another country, the treatise of George Buchanan (De Jure Regni apud Scotos), a scholar, a protestant, and the subject of a very limited monarchy. This is a dialogue elegantly written, and designed first, to show the origin of royal government from popular election; then, the right of putting tyrannical kings to death, according to Scripture, and the conditional allegiance due to the crown of Scotland, as proved by the coronation oath, which implies, that it is received in trust from the people. The following is a specimen of Buchanan’s reasoning, which goes very materially farther than Languet had presumed to do:--“Is there then,” says one of the interlocutors, “a mutual compact between the king and the people? M. Thus it seems.--B. Does not he, who first violates the compact, and does anything against his own stipulations, break his agreement? M. He does.--B. If then, the bond which attached the king to the people is broken, all rights he derived from the agreement are forfeited. M. They are forfeited.--B. And he who was mutually bound becomes as free as before the agreement? M. He has the same rights and the same freedom as he had before.--B. But if a king should do things tending to the dissolution of human society, for the preservation of which he has been made, what name should we give him? M. We should call him a tyrant.--B. But a tyrant not only possesses no just authority over his people, but is their enemy? M. He is surely their enemy.--B. Is there not a just cause of war against an enemy who has inflicted heavy and intolerable injuries upon us? M. There is.--B. What is the nature of a war against the enemy of all mankind, that is, against a tyrant? M. None can be more just.--B. Is it not lawful in a war justly commenced, not only for the whole people, but for any single person to kill an enemy? M. It must be confessed.--B. What, then, shall we say of a tyrant, a public enemy, with whom all good men are in eternal warfare? may not any one of all mankind inflict on him every penalty of war? M. I observe that all nations have been of that opinion, for Theba is extolled for having killed her husband, and Timoleon for his brother’s, and Cassius for his son’s, death.”[1071]

[1071] P. 96.

|Poynet, on Politique Power.|

27. We may include among political treatises of this class some published by the English and Scottish exiles during the persecution of their religion by the two Maries. They are, indeed, prompted by circumstances, and in some instances have too much of a temporary character to deserve a place in literary history. I will, however, give an account of one, more theoretical than the rest, and characteristic of the bold spirit of these early Protestants, especially as it is almost wholly unknown except by name. This is in the title-page, “A Short Treatise of Politique Power, and of the true obedience which subjects owe to kings and other civil governors, being an answer to seven questions:--‘1. Whereof politique power groweth, wherefore it was ordained, and the right use and duty of the same? 3. Whether kings, princes, and other governors have an absolute power and authority over their subjects? 3. Whether kings, princes, and other politique governors be subject to God’s laws, or the positive laws of their countries? 4. In what things and how far subjects are bound to obey their princes and governors? 5. Whether all the subject’s goods be the emperor’s or king’s own, and that they may lawfully take them for their own? 6. Whether it be lawful to depose an evil governor and kill a tyrant? 7. What confidence is to be given to princes and potentates?’”

|Its liberal theory.|

28. The author of this treatise was John Poynet, or Ponnet, as it is spelled in the last edition, bishop of Winchester under Edward VI., and who is said to have had a considerable share in the reformation.[1072] It was first published in 1558, and reprinted in 1642, “to serve,” says Strype, “the turn of those times.” “This book,” observes truly the same industrious person, “was not over favourable to princes.” Poynet died very soon afterwards, so that we cannot determine whether he would have thought it expedient to speak as fiercely under the reign that was to come. The place of publication of the first edition I do not know, but I presume it was at Geneva or Frankfort. It is closely and vigorously written, deserving, in many parts, a high place among the English prose of that age, though not entirely free from the usual fault--vulgar and ribaldrous invective. He determines all the questions stated in the title-page on principles adverse to royal power, contending, in the sixth chapter, that “the manifold and continual examples that have been, from time to time, of the deposing of kings and killing of tyrants, do most certainly confirm it to be most true, just, and consonant to God’s judgment. The history of kings in the Old Testament is full of it; and, as Cardinal Pole truly citeth, England lacketh not the practice and experience of the same; for they deprived King Edward II., because, without law, he killed the subjects, spoiled them of their goods, and wasted the treasures of the realm. And upon what just causes Richard II. was thrust out, and Henry IV. put in his place, I refer it to their own judgment. Denmark also now, in our days, did nobly the like act, when they deprived Christiern the tyrant, and committed him to perpetual prison.

