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. Casa wrote also a little book on the duties to be observed between friends of unequal 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. 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. In England. 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 Bacon's Casa inveighs against the punetilious and troublesome ceremonies, introduced, as he supposes, from Spain, making distinctions in the mode of addressing different ranks of nobility. 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 Expence; 7. Of Regiment of Health; 8. Of Honour and Reputation; 9. Of Faction; 10. Of Negociating. 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 additions 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. Jesuits-Botero and Paruta - Bodin · Analysis of his Republic. Number of political 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. of govern ments, 19. A constant progress towards absolute monarchy, sometimes silent, at other times attended with Oppression 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 VOL. II. D and spirit generated by it. 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; nor were there wanting 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 20. I. From the Greek and Roman poets, orators, or historians, the scholar derived the principles, not history. 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 21. II. In proportion as the antiquities of the existing European monarchies came to be studied, it could Jewish. 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 re searches 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 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 Hottoman. 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 FrancoGallia, 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. 23. An anonymous treatise, Vindicia contra Tyrannos, Auctore Stephano Junio Bruto Celta, 1579, Vindicia commonly ascribed to Hubert Languet, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, breathes the stern spirit of Judaical Huguenotism. Kings, that lay waste the church k k [Le Clerc has a dissertation printed at the end of the English translation of Bayle's Dictionary, to prove that Du Plessis Mornay wrote the Vindicia contra Tyrannos. But the majority have continued to ascribe it to Languet.-1853.] 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 few 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 |