Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/281

EXPEDITION OF CHARLES VIII. 257 the art of printing, diffusing knowledge with the chapter speed and universality of light ; the establishment , of posts, which, after its adoption bj Louis the Eleventh, came into frequent use in the beginning of the sixteenth century ; and lastly, the compass, which, guiding the mariner unerringly through the trackless wastes of the ocean, brought the remotest regions into contact. With these increased facili- ties for intercommunication, the different European states might be said to be brought into as intimate relation with one another, as the different prov- inces of the same kingdom were before. They now for the first time regarded each other as mem- bers of one great community, in whose action they were all mutually concerned. A greater anxiety was manifested to detect the springs of every political movement of their neighbours. Missions became frequent, and accredited agents were sta- tioned, as a sort of honorable spies, at the different courts. The science of diplomacy, on narrower grounds, indeed, than it is now practised, began to be studied.^ Schemes of aggression and resistance, leading to political combinations the most complex and extended, were gradually formed. We are not to imagine, however, the existence of any well- defined ideas of a balance of power at this early 2 The "Legazione," or ofE- information respecting the interior cial correspondence of Machiavel- workings of the governments with li, while stationed at the different whom he resided, than is to be European courts, may be regarded found in any regular history ; and as the most complete manual of it shows the variety and extent of diplomacy as it existed at the be- duties attached to the oiRce of resi- ginning of the sixteenth century, dent minister, from the first mo- It affords more copious and curious ment of its creation. VOL. II. 33