Essay On Machiavelli.........................................................................................................................................1

Thomas Babington Macaulay..................................................................................................................1

Part I .........................................................................................................................................................1

Part II.......................................................................................................................................................5

Part III....................................................................................................................................................14

Those who have attended to this practice of our literary tribunal are well aware, that, by means of certain

legal fictions similar to those of Westminster Hall, we are frequently enabled to take cognizance of cases

lying beyond the sphere of our original jurisdiction. We need hardly say, therefore, that, in the present

instance, M. Perier is merely a Richard Roe, who will not be mentioned in any subsequent stage of the

proceedings, and whose name is used for the sole purpose of bringing Machiavelli into court.

We doubt whether any name in literary history be so generally odious as that of the man whose character and

writings we now propose to consider. The terms in which he is commonly described would seem to impart

that he was the Tempter, the Evil Principle, the discoverer of ambition and revenge, the original inventor of

perjury, and that, before the publication of his fatal "Prince," there had never been a hypocrite, a tyrant, or a

traitor, a simulated virtue, or a convenient crime. One writer gravely assures us that Maurice of Saxony

learned all his fraudulent policy from that execrable volume. Another remarks, that, since it was translated

into Turkish, the sultans have been more addicted than formerly to the custom of strangling their brothers.

Lord Lyttelton charges the poor Florentine with the manifold treasons of the house of Guise, and with the

Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Several authors have hinted that the Gunpowder Plot is to be primarily

attributed to his doctrines, and seem to think that his effigy ought to be substituted for that of Guy Fawkes, in

those processions by which the ingenuous youth of England annually commemorate the preservation of the

Three Estates. The Church of Rome has pronounced in works accursed things. Nor have our own countrymen

been backward in testifying their opinion of his merits. Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a

It is indeed scarcely possible for any person, not well acquainted with the history and literature of Italy, to

read without horror and amazement the celebrated treatise which has brought so much obloquy on the name

of Machiavelli. Such a display of wickedness, naked yet not ashamed, such cool, judicious, scientific atrocity,

seemed rather to belong to a fiend than to the most depraved of men. Principles which the most hardened

ruffian would scarcely hint to his most trusted accomplice, or avow, without the disguise of some palliating

sophism, even to his own mind, are professed without the slightest circumlocution, and assumed as the

It is not strange that ordinary readers should regard the author of such a book as the most depraved and

shameless of human beings. Wise men, however, have always been inclined to look with great suspicion on

the angels and demons of the multitude; and, in the present instance, several circumstances have led even

superficial observers to question the justice of the vulgar decision. It is notorious that Machiavelli was,

through life, a zealous republican. In the same year in which he composed his manual of "Kingcraft," he

suffered imprisonment and torture in the cause of public liberty. It seems inconceivable that the martyr of

freedom should have designedly acted as the apostle of tyranny. Several eminent writers have, therefore,

endeavored to detect in this unfortunate performance some concealed meaning, more consistent with the

character and conduct of the author than that which appears at the first glance.

One hypothesis is, that Machiavelli intended to practice on the young Lorenzo de' Medici a fraud similar to

that which Sunderland is said to have employed against our James II, and that he urged his pupil to violent

and perfidious measures, as the surest means of accelerating the moment of deliverance and revenge. Another

supposition, which Lord Bacon seems to countenance, is that the treatise was merely a piece of grave irony,

intended to warn nations against the arts of ambitious men. It would be easy to show that neither of these

solutions is consistent with many passages in "The Prince" itself. But the most decisive refutation is that

which is furnished by the other works of Machiavelli. In all the writings which he gave to the public, and in

all those which the research of editors has, in the course of three centuries, discovered; in his comedies,

designed for the entertainment of the multitude; in his "Comments on Livy," intended for the perusal of the

most enthusiastic patriots of Florence; in his history, inscribed to one of the most amiable and estimable of

the popes; in his public despatches; in his private memoranda the same obliquity of moral principle for

which "The Prince" is so severely censured is more or less discernible. We doubt whether it would be

possible to find, in all the many volumes of his compositions, a single expression indicating that

After this, it may seem ridiculous to say that we are acquainted with few writings which exhibit so much

elevation of sentiment, so pure and warm a zeal for the public good, or so just a view of the duties and rights

of citizens, as those of Machiavelli. Yet so it is. And even from "The Prince" itself we could select many

passages in support of this remark. To a reader of our age and country, this inconsistency is, at first, perfectly

bewildering. The whole man seems to be an enigma, a grotesque assemblage of incongruous qualities,

selfishness and generosity, cruelty and benevolence, craft and simplicity, abject villany and romantic

heroism. One sentence is such as a veteran diplomatist would scarcely write in cipher for the direction of his

most confidential spy: the next seems to be extracted from a theme composed by an ardent schoolboy on the

death of Leonidas. An act of dexterous perfidy and an act of patriotic selfdevotion call forth the same kind

and the same degree of respectful admiration. The moral sensibility of the writer seems at once to be

morbidly obtuse and morbidly acute. Two characters altogether dissimilar are united in him. They are not

merely joined, but interwoven. They are the warp and the woof of his mind; and their combination, like that

of the variegated threads in shot silk, gives to the whole texture a glancing and everchanging appearance.

The explanation might have been easy if he had been a very weak or a very affected man. But he was

evidently neither the one nor the other. His works prove, beyond all contradiction, that his understanding was

This is strange, and yet the strangest is behind. There is no reason whatever to think that those amongst

whom he lived saw anything shocking or incongruous in his writings. Abundant proofs remain of the high

estimation in which both his works and his person were held by the most respectable among his

contemporaries. Clement VII patronized the publication of those very books which the Council of Trent, in

the following generation, pronounced unfit for the perusal of Christians. Some members of the democratical

party censured the secretary for dedicating "The Prince" to a patron who bore the unpopular name of Medici.

But, to those immoral doctrines which have since called forth such severe reprehensions no exception appears

to have been taken. The cry against them was first raised beyond the Alps, and seems to have been heard with

amazement in Italy. The earliest assailant, as far as we are aware, was a countryman of our own, Cardinal

It is, therefore, in the state of moral feeling among the Italians of those times that we must seek for the real

explanation of what seems most mysterious in the life and writings of this remarkable man. As this is a

subject which suggests many interesting considerations, both political and metaphysical, we shall make no

During the gloomy and disastrous centuries which followed the downfall of the Roman Empire, Italy had

preserved, in a far greater degree than any other part of western Europe, the traces of ancient civilization. The

night which descended upon her was the night of an Arctic summer. The dawn began to reappear before the

last reflection of the preceding sunset had faded from the horizon. It was in the time of the French

Merovingians and of the Saxon Heptarchy that ignorance and ferocity seemed to have done their worst. Yet

even then the Neapolitan provinces, recognizing the authority of the Eastern Empire, preserved something of

Eastern knowledge and refinement. Rome, protected by the sacred character of her pontiffs, enjoyed at least

comparative security and repose. Even in those regions where the sanguinary Lombards had fixed their

monarchy, there was incomparably more of wealth, of information, of physical comfort, and of social order,

That which most distinguished Italy from the neighboring countries was the importance which the population

of the towns, at a very early period, began to acquire. Some cities had been founded in wild and remote

situations, by fugitives who had escaped from the rage of the barbarians. Such were Venice and Genoa,

which preserved their freedom by their obscurity, till they became able to preserve it by their power. Other

cities seem to have retained, under all the changing dynasties of invaders, under Odoacer and Theodoric,

Narses and Alboin, the municipal institutions which had been conferred on them by the liberal policy of the

Great Republic. In provinces which the central government was too feeble either to protect or to oppress,

these institutions gradually acquired stability and vigor. The citizens, defended by their walls, and governed

by their own magistrates and their own bylaws, enjoyed a considerable share of republican independence.

