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Yet this man, black with the vices | to discern every thing, cheeks pale which we consider as most loathsome, with thought and sedentary habits, traitor, hypocrite, coward, assassin, was lips formed with feminine delicacy, by no means destitute even of those but compressed with more than masvirtues which we generally consider as culine decision, mark out men at once indicating superior elevation of charac-enterprising and timid, men equally ter. In civil courage, in perseverance, skilled in detecting the purposes of in presence of mind, those barbarous others, and in concealing their own, warriors, who were foremost in the men who must have been formidable battle or the breach, were far his infe- enemies and unsafe allies, but men, at riors. Even the dangers which he the same time, whose tempers were avoided with a caution almost pusil-mild and equable, and who possessed lanimous never confused his percep- an amplitude and subtlety of intellect tions, never paralysed his inventive which would have rendered them emifaculties, never wrung out one secret nent either in active or in contemplafrom his smooth tongue, and his in- tive life, and fitted them either to scrutable brow. Though a dangerous govern or to instruct mankind. enemy, and a still more dangerous ac- Every age and every nation has cercomplice, he could be a just and bene-tain characteristic vices, which prevail ficent ruler. With so much unfairness almost universally, which scarcely any in his policy, there was an extraordi-person scruples to avow, and which even nary degree of fairness in his intellect. rigid moralists but faintly censure. SucIndifferent to truth in the transactions ceeding generations change the fashion of life, he was honestly devoted to of their morals, with the fashion of truth in the researches of speculation. their hats and their coaches; take some Wanton cruelty was not in his nature. other kind of wickedness under their On the contrary, where no political ob-patronage, and wonder at the depraject was at stake, his disposition was soft and humane. The susceptibility of his nerves and the activity of his imagination inclined him to sympathise with the feelings of others, and to delight in the charities and courtesies of social life. Perpetually descending to actions which might seem to mark a mind diseased through all its faculties, he had nevertheless an exquisite sensibility, both for the natural and the moral sublime, for every graceful and every lofty conception. Habits of petty intrigue and dissimulation might have rendered him incapable of great general views, but that the expanding effect of his philosophical studies counteracted the narrowing tendency. He had the keenest enjoyment of wit, eloquence, and poetry. The fine arts profited alike by the severity of his judgment, and by the liberality of his patronage. The portraits of some of the remarkable Italians of those times are perfectly in harmony with this description. Ample and majestic fore-more luminously, and expressed them heads, brows strong and dark, but not frowning, eyes of which the calm full gaze, while it expresses nothing, seems

vity of their ancestors. Nor is this all. Posterity, that high court of appeal which is never tired of eulogising its own justice and discernment, acts on such occasions like a Roman dictator after a general mutiny. Finding the delinquents too numerous to be all punished, it selects some of them at hazard, to bear the whole penalty of an offence in which they are not more deeply implicated than those who escape. Whether decimation be a convenient mode of military execution, we know not; but we solemnly protest against the introduction of such a principle into the philosophy of history.

In the present instance, the lot has fallen on Machiavelli, a man whose public conduct was upright and honourable, whose views of morality, where they differed from those of the persons around him, seemed to have differed for the better, and whose only fault was, that, having adopted some of the maxims then generally received, he arranged them

more forcibly, than any other writer.

Having now, we hope, in some degree cleared the personal character of Machi

avelli, we come to the consideration of his works. As a poet he is not entitled to a high place; but his comedies deserve attention.

all the measured rhetoric of a funeral oration.

No writers have injured the Comedy of England so deeply as Congreve and The Mandragola, in particular, is Sheridan. Both were men of splendid superior to the best of Goldoni, and in- wit and polished taste. Unhappily, ferior only to the best of Molière. It they made all their characters in their is the work of a man who, if he had own likeness. Their works bear the devoted himself to the drama, would same relation to the legitimate drama probably have attained the highest emi- which a transparency bears to a paintnence, and produced a permanent and ing. There are no delicate touches, salutary effect on the national taste. no hues imperceptibly fading into each This we infer, not so much from the other: the whole is lighted up with an degree, as from the kind of its excel- universal glare. Outlines and tints lence. There are compositions which are forgotten in the common blaze indicate still greater talent, and which which illuminates all. The flowers are perused with still greater delight, and fruits of the intellect abound; but from which we should have drawn it is the abundance of a jungle, not of very different conclusions. Books quite a garden, unwholesome, bewildering, worthless are quite harmless. The unprofitable from its very plenty, rank sure sign of the general decline of an art is the frequent occurrence, not of deformity, but of misplaced beauty. In general, Tragedy is corrupted by eloquence, and Comedy by wit.

