companions I play the fool all day at cards or backgammon: a thousand
squabbles, a thousand insults and abusive dialogues take place, while we
haggle over a farthing, and shout loud enough to be heard from San
Casciano.

'But when evening falls I go home and enter my writing-room. On the
threshold I put off my country habits, filthy with mud and mire, and
array myself in royal courtly garments. Thus worthily attired, I make my
entrance into the ancient courts of the men of old, where they receive
me with love, and where I feed upon that food which only is my own and
for which I was born. I feel no shame in conversing with them and asking
them the reason of their actions.

'They, moved by their humanity, make answer. For four hours' space I
feel no annoyance, forget all care; poverty cannot frighten, nor death
appal me. I am carried away to their society. And since Dante says "that
there is no science unless we retain what we have learned" I have set
down what I have gained from their discourse, and composed a treatise,
_De Principalibus_, in which I enter as deeply as I can into the science
of the subject, with reasonings on the nature of principality, its
several species, and how they are acquired, how maintained, how lost. If
you ever liked any of my scribblings, this ought to suit your taste. To
a prince, and especially to a new prince, it ought to prove acceptable.
Therefore I am dedicating it to the Magnificence of Giuliano.'

[Sidenote: Niccolo Machiavelli.]

Such is the account that Niccolo Machiavelli renders of himself when
after imprisonment, torture, and disgrace, at the age of forty-four, he
first turned to serious writing. For the first twenty-six or indeed
twenty-nine of those years we have not one line from his pen or one word
of vaguest information about him. Throughout all his works written for
publication, there is little news about himself. Montaigne could
properly write, 'Ainsi, lecteur, je suis moy-mesme la matiere de mon
livre.' But the matter of Machiavelli was far other: 'Io ho espresso
quanto io so, e quanto io ho imparato per una lunga pratica e continua
lezione delle cose del mondo.'

[Sidenote: The Man.]

Machiavelli was born on the 3rd of May 1469. The period of his life
almost exactly coincides with that of Cardinal Wolsey. He came of the
old and noble Tuscan stock of Montespertoli, who were men of their hands
in the eleventh century. He carried their coat, but the property had
been