loped, theory of general polity. To make historical details really valuable for the ground-work of political maxims, we must look beyond the particular; beyond heroes, and legislators, and monarchs, and conquerors, all of whom often stand out in bold relief in the pages of the historian; and, by patient study, direct the mind's eye to those general and disconnected events which distant times may have thrown around all such prominent actors on the world's theatre. In every stage of political literature we shall see innumerable instances of errors arising from the want of attending to such precautions.

To chronicle, for the use of succeeding ages, the progress, and the great movements of social existence, as exampled by the political writings of civilised nations, requires, therefore, great care, and scrupulous accuracy in giving every series of facts that just proportion of interest which they legitimately demand. The historian's mind should be as free as possible from prejudice, party feeling, critical rancour, and whimsical crotchets. He ought neither to warp or resist evidence, to bolster up any personal fancy or unworthy purpose. He should keep a watchful eye upon all the conclusions of his own judgment; and to take especial care that he gives to all who have essentially assisted to rear the great fabric of political science in every age and country, that due portion of attention and commendation to which they are fairly and justly entitled.

Before closing these preliminary observations, we shall offer a word or two by way of summary, relative to the general external condition of the world, at the moment of history from whence we now take our departure. The early and middle ages were now thrown

into the background, and an entirely changed aspect of public affairs was to be ushered in. America was undiscovered; the hidden treasures of Mexico and Peru undreamed of. The Moors still retained possession of the most valuable portion of Spain. The Hanseatic League was in the fulness of its strength, but showed incipient signs of decline. The Russian empire was then, like the great Sahara of Africa now, a land unknown and untrodden by civilised man. The Prussian States, as now constituted, were only looming in the distance. Poland was strong and powerful; and Hungary the outward bulwark of Christendom. Constantinople, though tottering at its base, was still in the hands of the Greeks. Henry V. was king of England, and a part of France belonged to his crown. The bloody struggles and contests between the Houses of York and Lancaster had not commenced. The old Norman nobility were still powerful vassals of the king, and displayed all their feudal power and grandeur. The commercial and manufacturing cities of Holland and Belgium were in full vigour; enjoying, to the utmost extent, their somewhat rude and general freedom; and the republics of Italy monopolised all the trade of India and the East. At the head of these was Venice-the Queen and City of Waters-with her unbounded commerce and wealth, and her mysterious government; a city, which our great bard of Avon thus describes:

Your mind is tossing on the ocean;

There, where your argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors, and rich burghers of the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Do over-peer the petty traffickers
That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings."

Such was the general aspect of the world at the commencement of the series of sketches we are now about to offer on the writings of the great expounders of European politics; writings which contain principles never to be effaced from the minds of mankind to the end of time.

CHAPTER II.

POLITICAL LITERATURE OF GREAT BRITAIN, FROM 1400 TILL THE YEAR 1700.

SECTION I.

From Henry V. to the termination of the reign of
Elizabeth.

FROM the commencement of the fifteenth to the termination of the seventeenth century, the political literature of Great Britain is particularly interesting; interesting on account of its intrinsic merits as a development of the entire science of politics; and interesting on account of the fearful struggles it had to make, and the personal sacrifices it demanded from its expounders. When we cast a retrospective glance over this portion of our national history, and contrast it with subsequent periods of it, it presents a stern and gloomy aspect. Every general principle was contested in the midst of blood and suffering; men having often to contend against error and oppression, with the pen in one hand and the sword in the other. Every step of this literary progress calls forth the most thrilling emotions; and pointedly shows what a deep and absorbing interest the love of truth can

exercise over the noblest and most highly gifted intellects. Such a fact conveys an impressive lesson to all succeeding ages.

From the reign of Henry IV. to Henry VIII., commencing in 1399 and extending to 1509, there were no political works of a scientific class produced in England worthy of much notice. In the chief seats of education, general polity was sometimes dwelt upon; but what was here publicly taught, or published in written class-books, was chiefly borrowed from the stores of the scholastic writers of preceding times; and consisted of illustrations of a few maxims of civil law, remarks on the ancient systems of government in Greece and Rome, and some incidental notice of the politics of the Saxon and Norman dynasties.

A popular political feeling began, however, to manifest itself in England soon after the commencement of the fifteenth century. English books began to be written, particularly against the Roman hierarchy. There was one publication, called "The Lantern of Light," (1415) which excited much attention. It represented the pope as antichrist, and maintained the papal decrees were of no authority or force. It represented the archbishops and bishops as the seats of the great beast in the Revelations, who sat and governed despotically. The Roman courts were his head, the mass of the clergy his body, and the friars, monks, and canons, his tail. The work enforces the great truth, that the christian laity were maltreated and persecuted from two principal sources the excess of temporal power in the hands of the church, and the system of begging among the friars. This work, it is said, was found in the house of a feltmonger, plainly