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quisitely humorous. It is far superior to the corresponding passage in the Latin comedy, and scarcely yields to the account which Falstaff gives of his ducking.

conduct of those who were intrusted with the domestic administration. The ambassador had to discharge functious 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 the dignity of those whom he represented by a reserved manner and an ambigu ous style, he was to plunge into all the intrigues of the court at which he resided, to discover and flatter every weakness of the prince who governed his employers, of the favourite who governed the prince, and of the lacquey who governed the favourite. 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 every thing, to observe every thing, to endure every thing. High as the art of political intrigue had been carried in Italy, these were times which required it all.

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 Ragfairs and Monmouth-streets of literature. A foolish school-boy might perhaps write it, and, after he had written it, think it much finer than the incomparable introduction of the De-France. In these missions, and in several cameron. But that a shrewd statesman, whose earliest works are characterized by manliness of thought and language, should at nearly sixty years of age, descend to such puerility, is ui-lections extant. We meet with none of the

terly inconceivable.

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

others of inferior importance, he acquitted himself with great dexterity. His despatches form one of the most amusing and instructive_col

mysterious jargon so common in modern state papers, the flash-language of political robbers and sharpers. The narratives are clear and agreeably written; the remarks on men and things clever and judicious. The conversa tions are reported in a spirited and character

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 be-istic manner. We find ourselves introduced yond even the license of fiction. Jonson seems to have combined some hints taking from this taie 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 strongest proofs of genius.

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 recognise, in circumstances which elude the notice of historians, the feeble violence and shallow cunning of Louis the Twelfth; 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 Borgia.

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 the Eighth descended from the Alps, the whole character of Italian politics was changed. The governments of the Peninsula cease to form an independent system. Drawn from their old We have mentioned Borgia. It is impossiorbit by the attraction of the larger bodies ble not to pause for a moment on the name of which now approached them, they became a man in whom the political morality of Italy mere satellites of France and Spain. All their was so strongly personified, partially blended disputes, internal and external, were decided with the sterner lineaments of the Spanish by foreign influence. The contests of opposite factions were carried on, not as formerly in the Senate-house, or in the market-place, 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

character. On two important occasions Machiavelli was admitted to his society: once, at the moment when his sp.endid villany 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,

as a stimulant. They turned with loathing
from the atrocity of the strangers who seemed
to love blood for its own sake, who, not con-
tent with subjugating, were impatient to de-
stroy; who found a fiendish pleasure in razing
magnificent cities, cutting the throats of ene-
mies who cried for quarter, or suffocating an
unarmed people by thousands in the caverns
to which they had fled for safety. Such were
the scenes which daily excited the terror and
disgust of a people, amongst whom, till lately,
the worst that a soldier had to fear in a pitched
battle was the loss of his horse, and the ex-
pense of his ransom. The swinish intemper-

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 in-
teresting part of it. From some passages in the
Prince, and perhaps also from some indistinct
traditions, several writers have supposed a con-
nection between those remarkable men much
closer than ever existed. The Envoy has even
been accused of promoting the crimes of the art-
ful and merciless tyrant. But from the official
documents it is clear that their intercourse,
though ostensibly amicable, was in reality hos-ance of Switzerland, the wolfish avarice of
tile. It cannot be doubted, however, that the
imagination of Machiavelli was strongly im-
pressed and his speculations on government
coloured, by the observations which he made
on the singular character, and equally singular
fortunes, of a man who, under such disadvan-
tages, 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 profes-
sion, formed a gallant army out of the dregs of
an unwarlike people :-who, after acquiring
sovereignty by destroying his enemies, ac-
quired popularity by destroying his tools;
who had begun to employ for the most saluta-
ry 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 won-
der, 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. Pa-
triotic 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
confederate spoilers of Cambray.

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 the Eighth, were projects which, at that time, fascinated all the master-spirits of Italy. The magnificent vision delighted the great but illregulated mind of Julius. It divided with manuscripts and sauces, 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

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 rendered
them subjects of deadly hatred to the inhabi-
tants of the Peninsula.* The wealth which
had been accumulated during centuries of
prosperity and repose was rapidly melting
away. The intellectual superiority of the op-
pressed 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;-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 splendour 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 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 mea-
sure, with the Augustan age.
Thus it was
with the age of Raphael and Ariosto, of Aldus
and Vida.

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 extinguishea
their valour and discipline, and rendered their
wealth an easy prey to every foreign plun-
derer. The Secretary projected a scheme alike
honourable to his heart and to his intellect, for
abolishing the use of mercenary troops, and
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

The opening stanzas of the Fourteenth Canto of the
Orlando Furioso give a frightful picture of the state of
Italy in those times. Yet, strange to say, Ariesto is
speaking of the conduct of those who called themselve
Allies.

1

amiable and accomplished young inan, whose early death Machiavelli feelingly Ceplores. 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. His host informs him 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 their 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.

