MACHIAVELLI.

amazement in Italy. The earliest assailant, as far as we are aware, was a countryman of our own, Cardinal Pole. The author of the AntiMachiavelli was a French Protestant.

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 As this is a subject of this remarkable man. which suggests many interesting considerations, both political and metaphysical, we shall make no apology for discussing it at some length.

During the gloomy and disastrous centuries
which followed the downfall of the Roman Em-
pire, Italy had preserved, in a far greater de-
gree 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 sun-
set had faded from the horizon. It was in the
time of the French Merovingians, and of the
Saxon Heptarchy, that ignorance and ferocity
Yet even
seemed to have done their worst.
then the Neapolitan provinces, recognising the
authority of the Eastern Empire, preserved
something of Eastern knowledge and refine
ment. Rome, protected by the sacred charac-
ter of its 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, than could be found in
Gaul, Britain, or Germany.

That which most distinguished Italy from
the neighbouring countries was the importance
which the population of the towns, from a very
early period, began to acquire. Some cities
founded in wild and remote situations, by fu-
gitives who had escaped from the rage of the
barbarians, preserved their freedom by their
obscurity, till they became able to preserve it
by their power. Others seemed to have re-
tained, 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 institu-
tions first acquired stability and vigour. The
citizens, defended by their walls and governed
by their own magistrates and their own by-
laws, enjoyed a considerable share of republi-
can 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
In the twelfth century it
their disputes.
attained its full vigour, and, after a long and
doubtful conflict, it triumphed over the abili-
ties and courage of the Swabian Princes.

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 servi-
tude, to exalt the Popes at the expense of the
long contained the seeds of free opinions,
Cæsars. Happily the public mind of Italy had
which were now rapidly developed by the ge-
nial influence of free institutions. The people
of that country had observed the whole ma-
chinery of the church, its saints and its mira-
cles, its lofty pretensions and its splendid cere-
monial, its worthless blessings and its harmless
curses, too long and too closely to be duped.
were gazing with childish awe and interest.
They stood behind the scenes on which others
They witnessed the arrangement of the pul
leys, and the manufacture of the thunders.
They saw the natural faces and heard the na-
tural voices of the actors. Distant nations
looked on the Pope as the vicegerent of the
Almighty, the oracle of the All-wise, the um-
pire from whose decisions, in the disputes
either of theologians or of kings, no Christian
ought to appeal. The Italians were acquaint
ed 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 em
ployed the keys of the church to release him
self from the most sacred engagements, and its
wealth to pamper his mistresses and nephews.
The doctrines and rites of the established re-
ligion 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
our Henry the Second to submit to the lash
their contempt. When Alexander commanded
before the tomb of a rebellious subject, he was
himself an exile. The Romans, apprehending
that he entertained designs against their liber-
ties, had driven him from their city; and,
though he solemnly promised to confine him-
self for the future to his spiritual functions,
they still refused to re-admit him.

In every other part of Europe, a large and
powerful privileged class trampled on the peo-
ple and defied the government. But in the
most flourishing parts of Italy the feudal no-
In some districts they took shelter
bles were reduced to comparative insignifi-
cance.
under the protection of the powerful common-
wealths which they were unable to oppose,
and gradually sunk into the mass of burghers.
In others they possessed great influence; but
it was an influence widely different from that
Instead
which was exercised by the chieftains of the
Transalpine kingdoms. They were not pet-
ty princes, but eminent citizens.
of strengthening their fastnesses among the
mountains, they embellished their places in
the market-place. 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
A people,
and Tuscany, through all their revolutions,
when assembled in a town, is far more formi
preserved a different character.
dable 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 capi-

tal at the expense of the provinces. The citi zens 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 democracy in the monarchies and aristocracies of Northern Italy.

a hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants. In the various schools about ten thousand children were taught to read; twelve hundred studied arithmetic; six hundred received a learned education. 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, Thus liberty, partially, indeed, and transient- still retaining the traces of old cultivation, but ly, revisited Italy; and with liberty came com- yielding neither flowers nor fruit. The deluge merce and empire, science and taste, all the of barbarism came. It swept away all the comforts and all the ornaments of life. The landmarks. It obliterated all the signs of forcrusades, from which the inhabitants of other mer tillage. But it fertilized while it devas countries gained nothing but relics and tated. When it receded, the wilderness was wounds, brought the rising commonwealths as the garden of God, rejoicing on every side, of the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas a large in- laughing, clapping its hands, pouring forth in crease of wealth, dominion, and knowledge. spontaneous abundance every thing brilliant, Their moral and their geographical position or fragrant, or nourishing. A new language, enabled them to profit alike by the barbarism characterized by simple sweetness and simple of the West and the civilization of the East. energy, had attained its perfection. No tongue Their ships covered every sea. Their fac- ever furnished more gorgeous and vivid tints tories rose on every shore. Their money- to poetry; nor was it long before a poet apchangers set their tables in every city. Manu-peared who knew how to employ them. Early factures flourished. Banks were established. in the fourteenth century came forth the DiThe operations of the commercial machine vine Comedy, beyond comparison the greatest were facilitated by many useful and beautiful work of imagination which had appeared since inventions. We doubt whether any country the poems of Homer. The following genera of Europe, our own perhaps excepted, have at tion produced, indeed, no second Dante; but the present time reached so high a point of it was eminently distinguished by general inwealth and civilization as some parts of Italy tellectual activity. The study of the Latin had attained four hundred years ago. Histo-writers had never been wholly neglected in rians rarely descend to those details from Italy. But Petrarch introduced a more prowhich alone the real state of a community can be collected. Hence posterity is too often deceived by the vague hyperboles of poets and rhetoricians, who mistake the splendour of a court for the happiness of a people. Fortunately John Villani has given us an ample and precise account of the state of Florence in the earlier part of the fourteenth century. The From this time the admiration of learning revenue of the republic amounted to three and genius became almost an idolatry among hundred thousand florins, a sum which, allow- the people of Italy. Kings and republics, caring for the depreciation of the precious metals, dinals and doges, vied with each other in howas at least equivalent to six hundred thou-nouring and flattering Petrarch. Embassies sand pounds sterling; a larger sum than Eng- from rival states solicited the honour of his injand and Ireland, two centuries ago, yielded an-structions. His coronation agitated the court nually to Elizabeth-a larger sum than, accord- of Naples and the people of Rome as much as ing to any computation which we have seen, the the most important political transactions could Grand-duke of Tuscany now derives from a have done. To collect books and antiques, to territory of much greater extent. The manu-found professorships, to patronise men of facture of wool alone employed two hundred factories and thirty thousand workmen. The cloth annually produced sold, at an average, for twelve hundred thousand florins; a sum fairly equal, in exchangeable value, to two millions and a half 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 the Third of England upwards of three hundred thousand marks, at a time when Knowledge and public prosperity continued the mark contained more silver than fifty shil- to advance together. Both attained their meri. lings of the present day, and when the value dian in the age of Lorenzo the Magnificent. of silver was more than quadruple of what it | We cannot refrain from quoting the splendid now is. The city and its environs contained passage, in which the Tuscan Thucydides de

found, liberal, and elegant scholarship; and 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 models of Greece.

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 merchantprinces of Florence extended their gigantic traffic, from the bazaars 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 and of the arts.

