Baglioni of Perugia and Bentivoglio of Bologna, whither the Florentine envoy followed him, and returned in October. He then wrote "Provvisione per istituire Milizie Nazionali nella Republica Florentina." He had always blamed the employment of mercenary troops and condottieri, which was an old custom of the Florentines.

In December, 1507, Machiavelli was sent to the Emperor Maximilian in Germany, who had signified his intention of going to Italy to be crowned, and had demanded money of the Florentines. He proceeded by Geneva and Constance, where, finding that the emperor had moved southwards by the Tyrol, he followed him to Bolzano. The Venetians, however, opposed the passage of Maximilian, and Machiavelli returned to Florence in June, 1508. On his return he wrote several reports on the affairs of Germany, besides the letters which he had sent home during his mission.

In February, 1509, he was sent to the camp before Pisa, which was again besieged by the Florentines, and he thence addressed a report on the state of affairs: "Discorso fatto al Magistrato dei Dieci sulle cose di Pisa." In June of that year Pisa surrendered, through famine.

In July, 1510, Machiavelli was sent to France. The Cardinal d'Amboise was lately dead. The object of this mission was to encourage the French count to maintain the alliance with the pope and the emperor against the Venetians (the league of Cambrai), and to induce Louis to prevent the Swiss from enlisting in great numbers in the service of the pope, for fear that Julius, feeling himself too independent, should take some new whim into his head. And this in reality happened soon after, for while Machiavelli was in France, Julius formed a league to drive the French out of Italy. In September, 1510, Machiavelli returned to Florence, having consolidated the alliance of France with the republic.

In September, 1511, Machiavelli was sent again to France, concerning the council which assembled at Pisa, by order of Louis XII., to try and depose Pope Julius, which council however broke up without effecting any thing. Machiavelli fell ill, and soon returned home. In 1512 the battle of Ravenna was fought, Gaston de Foix was killed, and the French lost Italy. Julius, who was irritated against Florence for having sided with the French, engaged the Spanish viceroy of Naples to send a body of troops against it, and re-establish the Medici by force. The catastrophe took place soon after.

The confidence and favour with which Machiavelli was viewed by his government are evident from the free recourse that was had to his services upon all important occasions. Scarcely had he returned from one embassy when he was directed to prepare for another, and negotiations of great consequence with foreign powers were followed by difficult and confidential commissions within the territories of the republic. In this succession of active duties, fourteen years of his life passed rapidly away; but at length a new storm began to gather above the devoted walls of Florence, and the timid and vascillating policy of Piero Soderini, who had been elected Gonfalonier for life, drew down upon his country and himself the ruin that firmness and energy might have easily averted. The government by which Machiavelli had been employed was overthrown by the arms of Spain, and in September, 1512, the family of the Medici, like the Bourbons of our own days, returned to their native walls under the protection of a foreign ally.

No sooner was the new government firmly established than it commenced the usual train of persecutions against the partisans of the old. Three decrees were passed against Machiavelli within the course of ten days. By the two first he was deprived of office, and condemned to a year's banishment from the Florentine territory; but by the third, the sentence of banishment was commuted to a simple prohibition from entering the "public palace." Fear and suspicion followed the secretary into his retirement, and when in the course of the following year (1513), an extensive conspiracy against the Medici was accidently discovered, he was immediately arrested and put to the torture, which was at that period indiscriminately employed under all the Italian governments in examining persons accused of state crimes. Six shocks of the cord were inflicted upon Machiavelli with fruitless cruelty, and not a word escaped him in the bitterness of his agony that could be wrested into a confession of guilt, or serve as an accusation against others. Unable to convict him, they could still torment; and accordingly, buried in the depths of a loathsome dungeon, his lacerated body closely bound with chains, and his mind distracted by the cries of misery and of degradation that reached him from every side, he was left to the long torture of solitude and suspense. Here also his fortitude remained unshaken, and his noble power of patient endurance baffled the snares of his adversaries and wearied their malignity. From his prison of Le Stinche, he wrote a sonnet to Giuliano de Medici, who was then governor of Florence, his brother Giovanni having gone to the conclave at Rome, where he was elected pope by the name of Leo X. This sonnet, though written for the avowed purpose of exciting his interest, breathes an elevated and independent tone, and contains a degree of humorous expostulation and description which could not have proceeded from a mind broken or humbled by misfortune. At length the friends whose affection he had gained during the days of his prosperity, gave, in these moments of trial, the surest testimony to his worth and their own sincerity; and several lucky circumstances combining to favour their exertions, he was restored to freedom.

