ART. II.-HISTORY OF JURISPRUDENCE.

No. VII.-VICO. 1688-1750.1

SOUTHERN Italy has been a land of great conceptions and great misfortunes. Magna Græcia in the most ancient times presented the legislation of Pythagoras, of the Locrians, of Charondas, then suddenly the massacre of the Pythagoreans, of the nobles by the Plebeians. The Sybarites, masters of twenty-five cities, could not resist the revolution, and were obliged to fly elsewhere, in order to seek an asylum. Beside these violent catastrophes are found the delights of Capua. Under the Roman dominion Southern Italy is the land of Marius-of a crowd of other great men. In the middle ages the victory of forty Norman Knights recalls to memory the sudden revolutions of Magna Græcia. But these valiant men did not conquer the climate of Naples-they could not follow in the steps of the Normans of England, and the power of the Barons in Naples was destroyed by the coup d'état and massacre in 1480. Since that time revolution has succeeded revolution, and almost every foreign attack has been followed by the conquest of the kingdom.

The great men of this country have not been successful in raising the general character of the people: Saint Thomas, Salvator Rosa, Campanella, Vico, Filangieri, all here appeared in the midst of the most profound and barbarous ignorance.

The Spanish conquest, by exalting the Italian nobility, injured Naples. In the seventeenth century the gentlemen of the kingdom had many privileges. The nobles had castles, villages; there they administered justice to their peasants, and protected brigands. Hence arose hereditary feuds and

1 For Nos. I. and II. see vol. xvi. pp. 59. and 268.; for No. III. see vol. xvii. p. 105.; for Nos. IV. and V, see vol. xviii. pp. 91, and 249.; for Nos. VI. and VII. see vol, xix. pp. 93. and 342.

feudal wars. The nobility, too, were exempted from most of the burdens of taxation, and consequently prodigal of the tribute which they voted for Spain. The Spanish Viceroy represented all that is disgraceful in modern bureaucracy.

The insurrection of Masaniello is the great event of the history of Naples under the Spanish rule. In 1647 the people of Naples groaned under excessive taxation; the nobles speculated on the general misery, and increased it by their monopolies. Many attempted to smuggle, but they were seized and imprisoned. The fisherman, Masanielloa name which now would be forgotten by all except the historian, were it not that the divine opera of Auber constantly tells the great capitals of Europe how easily a revolution may be effected in Naples-was completely ruined in paying the ransom of his young wife, who had been seized at the gates of the town with a little corn. It was the eve of the fête of the Madonna. The immense populace, without work and famishing, joined in a riot between the custom-house officers and some poor peasants who had not wherewith to pay the octroi upon some baskets of fruit. Masaniello put himself at the head of the mob. They soon attacked and carried the town-hall. The Viceroy with difficulty saved himself. On the one side now the cannon of the three forts were directed against Naples, and the Spanish nobility joined the soldiers; on the other, 200,000 men, armed with pikes swords, and sticks, were under the orders of Masaniello; these spread themselves through the streets, and destroyed upwards of thirty of the palaces of the nobles. The bandits and outcasts of society were invited to aid the Government, as the King similarly summoned the Lazzaroni during the insurrection of 1848, and gave up the town to their plunder. The bandits were defeated by the rebels, and the prisoners were executed. Masaniello was the chief of the revolution. Some learned men, who had been imprisoned by the Spanish authorities, assisted him; but they were obliged to wear masks on their faces. Masaniello was induced by the Archbishop of Naples not to act as a rebel to Spain. He was terrified at the greatness of the rebellion, and the Archbishop gave him hopes of pardon. Masaniello and the Viceroy met;

peace was sworn; many privileges assured to the people; Masaniello was created Duke of Saint George; magnificent fêtes were given. On the following day Masaniello, either intoxicated by his miraculous elevation, or poisoned by his enemies, became mad. He galloped through the city, striking at all he met; he sent many of his friends to the galleys, and designed to destroy the houses in the principal street in order to build a palace for himself. All were dismayed by his frenzy; and a conspiracy being formed, Masaniello fell beneath the daggers of his friends. The mob seized the body, cut off the head, and foully dishonoured it. A re-action ensued; the people resumed their madness. One moment they believed that Masaniello had risen from the dead to lead them to the battle; the next they made him a saint, and deposited his body in the cathedral. The funeral of Masaniello suspended the civil war. Four hundred priests, thousands of children, four thousand women, attended; forty thousand soldiers trailed their banners in the dust, and an immense populace followed round the bier of a poor fisherman. The artillery of the hostile troops united with the bells of the town in giving the last honours to the mortal remains of Masaniello. The people were again prostrate; the revolutionary frenzy was over; and for two centuries the people of Naples made no attempt to escape from despotism.