scribes the state of Italy at that period:-Ri- of society which facilitated the gigantic condotta tutta in somma pace e tranquillità, colti- quests of Attila and Timour. vata non meno ne' luoghi più montuosi e più But a people which subsists by the cultiva sterili che nelle pianure e regioni più fertili, tion of the earth is in a very different situation. nè sottoposta ad altro imperio che de 'suoi me- The husbandman is bound to the soil on which desimi, non solo era abbondantissima d'abita- he labours. A long campaign would be ruintori e di ricchezze; ma illustrata sommamente ous to him. Still his pursuits are such as give dalla magnificenza di molti principi, dallo to his frame both the active and the passive splendore di molte nobilissime e bellissime strength necessary to a soldier. Nor do they, città, dalla sedia e maestà delle religione, fiori- at least in the infancy of agricultural science, va d'uomini prestantissimi nell' amministra- demand his uninterrupted attention. At parzione delle cose pubbliche, e d'ingegni molto ticular times of the year he is almost wholly nobili in tutte le scienze, ed in qualunque arte unemployed, and can, without injury to himpreclara ed industriosa."* When we peruse self, afford the time necessary for a short expethis just and splendid description, we can dition. Thus, the legions of Rome were supscarcely persuade ourselves that we are read- plied during its earlier wars. The season, ing of times, in which the annals of England during which the farms did not require the and France present us only with a frightful presence of the cultivators, sufficed for a short spectacle of poverty, barbarity, and ignorance. inroad and a battle. These operations, too From the oppressions of illiterate masters, and frequently interrupted to produce decisive rethe sufferings of a brutalized peasantry, it is sults, yet served to keep up among the people a delightful to turn to the opulent and enlighten- degree of discipline and courage which rendered States of Italy-to the vast and magnificent ed them, not only secure, but formidable. The cities, the ports, the arsenals, the villas, the archers and billmen of the middle ages, who, museums, the libraries, the marts filled with with provisions for forty days at their backs, every article of comfort and luxury, the manu- left the fields for the camp, were troops of the factories swarming with artisans, the Apen- same description. nines 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 firs of Siberia to the palaces of Milan. With peculiar pleasure, every cultivated mind must repose on the fair, the happy, the glorious Florence on the halls which rung with the mirth of Pulci-the cell where twinkled the midnight lamp of Politian-the statues on which the young eye of Michel Angelo glared with the frenzy of a kindred inspiration-the gardens in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling song for the May-day 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 cavalier, gli affanni, gli agi,
Che ne'nvogliav' amore e cortesia,
La dove i cuor' son fatti ei malvagi."+

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 for 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 preponderance which the towns acquired in the political sys

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 occupations of traders and artisans require 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 rest from a task inconsistent with their habits and engagements.

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 Egean 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 Platea, 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 Lycur gus prohibited trade and manufactures. The Spartans, therefore, continued to form a national force, long after their neighbours had begun to hire soldiers. But their military spirit declined with their singular institutions. In the second century, Greece contained only one nation of warriors, the savage highlanders of Ætolia, who were at least ten generations behind their countrymen in civilization and intelligence.

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

MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.

familiarize himself with the use of arms. The | the King of Naples or the Duke of Milan, the commonwealths of Italy did not, like those of Pope or the Signory of Florence, struck the Greece, swarm with thousands of these house- bargain, was to him a matter of perfect in lifhold enemies. Lastly, the mode in which mi- ference. He was for the highest wages and litary operations were conducted, during the the longest term. When the campaign for prosperous times of Italy, was peculiarly un- which he had contracted was finished, there favourable to the formation of an efficient mili- was neither law nor punctilio to prevent him tia. Men covered with iron from head to foot, from instantly turring his arms against his armed with ponderous lances, and mounted on late masters. The soldier was altogether dishorses of the largest breed, were considered as joined from the citizen and from the subject. composing the strength of an army. The infantry was regarded as comparatively worth-the conduct of men who neither loved those The natural consequences followed. Left to less, and was neglected till it became really so. whom they defended, nor hated those whom These tactics maintained their ground for cen- they opposed-who were often bound by turies in most parts of Europe. That foot sol- stronger ties to the army against which they diers could withstand the charge of heavy ca- fought than the state which they served-who valry was thought utterly impossible, till, to- lost by the termination of the conflict, and wards the close of the fifteenth century, the gained by its prolongation, war completely rude mountaineers of Switzerland dissolved changed its character. Every man came into the spell, and astounded the most experienced the field of battle impressed with the knowgenerals, by receiving the dreaded shock on ledge that, in a few days, he might be taking an impenetrable forest of pikes. The use of the Grecian spear, the Roman then employed, and fighting by the side of his the pay of the power against which he was sword, or the modern bayonet, might be acquir-enemies against his associates. The strongest ed with comparative ease. of the daily exercise of years could train the mitigate the hostility of those who had lately But nothing short interest and the strongest feelings concurred to man at arms to support his ponderous panoply been brethren in arms, and who might soon be and manage his unwieldy weapon. Through- brethren in arms once more. out Europe, this most important branch of war profession was a bond of union not to be forTheir common became a separate profession. Beyond the gotten, even when they were engaged in the Alps, indeed, though a profession, it was not service of contending parties. Hence it was generally a trade. It was the duty and the that operations, languid and indecisive beyond amusement of a large class of country gentle- any recorded in history, marches and countermen. It was the service by which they held marches, pillaging expeditions and blockades, their lands, and the diversion by which, in the bloodless capitulations and equally bloodless absence of mental resources, they beguiled combats, make up the military history of Italy their leisure. But, in the Northern States of during the course of nearly two centuries. Italy, as we have already remarked, the grow- Mighty armies fight from sunrise to sunset. A ing power of the cities, where it had not exter- great victory is won. Thousands of prisoners minated this order of men, had completely are taken; and hardly a life is lost! A pitched changed their habits. Here, therefore, the prac- battle seems to have been really less dangerous tice of employing mercenaries became univer- than an ordinary civil tumult. sal, at a time when it was almost unknown in other countries.

