he lived. But they did not tend much to promote the advancement of the law of nations, to which he denied the rank of a separate science; including it, in a vague and indefinite manner, under the general morality, or ethics, of individuals and nations. This erroneous view was corrected by Rachel in the seventeenth century; but Christian Thomasius, having adopted the view of Pufendorff, by his talents and learning rendered it triumphant for a time in Germany; and it was not till the eighteenth century that a more precise and correct notion of international law came to be generally entertained.

Leibnitz, among the multifarious labours of his comprehensive genius, besides suggesting the great advantage of preserving a record, and of making collections, from time to time, of the Treaties concluded between the different European nations, and of other state or diplomatic documents; and setting an example in the compilation of his Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus, gave, in his preface to that work, a very distinct exposition of the basis of what he termed "Jus Feciale inter Gentes." His follower, however, if not pupil, Baron von Wolff, although distinguished for his vast learning and his methodical and voluminous treatment of the law of nature and nations, was not happy in his mode of prosecuting and developing the enlarged and philosophical views of Leibnitz. But, availing himself of the learned labours of Wolff, Vattel soon afterwards reduced them in bulk, moulded them into a neater and more popular shape, made some practical additions, and thereby attained a degree of celebrity equal to, if not greater than, his merits.

In his work, entitled Le Droit des Gens, Vattel has

extraneous matter

introduced a good deal of what appears to be rather - namely, treatises on the internal public and private law of states, as well as on international law, properly so called, or, as the French now term it, "Droit Public Externe." And how his celebrity should have been so much greater than that of Wolff, in Britain as well as on the Continent, it is not easy to see; except from Vattel having endeavoured to clothe the doctrines in a lighter, more agreeable, and attractive dress, and from the subject not having been previously much attended to in England. But, from whatever cause, such was the fact. The work was lauded by several eminent statesmen in Parliament; was translated into English; and seems, in Britain, for upwards of half a century, to have been held and appealed to as the standard more modern work on the law of nations.

With regard, again, to the internal cultivation of the law of nations in Britain, England, although not entitled to claim him as a native, might boast of the great learning, and, for his age, acute and extended views of the Italian, Albericus Gentilis, inasmuch as he was Professor of the Law of Nations in the University of Oxford, and apparently an eminent practical lawyer in matters of maritime right, as well as a distinguished theoretical international jurist.

It is, perhaps, to be regretted that Selden devoted his great learning and talents to the support of some extravagant claims, in behalf of England, to the exclusive dominion of certain adjacent seas-such extravagant claims as Venice, Genoa, Spain, Portugal, and Holland had previously urged. For it does not appear that any such exclusive claims were ever practically exacted, or

attempted to be enforced by England. And the argument maintained by Selden in support of such claims, whether in order to please a despotically inclined monarch or not, has all along afforded, and even very lately, an opportunity and excuse for foreign jurists to declaim against what they call the unjust maritime pretensions of this country.

*

Indeed, so far as regards international law, England has much less to be proud of Selden than of Dr Richard Zouch, (Zoucchæus,) who, about the middle of the seventeenth century, was Professor of Law at Oxford, and afterwards Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, but to whose reputation, as an author, justice does not appear to have been done in his own country at all corresponding to his merits; and with him ended, for the seventeenth century, the cultivation in England of international law, with the exception of the memorials and opinions of Sir Leoline Jenkins, in the reign of Charles II., chiefly on the maritime department of international law; for the excellent work of Molloy, in 1682, treats almost solely of the private law of maritime commerce.

In the eighteenth century, with the exception of the admirable answers by Sir Dudley Ryder and Mr Solicitor-General Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield, to the Prussian manifesto relative to maritime prize law, no work appeared on the law of nations generally, till the publication, about the middle of last century, by Dr Rutherford of Oxford, of his lectures, or commentaries on the work of Grotius De Jure Belli; and during the

* Rayneval, De la Liberté des Mers, 1811, vol. i.

remainder of the eighteenth century, no work appeared on the science generally of international law. For the excellent pamphlet of Jenkinson, (Lord Liverpool,) and the admirable judgments of Sir William Scott, (Lord Stowell,) as reported by Sir Christopher Robinson and other learned jurists, related almost entirely to the law of maritime captures as prize; while the truly excellent work of Abbot, (Lord Tenterden,) like the work of Molloy about a century before, embraces solely the private law of maritime commerce.

Although a learned and sensible work, the lectures of Dr Rutherford do not appear to have exercised much influence on the national mind of England, and seem to have been very much superseded by the translated work of Vattel, which, as formerly mentioned, still continues to be referred to in this country as a standard international law authority of the first order.

To return to the Continent: some time after the publication of the work of Vattel, the mode of cultivating international law appears to have undergone a considerable change in Germany. The example which Leibnitz had exhibited in the compilation of his Codex Diplomaticus had been followed; and various voluminous collections of treaties and other state papers had been printed, not merely in Germany, but chiefly in Holland, and also in England, such as the collections of Dumont, Rousset, Rymer, and others. In these collections the chronological order was followed, without much attempt at a more methodical or systematic arrangement, until it seems to have occurred to the ingenious Abbé de Mably that a Droit Public de l'Europe might be "fondé sur les Traités."

About this time also the less ingenious but more industrious and learned German writers, Meister, Moser, and others, found it a more easy task to collect and arrange methodically the various stipulations and other provisions, which had usually occurred in the multitude. of treaties concluded between the different European nations in the course of the two preceding centuries, than to evolve, unfold, or develop scientifically in detail, the fundamental principles of international law. The liberality of the British King, George II., to his native hereditary dominions, enabled the University of Göttingen, which he had founded, to accumulate a most extensive and valuable library. And availing himself of this resource, the very learned and indefatigably industrious G. F. Von Martens, besides his Traité des Prises, his Cours Diplomatique, and his collection of Treaties from 1761 to the present times-published in Latin in 1784, republished in a more complete form in French in 1789 and 1801, and finally published in 1821 a third edition of his work, entitled Précis du Droit des Gens Moderne de l'Europe, fondé sur les Traités et l'Usage.

In this way, certainly, the law of nations was advanced and improved, inasmuch as it was thereby rendered more practical, by the methodical arrangement of the usual stipulations in treaties, which, of course, while they lasted, independent states were bound to observe as special bargains, and to consult and be guided by in the first instance. But while this no doubt useful labour was going forward, the cultivation of international law as a science, the investigation of the reciprocal rights and obligations of nations, which exist independently of special compact, was neglected. This error or defect