DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.69942#0229
italy.] MACHIAVELLI.
to convince them, that modern Italy owed all its calamities
to those mercenary bands to whom it confided its pro-
tection—to those stipendiary troops, who, having neither
a sense of honour, nor the love of a country to animate
them, were the most destructive foes of the people they
were hired to defend. He was desirous that his native
air, once the classic ground of valour and military virtue,
should again produce legions of brave and active citizens,
who, warmed by the recollection of former ages, and glow-
ing with the sentiments of liberty and glory, should alone
assume the task of delivering their country from its foreign
and domestic usurpers.
But it is the book, entitled the Prince, which has most
exposed Machiavelli to the censure and obloquy of his
cotemporaries and posterity. If considered chiefly in its
literal sense, it is certainly not easy to justify this singu-
lar production. The most abominable maxims of tyranny
are openly avowed and recommended: but by display-
ing all the possible engines of tyranny, he probably in-
tended to deprive it of many of its resources. The hor-
rible picture drawn of Caesar Borgia, so far from being
useful to those who might wish to imitate that monster of
perfidy and depravity, was more likely to deter them, by
the expospre of the odious means by which absolute
sovereignty is attained, and thus instructing the people
how to resist every attempt to enslave them. Do we ac-
cuse the officers of an ingenious and well-conducted po-
lice of being in league with robbers, when they are com-
pelled to have recourse to the same means for their de-
tection which the robbers themselves have used in the
spoliation of others? Vice is seldom dangerous, when
drawn in all its native grossness and deformity ; it is when
disguised under the appearance of decency, that it under-
mines the morals, and circulates the venom of corruption
to convince them, that modern Italy owed all its calamities
to those mercenary bands to whom it confided its pro-
tection—to those stipendiary troops, who, having neither
a sense of honour, nor the love of a country to animate
them, were the most destructive foes of the people they
were hired to defend. He was desirous that his native
air, once the classic ground of valour and military virtue,
should again produce legions of brave and active citizens,
who, warmed by the recollection of former ages, and glow-
ing with the sentiments of liberty and glory, should alone
assume the task of delivering their country from its foreign
and domestic usurpers.
But it is the book, entitled the Prince, which has most
exposed Machiavelli to the censure and obloquy of his
cotemporaries and posterity. If considered chiefly in its
literal sense, it is certainly not easy to justify this singu-
lar production. The most abominable maxims of tyranny
are openly avowed and recommended: but by display-
ing all the possible engines of tyranny, he probably in-
tended to deprive it of many of its resources. The hor-
rible picture drawn of Caesar Borgia, so far from being
useful to those who might wish to imitate that monster of
perfidy and depravity, was more likely to deter them, by
the expospre of the odious means by which absolute
sovereignty is attained, and thus instructing the people
how to resist every attempt to enslave them. Do we ac-
cuse the officers of an ingenious and well-conducted po-
lice of being in league with robbers, when they are com-
pelled to have recourse to the same means for their de-
tection which the robbers themselves have used in the
spoliation of others? Vice is seldom dangerous, when
drawn in all its native grossness and deformity ; it is when
disguised under the appearance of decency, that it under-
mines the morals, and circulates the venom of corruption