but, in the course of this Introduction, wherein we shall review "The Prince," chapter by chapter, the fact we have already assumed will be more abundantly apparent.
The sentiments which Machiavelli inculcates in the above chapter, he, like a true patriot, whose love of his country was paramount to every other consideration, enunciated in a more ample manner in his History of Florence, composed at the instance of Pope Clement the VIth. Yet, with the exception of the torture which he suffered on suspicion of conspiring against Julius de Medicis (in 1513,) and of which the family of the Medicis themselves believed him innocent—we do not find that either his conduct, or those writings which have been so much decried, ever subjected him to censure during his life-time, which is no inconsiderable proof· of the high estimation in which his writings were held; for Machiavelli was no common writer, and had he disseminated any schism in religion or policy, it would