Thus a strong democratic spirit was called into action. The Carlovingian sovereigns were too imbecile to

subdue it. The generous policy of Otho encouraged it. It might perhaps have been suppressed by a close

coalition between the Church and the empire. It was fostered and invigorated by their disputes. In the twelfth

century it attained its full vigor, and, after a long and doubtful conflict, triumphed over the abilities and

The assistance of the ecclesiastical power had greatly contributed to the success of the Guelfs. That success

would, however, have been a doubtful good, if its only effect had been to substitute a moral for a political

servitude, and to exalt the popes at the expense of the Caesars. Happily the public mind of Italy had long

contained the seeds of free opinions, which were now rapidly developed by the genial influence of free

institutions. The people of that country had observed the whole machinery of the Church, its saints and its

miracles, its lofty pretensions, and its splendid ceremonial, its worthless blessings and its harmless curses, too

long and too closely to be duped. They stood behind the scenes on which others were gazing with childish

awe and interest. They witnessed the arrangement of the pulleys, and the manufacture of the thunders. They

saw the natural faces, and heard the natural voices, of the actors. Distant nations looked on the Pope as the

vicegerent of the Almighty, the oracle of the AllWise, the umpire from whose decisions, in the disputes

either of theologians or of kings, no Christian ought to appeal. The Italians were acquainted with all the

follies of his youth, and with all the dishonest arts by which he had attained power. They knew how often he

had employed the keys of the Church to release himself from the most sacred engagements, and its wealth to

pamper his mistresses and nephews. The doctrines and rites of the established religion they treated with

decent reverence. But, though they still called themselves Catholics, they had ceased to be papists. Those

spiritual arms which carried terror into the palaces and camps of the proudest sovereigns excited only

contempt in the immediate neighborhood of the Vatican. Alexander, when he commanded our Henry II to

submit to the lash before the tomb of a rebellious subject, was himself an exile. The Romans, apprehending

that he entertained designs against their liberties, had driven him from their city; and, though he solemnly

promised to confine himself for the future to his spiritual functions, they still refused to readmit him.

In every other part of Europe, a large and powerful privileged class trampled on the people, and defied the

government. But, in the most flourishing parts of Italy, the feudal nobles were reduced to comparative

insignificance. In some districts they took shelter under the protection of the powerful commonwealths which

they were unable to oppose, and gradually sank into the mass of burghers. In other places, they possessed

great influence; but it was an influence widely different from that which was exercised by the aristocracy of

any transAlpine kingdom. They were not petty princes, but eminent citizens. Instead of strengthening their

fastnesses among the mountains, they embellished their palaces in the marketplace. The state of society in

the Neapolitan dominions, and in some parts of the ecclesiastical State, more nearly resembled that which

existed in the great monarchies of Europe. But the governments of Lombardy and Tuscany, through all their

revolutions, preserved a different character. A people, when assembled in a town, is far more formidable to

its rulers than when dispersed over a wide extent of country. The most arbitrary of the Caesars found it

necessary to feed and divert the inhabitants of their unwieldy capital at the expense of the provinces. The

citizens of Madrid have more than once besieged their sovereign in his own palace, and extorted from him the

most humiliating concessions. The sultans have often been compelled to propitiate the furious rabble of

Constantinople with the head of an unpopular vizier. From the same cause, there was a certain tinge of

Thus liberty, partially indeed and transiently, revisited Italy; and with liberty came commerce and empire,

science and taste, all the comforts and all the ornaments of life. The Crusades, from which the inhabitants of

other countries gained nothing but relics and wounds, brought to the rising commonwealths of the Adriatic

and Tyrrhene seas a large increase of wealth, dominion, and knowledge. The moral and the geographical

position of those commonwealths enabled them to profit alike by the barbarism of the West and by the

civilization of the East. Italian ships covered every sea. Italian factories rose on every shore. The tables of

Italian moneychangers were set in every city. Manufactures flourished. Banks were established. The

operations of the commercial machine were facilitated by many useful and beautiful inventions. We doubt

whether any country of Europe, our own excepted, has at the present time reached so high a point of wealth

and civilization as some parts of Italy had attained 400 years ago. Historians rarely descend to those details

from which alone the real estate of a community can be collected. Hence posterity is too often deceived by

the vague hyperboles of poets and rhetoricians, who mistake the splendor of a court for the happiness of a

people. Fortunately, John Villani has given us an example and precise account of the state of Florence in the

early part of the fourteenth century. The revenue of the republic amounted to 300,000 florins, a sum which,

allowing for the depreciation of the precious metals, was at least equivalent to pounds 600,000 sterling a

larger sum than England and Ireland, two centuries ago, yielded annually to Elizabeth. The manufacture of

wool alone employed 200 factories and 30,000 workmen. The cloth annually produced sold, at an average,

for 1,200,000 florins a sum fully equal, in exchangeable value, to pounds 2,500,000 of our money. Four

hundred thousand florins were annually coined. Eighty banks conducted the commercial operations, not of

Florence only, but of all Europe. The transactions of these establishments were sometimes of a magnitude

which may surprise even the contemporaries of the Barings and the Rothschilds. Two houses advanced to

Edward III of England upwards of 300,000 marks, at a time when the mark contained more silver than fifty

shillings of the present day, and when the value of silver was more than quadruple of what it now is. The city,

and its environs contained 170,000 inhabitants. In the various schools about 10,000 children were taught to

The progress of elegant literature and of the fine arts was proportioned to that of the public prosperity. Under

the despotic successors of Augustus all the fields of the intellect had been turned into arid wastes, still marked

out by formal boundaries, still retaining the traces of old cultivation, but yielding neither flowers nor fruit.

The deluge of barbarism came. It swept away all the landmarks. It obliterated all the signs of former tillage.

But, it fertilized while it devastated. When it receded, the wilderness was as the garden of God, rejoicing on

every side, laughing, clapping its hands, pouring forth, in spontaneous abundance, everything brilliant or

fragrant or nourishing. A new language, characterized by simple sweetness and simple energy, had attained

perfection. No tongue ever furnished more gorgeous and vivid tints to poetry; nor was it long before a poet

appeared who knew how to employ them. Early in the fourteenth century came forth "The Divine Comedy,"

beyond comparison the greatest work of imagination which had appeared since the poems of Homer. The

following generation produced indeed no second Dante, but it was eminently distinguished by general

intellectual activity. The study of the Latin writers had never been wholly neglected in Italy. But Petrarch

introduced a more profound, liberal, and elegant scholarship, had communicated to his countrymen that

enthusiasm for the literature, the history, and the antiquities of Rome, which divided his own heart with a

frigid mistress and a more frigid muse. Boccaccio turned their attention to the more sublime and graceful

From this time, the admiration of learning and genius became almost an idolatry among the people of Italy.

Kings and republics, cardinals and doges, vied with each other in honoring and flattering Petrarch. Embassies

from rival States solicited the honor of his instructions. His coronation agitated the Court of Naples and the

people of Rome as much as the most important political transaction could have done. To collect books and

antiques, to found professorships, to patronize men of learning, became almost universal fashions among the

great. The spirit of literary research allied itself to that of commercial enterprise. Every place to which the

merchant princes of Florence extended their gigantic traffic, from the bazars of the Tigris to the monasteries

of the Clyde, was ransacked for medals and manuscripts. Architecture, painting, and sculpture were

munificently encouraged. Indeed, it would be difficult to name an Italian of eminence, during the period of

which we speak, who, whatever may have been his general character, did not at least affect a love of letters

Knowledge and public prosperity continued to advance together. Both attained their meridian in the age of

Lorenzo the Magnificent. We cannot refrain from quoting the splendid passage in which the Tuscan

Thucydides describes the state of Italy at that period. "Ridotta tutta in somma pace e tranquillita coltivata non

meno ne luogti piu montusoi e piu sterili che nelle pianure e regioni piu fertili, ne sottoposta ad altro imperio

che de suoi medesimi, non solo era abbondantissima d' abitatori e di ricchezze; ma illustrata sommamente

dalla magnificenza di molti principi, dallo splendore di molte nobilissime e bellissime citta, dalla sedia e

maesta della religione, fioriva d' uomini prestantissimi nell' amministrazione delle cose pubbliche, e d'

ingegni molto nobili in tutte le scienze, ed in qualunque arte preclara ed industriosa." When we peruse this

just and splendid description, we can scarcely persuade ourselves that we are reading of times in which the

annals of England and France present us only with a frightful spectacle of poverty, barbarity, and ignorance.

From the oppressions of illiterate masters, and the sufferings of a degraded peasantry, it is delightful to turn

to the opulent and enlightened States of Italy, to the vast and magnificent cities, the ports, the arsenals, the

villas, the museums, the libraries, the marts filled with every article of comfort or luxury, the factories

swarming with artisans, the Apennines covered with rich cultivation up to their very summits, the Po wafting

the harvests of Lombardy to the granaries of Venice, and carrying back the silks of Bengal and the furs of

Siberia to the palaces of Milan. With peculiar pleasure every cultivated mind must repose on the fair, the

happy, the glorious Florence, the halls which rang with the mirth of Pulci, the cell where twinkled the

midnight lamp of Politian, the statues on which the young eye of Michael Angelo glared with the frenzy of a

kindred inspiration, the gardens in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling song for the Mayday dance of

the Etrurian virgins. Alas for the beautiful city! Alas for the wit and the learning, the genius and the love!

