Machiavelli.

I intend to reserve the _Principe_, considered as the supreme expression
of Italian political science, for a separate study; and after the
introduction to Macaulay's Essay on Machiavelli, I need hardly enter in
detail into a discussion of the various theories respecting the
intention of this treatise.[1] Yet this is the proper place for
explaining my view about Machiavelli's writings in relation to his
biography, and for attempting to connect them into such unity as a mind
so strictly logical as his may have designed.

[1] Macaulay's essay is, of course, brilliant and
comprehensive. I do not agree with his theory of the Italian
despot, as I have explained on p. 127 of this volume.
Sometimes, too, he indulges in rhetoric that is merely
sentimental, as when he says about the dedication of the
Florentine History to Clement: 'The miseries and humiliations
of dependence, the bread which is more bitter than every other
food, the stairs which are more painful than every other
ascent, had not broken the spirit of Machiavelli. _The most
corrupting post in a corrupting profession had not depraved the
generous heart of Clement._' The sentence I have printed in
italics may perhaps tell the truth about the Church and Popes
in general; but the panegyric of Clement is preposterous.
Macaulay must have been laughing in his sleeve.

With regard to the circumstances under which the Prince was composed,
enough has been already said. Machiavelli's selfish purpose in putting
it forth seems to my mind apparent. He wanted employment: he despaired
of the republic: he strove to furnish the princes in power with a
convincing proof of his capacity for great affairs. Yet it must not on
this account be concluded that the _Principe_ was merely a cheap bid for
office. On the contrary, it contained the most mature and the most
splendid of Machiavelli's thoughts, accumulated through his long years
of public service; and, strange as it may seem, it embodied the dream of
a philosophical patriot for the restitution of liberty to Italy.
Florence, indeed, was lost. 'These Signori Medici' were in power. But
could not even they be employed to purge the sacred soil of Italy from
the Barbarians?

If we can pretend to sound the depths of Machiavelli's mind at this
distance of time, we may conjecture that he had come to believe the
free cities too corrupt for independence. The only chance I