the habit of idolizing either the living or the dead. And we think that there is no more certain indication of a weak and ill-regulated intellect than that propensity which, for want of a better name, we will venture to christen Boswellism.1 But there are a few characters which have stood the closest scrutiny and the severest tests, which have been tried in the furnace and have proved pure, which have been weighed in the balance and have not been found wanting, which have been declared sterling by the general consent of mankind, and which are visibly stamped with the image and superscription of the Most High. These great men we trust that we know how to prize; and of these was Milton. The sight of his books, the sound of his name, are pleasant to us. His thoughts resemble those celestial fruits and flowers which the Virgin Martyr of Massinger sent down from the gardens of Paradise to the earth, and which were distinguished from the productions of other soils, not only by superior bloom and sweetness, but by miraculous efficacy to invigorate and to heal. They are powerful, not only to delight, but to elevate and purify. Nor do we envy the man who can study either the life or the writings of the great poet and patriot, without aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime works with which his genius has enriched our literature, but the zeal with which he laboured for the public good, the fortitude with which he endured every private calamity, the lofty disdain with which he looked down on temptations and dangers, the deadly hatred which he bore to bigots and tyrants, and the faith which he so sternly kept with his country and with his fame.

"

1A recurring idea in the essays. 'Biographers are peculiarly exposed to the lues Boswelliana" (essay on William Pitt).

M

MACHIAVELLI

MARCH, 1827

NOTE ON THE ESSAY

ACAULAY'S essay upon Machiavelli is, according to Professor Villari, the first attempt towards a serious and comprehensive criticism of Machiavelli's character and writings. During the last seventy years much has been written about Machiavelli, yet Macaulay's essay is still worth reading. Machiavelli had been reviled for three centuries, but had been little read and less understood. Macaulay had read not only The Prince, but all Machiavelli's writings, and sought to interpret the seeming paradoxes and contradictions which they offer by reference to the history of those times and to the political condition of Italy. As he was well grounded in Italian literature and could derive from books sensations more vivid than ordinary men derive from travel, he wrote about Italian life and politics with a freshness and vivacity truly surprising in one who had never visited Italy. Professor Villari remarks that Macaulay was the first to appreciate the pictures of individual and national character, and the wealth of historical information to be found in Machiavelli's official despatches, the first also to recognise Machiavelli's originality in trying to create for the Florentine Republic a native militia. Even more remarkable in a foreigner appears to him Macaulay's keen perception of Machiavelli's literary excellence.

When we pass from Macaulay's literary and historical criticism of Machiavelli to his psychological analysis of the Italians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Signor Villari finds less to praise. Macaulay, he thinks, was an incomparable narrator but a superficial philosopher. The moral contradiction which runs through Machiavelli's writings Macaulay seeks to explain by tracing a similar contradiction in the character of the Italians of that age generally. Signor Villari calls in doubt Macaulay's description of the national character, although if we look chiefly to those classes which took part in public affairs and allow for Macaulay's trick of emphatic statement much might be said in his defence. Even were Macaulay's general estimate of the Italians just, we should be left, Signor Villari observes, with two enigmas to resolve instead of one. This is hardly fair to Macaulay, who does offer a plausible

explanation of the peculiar moral type then so common in Italy. Signor Villari also complains that Macaulay has allotted too little space to the examination of the works upon which Machiavelli's fame and influence are based. He has run through four-fifths of his essay before touching upon The Prince, the Discourses, on The Art of War, and has to crowd his remarks upon them into a few paragraphs. The History of Florence he regards as having a merely literary value, whereas it stands in close connection with those works as an original attempt to trace the natural growth of political parties and the influence which they exert upon the form of the political constitution. Here again we might, without wholly absolving Macaulay, plead that he had to bring before readers mostly ill acquainted with Italian history the conditions under which Machiavelli wrote and had no space for minute examination of separate writings.