Courage was now no longer necessary even When war becomes the trade of a separate camps, and acquired the highest renown by to the military character. Men grew old in class, the least dangerous course left to a their warlike achievements, without being government is to form that class into a stand-once required to face serious danger. The ing army. It is scarcely possible, that men political consequences are too well known. can pass their lives in the service of a single The richest and most enlightened part of the state, without feeling some interest in its world was left undefended, to the assaults of greatness. Its victories are their victories. every barbarous invader-to the brutality of Its defeats are their defeats. loses something of its mercantile character. fierce rapacity of Arragon. The moral effects The contract | Switzerland, the insolence of France, and the The services of the soldier are considered as which followed from this state of things were the effects of patriotic zeal, his pay as the tri- still more remarkable. bute 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.

the Alps, valour was absolutely indispensable Among the rude nations which lay beyond Without it, none could be eminent; few could When the princes and commonwealths of considered as the foulest reproach. Among be secure. Cowardice was, therefore, naturally Italy began to use hired troops, their wisest the polished Italians, enriched by commerce, course would have been to form separate mili-governed by law, and passionately attached to tary 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 commou property of all. The connection between the state and its defenders was reduced to the nost simple naked traffic. The adventurer brought his horse, his weapons, his strength, and his experience into the market. Whether

literature, every thing was done by superiority
of intelligence. Their very wars, more pacific
than the peace of their neighbours, required
rather civil than military qualifications. Hence,
while courage was the point of honour in
other countries, ingenuity became the point of
honour in Italy.

cesses strictly analogous, two opposite sys-
From these principles were deduced, by pro-

MACHIAVELLI.

tems 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 self-command, address, quick observation, fertile invention, and profound knowledge of human nature.

Such a prince as our Henry the Fifth would have been the idol of the North. The follies of his youth, the selfish and desolating 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, every thing is forgotten, but the victory of Agincourt! Francis Sforza, on the other hand, was the model of the Italian hero. 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 associations. We have illustrated our meaning by an inWe will select stance taken from history. Othello murders his another from fiction. wife; he gives orders for the murder of his lieutenant; he ends by murdering himself. Yet he never loses the esteem and affection of a Northern reader-his intrepid and ardent spirit redeeming every thing. 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 Shakspeare has been seduced into an exaggeration unusual with him, and has drawn a monster who has no archetype in Now we suspect, that an human nature. 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 to 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 the 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 re-
The readiness of his wit, the
spect would have mingled with their disap.
probation.
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 neighbours. A similar dif-
ference existed between the Greeks of the se-
The conquerors, brave and
the Romans.
cond century before Christ, and their masters
resolute, faithful to their engagements, and
strongly influenced by religious feelings, were,
at the same time, ignorant, arbitrary, and
In poetry, in
cruel. With the vanquished people were de-
posited all the art, the science, and the litera-
ture of the Western world.
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. The rude war-
riors who had subdued them consoled them-
selves for their 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 an admirable
The citizen of an Italian commonwealth was
Like
subject for the fierce sarcasm of Juvenal.
the Greek of the time of Juvenal, and the Greek
of the time of Pericles, joined in one.
the former, he was timid and pliable, artful and
Its independence and prosperity
country.
unscrupulous. But, like the latter, he had a
were dear to him. If his character were de-
graded by some mean crimes, it was, on the
other hand, ennobled by public spirit and by an
honourable 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 black mail from his neighbours, was accompanied to Tyburn by the huzzas of committed the same crime for which Wild The deed for which Mrs. two hundred thousand people. But there can be no doubt that he was a much less depraved man than Wild. Brownrigg was hanged sinks into nothing, when compared with the conduct of the Roman Yet we should probably wrong who treated the public to a hundred pair of gladiators. such a Roman if we supposed that his disposition was so 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 honourable 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 C man by twenty years of intrigue. Classical antiquity would furnish us with instances