GIAMBATTISTA VICO was born at Naples in 1688, about forty years after the revolt of Masaniello. His father was a poor bookseller; and Vico obtained his education at the Jesuits' School. Even in his early youth he was distinguished for extraordinary application, and used to pass the entire night in study. Having mastered the ordinary course of the school, he proceeded to study philosophy under Father Ricci the Jesuit, a disciple of Duns Scotus, and a partisan of the doctrine of Zeno. Henceforth, Realism appeared to him preferable to Nominalism. Quitting the school of Ricci, he shut himself up for an entire year to study Suarez. did not repent of this. This author, says Vico, has marvellous perspicuity, his style is elevated, his eloquence incom

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parable. His father now urged Vico to the study of the law; and he attended the lectures of Verde, who, amongst the doctors of the University of Naples, was one of the most profound legists and eloquent professors, but, like many other men great in their own time and sphere, is now comparatively unknown. Not being able to learn much from this professor, Vico applied himself to the study of the Civil Institutes of Vultejus, and the Canonical Institutions of Canisius. He eagerly began to trace the general ideas of right from particular cases, and from the original signification of the words employed by lawyers.

Vico's excessive labours, the poverty of his family, and the new ideas which confusedly agitated his mind, destroyed his health. One day, that overcome with weariness and disgust at his position in life, he was resting in a library, sighing after the repose necessary to accomplish his grand projects, the Bishop of Ischia, Giovanni Rocca, approached him, inquired with interest into his circumstances, and interrogated him on the merit of the different methods of education suited for the study of the law. Vico then was meditating upon the work since published under the title "De nostri temporis studiorum ratione." He expounded his system to the good bishop with such warmth and clearness, that he asked Vico to make a trial of it upon his young nephews, who inhabited a fine castle situate in a delightful climate, and furnished with a rich library. He accepted the offer and remained there for nine years. There he studied the Canon Law, the Christian dogmas, and, principally, the examination of the question of Grace and Liberty, in the work of Richard. Vico, then reflecting on the necessary harmony between Grace and Liberty, divine action and human action, between fate and free will, was led to believe that the development of society, like the human heart, must be subject to one constant, universal, and divine law, the variable application of which depended upon the unstable will of man. Thus minds happily gifted by nature find in all things an opportunity of improvement; and a geometrical dissertation on the doctrine of St. Augustine made Vico conceive the idea of a single universal principle in the natural law of nations.

Vico now proceeded to an extended course of the ancient writers. Having read Aristotle, he thus characterised the distinction between Ethics and Jurisprudence. "Jurisprudence-which is, properly speaking, the art of Equity, and which rests on an infinity of minute precepts of natural justice discovered by jurisconsults in the reason of laws and the will of legislators—contains the explanation of laws by their determinate causes, and teaches the acknowledgment of their results in different social necessities. Moral philosophy teaches the science of the just, which proceeds from a small number of eternal truths dictated to metaphysics by an ideal justice, constitutive of states, the director of reparative justice and distributive justice, which regulate in their turn utilities or interests by means of two eternal measures, the arithmetic and geometric.'

Vico in his retirement pursued his studies; and he has left us interesting and valuable memoirs as to their subjects. The Stoic and Epicurean philosophy, the injurious effects of an exclusively mathematical education, the works of Bayle and Descartes, are all discussed by him. Returned to Naples, he remained isolated and in poverty. Genius does not always suffice for itself, and he felt the want of some medium of communicating his ideas. In 1597, he obtained a professorship of Rhetoric, which, however, only brought him 100 crowns per annum. As yet he had adopted as masters only Plato and Tacitus. The former painted man as he came from the creative idea; the latter such as he was become by his own fault. One sought the true, the just, the good; the other the certain, the equitable, the useful. Vico perceived in Plato and Tacitus the representatives of the two epochs, the two civilisations, the two wisdoms which later formed the subject of his New Science. A third philosopher was now studied by him, the great Chancellor, Lord Bacon. And he henceforth proposed to himself never to lose sight of these three great models.

Vico was subjected to the wretched fate of men of letters under a despotic government. Dependent on the aristocracy, excluded from high political or military dignities, never