"Le donne, e i cavalieri, gli affanni e gli agi, Che ne'nvogliava amore e cortesia La dove i cuor son fatti si

A time was at hand when all the seven vials of the Apocalypse were to be poured forth and shaken out over

those pleasant countries a time of slaughter, famine, beggary, infamy, slavery, despair.

In the Italian States, as in many natural bodies, untimely decrepitude was the penalty of precocious maturity.

Their early greatness, and their early decline, are principally to be attributed to the same cause the

In a community of hunters or of shepherds every man easily and necessarily becomes a soldier. His ordinary

avocations are perfectly compatible with all the duties of military service. However remote may be the

expedition on which he is bound, he finds it easy to transport with him the stock from which he derives his

subsistence. The whole people in an army, the whole year a march. Such was the state of society which

But a people which subsists by the cultivation of the earth is in a very different situation. The husbandman is

bound to the soil on which he labors. A long campaign would be ruinous to him. Still his pursuits are such as

to give his frame both the active and the passive strength necessary to a soldier. Nor do they, at least in the

infancy of agricultural science, demand his uninterrupted attention. At particular times of the year he is

almost wholly unemployed, and can, without injury to himself, afford the time necessary for a short

expedition. Thus the legions of Rome were supplied during its earlier wars. The season during which the

fields did not require the presence of the cultivators sufficed for a short inroad and a battle. These operations,

too frequently interrupted to produce decisive results, yet served to keep up among the people a degree of

discipline and courage which rendered them not only secure but formidable. The archers and billmen of the

Middle Ages, who, with provisions for forty days at their back, left the fields for the camp, were troops of the

But when commerce and manufactures begin to flourish, a great change takes place. The sedentary habits of

the desk and the loom render the exertions and hardships of war insupportable. The business of traders and

artisans requires their constant presence and attention. In such a community there is little superfluous time;

but there is generally much superfluous money. Some members of the society are, therefore, hired to relieve

The history of Greece is, in this, as in many other respects, the best commentary on the history of Italy. Five

hundred years before the Christian era the citizens of the republics round the Aegean Sea formed perhaps the

finest militia that ever existed. As wealth and refinement advanced, the system underwent a gradual

alteration. The Ionian States were the first in which commerce and the arts were cultivated, and the first in

which the ancient discipline decayed. Within eighty years after the battle of Plataea, mercenary troops were

everywhere plying for battles and sieges. In the time of Demosthenes, it was scarcely possible to persuade or

compel the Athenians to enlist for foreign service. The laws of Lycurgus prohibited trade and manufactures.

The Spartans, therefore, continued to form a national force long after their neighbors had begun to hire

soldiers. But their military spirit declined with their singular institutions. In the second century before Christ,

Greece contained only one nation of warriors, the savage highlanders of Aetolia, who were some generations

All the causes which produced these effects among the Greeks acted still more strongly on the modern

Italians. Instead of a power like Sparta, in its nature warlike, they had amongst them an ecclesiastical state, in

its nature pacific. Where there are numerous slaves, every freeman is induced by the strongest motives to

familiarize himself with the use of arms. The commonwealths of Italy did not, like those of Greece, swarm

with thousands of these household enemies. Lastly, the mode in which military operations were conducted

during the prosperous times of Italy was peculiarly unfavorable to the formation of an efficient militia. Men

covered with iron from head to foot, armed with ponderous lances, and mounted on horses of the largest

breed, were considered as composing the strength of an army. The infantry was regarded as comparatively

worthless, and was neglected till it became really so. These tactics maintained their ground for centuries in

most parts of Europe. That footsoldiers could withstand the charge of heavy cavalry was thought utterly

impossible, till, towards the close of the fifteenth century, the rude mountaineers of Switzerland dissolved the

spell, and astounded the most experienced generals by receiving the dreaded shock on an impenetrable forest

The use of the Grecian spear, the Roman sword, or the modern bayonet, might be acquired with comparative

ease. But nothing short of the daily exercise of years could train the man at arms to support his ponderous

panoply, and manage his unwieldy weapon. Throughout Europe this most important branch of war became a

separate profession. Beyond the Alps, indeed, though a profession, it was not generally a trade. It was the

duty and the amusement of a large class of country gentlemen. It was the service by which they held their

lands, and the diversion by which, in the absence of mental resources, they beguiled their leisure. But in the

northern States of Italy, as we have already remarked, the growing power of the cities, where it had not

exterminated this order of men, had completely changed their habits. Here, therefore, the practice of

employing mercenaries became universal, at a time when it was almost unknown in other countries.

When war becomes the trade of a separate class the least dangerous course left to a government is to form

that class into a standing army. It is scarcely possible that men can pass their lives in the service of one State,

without feeling some interest in its greatness. Its victories are their victories. Its defeats are their defeats. The

contract loses something of its mercantile character. The services of the soldier are considered as the effects

of patriotic zeal, his pay as the tribute of national gratitude. To betray the power which employs him, to be

even remiss in its service, are in his eyes the most atrocious and degrading of crimes.

When the princes and commonwealths of Italy began to use hired troops, their wisest course would have been

to form separate military establishments. Unhappily this was not done. The mercenary warriors of the

Peninsula, instead of being attached to the service of different powers, were regarded as the common property

of all. The connection between the State and its defenders was reduced to the most simple and naked traffic.

The adventurer brought his horse, his weapons, his strength, and his experience, into the market. Whether the

King of Naples or the Duke of Milan, the Pope or the Signory of Florence, struck the bargain, was to him a

matter of perfect indifference. He was for the highest wages and the longest term. When the campaign for

which he had contracted was finished, there was neither law nor punctilio to prevent him from instantly

turning his arms against his late masters. The soldier was altogether disjoined from the citizen and from the

The natural consequences followed. Left to the conduct of men who neither loved those whom they defended,

nor hated those whom they opposed, who were often bound by stronger ties to the army against which they

fought than to the State which they served, who lost by the termination of the conflict, and gained by its

prolongation, war completely changed its character. Every man came into the field of battle impressed with

the knowledge, that, in a few days, he might be taking the pay of the power against which he was then

employed, and fighting by the side of his enemies against his associates. The strongest interests and the

strongest feelings concurred to mitigate the hostility of those who had lately been brethren in arms, and who

might soon be brethren in arms once more. Their common profession was a bond of union not to be forgotten,

even when they were engaged in the service of contending parties. Hence it was that operations, languid and

indecisive beyond any recorded in history, marches and countermarches, pillaging expeditions and blockades,

bloodless capitulations and equally bloodless combats, make up the military history of Italy during the course

of nearly two centuries. Might armies fight from sunrise to sunset. A great victory is won. Thousands of

prisoners are taken, and hardly a life is lost. A pitched battle seems to have been really less dangerous than an

Courage was now no longer necessary, even to the military character. Men grew old in camps, and acquired

the highest renown by their warlike achievements, without being once required to face serious danger. The

political consequences are too well known. The richest and most enlightened part of the world was left

undefended to the assaults of every barbarous invader, to the brutality of Switzerland, the insolence of

France, and the fierce rapacity of Aragon. The moral effects which followed from this state of things were

Amongst the rude nations which lay beyond the Alps, valor was absolutely indispensable. Without it none

could be eminent, few could be secure. Cowardice was, therefore, naturally considered as the foulest

reproach. Among the polished Italians, enriched by commerce, governed by law, and passionately attached to

literature, everything was done by superiority of intelligence. Their very wars, more pacific than the peace of

their neighbors, required rather civil than military qualifications. Hence, while courage was the point of honor

From these principles were deduced, by processes strictly analogous, two opposite systems of fashionable

morality. Through the greater part of Europe, the vices which peculiarly belong to timid dispositions, and

which are the natural defence of weakness, fraud, and hypocrisy, have always been most disreputable. On the

other hand, the excesses of haughty and daring spirits have been treated with indulgence, and even with

respect. The Italians regarded with corresponding lenity those crimes which require selfcommand, address,

Such a prince as our Henry V would have been the idol of the North. The follies of his youth, the selfish

ambition of his manhood, the Lollards roasted at slow fires, the prisoners massacred on the field of battle, the

expiring lease of priestcraft renewed for another century, the dreadful legacy of a causeless and hopeless war

bequeathed to a people who had no interest in its event everything is forgotten but the victory of Agincourt.

Francis Sforza, on the other hand, was the model of Italian heroes. He made his employers and his rivals alike

his tools. He first overpowered his open enemies by the help of faithless allies: he then armed himself against

his allies with the spoils taken from his enemies. By his incomparable dexterity, he raised himself from the

precarious and dependent situation of a military adventurer to the first throne of Italy. To such a man much

was forgiven hollow friendship, ungenerous enmity, violated faith. Such are the opposite errors which men

commit, when their morality is not a science, but a taste, when they abandon eternal principles for accidental

We have illustrated our meaning by an instance taken from history. We will select another from fiction.

