7ico. 643 subsequent parts of the history are only incidentally touched upon by Vico, and there is no other striiiing coincidence with Niebuhr than that which follows necessarily from their agreement as to the original form of the government. Of the Licinian law Vico speaks, as historians commonly had done before Heyne, as regulating the amount of landed pro- perty which any citizen might possess. The French editor, M. Michelet, speaks of Montesquieu and Niebuhr as having followed the opinions of Vico respecting the institutions of Servius TuUius^^ (p. 135). There are not many things in which Montesquieu and Niebuhr agree, and if by following is meant copying Vico, this is not one of them. The course of Niebuhr'^s investigations has been indicated by himself, and does not even run parallel with those of Vico. Indeed it is only necessary to have read the Scienza Nuova, to be convinced that it w^as impossible for an historical critic to borrow from it : every thing is so closely connected with his fanciful system of the progress and revolutions of society, and offered with such entire neglect of historical evidence, that no one who thought it requisite that his opinions should have a sound historical basis, could take them on the au- thority of Vico. He must at least have gone through the labour of underpinning the whole system, and building a new and sound foundation to support the parts which he wished to preserve. Now that Vico^s conclusions have been reached by more legitimate reasoning, and established on pro- bable or certain evidence, we look back v*^ith surprise on their singular anticipations ; but there is no reason to believe that they guided or even suggested the trains of research which others have pursued. Even in Italy itself the Scienza Nuova seems to have been almost neglected, after the authors death, till the beginning of the present century, and beyond the Alps it has certainly become known only in consequence of its coincidences with modern discoveries. '5 So the editor of the Milan edition says^ "Montesquieu, che ne conobbe tutto il merito, trasporto neUo Spirito deUe Leggi molte idee del nostro Autore senza neppur nominarlo, e questi se ne dolse acerbamente ; cio non e cosa insolita fra gli oltremontani che approfittarono delle opere dei nostri insegni autori." To so vague a charge it is difficult to reply ; but the systems of Vico and Montesquieu appear to be essentiaUy different, and it is hard to conceive how the author of the Esprit de8 Lois should have got through a single book of the Scienza Nuova. Vol II. No. 6. 4 N
