Nothing had hitherto appeared in Europe equal to the interest excited in the public mind by the publication of these letters. They were circulated in countless thousands throughout France. The Society of Jesuits were filled with alarm and consternation. As everybody read the "Little Letters," a jesuit became an object of universal derision and contempt. "The persecution," says one writer, "which the jesuits suffer from the buffooneries of Port-Royal, is perfectly intolerable. The wheel and the gibbet are nothing to it; it can only be compared to the torture inflicted on the ancient martyrs, who were first rubbed over with honey, and then left to be stung to death by wasps and wild bees. Their tyrants have subjected them to empoisoned raillery, and the world leaves them unpitied to suffer a sweet death, more cruel in its sweetness than the bitterest punishment*." The style and treatment of the subjects were so popular, that they were level to the lowest capacity. "I conceived it," says Pascal, "my duty to write so that my letters might be read by women, and people in general, that they might know the danger of all those maxims and propositions, which were then spread abroad, and admitted with so little hesitation."

The English political reader will certainly experience something like disappointment on reading these far-famed "Letters," on finding so little in them which bears directly upon the general science of civil polity. Abstract principles of government, and the papal dogma of absolute supremacy, are but seldom hinted at, and seem to have been topics which the sensitive mind of the author, considering himself a member of

Father Daniel.

the catholic church, shrunk from investigating. But we must not test him by these apparent omissions. The great merit of the "Letters" lay-and indeed lies at this hour-in their attack upon the broad principle of infallibility; upon the hollowness of those casuistical reasonings, commonly adopted by theological writers, for justifying political measures of a questionable and pernicious tendency; and, above all, upon that governmental theory which is adopted and advocated by the Society of Jesuits in every country where they can gain a footing. These are the several points of attack which made these writings popular, and considered so politically important to every wellregulated community in Christendom.

The French Theatre was an organ of political expression. It was established about the year 1400; but its representations, for a full century and a half, consisted almost entirely of religious mysteries. In the progress of general literature, political opinions were gradually introduced to stage audiences, who seemed to have relished them keenly. In 1552, the theatre underwent a change, chiefly through the instrumentality of Jodelle. Historical events were more generally dramatised, and a wider range for political feelings was opened up to the play-going portion of the nation.

There were a great many very curious and interesting caricatures published in Paris during the greater part of the seventeenth century. The chief of these were descriptive of national hatreds and animosities, occasioned by the changeable positions of different countries by political circumstances. The badauds of Paris amused themselves with representations of the

Spaniard taking an emetic, to make him disgorge all the cities which his arms had taken. Seven or eight Spaniards are depicted seated round a large turnip, with their frizzled mustachios, their hats en pot-abeurre; their long rapiers, with their pummels down to their feet, and their points up to their shoulders; ruffs stiffened by many rows, and pieces of garlick stuck in their girdles. The Dutch were exhibited in as great variety as the uniformity of frogs would allow." There were likewise many caricatures ridiculing the English, the Austrians, and the Germans. There were a great number done on wood and circulated throughout France by the protestants, representing the Romish faith in every conceivable fantastic shape. They excited great attention at the time of their publication. There are private collections of these satirical publications, but only to be found here and there throughout France.

About the year 1625, newspapers were established in Paris. The first speculator in this line, was one Renaudot, a physician, who found it favourable to his professional purposes to tell his patients the news of the day. His scheme succeeded; and he obtained a government privilege for publishing news in 1632. The journals were not, however, of any political moment, till a considerable period after the close of the century. "Le Mercurie Francois," was published in 1648, in twenty-five volumes*.

See Note C, at the end of the volume.

CHAPTER IV.

POLITICAL LITERATURE OF ITALY, FROM THE YEAR 1400 TILL 1700.

THE reform writings in Germany, which appeared after the movements of Luther and Zuinglius, soon found their way into Italy, and the political opinions they contained, mixed as they were with religious matters, began to make an impression even under the very walls of Rome itself. Protestant churches were formed in Naples, in Ferrara, in Mutina, in Mantua, and in Venice. These religious bodies carried with them a certain portion of the liberal and enlightened political principles of the Reformation, and induced writers and thinkers to study the nature of civil polity, and government authority and power*.

The revival of letters in Italy, in the fifteenth century, naturally awakened its more thoughtful inhabitants to its social and political institutions, in bringing before their minds, in all the different republican cities and territories of the country, the many brilliant events and exploits recorded of the Grecian republics. There were, however, many important differences be

* Gorde's "Specimen Italia Reformatæ."

It

tween the public mind of Greece, and the modern Italian intellect. In the former, the ordinary feeling of the people, in the appreciation of political truth, was under the direct influence of the vague and fabulous notions of pagan theology, and regulated in a sphere where the hopes and duties of citizens were not supported by any solid or elevating conceptions of man's nature and destiny. In the latter case, we find on the revival of letters, that the great truths of revealed theology were every way recognised, and the political institutions of Europe had been for ages moulded in conformity with its spirit and doctrines, considered as a political code. This circumstance alone made an important difference in this modern or renewed contemplation of Grecian philosophy. came in direct contact with long and firmly established systems of polity, founded, in a great measure, on dogmas foreign to its spirit, and antagonistic to its tendency. The kingly power of Greece was a very different thing from the Roman hierarchy, and the democracies of the Italian cities from the democracies of Sparta or Athens. The condition of European society did not allow the ancient political tenets to be estimated solely on their intrinsic and abstract merits. The consequence was, that when the Grecian politics had to be again developed to altogether different audiences, and tried by altogether different tests, they were submitted to a rigid and varied interpretation; and they only gained a conditional approval, and were assigned a subordinate position in the human understanding, to the christian element of modern civilisation and progress.

This state of things led the Italian philosophers, at