Tacitus gave an independent character to Roman historiography. Unluckily, none of their longer histories have descended to us in a complete state. The Latin historical style, as formed by Sallust, is rhetorical, and deficient in simplicity. Tacitus, however, for power of description, and sagacity of observation, stands on a level with any historian, ancient or modern. The Romans likewise, by their enumerations of the population, by their valuations of property, by their maps and surveys for military, engineering, and political purposes, did more for statistics than the Greeks. They had greater practical skill in the art of government, which they exercised with a sort of professional aptitude.(18)

Besides their original efforts as observers and recorders of facts, the Romans rendered an imperishable service to politics by their systematic cultivation of jurisprudence. The judicial institutions of the Greeks were, for the most part, too unstable and unsettled, and their governments were on too small a scale, to admit of the compilation of law for juridical purposes. Amongst the Romans, however, law began to be subjected to a systematic treatment even under the Republic; and when the provinces were consolidated into one body with the paramount state, under the Empire, the necessity for fixed principles of jurisprudence, first developed by jurists in private treatises, and ultimately compiled into an authentic digest, became apparent. The Roman jurists were occupied exclusively with their own positive law, and had no thought of forming a system of universal jurisprudence. Their work, however, has proved one of the most enduring bequests made by antiquity to the modern world. The Roman law has served as a real type, upon which the jurisprudence of modern Europe has to a great extent been fashioned, and from which theoretical principles have been generalised.

§ 8 None of the four departments of politics received any material addition between the age of Justinian and the

(18) Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento,

HE TIBI ERUNT ARTES.'

VOL. I.

F

During this interval

revival of literature in the 15th century. the civil and canon law had, indeed, been cultivated, though in a mechanical manner; while political speculation had been dormant, and history had reverted to the form of dry annalistic chronicles.

The first important writer of the second of the three periods into which we divided the history of politics is Machiavel, whose lifetime extends from 1469 to 1527. Machiavel was engaged in practical politics; and his singularly acute and penetrating mind, though capable of speculation, was mainly turned to practical objects. He was acquainted with the Republic of Plato and the Politics of Aristotle, through the medium of Latin translations; and from these works he had derived his general ideas of government. He was no jurist, nor even a theologian; he had not meditated profoundly the positive or physiological structure of a state; nor had his attention been directed to the economical relations of society. His Discorsi and Principe must be referred to the preceptive class of political treatises. They belong to the art, not to the science of government. They are admonitory, and lay down a series of practical maxims of political conduct, specially intended for the use of the Italian governments in his own time. Like most other works relating to the art of politics, they often establish the general principles which they apply, and thus trench upon the speculative department of politics; their main purpose, however, is to furnish the practical politician with a manual of rules for his guidance in action; and there can be no reasonable doubt that Machiavel intended the maxims of his Prince to be followed in their plain and obvious sense. (19)

Passing by Paruta, who may be considered as an imitator of Machiavel, and whose works are now little read, (2) we come to

(19) Concerning Machiavel, see Stewart's Dissertation, p. 22-5; and for the object of the Principe, note C, p. 233; Hallam's Literature of Europe, vol. i. p. 555-64; Artaud's Machiavel, and the historians of Italian literature.

(20) Paruta, born 1540, died 1598. His Discorsi Politici are his

Bodin, whose systematic treatise De Republicâ, first published in French in the year 1576, went through many editions, and exercised an extensive influence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was trained to the profession of the law, but afterwards became a man of letters. The treatise of Bodin belongs for the most part to the positive branch of politics. He undertakes to define the conditions necessary to the existence of a state, and the nature of the elements of which it is necessarily composed. Nevertheless, like most of the other scientific writers on politics, he does not confine himself within these limits, but enters likewise upon inquiries into the political forms and laws best adapted for promoting the good of the state. (") The Politica of Lipsius is a mere cento of passages from the ancient historians and philosophers, without any novelty of thought. (2) One of his countrymen, however, the celebrated Grotius, produced soon afterwards a work which constitutes an epoch in politics. Grotius was a jurist, a historian, a classical scholar, and a theologian; he also took a part in practical politics. His treatise, De Jure Belli et Pacis, was the result of his matured judgment; and immediately upon its publication became a text-book on the law of nations throughout Europe.(23) Although the work of Grotius, and that of his follower Puffendorf, are of great importance in the department of politics, yet it must be admitted that neither of them distinctly conceived, or defined with precision, the subject of which they undertook to treat. They sometimes treat of the jus gentium in the sense of the Roman lawyers; namely, as

best work. His treatise, Della Perfezione della Vita Politica, is, to a considerable extent, ethical.

