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.

theories in

40. Neither of the conflicting parties in Great Britain had neglected the weapons of their contempora- Popular ries; the English Protestants under Mary, the England. 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

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.

Hooker.

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, perhaps, 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."

Political memoirs.

41. The bold and sometimes passionate writers, who possibly 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.

La Noue.

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 common

wealth 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.

42. It would carry us beyond the due proportions of this chapter were I to seek out every book be- Lipsius. longing to the class of political philosophy, and we

Botero.

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." 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. 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.

on popula

43. Botero had thought and observed much; he is, in extent of reading, second only to Bodin, and his His remarks views are sometimes luminous. The most re- tion. markable passage that has occurred to me is on the sub

a Vol. viii. p. 210.

b Poteva contentarsi di sbrigarsene con dar morte quanto si può segretaVOL. II.

mente fosse possibile. This is in another treatise by Botero, Relazioni Universali de' Capitani Illustri.

E

ject 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. 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. 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.

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.

"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.

d Ibid. Ricercandosi due cose per la propagazione de popoli, la generazione e l'educazione, se bene la moltitudine de matrimonj ajuta forte l' una, impedisce però del sicuro l' altro.

e

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 in Latin, with many additions, by himself in 1586, 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 appears 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."

called The

46. What is the object of political society? Bodin begins by inquiring. The greatest good, he Analysis of answers, of every citizen, which is that of the his treatise whole state. And this he places in the exercise Republic. of the virtues proper to man, and in the knowledge of things natural, human, and divine. But as all have not agreed as to the chief good of a single man, nor whether the good of individuals be also that of the state, this has caused a variety of laws and customs according to the humours and passions of rulers. This first chapter is in a more metaphysical tone than we usually find in Bodin. He proceeds in the next to the rights of families (jus familiare), and to the distinction between a family and a

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 an incorrectness as to facts, which in some cases raises a suspicion of ill-faith. Epist. cccliii. It would require a more close study of Bodin than I have made, to judge of the weight of this charge.

Dissertation on Progress of Philosophy, p. 40. Stewart, however, thinks Bodin become so obscure that he makes an apology for the space he has allotted to the Republic, though not exceeding four pages. He was better known in the seventeenth century than at present.