Much, very much of course, has to be added to Macaulay's swift sketch of the peculiarities of Italian politics in the age of the Renaissance. Professor Villari has shown that the Italian States of that time were weak, not merely because they were small, but because they were ill organised. When the overthrow of the imperial power in the thirteenth century left the cities virtually independent, it also left them unprotected, so that each had to fight for its own freedom, and if possible to secure itself by enlarging its territory. But inasmuch as the persons having political power in an Italian city exercised it like the citizens of a Greek republic, not through representatives but directly, unity and order required that the ruling class should be kept small, a necessity which had nothing disagreeable to those who were in possession. The enlargement of the territory was never followed by the wider diffusion of political power. A great part of the inhabitants of each free city, all the peasants in the surrounding country and all the citizens of the subject towns were entirely debarred from political activity, which in Venice was reserved to a few hundred and even in Florence to a few thousand persons. Even this comparatively small part of the commonwealth everywhere save in Venice was divided against itself by the jealousy between guild and guild, by the rancour between kindred and kindred, by factions none the less bitter and unscrupulous because the matter of contention out of which they first arose had long been unmeaning or forgotten. Under such unstable conditions liberty was often suppressed and absolute monarchy established by bold adventurers who rose even from the lowest station, and by means of terror or self-interest obtained obedience although they could scarcely ever inspire loyalty. The internal history of many cities was but a series of revolutions whilst their external relations were for ever changing. Meantime traditional beliefs and primitive virtues were weakened by the growth of riches and of a new intellectual life. Patriotism very generally dwindled whilst all things seemed possible to the clever and unscrupulous. When, therefore, Italy was assailed by foreigners its only hope of safety lay in concentration, and concentration seemed possible only by the agency of some great individual. The old republics were incapable of absorbing those whom

The Popes

they had conquered or of lasting union with each other. were always hostile to the rise of a really strong power in Italy which must have ended their own temporal dominion. Under these conditions Machiavelli wrote. He saw that the disorder of Italy exposed it to be overrun, pillaged and enslaved by every warlike neighbour, and that this disorder was too inveterate to be remedied save by force.

Machiavelli held that popular government was the best for settled times, but that the reconstruction of a decrepit society must be the work of a man of genius. He was, therefore, a partisan in one sense of despotism, in another of democracy. The choice of political forms must be determined by the political end. With regard to morality, Machiavelli, as Macaulay has well insisted, is far from uniformly cynical. Often he writes with a moral enthusiasm which seems to have been quite honest. The prince should entrust his safety to national troops, not to mercenaries, should administer economically, 'cherish the poor, respect the honour and the property of all his subjects and practice as much good faith and humanity as can consist with self-preservation. Machiavelli thinks indeed that even a man of genius cannot fulfil his task as ruler without occasional violations of the moral law, but if his end is the public good these are to be forgiven, in so far as they are necessary. In this respect Machiavelli is near akin to Carlyle who mentions him with contempt. Carlyle's doctrine of hero-worship appears to mean that the great man who really aims at the common good is morally justified in all that he does for that end. Machiavelli says that what he does will sometimes be immoral, but that it cannot be helped. Machiavelli's reputation for wickedness appears to have arisen from his candour in writing that which statesmen have too often acted. In the long list of worthies who have reformed or aggrandised states we shall find few who have not sometimes employed such means as in private life no noble mind would deign to use, and even adventurers would at least affect to condemn. A good many public men have thought that although honesty may generally be the best policy, great crimes are sometimes the truest wisdom. And when we turn from practice to theory Lord Acton will tell us in his preface to The Prince that an almost unbroken chain of theologians and moralists have for many centuries justified the worst crimes which Machiavelli allows to a ruler in difficult circumstances. Machiavelli, he tells us, "is the earliest conscious and articulate exponent of certain living forces in the present world. Religion, progressive enlightenment, the perpetual vigilance of public opinion have not reduced his empire, or disproved the justice of his conception of mankind. He obtains a new lease of authority from causes that are still prevailing and from doctrines that are apparent in politics, philosophy and science. Without sparing

censure, or employing for comparison the grosser symptoms of the age, we find him near our common level and perceive that he is not a vanishing type, but a constant and contemporary influence. Where it is impossible to praise, to defend, or to excuse, the burden of blame may yet be lightened by adjustment and distribution, and he is more rationally intelligible when illustrated by lights falling not only from