even in Catholic countries, have been broken by the writings of Locke! How many still remain to be broken, before the mind of man can recover that moral liberty which, at some future period, it seems destined to enjoy!

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE chief purpose of these Notes and Illustrations, is to verify some of the more important views contained in the foregoing Historical Sketch. The errors into which I have frequently been led by trusting to the information of writers, who, in describing philosophical systems, profess to give merely the general results of their researches, unauthenticated by particular references to the original sources, have long convinced me of the propriety, on such occasions, of bringing under the eye of the reader, the specific authorities on which my statements proceed. Without such a check, the most faithful historian is perpetually liable to the suspicion of accommodating facts to his favorite theories; or of unconsciously blending with the opinions he ascribes to others, the glosses of his own imagination. The quotations in the following pages, selected principally from books not now in general circulation, may, I hope, at the same time, be useful in facilitating the labors of those who shall hereafter resume the same subject, on a scale more susceptible of the minuteness of literary detail.

For a few short biographical digressions, with which I have endeavoured to give somewhat of interest and relief to the abstract and unattractive topics which occupy so great a part of my discourse, I flatter myself that no apology is necessary; more especially, as these digressions will, in general, be found to throw some additional light on the philosophical or the political principles of the individuals to whom they relate.

Note (A.) page 28.

Sir Thomas More, though, towards the close of his life, he became "a persecutor even unto blood, defiling with cruelties those hands which were never polluted with bribes," was, in his earlier and better days, eminently distinguished by the humanity of his temper, and the liberality of his opinions. Abundant proofs of this may be collected from his letters to Erasmus; and from the sentiments, both religious and political, indirectly inculcated in his Utopia. In contempt for the ignorance and profligacy of the monks, he was not surpassed by his correspondent; and against various superstitions of the Romish church, such as the celibacy of priests, and the use of images in worship, he has expressed himself more decidedly than could well have been expected from a man placed in his circumstances. But these were not the whole of his merits. His ideas on Criminal Law are still quoted with respect by the advocates for a milder code than has yet been introduced into this country; and, on the subject of toleration, no modern politician has gone farther than his Utopian Legislators.

The disorders occasioned by the rapid progress of the Reformation, having completely shaken his faith in the sanguine speculations of his youth, seem at length, by alarming his fears as to the fate of existing establishments, to have unhinged his understanding, and perverted his moral feelings. The case was somewhat the same with his friend Erasmus, who (as Jortin remarks) "began in his old days to act the zealot and the missionary with an ill grace, and to maintain, that there were certain heretics, who might be put to death as blasphemers and rioters." (pp. 428, 481.)

In the mind of Erasmus, other motives, it is not improbable, concurred; his biographer and apologist being forced to acknowledge that " he was afraid lest Francis, and Charles, and Ferdinand, and George, and Henry VIII. and other persecuting princes, should suspect that he condemned their cruel conduct." Ibid. p. 481.

Something, it must at the same time be observed, may be alleged in behalf of these two illustrious persons; not, indeed, in extenuation of their unpardonable defection from the cause of religious liberty, but of their estrangement from some of their old friends, who scrupled not to consider, as apostates and traitors, all those who, while they acknowledged the expediency of ecclesiastical reform, did not approve of the violent measures employed for the accomplishment of that object. A very able and candid argument on this point may be found in Bayle, Article Castellan, Note Q.

Note (B.) page 30.

The following short extract will serve to convey a general idea of Calvin's argument upon the subject of usury.

"Pecunia non parit pecuniam. Quid mare? quid domus, ex cujus locatione pensionem percipio? an ex tectis et parietibus argentum proprie nascitur? Sed et terra producit, et mari advehitur quod pecuniam deinde producat, et habitationis commoditas cum certâ pecuniâ parari commutarive solet. Quod si igitur plus ex negotiatione lucri percipi possit, quam ex fundi cujusvis proventu: an feretur qui fundum sterilem fortasse colono locaverit ex quo mercedem vel proventum recipiat sibi, qui ex pecuniâ fructum aliquem perceperit, non feretur? et qui pecuniâ fundum acquirit, annon pecuniâ illâ generat alteram annuam pecuniam? Unde vero mercatoris lucrum? Ex ipsius, inquies, diligentiâ atque industriâ. Quis dubitat pecuniam vacuam inutilem omnino esse? neque qui à me mutuam rogat, vacuam apud se habere à me acceptam cogitat. Non ergo ex pecuniâ illâ lucrum accedit, sed ex proventu. Illæ igitur rationes subtiles quidem sunt, et speciem quandam habent, sed ubi propius expenduntur, reipsâ concidunt. Nunc igitur concludo, judicandum de usuris esse, non ex particulari aliquo Scripturæ loco, sed tantum ex æquitatis regulâ.” Epistolæ.

Note (C.) page 41.

Calvini

The prevailing idea among Machiavel's contemporaries and immediate successors certainly was, that the design of the Prince was hostile to the rights of mankind; and that the author was either entirely unprincipled, or adapted his professed opinions to the varying circumstances of his own eventful life. The following are the words of Bodinus, born in 1530, the very year when Machiavel died; an author whose judgment will have no small weight with those who are acquainted with his political writings: "Machiavel s'est bien fort mésconté, de dire que l'estat populaire est le meilleur. et néantmoins ayant oublié sa première opinion, il a tenu en un autre lieu, que pour restituer l'Italie en sa liberté, il faut qu'il n'y ait qu'un Prince; et de fait, il s'est efforcé de former un estat le plus tyrannique du monde : et en autre lieu ‡ il confesse, que l'estat de Vénice est le plus beau de tous, lequel est une pure Aristocratie, s'il en fût onques: tellement qu'il ne sçait à quoi se tenir." (De la République, Liv. vi. chap. iv. Paris, 1576.) In the Latin version of the above passage, the author applies to Machiavel the Homo levissimus ac nequissimus. One of the earliest apologists for Machiavel was Albericus Gentilis, an Italian author, of whom some account will be given afterwards. His words are these: "Machiavel, a warm panegyrist and keen assertor of democracy; born, educated, promoted under a republican government, was in the highest possible degree hostile to tyranny. The scope of his work, accordingly, is not to instruct tyrants; but, on the contrary, by disclosing their secrets to their oppressed subjects, to expose them to public view, stripped of all their trappings." He afterwards adds, that "Machiavel's real design was, under the mask of giving lessons to sovereigns, to open the eyes of the people; and that he assumed this mask in the hope of thereby securing a freer circulation to his doctrines." (De Legationibus, Lib. iii. c. ix. Lond. 1585.) The same idea was afterwards adopted and zealously contended for by Wicquefort, the author of a noted book entitled the Ambassador; and by many other writers of a

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† Prince, Book i. c. 9.