[1072] Chalmers. Strype’s Memorials.

|Argues for tyrannicide.|

29. “The reasons, arguments, and laws, that serve for the deposing and displacing of an evil governor will do as much for the proof that it is lawful to kill a tyrant, if they may be indifferently heard. As God hath ordained magistrates to hear and determine private men’s matters, and to punish their vices, so also willeth he that the magistrates’ doings be called to account and reckoning, and their vices corrected and punished by the body of the whole congregation or commonwealth; as it is manifest by the memory of the ancient office of the High Constable of England, unto whose authority it pertained, not only to summon the king personally before the parliament, or other courts of judgment, to answer and receive according to justice, but also upon just occasion to commit him unto ward.[1073] Kings, princes, and governors have their authority of the people, as all laws, usages, and policies, do declare and testify. For in some places and countries they have more and greater authority; in some places, less; and in some the people have not given this authority to any other, but retain and exercise it themselves. And is any man so unreasonable to deny that the whole may do as much as they have permitted one member to do, or those that have appointed an office upon trust have not authority upon just occasion (as the abuse of it) to take away what they gave? All laws do agree, that men may revoke their proxies and letters of attorney when it pleaseth them, much more when they see their proctors and attorneys abuse it.

[1073] It is scarcely necessary to observe that this is an impudent falsehood.

30. “But now, to prove the latter part of this question affirmatively, that it is lawful to kill a tyrant, there is no man can deny, but that the Ethnics, albeit they had not the right and perfect true knowledge of God, were endued with the knowledge of the law of nature--for it is no private law to a few or certain people, but common to all--not written in books, but grafted in the hearts of men, not made by men, but ordained of God, which we have not learned, received, or read, but have taken, sucked, and drawn it out of nature, whereunto we are not taught, but made, not instructed, but seasoned;[1074] and, as St. Paul saith, ‘Man’s conscience bearing witness of it,’” &c. He proceeds in a strain of some eloquence (and this last passage is not ill-translated from Cicero), to extol the ancient tyrannicides, accounting the first nobility to have been “those who had revenged, and delivered the oppressed people out of the hands of their governors. Of this land of nobility was Hercules, Theseus, and such like.”[1075] It must be owned, the worthy bishop is a bold man in assertions of fact. Instances from the Old Testament, of course, follow, wherein Jezebel and Athalia are not forgotten, for the sake of our bloody queen.

[1074] Sic. The Latin in Cic. pro Mil. is _imbuti_.

[1075] P. 49.

|The tenets of parties swayed by circumstances.|

31. If too much space has been allowed to so obscure a production, it must be excused on account of the illustration it gives to our civil and ecclesiastical history, though of little importance in literature. It is also well to exhibit an additional proof that the tenets of all parties, however general and speculative they may appear, are espoused on account of the position of those who hold them, and the momentary consequences that they may produce. In a few years time the Church of England, strong in the protection of that royalty which Poynet thus assailed in his own exile, enacted the celebrated homily against rebellion, which denounces every pretext of resistance to governors. Churches, even the best, are but factions in the strife to retain or recover their ascendency; and, like other factions, will never weaken themselves by a scrupulous examination of the reasoning or the testimony which is to serve their purpose. Those have lived and read to little advantage who have not discovered this.

|Similar tenets among the Leaguers.|

32. It might appear that there was some peculiar association between these popular theories of resistance and the Protestant faith. Perhaps, in truth, they had a degree of natural connection; but circumstances, more than general principles, affect the opinions of mankind. The rebellion of the League against Henry III., their determination not to acknowledge Henry IV., reversed the state of parties, and displayed, in an opposite quarter, the republican notions of Languet and Buchanan as fierce and as unlimited as any Protestants had maintained them. Henry of Bourbon could only rely upon his legitimate descent, upon the indefeasible rights of inheritance. If France was to choose for herself, France demanded a Catholic king; all the topics of democracy were thrown into that scale; and, in fact, it is well known that Henry had no prospect whatever of success but by means of a conversion, which, though not bearing much semblance of sincerity, the nation thought fit to accept. But during that struggle of a few years we find, among other writings of less moment, one ascribed by some to Rose, bishop of Senlis, a strenuous partisan of the League, which may perhaps deserve to arrest our attention.[1076]