Othello murders his wife; he gives orders for the murder of his lieutenant; he ends by murdering himself. Yet

he never loses the esteem and affection of Northern readers. His intrepid and ardent spirit redeems

everything. The unsuspecting confidence with which he listens to his adviser, the agony with which he

shrinks from the thought of shame, the tempest of passion with which he commits his crimes, and the haughty

fearlessness with which he avows them, give an extraordinary interest to his character. Iago, on the contrary,

is the object of universal loathing. Many are inclined to suspect that Shakespeare has been seduced into an

exaggeration unusual with him, and has drawn a monster who has no archetype in human nature. Now, we

suspect that an Italian audience in the fifteenth century would have felt very differently. Othello would have

inspired nothing but detestation and contempt. The folly with which he trusts the friendly professions of a

man whose promotion he had obstructed, the credulity with which he takes unsupported assertions, and trivial

circumstances, for unanswerable proofs, the violence with which he silences the exculpation till the

exculpation can only aggravate his misery, would have excited the abhorrence and disgust of his spectators.

The conduct of Iago they would assuredly have condemned, but they would have condemned it as we

condemn that of his victim. Something of interest and respect would have mingled with their disapprobation.

The readiness of the traitor's wit, the clearness of his judgment, the skill with which he penetrates the

dispositions of others, and conceals his own, would have insured to him a certain portion of their esteem.

So wide was the difference between the Italians and their neighbors. A similar difference existed between the

Greeks of the second century before Christ, and their masters, the Romans. The conquerors, brave and

resolute, faithful to their engagements, and strongly influenced by religious feelings, were, at the same time,

ignorant, arbitrary, and cruel. With the vanquished people were deposited all the art, the science, and the

literature of the Western world. In poetry, in philosophy, in painting, in architecture, in sculpture, they had no

rivals. Their manners were polished, their perceptions acute, their invention ready; they were tolerant, affable,

humane; but of courage and sincerity they were almost utterly destitute. Every rude centurion consoled

himself for his intellectual inferiority, by remarking that knowledge and taste seemed only to make men

atheists, cowards and slaves. The distinction long continued to be strongly marked, and furnished and

The citizen of an Italian commonwealth was the Greek of the time of Juvenal and the Greek of the time of

Pericles, joined in one. Like the former, he was timid and pliable, artful and mean. But, like the latter, he had

a country. Its independence and prosperity were dear to him. If his character were degraded by some base

crimes, it was, on the other hand, ennobled by public spirit and by an honorable ambition.

A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice. The evil terminates in itself. A vice condemned by

the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole character. The former is a local malady, the

latter a constitutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost, he, too, often flings the remains of his

virtue after it in despair. The Highland gentleman, who, a century ago, lived by taking blackmail from his

neighbors, committed the same crime for which Wild was accompanied to Tyburn by the huzzas of 200,000

people. But there can be no doubt that he was a much less depraved man than Wild. The deed for which Mrs.

Brownrigg was hanged, sinks into nothing when compared with the conduct of the Roman who treated the

public to one hundred pairs of gladiators. Yet we should greatly wrong such a Roman if we supposed that his

disposition was as cruel as that of Mrs. Brownrigg. In our own country, a woman forfeits her place in society

by what, in a man, is too commonly considered as an honorable distinction, and at worst as a venial error.

The consequence is notorious. The moral principle of a woman is frequently more impaired by a single lapse

from virtue than that of a man by twenty years of intrigues. Classical antiquity would furnish us with

We must apply this principle to the case before us. Habits of dissimulation and falsehood, no doubt, mark a

man of our age and country as utterly worthless and abandoned. But it by no means follows that a similar

judgment would be just in the case of an Italian in the Middle Ages. On the contrary, we frequently find those

faults which we are accustomed to consider as certain indications of a mind altogether depraved, in company

with great and good qualities, with generosity, with benevolence, with disinterestedness. From such a state of

society, Palamedes, in the admirable dialogue of Hume, might have drawn illustrations of his theory as

striking as any of those with which Fourli furnished him. These are not, we well know, the lessons which

historians are generally most careful to teach, or readers most willing to learn. But they are not therefore

useless. How Philip disposed his troops at Chaeronea, where Hannibal crossed the Alps, whether Mary blew

up Darnley, or Siquier shot Charles XII, and the thousand other questions of the same description, are in

themselves unimportant. The inquiry may amuse us, but the decision leaves us no wiser. He alone reads

history aright, who, observing how powerfully circumstances influence the feelings and opinions of men,

how often vices pass into virtues, and paradoxes into axioms, learns to distinguish what is accidental and

In this respect, no history suggests more important reflections than that of the Tuscan and Lombard

commonwealths. The character of the Italian statesman seems, at first sight, a collection of contradictions, a

phantom as monstrous as the portress of hell in Milton, half divinity, half snake, majestic and beautiful

above, grovelling and poisonous below. We see a man whose thoughts and words have no connection with

each other, who never hesitates at an oath when he wishes to seduce, who never wants a pretext when he is

inclined to betray. His cruelties spring, not from the heat of blood, or the insanity of uncontrolled power, but

from deep and cool meditation. His passions, like welltrained troops, are impetuous by rule, and in their

most headstrong fury never forget the discipline to which they have been accustomed. His whole soul is

occupied with vast and complicated schemes of ambition, yet his aspect and language exhibit nothing but

philosophical moderation. Hatred and revenge eat into his heart; yet every look is a cordial smile, every

gesture a familiar caress. He never excites the suspicion of his adversaries by petty provocations. His purpose

is disclosed, only when it is accomplished. His face is unruffled, his speech is courteous, till vigilance is laid

asleep, till a vital point is exposed, till a sure aim is taken; and then he strikes for the first and last time.

Military courage, the boast of the sottish German, of the frivolous and prating Frenchman, of the romantic

and arrogant Spaniard, he neither possesses nor values. He shuns danger, not because he is insensible to

shame, but because, in the society in which he lives, timidity has ceased to be shameful. To do an injury

openly is, in his estimation, as wicked as to do it secretly, and far less profitable. With him the most

honorable means are those which are the surest, the speediest, and the darkest. He cannot comprehend how a

man should scruple to deceive those whom he does not scruple to destroy. He would think it madness to

declare open hostilities against rivals whom he might stab in a friendly embrace, or poison in a consecrated

Yet this man, black with the vices which we consider as most loathsome, traitor, hypocrite, coward, assassin,

was by no means destitute even of those virtues which we generally consider as indicating superior elevation

of character. In civil courage, in perseverance, in presence of mind, those barbarous warriors, who were

foremost in the battle or the breach, were far his inferiors. Even the dangers which he avoided with a caution

almost pusillanimous never confused his perceptions, never paralyzed his inventive faculties, never wrung

out one secret from his smooth tongue and his inscrutable brow. Though a dangerous enemy, and a still more

dangerous accomplice, he could be a just and beneficent ruler. With so much unfairness in his policy, there

was an extraordinary degree of fairness in his intellect. Indifferent to truth in the transactions of life, he was

honestly devoted to truth in the researches of speculation. Wanton cruelty was not in his nature. On the

contrary, where no political object was at stake, his disposition was soft and humane. The susceptibility of his

nerves and the activity of his imagination inclined him to sympathize with the feelings of others, and to

delight in the charities and courtesies of social life. Perpetually descending to actions which might seem to

mark a mind diseased through all its faculties, he had nevertheless an exquisite sensibility, both for the

natural and the moral sublime, for every graceful and every lofty conception. Habits of petty intrigue and

dissimulation might have rendered him incapable of great general views, but that the expanding effect of his

philosophical studies counteracted the narrowing tendency. He had the keenest enjoyment of wit, eloquence,

and poetry. The fine arts profited alike by the severity of his judgment, and by the liberality of his patronage.

The portraits of some of the remarkable Italians of those times are perfectly in harmony with this description.

Ample and majestic foreheads; brows strong and dark, but not frowning; eyes of which the calm, full gaze,

while it expresses nothing, seems to discern everything; cheeks pale with thought and sedentary habits; lips

formed with feminine delicacy, but compressed with more than masculine decisionmark out men at once

enterprising and timid, men equally skilled in detecting the purposes of others, in and concealing their own,

men who must have been formidable enemies and unsafe allies, but men, at the same time, whose tempers

were mild and equable, and who possessed an amplitude and subtlety of intellect which would have rendered

them eminent either in active or in contemplative life, and fitted them either to govern or to instruct mankind.