It was not, however, to return to his favourite occupations that Machiavelli issued from his dungeon, for he now withdrew for several years from public life, and retired to his country-house, at San Casciano, about eight miles from Florence. Here a long course of bitter trial still awaited him; poverty with its anxious schemes and depressing cares, the excitements of hope, the bitterness of repeated disappointment, and, more than all, the restless movements of a mind that nature had formed for constant exertion, and long habit had rendered incapable of repose. But the resources that his fortune denied, were, in part supplied by his own exertions. Anxious to open a way of return to public life, on which he depended not only for enjoyment, but for the means of support, he composed his treatise called “The Prince," in which he had endeavoured to embody the results of his observations upon the governments of his own times, and of his study of the political doctrines of the ancients. This celebrated treatise was not intended for publication, but was written for the private perusal, first of Giuliano, and then of Lorenzo de' Medici, afterwards duke of Urbino, son of Piero, and grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was appointed by his uncle, Leo X., governor of Florence, his uncle, Giuliano having removed to Rome. It was first published, after Machiavelli's death, at Rome, 1532, under the sanction of Pope

Clement III. Perhaps no work in literary history has occasioned more controversy, or rendered the name of its author more generally odious than this celebrated treatise. The terms in which Machiavelli has been commonly described since this work has been given to the world, " would seem," says Macaulay,* "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 transcribed into Turkish, the sultans have been more addicted than formerly to the custom of strangling their brothers. Lord Lyttleton 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 instituted for that of Guy Faux, in those processions by which the ingenuous youth of England annually commemorate the preservation of the three estates. The church of Rome has pronounced his works accursed things. Nor have our own countrymen been backward in testifying their opinion of his merits. Out of his sirname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name, a synonyme for the devil.+

"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 fundamental axioms of all political science.

"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 king-craft, 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, endeavoured to detect in this unfortunate performance some concealed meaning, more consistent with the character and conduct of the author than that which appears at first glance."

* Critical and Historical Essays, vol. i.`

"Nick Machiavel had ne'er a trick,

Tho' he gave his name to our Old Nick."

Hudibras, Part iii. Canto i

But we believe there is a schism on this subject among the antiquaries.

We cannot, however, here enter upon all the various hypotheses which have been raised respecting the origin of the Prince; but the most reasonable one appears to be a desire on the part of the author to obtain some public employment under the Medici government.

Machiavelli, in a letter discovered only in 1810, and addressed to his friend Vittori, then at Rome, 10th December, 1513, mentions this treatise on which he was then engaged, and tells him that he wishes to show to the Medici "that he had not spent the fifteen years in which he had studied the art of government in sleeping or playing, so that they might think of employing a man who had acquired experience at the expense of others ;" and he adds, "I wish that these signori Medici would employ me, were it only in rolling a stone. They ought not to doubt my fidelity. My poverty is a testimony of it." These expressions show clearly enough that Machiavelli's object in writing the " 'Principe" was to recommend himself to the Medici. All the ingenious surmises of later critics about his wishing to render absolute princes odious to the people, or to induce the Medici, by following his precepts, to render themselves insupportable, and thus bring about their own fall and the restoration of the republic, are completely overthrown. Machiavelli saw clearly enough that the Medici were too firmly seated at Florence to be dislodged, and although he was himself partial to a rational system of civil liberty, if consistent with a strong government, he was still more attached to the national honour and independence of his country; and what he dreaded most was, that, through some rash ebullitions of party spirit, foreigners might be enabled to interfere and enslave Florence, as they had enslaved Lombardy and Naples.

