is own epoch, but also foretold the secret
of men since born. He illustrates not only the generation which taught
him, but the generations which he taught, and has no less in common with
the men who had his precepts before them than with the Viscontis,
Borgias, and Baglionis who were the masters he observed. He represents
more than the spirit of his country and his age. Knowledge,
civilisation, and morality have increased; but three centuries have
borne enduring witness to his political veracity. He has been as much
the exponent of men whom posterity esteems as of him whose historian
writes: "Cet homme que Dieu, apres l'avoir fait si grand, avait fait bon
aussi, n'avait rien de la vertu." The authentic interpreter of
Machiavelli, the _Commentarius Perpetuus_ of the _Discorsi_ and _The
Prince_, is the whole of later history.

Michelet has said: "Rapportons-nous-en sur ceci a quelqu'un qui fut bien
plus Machiaveliste que Machiavel, a la republique de Venise." Before his
day, and long after, down almost to the time when a price was set on the
heads of the Pretender and of Pontiac, Venice employed assassins. And
this was not the desperate resource of politicians at bay, but the
avowed practice of decorous and religious magistrates. In 1569 Soto
hazards an impersonal doubt whether the morality of the thing was sound:
"Non omnibus satis probatur Venetorum mos, qui cum complures a patria
exules habeant condemnatos, singulis facultatem faciunt, ut qui alium
eorum interfecerit, vita ac libertate donetur." But his sovereign
shortly after obtained assurance that murder by royal command was
unanimously approved by divines: "A los tales puede el Principe
mandarlos matar, aunque esten fuera de su distrito y reinos.--Sin ser
citado, secretamente se le puede quitar la vita.--Esta es doctrina comun
y cierta y recevida de todos los theologos." When the King of France, by
despatching the Guises, had restored his good name in Europe, a
Venetian, Francesco da Molino, hoped that the example would not be
thrown away on the Council of Ten: "Permeti sua divina bonta che questo
esempio habbi giovato a farlo proceder come spero con meno fretta e piu
sodamente a cose tali e d' importanza." Sarpi, their ablest writer,
their official theologian, has a string of maxims which seem to have
been borrowed straight from the Florentine predecessor: "Proponendo cosa
in apparenza non honesta, scusarla come necessaria, come praticata da
altri, come propria al