with fires, the houses must have been thoroughly warmed, and the maids were accorded the luxury of feather beds. Add to this that bedrooms adorned with curtains, tapestry, and silk hangings must have been clear of draught, and it would appear that comfort is not an invention of the Victorian era. Meat, too, was dirt cheap; Sir James Reade's ninety-two sheep, fed on the rich pasture of Brocket Park, were valued at £40, a little under 10s. apiece, or below the minimum of Canadian mutton; beside that there was home-grown venison. Altogether, a cursory glance at these old interiors leads to the conclusion that, however bitterly a Macaulay may revile them, the good old times were best alike for master and for man. Money made on the land was expended on the land, and those who milked drank of the milk of the flock. Every squire-a man of rank as well as a commoner-farmed a large slice of his acreage. Thus Sir James's farm stock was valued at over £1,300-at least equivalent to £5,000 of our money, and Edward Reade had 300 sheep besides other stock. The Manor House at that time of day was a cornucopia for the men on the estate, who wisely preferred much of money's worth to a little money, and took the bulk of their remuneration in kind. The system may have been feudal, and therefore, to some people's intelligence, inhuman. It will stand comparison with a régime which takes on hands-not brethren or human beings, but hands-to fulfil a contract, and then turns them adrift to starve. Probably the labourers at Brocket Hall, Ipsden Manor, and Dunstew Manor, in the year 1690, were better off than any agricultural labourer of any period. For one thing, they were serving men of honour and of ancestry, for whom noblesse oblige was a ruling principle, and not hard-fisted and yet harder-hearted farmers—a class who, when wheat rose to 100 shillings a quarter, starved their men, and when wheat dropped to twenty shillings found that a minimum wage-rate could not be lowered. Depend upon it, the next best thing to being a gentleman is to be a gentleman's servant.

In one particular, the mansion of the Stuart period portrayed more faithfully than a Lely or a Kneller the character of the fine old English gentleman, one of the olden time, a man of human sympathies, of pride and dignity, yet nobly free from the vulgar vice of ostentation. With the Restoration John Barleycorn, like the King, came to his own again. Not the modern sophisticated Barleycorn who drenches you with brewers' chemicals, but a downright honest John. When the Merry Monarch reigned, adultery in high places may have staggered the consciences of such good Anglicans as Juxon; but at all events the crime of adulteration, i.e. of ruining your fellow

creature's digestion in order to pocket an extra profit, had not as yet been invented, neither was the House of Lords defiled by the presence of the trade. The squires brewed their own nectar from pure malt, bright hops, and-well-a little clean water. When brewed, their beer, or ale, for the terms bore an opposite significance in the west and north, was for all, poor and rich alike. As an example of liberality, I may instance perhaps the Cavalier Sir Compton Reade, cousin of the above-named Sir James, and elder brother of Edward of Ipsden. His two mansions having fallen in the Civil War, one after a stiff defence, which won him precedence over all the gentlemen of Berks, when the superborder of the Royal Oak was formulated, together with a baronetcy-he was first of the third creation, date 1661-he purchased Shipton Court on the edge of Wychwood Forest, and this is what Plot, the naturalist and antiquarian, has to say concerning the arrangements for supplying his retainers with beer: "And yet the moisture of water has no such power over it (the freestone) but that they make of it troughs and cisterns, and now of late mesh-vats for brewing. . . . Of these, that generous and courteous gentleman, Sir Compton Reade, of Shipton-under-Wychwood, has one that holds about sixtyfive bushels, drawn home with no less than one-and-twenty horses; they ordinarily mesh it in three quarters of mault, but can at any time when necessity requires mesh five at a time; the dimensions of which vessel of one single stone, taken within the hollow and abating its thickness, because of its vast unusual magnitude, I thought fit to note, and give as followeth: Long, 2 yards 1-8; broad, 1 yard 1-8 and 1-2 an inch; deep, 1 yard 1-2. Yet much larger than this might be had from the quarry, for I was informed that there was one single stone dug in this quarry containing no less than three hundred tuns."

After this one can comprehend Dr. Plot's polite reference to Sir Compton as "generous and courteous." We may surmise that having sampled the Shipton barrels, out of the fulness of the mouth the heart gushed. Be that as it may, there was a cavalier welcome for all at Shipton in those halcyon days. Poor Shipton Court ! Thirty years ago it was willed away by a descendant of Sir Compton to a confidential servant—a disposition of real estate which would be illegal in any other civilised country of Europe.

COMPTON READE.

TH

THE LAW OF NATIONS.