The object for which Machiavelli had thus written failed, but a nobler end was obtained. He had commenced the train of thought which was to lead him to the discovery of many important truths, and his active mind could not rest on the threshold of the temple it had opened. Step by step he was led on to a more attentive examination of his principles, new truths were discovered, some erroneous views were brought out in their true light by wider application and more exact comparison, and the undertaking which had originated in a strong desire for public life, became the chief source of his enjoyments, and was continued with regular and progressive improvement until the last moment of his existence. In a letter to Vittori, after giving a humorous description of the manner in which he passed his time in his country-house-of his snaring thrushes, cutting wood, and playing at cricca and tric-trac with a butcher, miller, and two kiln men, he says, "but when evening comes I return home, and shut myself up in my study. Before I make my appearance in it, I take off my rustic garb, soiled with mud and dirt, and put on a dress adapted for courts or cities. Thus fitly habited I enter the antique resorts of the ancients; where, being kindly received, I feed on that food which alone is mine, and for which I was born. For an interval of four hours I feel no annoyance; I forget every grief, I neither fear poverty nor death, but am totally immersed."

In 1516 Machiavelli wrote his Discourses on the first ten books of Livy, and about the same time he composed his Art of War. These studies, however, were not sufficient to furnish constant occupation for a spirit like his, and the intervals of severe labour were partly filled up with the composition of his Comedies, Translations, and various lighter pieces, both in

prose and verse. But many moments still remained, which for a mind that sought relief in a variation of duties rather than in actual repose, were wearisome blanks in existence. In such moments his spirit seemed to break, and his fortitude to forsake him, and it is impossible to read the many expressions of passionate discontent which appear in his letterscomplaints that had never been suffered to escape him in prison and in torture-without feeling how much easier it is to meet the most violent persecutions of the world, than to support the long trial of ingratitude and neglect.

At length the gradual progress of his literary reputation began to prepare the way for a return to public life. His correspondence with Vittori, the Florentine ambassador at Rome, had been communicated to Leo X., and that pontiff, a liberal if not a judicious patron of learning, had, from time to time, encouraged the solitary labours of Machiavelli, by various marks of his favour and regard. He caused him to be consulted on many important questions, and drew from him, through the medium of Vittori, many admirable views concerning the most interesting events of the period. At last, throwing aside the veil under which he had covered his communications with Machiavelli, the pope invited him to prepare a plan for the remodelling of the government of Florence.* This was speedily followed by a mission, of but little moment in itself, but of great importance to him, as an earnest of a recall to his favourite occupations. But another blow seemed to await him at the first revival of his hopes, and before any fixed establishment had assured him of the permanence of his restoration to favour, Leo X. was suddenly cut off in the prime of his career. Thus deprived of a protector who, although slow to grant him confidence, had been ready to acknowledge his merit, Machiavelli remained for a short time in the greatest uncertainty. Another mission, however, of a more important character, was soon confided to him by one of the principal corporations of the city, and while engaged at Venice in the negotiations for its fulfilment, he received the welcome tidings that his name had been inserted among those of the citizens that were held eligible to office.

About this time the Cardinal Julius commissioned Machiavelli to write the History of Florence, which he accordingly completed to the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and presented it to Julius in 1525, who shortly before had been elected to the pontificate upon the death of Adrian the successor of Leo, under the title of Clement VII. This great work "is enough," says Hallam, "to immortalize the name of Machiavelli. Seldom has a more giant stride been made in any department of literature than by this judicious, clear, and elegant history: for the preceding historical works, whether in Italy or out of it, had no claims to the praise of classical composition, whilst this has ranked among the greatest of that order. Machiavelli was the first who gave at once a luminous development of great events in their causes and connections, such as we find in the first book of his History of Florence. That view of the formation of European societies, both civil and ecclesiastical, on the ruins of the Roman empire, though it may seem now to contain only what is familiar, had never been

* See Roscoe's Leo X., (Stand. Lib. edit.) vol. ii. p. 203.