ical system subversive of all human honour and happiness; but was it
Machiavel who formed his age, or the age which created Machiavel? Living
among the petty principalities of Italy, where stratagem and assassination
were the practices of those wretched courts, what did that calumniated
genius more than lift the veil from a cabinet of bandtiti? MACHIAVEL
alarmed the world by exposing a system subversive of all human virtue and
happiness, and, whether he meant it or not, certainly led the way to
political freedom. On the same principle we may learn that BOCCACCIO would
not have written so many indecent tales had not the scandalous lives of
the monks engaged public attention. This we may now regret; but the court
of Rome felt the concealed satire, and that luxurious and numerous class
in society never recovered from the chastisement.

MONTAIGNE has been censured for his universal scepticism, and for the
unsettled notions he drew out on his motley page, which has been
attributed to his incapacity of forming decisive opinions. "Que scais-je?"
was his motto, The same accusation may reach the gentle ERASMUS, who alike
offended the old catholics and the new reformers. The real source of their
vacillations we may discover in the age itself. It was one of controversy
and of civil wars, when the minds of men were thrown into perpetual
agitation, and opinions, like the victories of the parties, were every day
changing sides.

Even in its advancement beyond the intelligence of its own age genius is
but progressive. In nature all is continuous; she makes no starts and
leaps. Genius is said to soar, but we should rather say that genius
climbs. Did the great VERULAM, or RAWLEIGH, or Dr. MORE, emancipate
themselves from all the dreams of their age, from the occult agency of
witchcraft, the astral influence, and the ghost and demon creed?

Before a particular man of genius can appear, certain events must arise to
prepare the age for him. A great commercial nation, in the maturity of
time, opened all the sources of wealth to the contemplation of ADAM SMITH.
That extensive system of what is called political economy could not have
been produced at any other time; for before this period the materials of
this work had but an imperfect existence, and the advances which this sort
of science had made were only partial and preparatory. If the principle of
Adam Smith's great work seems to confound the happiness of a nation with
its wealth, we ca