[1076] The author calls himself Rossæus, and not, as has been asserted, bishop of Senlis. But Pitts attributes this book to Rainolds (brother of the more celebrated Dr. John Rainolds), who is said to have called himself Rossæus. The Biographie Universelle (art. Rose) says this opinion has not gained ground; but it is certainly favoured by M. Barbier in the Dictionnaire des Anonymes, and some grounds for it are alleged. From internal evidence it seems rather the work of a Frenchman than a foreigner; but I have not paid much attention to so unimportant a question. Jugler, in his Historia Literaria, c. 9, does not even name Rose. By a passage in Schelhorn, viii. 465, the book seems to have been sometimes ascribed to Genebrard.

|Rose, on the Authority of Christian States over Kings.|

33. This book, De Justa Reipublicæ Christianæ in Reges Potestate, published in 1590, must have been partly written before the death of Henry III. in the preceding year. He begins with the origin of human society, which he treats with some eloquence, and on the principle of an election of magistrates by the community, that they might live peaceably, and in enjoyment of their possessions. The different forms and limitations of government have sprung from the choice of the people, except where they have been imposed by conquest. He exhibits many instances of this variety: but there are two dangers, one of limiting too much the power of kings, and letting the populace change the dynasty at their pleasure; the other, that of ascribing a sort of divinity to kings, and taking from the nation all the power of restraining them in whatever crimes they may commit. The Scottish Calvinists are an instance of the first error; the modern advocates of the house of Valois of the other. The servile language of those who preach passive obedience has encouraged not only the worst Roman emperors, but such tyrants as Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth of England.

34. The author goes, in the second chapter, more fully into a refutation of this doctrine, as contrary to the practice of ancient nations, who always deposed tyrants, to the principles of Christianity, and to the constitution of European communities, whose kings are admitted under an oath to keep the laws and to reign justly. The subject’s oath of allegiance does not bind him, unless the king observe what is stipulated from him; and this right of withdrawing obedience from wicked kings is at the bottom of all the public law of Europe. It is also sanctioned by the church. Still more has the nation a right to impose laws and limitations on kings, who have certainly no superiority to the law, so that they can transgress it at pleasure.

35. In the third chapter he inquires who is a tyrant; and, after a long discussion comes to this result, that a tyrant is one who despoils his subjects of their possessions, or offends public decency by immoral life, but above all, who assails the Christian faith, and uses his authority to render his subjects heretical. All these characters are found in Henry of Valois. He then urges, in the two following chapters, that all Protestantism is worse than Paganism, inasmuch as it holds out less inducement to a virtuous life, but that Calvinism is much the worst form of the Protestant heresy. The Huguenots, he proceeds to prove, are neither parts of the French church nor commonwealth. He infers, in the seventh chapter, that the king of Navarre, being a heretic of this description, is not fit to rule over Christians. The remainder of the book is designed to show that every king, being schismatic or heretical, may be deposed by the pope, of which he brings many examples; nor has any one deserved this sentence more than Henry of Navarre. It has always been held lawful that an heretical king should be warred upon by his own subjects and by all Christian sovereigns; and he maintains that a real tyrant, who, after being deposed by the wiser part of his subjects, attempts to preserve his power by force, may be put to death by any private person. He adds that Julian was probably killed by a Christian soldier, and quotes several fathers and ecclesiastical historians who justify and commend the act. He concludes by exhorting the nobility and other orders of France, since Henry is a relapsed heretic, who is not to be believed for any oaths he may make, to rally round their Catholic king, Charles of Bourbon.

|Treatise of Boucher in the same spirit.|

|Answered by Barclay.|

36. The principles of Rose, if he were truly the author, both as to rebellion and tyrannicide, belonged naturally to those who took up arms against Henry III., and who applauded his assassin. They were adopted, and perhaps extended, by Boucher, a leaguer still more furious, if possible, than Rose himself, in a book published in 1589, De Justa Henrici III. Abdicatione a Francorum Regno. This book is written in the spirit of Languet, asserting the general right of the people to depose tyrants, rather than confining it to the case of heresy. The deposing power of the pope, consequently, does not come much into question. He was answered, as well as other writers of the same tenets, by a Scottish Catholic residing at Paris, William Barclay, father of the more celebrated author of the Argenis, in a treatise “De Regno et Regali Potestate adversus Buchananum, Brutum, Boucherum et Reliquos Monarchomachos,” 1600. Barclay argues on the principles current in France, that the king has no superior in temporals; that the people are bound in all cases to obey him; that the laws owe their validity to his will. The settlement of France by the submission of the League on the one hand, and by the edict of Nantes on the other, naturally put a stop to the discussion of questions which, theoretical and universal as they might seem, would never have been brought forward but through the stimulating influence of immediate circumstances.