Every age and every nation has certain characteristic vices, which prevail almost universally, which scarcely

any person scruples to avow, and which even rigid moralists but faintly censure. Succeeding generations

change the fashion of their morals, with the fashion of their hats and their coaches; take some other kind of

wickedness under their patronage, and wonder at the depravity of their ancestors. Nor is this all. Posterity,

that high court of appeal which is never tired of eulogizing its own justice and discernment, acts on such

occasions like a Roman dictator after a general mutiny. Finding the delinquents too numerous to be all

punished, it selects some of them at hazard, to bear the whole penalty of an offence in which they are not

more deeply implicated than those who escape. Whether decimation be a convenient mode of military

execution, we know not; but we solemnly protest against the introduction of such a principle into the

In the present instance, the lot has fallen on Machiavelli, a man whose public conduct was upright and

honorable, whose views of morality, where they differed from those of the persons around him, seemed to

have differed for the better, and whose only fault was, that, having adopted some of the maxims then

generally received, he arranged them more luminously, and expressed them more forcibly, than any other

Having now, we hope, in some degree cleared the personal character of Machiavelli, we come to the

consideration of his works. As a poet, he is not entitled to a very high place; but the comedies deserve more

The "Mandragola," in particular, is superior to the best of Goldoni, and inferior only to the best of Moliere. It

is the work of a man who, if he had devoted himself to the drama, would probably have attained the highest

eminence, and produced a permanent and salutary effect on the national taste. This we infer, not so much

from the degree as from the kind of its excellence. There are compositions which indicate still greater talent,

and which are perused with still greater delight, from which we should have drawn very different

conclusions. Books quite worthless are quite harmless. The sure sign of the general decline of an art is the

frequent occurrence, not of deformity, but of misplaced beauty. In general, tragedy is corrupted by eloquence,

The real object of the drama is the exhibition of human character. This, we conceive, is no arbitrary canon,

originating in local and temporary associations, like those canons which regulate the number of acts in a play,

or of syllables in a line. To this fundamental law every other regulation is subordinate. The situations which

most signally develop character form the best plot. The mother tongue of the passions is the best style.

This principle, rightly understood, does not debar the poet from any grace of composition. There is no style in

which some man may not, under some circumstances, express himself. There is, therefore, no style which the

drama rejects, none which it does not occasionally require. It is in the discernment of place, of time, and of

person, that the inferior artists fail. The fantastic rhapsody of Mercutio, the elaborate declamation of Antony,

are, where Shakespeare has placed them, natural and pleasing. But Dryden would have made Mercutio

challenge Tybalt in hyperboles as fanciful as those in which he describes the chariot of Mab. Corneille would

have represented Antony as scolding and coaxing Cleopatra with all the measured rhetoric of a funeral

No writers have injured the comedy of England so deeply as Congreve and Sheridan. Both were men of

splendid wit and polished taste. Unhappily, they made all their characters in their own likeness. Their works

bear the same relation to the legitimate drama which a transparency bears to a painting. There are no delicate

touches, no hues imperceptibly fading into each other: the whole is lighted up with a universal glare. Outlines

and tints are forgotten in the common blaze which illuminates all. The flowers and fruits of the intellect

abound; but it is the abundance of a jungle, not of a garden, unwholesome, bewildering, unprofitable from its

very plenty, rank from its very fragrance. Every fop, every boor, every valet, is a man of wit. The very butts

and dupes, Tattle, Witwould, Puff, Acres, outshine the whole Hotel of Rambouillet. To prove the whole

system of this school erroneous, it is only necessary to apply the test which dissolved the enchanted Florimel,

to place the true by the false Thalia, to contrast the most celebrated characters which have been drawn by the

writers of whom we speak with the Bastard in "King John," or the Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet." It was not

surely from want of wit that Shakespeare adopted so different a manner. Benedick and Beatrice throw

Mirabel and Millamant into the shade. All the good sayings of the facetious hours of Absolute and Surface

might have been clipped from the single character of Falstaff without being missed. It would have been easy

for that fertile mind to have given Bardolph and Shallow as much wit as Prince Hal, and to have made

Dogberry and Verges retort on each other in sparkling epigrams. But he knew that such indiscriminate

prodigality was, to use his own admirable language, "from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first

This digression will enable our readers to understand what we mean when we say, that, in the "Mandragola,"

Machiavelli has proved that he completely understood the nature of the dramatic art, and possessed talents

which would have enabled him to excel in it. By the correct and vigorous delineation of human nature, it

produces interest without a pleasing or skillful plot, and laughter without the least ambition of wit. The lover,

not a very delicate or generous lover, and his adviser the parasite, are drawn with spirit. The hypocritical

confessor is an admirable portrait. He is, if we mistake not, the original of Father Dominic, the best comic

character of Dryden. But old Nicias is the glory of the piece. We cannot call to mind anything that resembles

him. The follies which Moliere ridicules are those of affectation, not those of fatuity. Coxcombs and pedants,

not absolute simpletons, are his game. Shakespeare has indeed a vast assortment of fools; but the precise

species of which we speak is not, if we remember right, to be found there. Shallow is a fool. But his animal

spirits supply, to a certain degree, the place of cleverness. His talk is to that of Sir John what sodawater is to

champagne. It has the effervescence, though not the body or the flavor. Slender and Sir Andrew Aguecheek

are fools, troubled with an uneasy consciousness of their folly, which, in the latter, produces meekness and

docility, and in the former, awkwardness, obstinacy, and confusion. Cloten is an arrogant fool, Osric a

foppish fool, Ajax a savage fool; but Nicias is, as Thersites says of Patroclus, a fool positive. His mind is

occupied by no strong feeling; it takes every character, and retains none; its aspect is diversified, not by

passions, but by faint and transitory semblances of passion, a mock joy, a mock fear, a mock love, a mock

pride, which chase each other like shadows over its surface, and vanish as soon as they appear. He is just idiot

enough to be an object, not of pity or horror, but of ridicule. He bears some resemblance to poor Calandrino,

whose mishaps, as recounted by Boccaccio, have made all Europe merry for more than four centuries. He

perhaps resembles still more closely Simon de Villa, to whom Bruno and Buffalmacco promised the love of

the Countess Civillari. Nicias is, like Simon, of a learned profession; and the dignity with which he wears the

doctoral fur renders his absurdities infinitely more grotesque. The old Tuscan is the very language for such a

being. Its peculiar simplicity gives even to the most forcible reasoning and the most brilliant wit an infantine

air, generally delightful, but to a foreign reader sometimes a little ludicrous. Heroes and statesmen seem to

lisp when they use it. It becomes Nicias incomparably, and renders all his silliness infinitely more silly.

We may add, that the verses with which the "Mandragola" is interspersed appear to us to be the most spirited

and correct of all that Machiavelli has written in metre. He seems to have entertained the same opinion, for he

has introduced some of them in other places. The contemporaries of the author were not blind to the merits of

this striking piece. It was acted at Florence with the greatest success. Leo X was among its admirers, and by

The "Clizia" is an imitation of the "Casina" of Plautus, which is itself an imitation of the lost kxnpoumevol of

Diphilus. Plautus was, unquestionably, one of the best Latin writers; but the "Casina" is by no means one of

his best plays, nor is it one which offers great facilities to an imitator. The story is as alien from modern

habits of life as the manner in which it is developed from the modern fashion of composition. The lover

remains in the country and the heroine in her chamber during the whole action, leaving their fate to be

decided by a foolish father, a cunning mother, and two knavish servants. Machiavelli has executed his task

with judgment and taste. He has accommodated the plot to a different state of society, and has very

dexterously connected it with the history of his own times. The relation of the trick put on the doting old

lover is exquisitely humorous. It is far superior to the corresponding passage in the Latin comedy, and

Two other comedies, without titles, the one in prose, the other in verse, appear among the works of

Machiavelli. The former is very short, lively enough, but of no great value. The latter we can scarcely believe

to be genuine. Neither its merits nor its defects remind us of the reputed author. It was first printed in 1796,

from a manuscript discovered in the celebrated library of the Strozzi. Its genuineness, if we have been rightly

informed, is established solely by the comparison of hands. Our suspicions are strengthened by the

circumstance, that the same manuscript contained a description of the plague of 1527, which has also, in

consequence, been added to the works of Machiavelli. Of this last composition, the strongest external

evidence would scarcely induce us to believe him guilty. Nothing was ever written more detestable in matter

and manner. The narrations, the reflections, the jokes, the lamentations, are all the very worst of their

respective kinds, at once trite and affected, threadbare tinsel from the Rag Fairs and Monmouth streets of

literature. A foolish schoolboy might write such a piece, and, after he had written it, think it much finer than

the incomparable introduction of "The Decameron." But that a shrewd statesman, whose earliest works are

characterized by manliness of thought and language, should, at near sixty years of age, descend to such