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, favourable 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 man-atarms, might render him a useful foot-soldier. 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 The Swiss and the Spaniards were, at that scheme promised well. The new troops ac- time, regarded as the best soldiers in Europe. quitted themselves respectably in the field. The Swiss battalion consisted of pikemen, and Machiavelli looked with parental rapture on bore a close resemblance to the Greek phalanx. the success of his plan; and began to hope The Spaniards, like the soldiers of Rome, were that the arms of Italy might once more be for- armed with the sword and the shield. The midable to the barbarians of the Tagus and the victories of Flaminius and Æmilius over the Rhine. But the tide of misfortune came on Macedonian kings seem to prove the superi before the barriers which should have with-ority of the weapons used by the legions. stood 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 sea-weed 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 mandate 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 same experiments 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 Arragon, 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 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 genera tion. 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 gunThe fallen statesman still clung to his pro- powder. Indeed he seems to think that it ject with unabated ardour. With the view of ought scarcely to produce any change in the vindicating it from some popular objections, mode of arming or of disposing troops. The and of refuting some prevailing errors on the general testimony of historians, it must be subject of military science, he wrote his seven allowed, seems to prove, that the ill-construct books on the Art of War. This excellent worked and ill-served artillery of those times, 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. He visits Florence on his way from Lombardy to his own domains. He is invited to meet some friends at the house of Cosimo Rucellui, an

though useful in a siege, was of little value on the field of battle.

Of the tactics of Machiavelli we will not venture to give an opinion; but we are cer tain 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 even to readers who take no interest in the subject.

impart to them that vivid and practical character which so widely distinguishes them from the vague theories of most political philoso phers.

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 fool ish 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 the conduct, not so much because they are more just or more profound than those which might be culled from other authors, as because they can be more readily applied to the problems of real life.

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 than the doctrines which have rendered the name of the work odious in later 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 it had enjoyed under its native rulers, and the misery in which it had been plunged since the fatal year in There are errors in these works. But they which the first foreign tyrant had descended are errors which a writer situated like Machia from the Alps. The noble and pathetic ex-velli could scarcely avoid. They arise, for the hortation with which the Prince concludes, shows how strongly the writer felt upon this subject.

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 are explained, are applied in the latter to the longer duration and more complex interests of society. To a modern statesman the form of the Discourses may appear to be puerile. In truth, Livy is not a historian on whom much reliance can be placed, even in cases where he must have possessed considerable means of information. And his 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 his commentator is indebted to him for little more than a few texts, which he might as easily have extracted from the Vulgate or the Decameron. The whole train of thought is original.

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 detalis of business had not been acquired at the expense of his general powers. It had not tendered his mind less comprehensive, but it had served to correct his speculations, and to

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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 hap piness, is not recognised with sufficient clearness. The good of the body, distinct from the good of the members, and sometimes hardly compatible with it, seems to be the object which he proposes to himself. Of all political fallacies, this has 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 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 luxu ry 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; and 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

Thucydides, ii. 62

a slave-market, to see one child torn from them to dig in the quarries of Sicily, and another to guard the harems of Persepolis; those were the frequent and probable consequences of national calamities. Hence, among the Greeks, patriotism became a governing principle, or rather an ungovernable passion. Both 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 Platea. Yet they continued to employ the same language, and to cant about the duty of sacrificing every thing to a country to which they owed nothing.

Causes similar to those which had influenced the disposition of the Greeks, operated powerfully on the less vigorous and daring character of the Italians. They, too, 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 money 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 neighbours, and undervalue those which make it prosperous within itself.

Nothing is raore 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 mistakes must necessarily be committed by early speculators in every science.

In this respect it is amusing to compare the Prince and the Discourses with the Spirit of Laws. Montesquieu enjoys, perhaps, a wider celebrity than any political writer of modern Europe. Something he doubtless owes to his merit, but much more to his fortune. He had the good luck of a valentine. He caught the eye of the French nation at the moment when it was waking from the long sleep of political and religious bigotry, and in consequence he became a favourite. The English at that time considered a Frenchman who talked about constitutional checks and fundamental laws, as a prodigy not less astonishing than the learned pig or the musical infant. Specious but shallow, studious of effect, indifferent to truth, eager to build a system, but careless of collecting those materials out of which alone sound and durable system can be built, he VOL. I.-5

constructed theories as rapidly and as slightly as card-houses-no sooner projected than completed-no sooner completed than blown away -no sooner blown away than forgotten. Machiavelli errs only because his experience, acquired in a very peculiar state of society, could not always enable him to calculate the effect of institutions differing from those of which he had observed the operation. Montesquieu errs because he has a fine thing to say and is resolved to say it. If the phenomena which lie before him will not suit his purpose, all history must be ransacked. If nothing established by authentic testimony can be raked or chipped to suit his Procrustean hypothesis, he puts up with some monstrous fable about Siam, or Bantam, or Japan, told by writers compared with whom Lucian and Gulliver were veracious liars by a double right, as travellers and as Jesuits.

Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two greatest faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally spring: from confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazzle, at any cost, which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasonings. The judicious and candid mind of Machiavelli shows itself in his luminous, manly, and polished language. The style of Montesquieu, on the other hand, indicates in every page a lively and ingenious, but an unsound mind. Every trick of expression, from the mysterious conciseness of an oracle to the flippancy of a Parisian coxcomb, is employed to disguise the fallacy of some positions, and the triteness of others. Absurdities are brightened into epigrams; truisms are darkened into enigmas. It is with difficulty that the strongest eye can sustain the glare with which some parts are illuminated, or penetrate the shade in which others are concealed.

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 than 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, to see the symptoms of vitality dissappear 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 honour sullied, an enlightened and flourishing people given cver 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 impetu ous than pliant and artful. When the misery and degradation of Florence, and the foul outrage which he had himself sustained roused his mind, the smooth craft of his profession and

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