|The Jesuits adopt these tenets.|

|Mariana, De Rege.|

37. But while the war was yet raging, and the fate of the Catholic religion seemed to hang upon its success, many of the Jesuits had been strenuous advocates of the tyrannicidal doctrine; and the strong spirit of party attachment in that order renders it hardly uncandid to reckon among its general tenets whatever was taught by its most conspicuous members. The boldest and most celebrated assertion of these maxims was by Mariana, in a book, De Rege et Regis Institutione. The first edition of this remarkable book, and which is of considerable scarcity, was published at Toledo in 1599, dedicated to Philip III., and sanctioned with more than an approbation, with a warm eulogy by the censor (one of the same order, it may be observed), who by the king’s authority had perused the manuscript. It is, however, not such as in an absolute monarchy we should expect to find countenance. Mariana, after inquiring what is the best form of government, and deciding for hereditary monarchy, but only on condition that the prince shall call the best citizens to his councils, and administer all affairs according to the advice of a senate, comes to show the difference between a king and a tyrant. His invectives against the latter prepare us for the sixth chapter, which is entitled, Whether it be lawful to overthrow a tyrant? He begins by a short sketch of the oppression of France under Henry III., which had provoked his assassination. Whether the act of James Clement, “the eternal glory of France, as most reckon him,”[1077] were in itself warrantable, he admits to be a controverted question, stating the arguments on both sides, but placing last those in favour of the murder, to which he evidently leans. All philosophers and theologians, he says, agree that an usurper may be put to death by any one. But in the case of a lawful king, governing to the great injury of the commonwealth or of religion (for we ought to endure his vices so long as they do not reach an intolerable height), he thinks that the states of the realm should admonish him, and on his neglect to reform his life, may take up arms, and put to death a prince whom they have declared to be a public enemy; and any private man may do the same. He concludes, therefore, that it is only a question of fact who is a tyrant, but not one of right, whether a tyrant may be killed. Nor does this maxim give a license to attempts on the lives of good princes; since it can never be applied till wise and experienced men have conspired with the public voice in declaring the prince’s tyranny. “It is a wholesome thing,” he proceeds, “that sovereigns should be convinced that, if they oppress the state, and become intolerable by their wickedness, their assassination will not only be lawful but glorious to the perpetrator.”[1078] This language, whatever indignation it might excite against Mariana and his order, is merely what we have seen in Buchanan.

[1077] These words, æternum Gallilæ decus, are omitted in the subsequent editions, but as far as I have compared them there is very little other alteration; yet the first alone is in request.

[1078] Est salutaris cognitio, ut sit principibus persuasum, si rempublicam oppresserint, si vitiis et fœditate intolerandi erunt, ea conditione vivere, ut non jure tantum sed cum laude et gloria perire possint, p. 77.

38. Mariana discusses afterwards the question, whether the power of the king or of the commonwealth be the greater; and after intimating the danger of giving offence, and the difficulty of removing the blemishes which have become inveterate by time (with allusion, doubtless, to the change of the Spanish constitution under Charles and Philip), declares in strong terms for limiting the royal power by laws. In Spain, he asserts, the king cannot impose taxes against the will of the people. “He may use his influence, he may offer rewards, sometimes he may threaten, he may solicit with promises and bribes (we will not say whether he may do this rightly), but if they refuse he must give way; and it is the same with new laws, which require the sanction of the people. Nor could they preserve their right of deposing and putting to death a tyrant, if they had not retained the superior power to themselves when they delegated a part to the king. It may be the case in some nations, who have no public assemblies of the states, that of necessity the royal prerogative must compel obedience--a power too great, and approaching to tyranny--but we speak (says Mariana) not of barbarians, but of the monarchy which exists, and ought to exist among us, and of that form of polity which of itself is the best.” Whether any nation has a right to surrender its liberties to a king, he declines to inquire, observing only that it would act rashly in making such a surrender, and the king almost as much so in accepting it.