The little novel of "Belphegor" is pleasantly conceived, and pleasantly told. But the extravagance of the satire

in some measure injures its effect. Machiavelli was unhappily married; and his wish to avenge his own cause,

and that of his brethren in misfortune, carried him beyond even the license of fiction. Jonson seems to have

combined some hints taken from this tale, with others from Boccaccio, in the plot of "The Devil is an Ass," a

play which, though not the most highly finished of his compositions, is perhaps that which exhibits the

The political correspondence of Machiavelli, first published in 1767, is unquestionably genuine, and highly

valuable. The unhappy circumstances in which his country was placed during the greater part of his public

life gave extraordinary encouragement to diplomatic talents. From the moment that Charles VIII descended

from the Alps the whole character of Italian politics was changed. The governments of the Peninsula ceased

to form an independent system. Drawn from their old orbit by the attraction of the larger bodies which now

approach them, they became mere satellites of France and Spain. All their disputes, internal and external,

were decided by foreign influence. The contests of opposite factions were carried on, not as formerly in the

Senate house or in the marketplace, but in the antechambers of Louis and Ferdinand. Under these

circumstances, the prosperity of the Italian States depended far more on the ability of their foreign agents,

than on the conduct of those who were intrusted with the domestic administration. The ambassador had to

discharge functions far more delicate than transmitting orders of knighthood, introducing tourists, or

presenting his brethren with the homage of his high consideration. He was an advocate to whose management

the dearest interests of his clients were intrusted, a spy clothed with an inviolable character. Instead of

consulting, by a reserved manner and ambiguous style, the dignity of those whom he represented, he was to

plunge into all the intrigues of the court at which he resided, to discover and flatter every weakness of the

prince, and of the favorite who governed the prince, and of the lackey who governed the favorite. He was to

compliment the mistress, and bribe the confessor, to panegyrize or supplicate, to laugh or weep, to

accommodate himself to every caprice, to lull every suspicion, to treasure every hint, to be everything, to

observe everything, to endure everything. High as the art of political intrigue had been carried in Italy, these

On these arduous errands Machiavelli was frequently employed. He was sent to treat with the King of the

Romans and with the Duke of Valentinois. He was twice ambassador at the Court of Rome, and thrice at that

of France. In these missions, and in several others of inferior importance, he acquitted himself with great

dexterity. His despatches form one of the most amusing and instructive collections extant. The narratives are

clear and agreeably written, the remarks on men and things clever and judicious. The conversations are

reported in a spirited and characteristic manner. We find ourselves introduced into the presence of the men

who, during twenty eventful years, swayed the destinies of Europe. Their wit and their folly, their fretfulness

and their merriment, are exposed to us. We are admitted to overhear their chat, and to watch their familiar

gestures. It is interesting and curious to recognize, in circumstances which elude the notice of historians, the

feeble violence and shallow cunning of Louis XII; the bustling insignificance of Maximilian, cursed with an

impotent pruriency for renown, rash yet timid, obstinate yet fickle, always in a hurry, yet always too late; the

fierce and haughty energy which gave dignity to the eccentricities of Julius; the soft and graceful manners

which masked the insatiable ambition and the implacable hatred of Caesar Borgia.

We have mentioned Caesar Borgia. It is impossible not to pause for a moment on the name of a man in whom

the political morality of Italy was so strongly personified, partially blended with the sterner lineaments of the

Spanish character. On two important occasions Machiavelli was admitted to his society once, at the

moment when Caesar's splendid villainy achieved its most signal triumph, when he caught in one snare, and

crushed at one blow, all his most formidable rivals; and again when, exhausted by disease, and overwhelmed

by misfortunes which no human prudence could have averted, he was the prisoner of the deadliest enemy of

his house. These interviews between the greatest speculative and the greatest practical statesmen of the age

are fully described in the "Correspondence," and form, perhaps, the most interesting part of it. From some

passages in "The Prince," and perhaps also from some indistinct traditions, several writers have supposed a

connection between those remarkable men much closer than ever existed. The envoy has even been accused

of prompting the crimes of the artful and merciless tyrant. But, from the official documents, it is clear that

their intercourse, though ostensibly amicable, was in reality hostile. It cannot be doubted, however, that the

imagination of Machiavelli was strongly impressed, and his speculations on government colored, by the

observations which he made on the singular character and equally singular fortunes of a man who, under such

disadvantages, had achieved such exploits; who, when sensuality, varied through innumerable forms, could

no longer stimulate his sated mind, found a more powerful and durable excitement in the intense thirst of

empire and revenge; who emerged from the sloth and luxury of the Roman purple the first prince and general

of the age; who, trained in an unwarlike profession, formed a gallant army out of the dregs of an unwarlike

people; who, after acquiring sovereignty by destroying his enemies, acquired popularity by destroying his

tools; who had begun to employ for the most salutary ends the power which he had attained by the most

atrocious means; who tolerated within the sphere of his iron despotism no plunderer or oppressor but himself;

and who fell at last amidst the mingled curses and regrets of a people of whom his genius had been the

wonder, and might have been the salvation. Some of those crimes of Borgia which to us appear the most

odious, would not, from causes which we have already considered, have struck an Italian of the fifteenth

century with equal horror. Patriotic feeling also might induce Machiavelli to look with some indulgence and

regret on the memory of the only leader who could have defended the independence of Italy against the

On this subject, Machiavelli felt most strongly. Indeed, the expulsion of the foreign tyrants, and the

restoration of that golden age which had preceded the irruption of Charles VIII, were projects which, at that

time, fascinated all the masterspirits of Italy. The magnificent vision delighted the great but illregulated

mind of Julius. It divided with manuscripts and saucers, painters and falcons, the attention of the frivolous

Leo. It prompted the generous treason of Morone. It imparted a transient energy to the feeble mind and body

of the last Sforza. It excited for one moment an honest ambition in the false heart of Pescara. Ferocity and

insolence were not among the vices of the national character. To the discriminating cruelties of politicians,

committed for great ends on select victims, the moral code of the Italians was too indulgent. But, though they

might have recourse to barbarity as an expedient, they did not require it as a stimulant. They turned with

loathing from the atrocity of the strangers who seemed to love blood for its own sake; who, not content with

subjugating, were impatient to destroy; who found a fiendish pleasure in razing magnificent cities, cutting the

throats of enemies who cried for quarter, or suffocating an unarmed population by thousands in the caverns to

which it had fled for safety. Such were the cruelties which daily excited the terror and disgust of a people

among whom, till lately, the worst that a soldier had to fear in a pitched battle was the loss of his horse and

the expense of his ransom. The swinish intemperance of Switzerland; the wolfish avarice of Spain; the gross

licentiousness of the French, indulged in violation of hospitality, of decency, of love itself; the wanton

inhumanity which was common to all the invaders had made them objects of deadly hatred to the

inhabitants of the Peninsula. The wealth which had been accumulated during centuries of prosperity and

repose was rapidly melting away. The intellectual superiority of the oppressed people only rendered them

more keenly sensible of their political degradation. Literature and taste, indeed, still disguised with a flush of

hectic loveliness and brilliancy the ravages of an incurable decay. The iron had not yet entered into the soul.

The time was not yet come when eloquence was to be gagged, and reason to be hoodwinked, when the harp

of the poet was to be hung on the willows of Arno, and the right hand of the painter to forget its cunning. Yet

a discerning eye might even then have seen that genius and learning would not long survive the state of things

from which they had sprung, and that the great men whose talents gave lustre to that melancholy period had

been formed under the influence of happier days, and would leave no successors behind them. The times

which shine with the greatest splendor in literary history are not always those to which the human mind is

most indebted. Of this we may be convinced, by comparing the generation which follows them with that

which had preceded them. The first fruits which are reaped under a bad system often spring from seed sown

under a good one. Thus it was, in some measure, with the Augustan age. Thus it was with the age of Raphael

Machiavelli deeply regretted the misfortunes of his country, and clearly discerned the cause and the remedy.

It was the military system of the Italian people which had extinguished their valor and discipline, and left

their wealth an easy prey to every foreign plunderer. The secretary projected a scheme, alike honorable to his

heart and to his intellect, for abolishing the use of mercenary troops, and for organizing a national militia.

The exertions which he made to effect this great object ought alone to rescue his name from obloquy. Though

his situation and his habits were pacific, he studied with intense assiduity the theory of war. He made himself

master of all its details. The Florentine government entered into his views. A council of war was appointed.

