t at the world's
setting, and diseases precede its dissolution" (_Expos. Ep. sec. Lucam_,
x.).]

[Footnote 314: "What is well-nigh all Christendom but a sink of
iniquity?" (_De Gub. Dei_, iii. 9).]

[Footnote 315: "In our age the devil has so defiled everything that
scarcely a thing is done without idolatry."]

[Footnote 316: "Do we wonder that God has granted all our lands to the
barbarians, when they now purify by their chastity the places which the
Romans had polluted with their debauchery?"]

[Footnote 317: Pope Anastasius writes to Clovis: "Sedes Petri in tanta
occasione non potest non laetari, cum plenitudinem gentium intuetur ad
eam veloci gradu concurrere" (Bouquet, iv. 50).]

[Footnote 318: "The noble people of the Franks, founded by God,
converted to the Catholic faith, and free from heresy."]

[Footnote 319: "Vetati sunt a Spiritu sancto loqui verbum Dei in Asia
... Tentabant ire in Bithyniam, et non permisit eos spiritus Jesu"
(_Acts_ xvi. 6, 7).]

[Footnote 320: Innocent IV. wrote in 1246 to the Sicilians: "In omnem
terram vestrae sonus tribulationis exivit ... multis pro miro vehementi
ducentibus, quod pressi tam dirae servitutis opprobrio, et personarum ac
rerum gravati multiplici detrimento, neglexeritis habere concilium, per
quod vobis, sicut gentibus caeteris, aliqua provenirent solatia
libertatis ... super hoc apud sedem apostolicam vos excusante
formidine.... Cogitate itaque corde vigili, ut a collo vestrae
servitutis catena decidat, et universitas vestra in libertatis et
quietis gaudio reflorescat; sitque ubertate conspicuum, ita divina
favente potentia secura sit libertate decorum" (Raynaldus, _Ann._ ad
ann. 1246).]

[Footnote 321: Burke's _Works_, i. 391, 404.]

VII

INTRODUCTION TO L.A. BURD'S EDITION OF IL PRINCIPE BY MACHIAVELLI

Mr. Burd has undertaken to redeem our long inferiority in Machiavellian
studies, and it will, I think, be found that he has given a more
completely satisfactory explanation of _The Prince_ than any country
possessed before. His annotated edition supplies all the solvents of a
famous problem in the history of Italy and the literature of politics.
In truth, the ancient problem is extinct, and no reader of this volume
will continue to wonder how so intelligent and reasonable a man came to
propose such flagitious counsels. When Machiavelli declared that
extraordinary objects cannot be accomplished under ordinary rules, he
recorded the experience of h