s of colossal grandeur were multiplied. Meanwhile
the people at large were being fashioned to that self-conscious and
intelligent activity which is fostered by the modes of life peculiar to
political and social centers in a condition of continued rivalry and
change.

Under the Italian despotisms we observe nearly the opposite of all the
influences brought to bear in the same period upon the nations of the
North. There is no gradual absorption of the great vassals in
monarchies, no fixed allegiance to a reigning dynasty, no feudal aid or
military service attached to the tenure of the land, no tendency to
centralize the whole intellectual activity of the race in any capital,
no suppression of individual character by strongly biased public
feeling, by immutable law, or by the superincumbent weight of a social
hierarchy. Everything, on the contrary, tends to the free emergence of
personal passions and personal aims. Though the vassals of the despot
are neither his soldiers nor his loyal lieges, but his courtiers and
taxpayers, the continual object of his cruelty and fear, yet each
subject has the chance of becoming a prince like Sforza or a companion
of princes like Petrarch. Equality of servitude goes far to democratize
a nation, and common hatred of the tyrant leads to the combination of
all classes against him. Thence follows the fermentation of arrogant and
self-reliant passions in the breasts of the lowest as well as the
highest.[1] The rapid mutations of government teach men to care for
themselves and to depend upon themselves alone in the battle of the
world; while the necessity of craft and policy in the conduct of
complicated affairs sharpens intelligence. The sanction of all means
that may secure an end under conditions of social violence encourages
versatility unprejudiced by moral considerations. At the same time the
freely indulged vices of the sovereign are an example of self-indulgence
to the subject, and his need of lawless instruments is a practical
sanction of force in all its forms. Thus to the play of personality,
whether in combat with society and rivals, or in the gratification of
individual caprice, every liberty is allowed. Might is substituted for
right, and the sense of law is supplanted by a mere dread of coercion.
What is the wonder if a Benvenuto Cellini should be the outcome of the
same society as that which formed a Cesare Borgia? What is the miracle
if Italy under these circumstances produced