Levies were decreed. The indefatigable minister flew from place to place in order to superintend the

execution of his design. The times were, in some respects, favorable to the experiment. The system of

military tactics had undergone a great revolution. The cavalry was no longer considered as forming the

strength of an army. The hours which a citizen could spare from his ordinary employments, though by no

means sufficient to familiarize him with the exercise of a manatarms, might render him a useful

footsoldier. The dread of a foreign yoke, of plunder, massacre, and conflagration, might have conquered that

repugnance to military pursuits which both the industry and the idleness of great towns commonly generate.

For a time the scheme promised well. The new troops acquitted themselves respectably in the field.

Machiavelli looked with parental rapture on the success of his plan, and began to hope that the arms of Italy

might once more be formidable to the barbarians of the Tagus and the Rhine. But the tide of misfortune came

on before the barriers which should have withstood it were prepared. For a time, indeed, Florence might be

considered as peculiarly fortunate. Famine and sword and pestilence had devastated the fertile plains and

stately cities of the Po. All the curses denounced of old against Tyre seemed to have fallen on Venice. Her

merchants already stood afar off, lamenting for their great city. The time seemed near when the seaweed

should overgrow her silent Rialto, and the fisherman wash his nets in her deserted arsenal. Naples had been

four times conquered and reconquered by tyrants equally indifferent to its welfare, and equally greedy for its

spoils. Florence, as yet, had only to endure degradation and extortion, to submit to the mandates of foreign

powers, to buy over and over again, at an enormous price, what was already justly her own, to return thanks

for being wronged, and to ask pardon for being in the right. She was at length deprived of the blessings, even

of this infamous and servile repose. Her military and political institutions were swept away together. The

Medici returned, in the train of foreign invaders, from their long exile. The policy of Machiavelli was

abandoned; and his public services were requited with poverty, imprisonment, and torture.

The fallen statesman still clung to his project with unabated ardor. With the view of vindicating it from some

popular objections, and of refuting some prevailing errors on the subject of military science, he wrote his

"Seven Books on the Art of War." This excellent work is in the form of a dialogue. The opinions of the writer

are put into the mouth of Fabrizio Colonna, a powerful nobleman of the ecclesiastical State, and an officer of

distinguished merit in the service of the King of Spain. Colonna visits Florence on his way from Lombardy to

his own domains. He is invited to meet some friends at the house of Cosimo Rucellai, an amiable and

accomplished young man, whose early death Machiavelli feelingly deplores. After partaking of an elegant

entertainment, they retire from the heat into the most shady recesses of the garden. Fabrizio is struck by the

sight of some uncommon plants. Cosimo says, that, though rare in modern days, they are frequently

mentioned by the classical authors, and that his grandfather, like many other Italians, amused himself with

practising the ancient methods of gardening. Fabrizio expresses his regret that those who, in later times,

affected the manners of the old Romans, should select for imitation the most trifling pursuits. This leads to a

conversation on the decline of military discipline, and on the best means of restoring it. The institution of the

Florentine militia is ably defended, and several improvements are suggested in the details.

The Swiss and the Spaniards were, at that time, regarded as the best soldiers in Europe. The Swiss battalion

consisted of pikemen, and bore a close resemblance to the Greek phalanx. The Spaniards, like the soldiers of

Rome, were armed with the sword and the shield. The victories of Flaminius and Aemilius over the

Macedonian kings seem to prove the superiority of the weapons used by the legions. The same experiment

had been recently tried with the same result at the battle of Ravenna, one of those tremendous days into

which human folly and wickedness compress the whole devastation of a famine or a plague. In that

memorable conflict, the infantry of Aragon, the old companions of Gonsalvo, deserted by all their allies,

hewed a passage through the thickest of the imperial pikes, and effected an unbroken retreat, in the face of the

gendarmerie of De Foix, and the renowned artillery of Este. Fabrizio, or rather Machiavelli, proposes to

combine the two systems, to arm the foremost lines with the pike for the purpose of repulsing cavalry, and

those in the rear with the sword, as being a weapon better adapted for every other purpose. Throughout the

work, the author expresses the highest admiration of the military science of the ancient Romans, and the

greatest contempt for the maxims which had been in vogue amongst the Italian commanders of the preceding

generation. He prefers infantry to cavalry, and fortified camps to fortified towns. He is inclined to substitute

rapid movements and decisive engagements for the languid and dilatory operations of his countrymen. He

attaches very little importance to the invention of gunpowder. Indeed, he seems to think that it ought scarcely

to produce any change in the mode of arming or of disposing troops. The general testimony of historians, it

must be allowed, seems to prove that the illconstructed and illserved artillery of those times, though useful

On the tactics of Machiavelli we will not venture to give an opinion, but we are certain that his book is most

able and interesting. As a commentary on the history of his times, it is invaluable. The ingenuity, the grace,

and the perspicuity of the style, and the eloquence and animation of particular passages, must give pleasure,

"The Prince" and the "Discourses on Livy" were written after the fall of the republican government. The

former was dedicated to the young Lorenzo de' Medici. This circumstance seems to have disgusted the

contemporaries of the writer far more that the doctrines which have rendered the name of the work odious in

latter times. It was considered as an indication of political apostasy. The fact, however, seems to have been,

that Machiavelli, despairing of the liberty of Florence, was inclined to support any government which might

preserve her independence. The interval which separated a democracy and a despotism Soderini and Lorenzo,

seemed to vanish when compared with the difference between the former and the present state of Italy,

between the security, the opulence, and the repose which she had enjoyed under its native rulers, and the

misery in which she had been plunged since the fatal year in which the first foreign tyrant had descended

from the Alps. The noble and pathetic exhortation with which "The Prince" concludes shows how strongly

"The Prince" traces the progress of an ambitious man, the "Discourses" the progress of an ambitious people.

The same principles on which, in the former work, the elevation of an individual is explained, are applied, in

the latter, to the longer duration and more complex interest of a society. To a modern statesman the form of

the "Discourses" may appear to be puerile. In truth, Livy is not a historian on whom implicit reliance can be

placed, even in cases where he must have possessed considerable means of information. And the first Decade,

to which Machiavelli has confined himself, is scarcely entitled to more credit than our Chronicle of British

Kings who reigned before the Roman invasion. But the commentator is indebted to Livy for little more than a

few texts which he might as easily have extracted from the Vulgate or "The Decameron." The whole train of

On the peculiar immorality which has rendered "The Prince" unpopular, and which is almost equally

discernible in the "Discourses" we have already given our opinion at length. We have attempted to show that

it belonged rather to the age than to the man, that it was a partial taint, and by no means implied general

depravity. We cannot, however, deny that it is a great blemish, and that it considerably diminishes the

pleasure which, in other respects, those works must afford to every intelligent mind.

It is, indeed, impossible to conceive a more healthful and vigorous constitution of the understanding than that

which these works indicate. The qualities of the active and the contemplative statesman appear to have been

blended in the mind of the writer into a rare and exquisite harmony. His skill in the details of business had not

been acquired at the expense of his general powers. It had not rendered his mind less comprehensive; but it

had served to correct his speculations, and to impart to them that vivid and practical character which so

widely distinguishes them from the vague theories of most political philosophers.

Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is so useless as a general maxim. If it be very moral

and very true, it may serve for a copy to a charity boy. If, like those of Rochefoucauld, it be sparkling and

whimsical, it may make an excellent motto for an essay. But few indeed of the many wise apophthegms

which have been uttered, from the time of the Seven Sages of Greece to that of "Poor Richard," have

prevented a single foolish action. We give the highest and the most peculiar praise to the precepts of

Machiavelli when we say that they may frequently be of real use in regulating conduct, not so much because

they are more just or more profound than those which might be culled from other authors, as because they