HERE is no subject in the range of juridical science possessing such intrinsic claims to attention as that of international law. The great nations of antiquity which have contributed most to the civilisation of modern Europe have given least to this branch of civilisation. The jus feciale of the earlier Roman law regulating the formal intercourse between Rome and other nations is, indeed, the germ of what might have been a system of pure international law, but the rise of the Roman Republic to the mastery of the world rendered a jus inter gentes unnecessary and impossible. The principles of natural justice to international relations, however imperfectly executed, and though never reduced to a system, were not unknown to the Romans. But of a system of law which conceived of States as the subjects of rights and duties, as members of a community of nations, the polished and elegant jurisprudence of antiquity furnishes hardly a trace. In the same consummate code which still rules the most complex relations of life with a wisdom and justice which modern culture has hardly been able to improve, stand side by side the high morality of a completed system of equity jurisprudence, and the savage doctrine that strangers are enemies, and that with enemies war is eternal. Amid such relations of States there was no place for law. But when from the Christian doctrine of the brotherhood of man the inevitable corollary of the brotherhood of nations was deduced, a body of law to govern this new community followed as an inevitable consequence. It grew slowly at first, for the age was technical, and dynastic interests long absorbed the cares of statesmen. Scholiasts and commentators denied that there could be a law of nations, for where was the superior authority to enact it? It was difficult for lawyers to conceive of law without a tribunal to enforce it. Princes refused to admit that any rules restrained the prerogative for which they claimed divine origin. Mr. Ward (in his "History of the Law of Nations") enumerates five institutions existing about the period of the eleventh century which made a deep impression upon Europe, and contributed in a very

essential degree to improve the Law of Nations. These institutions were the feudal system, the concurrence of Europe in one form of religious worship and government, the establishment of chivalry, the negotiations and treaties forming the conventional law of Europe, and the settlement of a scale of political rank and precedency.

When Grotius published his work "De Jure Belli et Pacis," in 1624, the Law of Nations had been rescued to a considerable extent from the cruel usages and practices of the Northern barbarians, and had been restored to some degree of science and civility by the influence of Christianity, the study of Roman law, and the spirit of commerce, but it was still in a state of great disorder, and its principles were little known and less observed. It consisted of a series of undigested precedents without order or authority. The object of Grotius was to correct the false theories and pernicious maxims which then existed, by showing a community of sentiment among the wise and learned of all ages in favour of the natural law of morality. He also endeavoured to show that justice was of perpetual obligation, and essential to the well-being of every society, and that the great commonwealth of nations stood in need of law, the observance of faith, and the practice of justice. His idea was to digest in one systematic code the principles of public right, and to supply authori ties for almost every case in the conduct of nations. Thus he had

the honour of reducing the Law of Nations to a system, and of producing a work which has been resorted to as the standard of authority in every succeeding age. He is therefore justly entitled to be called the father of the Law of Nations.

Although Grotius is regarded as the father of the Law of Nations, yet he had been preceded by other writers on this subject. Among these were Francis de Victoria of Salamanca, Suarez, Ayala, and Albericus Gentilis, all of whom flourished in the sixteenth century. Of Francis de Victoria, Hall says that his writings, in 1533, mark an era in the history of international ethics. Spain claimed, largely by virtue of Papal grant and warrant, to acquire the territory and the mastery of the semi-civilised races of America. He denied the validity of the Papal titles, he maintained the sovereign rights of the aboriginal races, and he claimed to place international relations upon the basis of equal rights as between communities in actual possession of independence. In other words, he first clearly affirmed the juridical principle of the complete international equality of independent States, however disproportionate their power. Suarez, in his work "De Legibus et Deo Legislatore," from the point of view of the Catholic theologian, assumes that the principles of the moral law

are capable of complete and authoritative definition, and are supported by the highest spiritual sanction.

Among the jurists who followed Grotius, the classical names are those of Puffendorf, Wolff, Vattal, and Bynkershoek. In England, Sir Leoline Jenkins and Lord Stowell are the most illustrious of those who have made important contributions to international law. In America, Wheaton's "Elements of International Law" is the standard modern treatise.

The general desire of mankind that the mutual conduct of nations should be governed, or at least directed, by recognised rules-that there should be some principles to be invoked by the weak, and yielded to without humiliation by the powerful-has produced indeed a literature in international jurisprudence exceeding in magnitude that which has been employed on any other branch of the moral sciences. Many of the writers have been remarkable for sagacity, and almost all have been men of diligence and learning, and devoted to the subject of their labours.

International law is that collection of rules-customary, conventional and judicial-which are accepted as binding inter se by the civilised nations of the world. It lays down rules to be observed in the mutual dealings of nations which are at peace with each other, and of nations which are at war with each other; and it determines the rights and duties of belligerent and neutral nations. But the rules of international law which relate to war are more voluminous and certain than those which govern nations in time of peace. Some jurists consider it improper to speak of these rules as laws, as they are without the sanctioning force which is the distinguishing quality of law proper. Other jurists, however, derive its principles from some transcendental source, such as nature, the Divine will, reason, &c., and these do not hesitate to attribute to its rules an intrinsic authority over all the nations of the world. According to their theory the usage of nations is evidence of, but not the origin of, the law, It merely expresses the consent of nations to things which are naturally—that is, by the law of God-binding upon them. There is, however, no legislative or judicial authority recognised by all the nations of the world that regulates the reciprocal relations of States, and consequently no express laws, except those which result from the conventions which States may make with one another. So that, however long established or useful any or all of these rules may be, there is but one real remedy for their infraction, and that remedy is the sword. The foundation, therefore, upon which international law rests is the consent of nations.