have differed widely. We have only to glance at the position and character of the man who is commonly regarded as the first specimen of the new order of Political Philosophers.
Machiavelli was born in 1469, of an old and noble Florentine family, whose destiny and character determined those of Nicolo, before he was born. Thirteen of them had been governors, and fifty-three had been heads of monastic establishments: they had been banished from Florence, in the adverse turns of politics among the Italian States; and they had witnessed every conceivable play of bad passions in government and war. Nicolo came forward into life and office with these notions of mankind in his head; he had to deal with some of the worst men, in an age when political accomplishment was supposed to mean sharp practice covered by smooth manners. It is remarkable that in his writings should be found some of the highest views in politics, and some of the most benevolent aspirations that have ever been penned; while it is far from strange that, in writing for the Borgias on the art of ruling in their age, he should have recommended as good policy, or allowed as a necessity, kinds and degrees of bad faith which are as revolting to us now in theory, and when we observe them anywhere in operation, as the old practices of crucifying disobedient slaves, and making slaves of prisoners of war. Machiavelli went on five missions to France, with his mind full of the apprehension that France would swamp the liberties of Tuscany. He was three months in close consultation with Cæsar Borgia; and his letters show that it was a case of diamond cut diamond. Two of the acutest men of their age were day and night trying to circumvent each other; and this was the sort of statesmanship which was going on everywhere, from his youth up. It is no small proof of his sagacity that he discerned how far preferable was honest good government to anything he saw. He said that governing by Law was as much better than governing by Force, as men were better than beasts. He believed that the first object, in his time, was to secure stability,—be the government what it might: but not the less did he declare in his writings that the best stability was in the attachment of the people to their prince; the next, that of custom, under an established dynasty; and far below these, the maintenance of a government by the strong hand. He said, in playful conversation, that if he had taught princes how to control their people, he had also done his best to encourage the people not to let their princes oppress them too far. He was disgusted at the practice of employing mercenaries in the conflicts of the Italian States, by which the advantage was given to anybody who had a long purse: and he strove to put an end to the evil doings of a hired soldiery, brought from over the frontier, by raising a militia, and fostering in them a patriotic spirit. All the while, he was thinking. He studied politics in history, and read Livy as no man before him had done, and made Tacitus his model in his book of “The Prince.” When his time of disgrace and suffering arrived,—as it arrived sooner or later to every statesman in those days, he showed, in his correspondence, what was then the common notion of political service. He tells of his being imprisoned and put to the torture; and of the annoyance of hearing the screams of other tortured prisoners; and of his banishment to a country residence, where the dread of an ignominious poverty haunted him. These reverses befel him through the accession of the Medicis to the government of Tuscany; yet he hoped that they would give him office, and wrote his work, “The Prince,” to remind them of his experience of fifteen years, and of his mastery of the philosophy of politics. He tells, in one of these letters, how he spends his day:—two hours in the wood in the morning, overlooking the woodmen, and bargaining, and hearing complaints about the sale of wood. Then he goes to the fountain, where the birds congregate, and reads some favourite poet, and dreams some poem of his own. Then he goes to the rural inn, and gossips till dinner-time, with passing travellers, of whom he makes a study. The family dinner is a frugal one, furnished by his little farm: and after it he goes again to the inn, and plays a game (not now understood) with the landlord and neighbours,—not without incessant disputes. Evening having come, he goes home, puts off his coarse rural disguise, dresses like a gentleman, and enters his library as a saloon in which he is to meet the best company. There he spends four hours in the most refined society in the world, forgets all his troubles, ceases to fear poverty or death, and utilises the discourse of departed sages, by making it a part of his own mind. In short, he wrote his political speculations and descriptions there; and used his works to recommend himself to the Medicis for employment. “The Prince” was not intended for publication, but for the private use of Lorenzo de Medici, to whom he offered it as the only tribute he had to give, while others presented jewels, horses, and precious stuffs. Some of the counsels it contains are golden; but their influence is spoiled by their association with other sections full of craft and of cynicism.
He employed and amused himself also in literature; but, when Lorenzo de Medici died, he was summoned to counsel again, and entrusted with various reforms and preparations for war. He discharged several missions to neighbouring states, and played the spy on the Emperor’s movements on the other side of the mountains. He was subject to a stomach complaint, and at this time (1527) treated it himself, destroying himself by a mistake about his medicine. His age was fifty-eight. He died poor, and no special honours seem to have been paid to his memory till Earl Cowper, in 1787, obtained the erection of a monument in Florence to the first of the new order of great men—the Political Philosophers.
We must remember that the time had not come for a scientific or logical treatment of his subject, any more than for basing a theory of government on ethical principles. It was a great thing that Machiavelli caught and noted fine glimpses of noble truths, and that he was capable of far-reaching speculation, however desultory and partial. A political philosopher he was in a chaotic state of affairs, and if his political morality was postponed to considerations which would be in-