There are errors in these works. But they are errors which a writer, situated like Machiavelli, could scarcely

avoid. They arise, for the most part, from a single defect which appears to us to pervade his whole system. In

his political scheme, the means had been more deeply considered than the ends. The great principle, that

societies and laws exist only for the purpose of increasing the sum of private happiness, is not recognized

with sufficient clearness. The good of the body, distinct from the good of the members, and sometimes hardly

compatible with the good of the members, seems to be the object which he proposes to himself. Of all

political fallacies, this has perhaps had the widest and the most mischievous operation. The state of society in

the little commonwealths of Greece, the close connection and mutual dependence of the citizens, and the

severity of the laws of war, tended to encourage an opinion which, under such circumstances, could hardly be

called erroneous. The interests of every individual were inseparably bound up with those of the State. An

invasion destroyed his cornfields and vineyards, drove him from his home, and compelled him to encounter

all the hardships of a military life. A treaty of peace restored him to security and comfort. A victory doubled

the number of his slaves. A defeat perhaps made him a slave himself. When Pericles, in the Peloponnesian

war, told the Athenians, that, if their country triumphed, their private losses would speedily be repaired, but

that, if their arms failed of success, every individual amongst them would probably be ruined, he spoke no

more than the truth. He spoke to men whom the tribute of vanquished cities supplied with food and clothing,

with the luxury of the bath and the amusements of the theatre, on whom the greatness of their country

conferred rank, and before whom the members of less prosperous communities trembled; to men who, in case

of a change in the public fortunes, would, at least, be deprived of every comfort and every distinction which

they enjoyed. To be butchered on the smoking ruins of their city, to be dragged in chains to a slavemarket,

to see one child torn from them to dig in the quarries of Sicily, and another to guard the harems of Persepolis,

these were the frequent and probable consequences of national calamities. Hence, among the Greeks,

patriotism became a governing principle, or rather an ungovernable passion. Their legislators and their

philosophers took it for granted, that, in providing for the strength and greatness of the State, they sufficiently

provided for the happiness of the people. The writers of the Roman Empire lived under despots, into whose

dominion a hundred nations were melted down, and whose gardens would have covered the little

commonwealths of Phlius and Plataea. Yet they continued to employ the same language, and to cant about

Causes similar to those which had influenced the disposition of the Greeks operated powerfully on the less

vigorous and daring character of the Italians. The Italians, like the Greeks, were members of small

communities. Every man was deeply interested in the welfare of the society to which he belonged, a partaker

in its wealth and its poverty, in its glory and its shame. In the age of Machiavelli this was peculiarly the case.

Public events had produced an immense sum of misery to private citizens. The Northern invaders had brought

want to their boards, infamy to their beds, fire to their roofs, and the knife to their throats. It was natural that a

man who lived in times like these should overrate the importance of those measures by which a nation is

rendered formidable to its neighbors, and undervalue those which make it prosperous within itself.

Nothing is more remarkable in the political treatises of Machiavelli than the fairness of mind which they

indicate. It appears where the author is in the wrong, almost as strongly as where he is in the right. He never

advances a false opinion because it is new or splendid, because he can clothe it in a happy phrase, or defend it

by an ingenious sophism. His errors are at once explained by a reference to the circumstances in which he

was placed. They evidently were not sought out: they lay in his way, and could scarcely be avoided. Such

The political works of Machiavelli derive a peculiar interest from the mournful earnestness which he

manifests whenever he touches on topics connected with the calamities of his native land. It is difficult to

conceive any situation more painful that of a great man, condemned to watch the lingering agony of an

exhausted country, to tend it during the alternate fits of stupefaction and raving which precede its dissolution,

and to see the symptoms of vitality disappear one by one, till nothing is left but coldness, darkness, and

corruption. To this joyless and thankless duty was Machiavelli called. In the energetic language of the

prophet, he was "mad for the sight of his eyes which he saw" disunion in the Council, effeminacy in the

camp, liberty extinguished, commerce decaying, national honor sullied, an enlightened and flourishing people

given over to the ferocity of ignorant savages. Though his opinions had not escaped the contagion of that

political immorality which was common among his countrymen, his natural disposition seems to have been

rather stern and impetuous than pliant and artful. When the misery and degradation of Florence, and the foul

outrage which he had himself sustained, recur to his mind, the smooth craft of his profession and his nation is

exchanged for the honest bitterness of scorn and anger. He speaks like one sick of the calamitous times and

abject people among whom his lot is cast. He pines for the strength and glory of ancient Rome, for the fasces

of Brutus and the sword of Scipio, the gravity of the curule chair, and the bloody pomp of the triumphal

sacrifice. He seems to be transported back to the days when 800,000 Italian warriors sprung to arms at the

rumor of a Gallic invasion. He breathes all the spirit of those intrepid and haughty Senators who forgot the

dearest ties of nature in the claims of public duty, who looked with disdain on the elephants and on the gold

of Pyrrhus, and listened with unaltered composure to the tremendous tidings of Cannae. Like an ancient

temple deformed by the barbarous architecture of a later age, his character acquires an interest from the very

circumstances which debase it. The original proportions are rendered more striking by the contrast which

The influence of the sentiments which we have described was not apparent in his writings alone. His

enthusiasm, barred from the career which it would have selected for itself, seems to have found a vent in

desperate levity. He enjoyed a vindictive pleasure in outraging the opinions of a society which he despised.

He became careless of the decencies which were expected from a man so highly distinguished in the literary

and political world. The sarcastic bitterness of his conversation disgusted those who were more inclined to

accuse his licentiousness than their own degeneracy, and who were unable to conceive the strength of those

emotions which are concealed by the jests of the wretched, and by the follies of the wise.

The historical works of Machiavelli still remain to be considered. The life of Castruccio Castracani will

occupy us for a very short time, and would scarcely have demanded our notice had it not attracted a much

greater share of public attention than it deserves. Few books, indeed, could be more interesting than a careful

and judicious account, from such a pen, of the illustrious Prince of Lucca, the most eminent of those Italian

chiefs, who, like Pisistratus and Gelon, acquired a power felt rather than seen, and resting, not on law or on

prescription, but on the public favor and on their great personal qualities. Such a work would exhibit to us the

real nature of that species of sovereignty, so singular and so often misunderstood, which the Greeks

denominated tyranny, and which, modified in some degree by the feudal system, reappeared in the

commonwealths of Lombardy and Tuscany. But this little composition of Machiavelli is in no sense a history.

It has no pretensions to fidelity. It is trifle, and not a very successful trifle. It is scarcely more authentic than

The last great work of this illustrious man was the history of his native city. It was written by command of the

Pope, who, as chief of the house of Medici, was at that time sovereign of Florence. The characters of Cosimo,

of Piero, and of Lorenzo, are, however, treated with a freedom and impartiality equally honorable to the

writer and to the patron. The miseries and humiliations of dependence, the bread which is more bitter than

every other food, the stairs which are more painful than every other ascent, has not broken the spirit of

Machiavelli. The most corrupting post in a corrupting profession had not depraved the generous heart of

The history does not appear to be the fruit of much industry or research. It is unquestionably inaccurate. But it

is elegant, lively, and picturesque, beyond any other in the Italian language. The reader, we believe, carries

away from it a more vivid and a more faithful impression of the national character and manners than from

more correct accounts. The truth is, that the book belongs rather to ancient than to modern literature. It is in

the style, not of Davila and Clarendon, but of Herodotus and Tacitus. The classical histories may almost be

called romances founded in fact. The relation is, no doubt, in all its principel points, strictly true. But the

numerous little incidents which heighten the interest, the words, the gestures, the looks, are evidently

furnished by the imagination of the author. The fashion of later times is different. A more exact narrative is

It may be doubted whether more exact notions are conveyed to the reader. The best portraits are perhaps

those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature, and we are not certain that the best histories are not

those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in

accuracy, but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected, but the great characteristic features are

The history terminates with the death of Lorenzo de' Medici. Machiavelli had, it seems, intended to continue

his narrative to a later period. But his death prevented the execution of his design, and the melancholy task of

Machiavelli lived long enough to see the commencement of the last struggle for Florentine liberty. Soon after

his death monarchy was finally established, not such a monarchy as that of which Cosimo had laid the

foundations deep in the institutions and feelings of his countrymen, and which Lorenzo had embellished with

the trophies of every science and every art, but a loathsome tyranny, proud and mean, cruel and feeble,

bigoted and lascivious. The character of Machiavelli was hateful to the new masters of Italy, and those parts

of his theory which were in strict accordance with their own daily practice afforded a pretext for blackening

his memory. His works were misrepresented by the learned, misconstrued by the ignorant, censured by the

Church, abused with all the rancor of simulated virtue by the tools of a base government and the priests of a

baser superstition. The name of the man whose genius had illuminated all the dark places of policy, and to

whose patriotic wisdom an oppressed people had owed their last chance of emancipation and revenge, passed

into a proverb of infamy. For more than two hundred years his bones lay undistinguished. At length an

English nobleman paid the last honors to the greatest statesman of Florence. In the Church of Santa Croce a

monument was erected to his memory, which is contemplated with reverence by all who can distinguish the

virtues of a great mind through the corruptions of a degenerate age, and which will be approached with still

deeper homage when the object to which his public life was devoted shall be attained, when the foreign yoke

shall be broken, when a second Procida shall avenge the wrongs of Naples, when a happier Rienzi shall

restore the good estate of Rome, when the streets of Florence and Bologna shall again resound with their