(21) Concerning Bodin and his works, see Bayle, Dict. in v.; Stewart, Diss. p. 27-9; Hallam, Lit. of Europe, vol. ii. p. 204-31, who has given a full abstract of Bodin's Republic. Bodin was born in 1529, and died in

1596.

(22) Justus Lipsius died in 1606.

(23) Grotius was born in 1583, and died in 1645. His work, De J. B. et P. was printed in 1625. Concerning the writers on the law of nations before Grotius, see Hallam, Lit. of Europe, vol. ii. p. 240-9: and for a full account of the treatise of Grotius, vol. iii. p. 384-450.

natural law-sometimes they treat of it in the modern sense of international law. (4) Parts of their treatises are devoted to universal jurisprudence and to positive politics-other parts to ethical doctrine, and to the principles of criminal law. Again, where they confine themselves to international law, properly so called, they sometimes treat of international law as it is, sometimes of international law as it ought to be. It is therefore true that the idea of his subject formed by Grotius is (as Dugald Stewart has said) vague and wavering. (5) It remained for writers of the second part of the eighteenth century to produce treatises strictly confined to international law. Nevertheless, the merit of producing the first great work upon public international relations rests with Grotius; and the influence which it has exercised on the subsequent writers in that department of politics cannot be easily overrated. (2) Another eminent countryman of Grotius, Spinoza, at a later period of the same century published two treatises on political science; but the Tractatus TheologicoPoliticus is in great measure theological, while the Tractatus Politicus is unfinished. The latter, though it contains much of a positive nature, is mainly devoted to the solution of the speculative problem of the best government.(77)

The chief writers on politics, from the revival of letters to the middle of the seventeenth century, were Italian, French, and Dutch. Up to this time, England had done little in that department of science. Utopia, though celebrated, was desultory

(24) See below, ch. xv. § 3.

(25) Diss. p. 37, 46, 84-93. Of what stamp are the works of Grotius, Puffendorf, and Burlamaqui? are they political or ethical, historical or juridical, expository or censorial? Sometimes one thing, sometimes another; they seem hardly to have settled the matter with themselves.'-Bentham's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, p. 327. This passage is cited by Mr. Stewart.

(26) See the judgment of Sir James Mackintosh upon Grotius, Works, vol. i. p. 351.

(27) Spinoza was born in 1632, and died in 1677. The Tractatus Theologico-Politicus first appeared in 1670. The Tractatus Politicus was a posthumous publication.

and superficial. Lord Bacon had only touched upon general politics incidentally. The earliest English writer on political philosophy was Hobbes, whose treatise De Cive (afterwards enlarged into the Leviathan) first saw the light in 1642.(2) The political writings of Hobbes are partly positive, laying down the necessary constitution of a state; partly speculative, investigating its best constitution. Although his views were so far practical, that he wished to counteract certain prevalent opinions respecting resistance to an established government, and the extension of popular rights, yet he does not lay down maxims of government, or give a preceptive form to the results of his meditations.

The Oceana of Harrington, which, like the writings of Hobbes, had its origin in the circumstances of the times, though Utopian in form, was in fact a practical scheme of a constitution for England after the abolition of royalty.

Algernon Sidney and Sir William Temple speculated on politics at a somewhat later period; their inquiries were directed to the origin and nature of government, as well as to the political forms most conducive to the commonweal.

Historical composition continued to be cultivated during the whole of the period from the revival of letters to the end of the seventeenth century: and it made a great advance from the rude mediæval chronicles to the works of Machiavel, Guicciardini, Mariana, De Thou, and Clarendon. The imitation of the classical models likewise called forth some scientific attempts to analyse the constituent parts of history, and to lay down rules for its treatment. (29)

§ 9 The third and modern period may be considered as

(28) Hobbes was born in 1588, and died in 1679. The Leviathan was published in 1651. Concerning the political writings of Hobbes, see Stewart, First Diss. p. 40-46; Hallam, Lit. of Europe, vol. iii. p. 365-82. They created much controversy in the first half-century after their appearance. See the works of Cudworth, Cumberland, &c.

(29) With respect to the early Italian and French writers on the treatment of history, see Wachler, Gesch. der Hist. Forschung, vol. i. p. 91, 329, 403, 671. The English writers on the same subject in the eighteenth century are enumerated.-Ib. vol. ii. p. 612.