39. In the second book Mariana treats of the proper education of a prince; and in the third on the due administration of his government, inveighing vehemently against excessive taxation, and against debasement of the coin, which he thinks ought to be the last remedy in a public crisis. The whole work, even in its reprehensible exaggerations, breathes a spirit of liberty and regard to the common good. Nor does Mariana, though a Jesuit, lay any stress on the papal power to depose princes, which, I believe, he has never once intimated through the whole volume. It is absolutely on political principles that he reasons, unless we except that he considers impiety as one of the vices which constitute a tyrant.[1079]

[1079] Bayle, art. Mariana, notes G, H, and I, has expatiated upon this notable treatise, which did the Jesuits infinite mischief, though they took pains to disclaim any participation in the doctrine.

|Popular theories in England.|

|Hooker.|

40. Neither of the conflicting parties in Great Britain had neglected the weapons of their contemporaries; the English Protestants under Mary, the Scots under her unfortunate namesake, the Jesuits and Catholic priests under Elizabeth, appealed to the natural rights of men, or to those of British citizens. Poynet, Goodman, Knox are of the first description; Allen and Persons of the second. Yet this was not done, by the latter at least, so boldly and so much on broad principles as it was on the continent; and Persons in his celebrated Conference, under the name of Doleman, tried the different and rather inconsistent path of hereditary right. The throne of Elizabeth seemed to stand in need of a strongly monarchical sentiment in the nation. Yet we find that the popular origin of government, and the necessity of popular consent to its due exercise, are laid down by Hooker in the first and eighth books of the Ecclesiastical Polity, with a boldness not very usual in her reign, and, it must be owned, with a latitude of expression that leads us forward to the most unalloyed democracy. This theory of Hooker, which he endeavoured in some places to qualify with little success or consistency, though it excited not much attention at the time, became the basis of Locke’s more celebrated Essay on Government, and, through other stages, of the political creed which actuates at present, as a possessing spirit, the great mass of the civilised world.[1080]

[1080] Bilson, afterwards bishop of Winchester, in his “Difference between Christian Subjection and Unchristian Rebellion,” published in 1585, argues against the Jesuits, that Christian subjects may not bear arms against their princes for any religious quarrel, but admits, “if a prince should go about to subject his kingdom to a foreign realm, or change the form of the commonwealth from impery to tyranny, or neglect the laws established by common consent of prince and people to execute his own pleasure, in these and other cases which might be named, if the nobles and commons join together to defend their ancient and accustomed liberty, regiment, and laws, they may not well be counted rebels,” p. 520.

|Political memoirs.|

|La Noue.|

41. The bold and sometimes passionate writers, who perhaps will be thought to have detained us too long, may be contrasted with another class more cool and prudent, who sought rather to make the most of what they found established in civil polity, than to amend or subvert it. The condition of France was such as to force men into thinking, where nature had given them the capacity of it. In some of the memoirs of the age, such as those of Castelnau or Tavannes, we find an habitual tendency to reflect, to observe the chain of causes, and to bring history to bear on the passing time. De Comines had set a precedent; and the fashion of studying his writings and those of Machiavel conspired with the force of circumstances to make a thoughtful generation. The political and military discourses of La Noue, being thrown into the form of dissertation, come more closely to our purpose than merely historical works. They are full of good sense, in a high moral tone, without pedantry or pretension, and throw much light on the first period of the civil wars. The earliest edition is referred by the Biographie Universelle to 1587, which I believe should be 1588; but the book seems to have been finished long before.

|Lipsius.|

|Botero.|

42. It would carry us beyond the due proportions of this chapter were I to seek out every book belonging to the class of political philosophy, and we are yet far from its termination. The Politica of Justus Lipsius deserve little regard; they are chiefly a digest of Aristotle, Tacitus, and other ancient writers. Charron has incorporated or abridged the greater part of this work in his own. In one passage Lipsius gave great and just offence to the best of the Protestant party, whom he was about to desert, by recommending the extirpation of heresy by fire and sword. A political writer of the Jesuit school was Giovanni Botero, whose long treatise, Ragione di Stato, 1589, while deserving of considerable praise for acuteness, has been extolled by Ginguéné, who had never read it, for some merits it is far from possessing.[1081] The tolerant spirit, the maxims of good faith, the enlarged philosophy, which on the credit of a Piedmontese panegyrist, he ascribes to Botero will be sought in vain. This Jesuit justifies the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and all other atrocities of that age; observing that the duke of Alba made a mistake in the public execution of Horn and Egmont, instead of getting rid of them privately.[1082] Conservation is with him, as with Machiavel, the great end of government, which is to act so as neither to deserve nor permit opposition. The immediate punishment of the leaders of sedition, with as much silence and secrecy as possible, is the best remedy where the sovereign is sufficiently powerful. In cases of danger, it is necessary to conquer by giving way, and to wait for the cooling of men’s tempers, and the disunion that will infallibly impair their force; least of all should he absent himself, like Henry III., from the scene of tumult, and thus give courage to the seditious, while he diminishes their respect for himself.

