aviour. Nor can I find words to
describe the love with which he would be hailed in all the provinces
that have suffered through these foreign deluges, the thirst for
vengeance, the stubborn fidelity, the piety, the tears, that he would
meet What gates would be closed against him? What people would refuse
him allegiance? What jealousy would thwart him? What Italian would be
found to refuse him homage? This rule of the barbarians stinks in the
nostrils of us all. Then let your illustrious House assume this
enterprise in the spirit and the confidence wherewith just enterprises
are begun, that so, under your flag, this land of ours may be ennobled,
and under your auspices be brought to pass that prophecy of Petrarch:--

'Lo, valor against rage
Shall take up arms, nor shall the fight be long;
For that old heritage
Of courage in Italian hearts is stout and strong.

With this trumpet-cry of impassioned patriotism the
_Principe_ closes.

Hegel, in his 'Philosophy of History,' has recorded a judgment of
Machiavelli's treatise in relation to the political conditions of Italy
at the end of the mediaeval period, which might be quoted as the most
complete apology for the author it is possible to make. 'This book,' he
says, 'has often been cast aside with horror as containing maxims of the
most revolting tyranny; yet it was Machiavelli's high sense of the
necessity of constituting a state which caused him to lay down the
principles on which alone states could be formed under the
circumstances. The isolated lords and lordships had to be entirely
suppressed; and though our idea of Freedom is incompatible with the
means which he proposes both as the only available and also as wholly
justifiable--including, as these do, the most reckless violence, all
kinds of deception, murder, and the like--yet we must confess that the
despots who had to be subdued were assailable in no other way, inasmuch
as indomitable lawlessness and perfect depravity were thoroughly
engrained in them.'

Yet after the book has been shut and the apology has been weighed, we
cannot but pause and ask ourselves this question, Which was the truer
patriot--Machiavelli, systematizing the political vices and corruptions
of his time in a philosophical essay, and calling on the despot to whom
it was dedicated to liberate Italy; or Savonarola, denouncing sin and
enforcing repentance--Machiavelli, who taught as precepts of pure wisdom
those very principles of publ