upport of the most obvious and indisputable
propositions, he introduces a long string of quotations from the Mosaic
law, from the Gospels, from the fathers of the church, from the
casuists, and not unfrequently, even in the very same paragraph, from
Ovid, and Aristophanes." This strange mixture is subject of many
witticisms of Voltaire. But let us hear what is urged in the defence of
Grotius, by a gentleman, of whose praise the ablest of writers may be
proud:

"Few writers," says Sir James Mackintosh, in his Discourse on the
Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, "were more celebrated than
Grotius in his own days, and in the age which succeeded. It has,
however, been the fashion of the last half century to depreciate
his work, as a shapeless compilation, in which reason lies buried
under a mass of authorities and quotations. This fashion originated
among French wits and declaimers, and it has been, I know not for
what reason, adopted, though with far greater moderation and
decency, by some respectable writers among ourselves. As to those,
who first used this language, the most candid supposition that we
can make with respect to them is, that they never read the work;
for, if they had not been deterred from the perusal of it by such a
formidable display of Greek characters, they must soon have
discovered that Grotius never quotes, on any subject, till he has
first appealed to some principles; and often, in my humble opinion,
though, not always, to the soundest and most rational principles.

[Sidenote: His treatise de Jure Belli et Pacis.]

"But another sort of answer is due to some of those, who have
criticised Grotius; and that answer might be given in the words of
Grotius himself. He was not of such a stupid and servile cast of
mind as to quote the opinions of poets or orators, of historians
and philosophers, as those of judges, from whose decision there was
no appeal. He quotes them, as he tells us himself, as witnesses,
whose conspiring testimony, mightily strengthened and confirmed by
their discordance on almost every other subject, is a conclusive
proof of the unanimity of the whole human race on the great rules
of duty, and the fundamental principles of morals. Of such matters,
poets and orators are the most unexceptionable of all witnesses;
for they address themselves to the general feelings and