[1081] Vol. viii. p. 210.

[1082] Poteva contentarsi di sbrigarsene con dar morte quanto si può segretamente fosse possibile. This is in another treatise by Botero, Relazioni Universali dè Capitani Illustri.

|His remarks on population.|

43. Botero had thought and observed much; he is, in extent of reading, second only to Bodin, and his views are sometimes luminous. The most remarkable passage that has occurred to me is on the subject of population. No encouragement to matrimony, he observes, will increase the numbers of the people without providing also the means of subsistence, and without due care for breeding children up. If this be wanting, they either die prematurely, or grow up of little service to their country.[1083] Why else, he asks, did the human race reach, three thousand years ago, as great a population as exists at present? Cities begin with a few inhabitants, increase to a certain point, but do not pass it, as we see at Rome, at Naples, and in other places. Even if all the monks and nuns were to marry, there would not, he thinks, be more people in the world than there are; two things being requisite for their increase--generation and education (or what we should perhaps rather call rearing), and if the multiplication of marriages may promote the one, it certainly hinders the other.[1084] Botero must here have meant, though he does not fully express it, that the poverty attending upon improvident marriages is the great impediment to rearing their progeny.

[1083] Concio sia cosa chè se bene senza il congiungimento dell’uomo e della donna non si può il genere umano moltiplicarsi, non dimeno la moltitudine di congiungimenti non è sola causa della moltiplicazione; si ricerca oltre di ciò, la cura d’Allevarli, e la commodità di sustentarli; senza la quale o muojono innanzi tempo, o riescono inutili, e di poco giovimento alla patria lib. viii. p. 284.

[1084] Ibid. Ricercandosi due cose per la propagazione de popoli, la generazione et l’educazione, se bene la moltitudine de matrimonj ajuta forte l’una, impedisce però del sicuro l’altro.

|Paruta.|

44. Paolo Paruta, in his Discorsi Politici, Venice, 1599, is perhaps less vigorous and acute than Botero; yet he may be reckoned among judicious writers on general politics. The first book of these discourses relates to Roman, the second chiefly to modern history. His turn of thinking is independent and unprejudiced by the current tide of opinion, as when he declares against the conduct of Hannibal in invading Italy. Paruta generally states both sides of a political problem very fairly, as in one of the most remarkable of his discourses, where he puts the famous question on the usefulness of fortified towns. His final conclusion is favourable to them. He was a subject of Venice, and after holding considerable offices, was one of those historians employed by the Senate, whose writings form the series entitled Istorici Veneziani.

|Bodin.|

45. John Bodin, author of several other less valuable works, acquired so distinguished a reputation by his Republic, published in French in 1577, and by himself in Latin, with many additions in 1586,[1085] and has in fact so far outstripped the political writers of his own period, that I shall endeavour to do justice to his memory by something like an analysis of this treatise, which is far more known by name than generally read. Many have borne testimony to his extraordinary reach of learning and reflection. “I know of no political writer of the same period,” says Stewart, “whose extensive, and various, and discriminating reading appear to me to have contributed more to facilitate and guide the researches of his successors, or whose references to ancient learning have been more frequently transcribed without acknowledgment.”[1086]

[1085] This treatise, in its first edition, made so great an impression, that when Bodin came to England in the service of the Duke of Alençon, he found it explained by lecturers both in London and Cambridge, but not, as has sometimes been said, in the public schools of the university. This put him upon translating it into Latin himself, to render its fame more European. See Bayle, who has a good article on Bodin. I am much inclined to believe that the perusal of Bodin had a great effect in England. He is not perhaps very often quoted, and yet he is named with honour by the chief writers of the next age; but he furnished a store, both of arguments and of examples, which were not lost on the thoughtful minds of our countrymen.

Grotius, who is not very favourable to Bodin, though of necessity he often quotes the Republic, imputes to him incorrectness as to facts, which in some cases raises a suspicion of ill-faith. Epist.