The real object of the drama is the exhibition of human character. This, we conceive, is no arbitrary canon, originating in local and temporary associations, like those canons which regulate the number of acts in a play, or of syllables in a line. To this fundamental law every other regulation is subordinate. The situations which most signally develop character form the best plot. The mother tongue of the passions is the best style.

from its very fragrance. Every fop, every boor, every valet, is a man of wit. The very butts and dupes, Tattle, Witwould, Puff, Acres, outshine the whole Hotel of Rambouillet. To prove the whole system of this school erroneous, it is only necessary to apply the test which dissolved the enchanted Florimel, to place the true by the false Thalia, to contrast the most celebrated characters which have been drawn by the writers of whom we speak with the Bastard in King John or the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. It was not surely from want of wit that Shakspeare adopted so different a manner. Benedick and Beatrice throw Mirabel and Millamant into the shade. All the good sayings of the facetious houses of Absolute and Surface might have been clipped from the single character of Falstaff, without being missed. would have been easy for that fertile mind to have given Bardolph and Shallow as much wit as Prince Hal, and to have made Dogberry and Ver

It

This principle, rightly understood, does not debar the poet from any grace of composition. There is no style in which some man may not, under some circumstances, express himself. There is therefore no style which the drama rejects, none which it does not occasionally require. It is in the discernment of place, of time, and of person, that the inferior artists fail. The fan-ges retort on each other in sparkling tastic rhapsody of Mercutio, the elaborate declamation of Antony, are, where Shakspeare has placed them, natural and pleasing. But Dryden would have made Mercutio challenge Tybalt in hyperboles as fanciful as those in which he describes the chariot of Mab. Corneille would have represented Antony as scolding and coaxing Cleopatra with

epigrams. But he knew that such indiscriminate prodigality was, to use his own admirable language, "from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as it were, the mirror up to Nature."

This digression will enable our readers to understand what we mean wher we say that in the Mandragola, Ma

places. The contemporaries of the author were not blind to the merits of this striking piece. It was acted at Florence with the greatest success. Leo the Tenth was among its admirers, and by his order it was represented at Rome.*

chiavelli has proved that he completely | Simon da Villa, to whom Bruno and understood the nature of the dramatic Buffalmacco promised the love of the art, and possessed talents which would Countess Civillari. Nicias is, like have enabled him to excel in it. By Simon, of a learned profession; and the correct and vigorous delineation of the dignity with which he wears the human nature, it produces interest doctoral fur, renders his absurdities infiwithout a pleasing or skilful plot, and nitely more grotesque. The old Tuscan laughter without the least ambition of is the very language for such a being. wit. The lover, not a very delicate or Its peculiar simplicity gives even to the generous lover, and his adviser the pa- most forcible reasoning and the most rasite, are drawn with spirit. The hy- brilliant wit an infantine air, generally pocritical confessor is an admirable delightful, but to a foreign reader someportrait. He is, if we mistake not, the times a little ludicrous. Heroes and original of Father Dominic, the best statesmen seem to lisp when they use comic character of Dryden. But old it. It becomes Nicias incomparably, Nicias is the glory of the piece. We and renders all his silliness infinitely cannot call to mind any thing that more silly. resembles him. The follies which We may add, that the verses with Molière ridicules are those of affecta- which the Mandragola is interspersed, tion, not those of fatuity. Coxcombs appear to us to be the most spirited and pedants, not absolute simpletons, and correct of all that Machiavelli has are his game. Shakspeare has indeed written in metre. He seems to have a vast assortment of fools; but the pre-entertained the same opinion; for he cise species of which we speak is not, has introduced some of them in other if we remember right, to be found there. Shallow is a fool. But his animal spirits supply, to a certain degree, the place of cleverness. His talk is to that of Sir John what soda water is to champagne. It has the effervescence though not the body or the flavour. Slender and Sir Andrew Aguecheek are fools, troubled with an uneasy consciousness of their folly, which, in the latter produces meekness and docility, and in the former, awkwardness, obstinacy, and confusion. Cloten is an arrogant fool, Osric a foppish fool, Ajax a savage fool; but Nicias is, as Thersites says of Patroclus, a fool positive. His mind is occupied by no strong feeling; it takes every character, and retains none; its aspect is diversified, not by passions, but by faint and transitory semblances of passion, a mock joy, a mock fear, a mock love, a mock pride, which chase each other like shadows over its surface, and vanish as soon as they appear. He is just idiot enough to be an object, not of pity or horror, but of ridicule. He bears some resemblance to poor Calan-Paulus Jovius designates the Mandragola Nothing can be more evident than that drino, whose mishaps, as recounted by under the name of the Nicias. We should Boccaccio, have made all Europe merry not have noticed what is so perfectly obvious, for more than four centuries. He per- misnomer has led the sagacious and induswere it not that this natural and palpable haps resembles still more closely trious Bayle into a gross error.

The Clizia is an imitation of the Casina of Plautus, which is itself an imitation of the lost Kλnpovμévoι of Diphilus. Plautus was, unquestionably, one of the best Latin writers; but the Casina is by no means one of his best plays; nor is it one which offers great facilities to an imitator. The story is as alien from modern habits of life, as the manner in which it is developed from the modern fashion of composition. The lover remains in the country and the heroine in her chamber during the whole action, leaving their fate to be decided by a foolish father, a cunning mother, and two knavish servants. Machiavelli has executed his task with judgment and taste. modated the plot to a different state of

He has accom

society, and has very dexterously con- | bined some hints taken from this tale, nected it with the history of his own with others from Boccaccio, in the plot times. The relation of the trick put on the doting old lover is exquisitely numorous. It is far superior to the corresponding passage in the Latin comedy, and scarcely yields to the account which Falstaff gives of his ducking.

of "The Devil is an Ass," a play which, though not the most highly finished of his compositions, is perhaps that which exhibits the strongest proofs of genius. The political correspondence of Machiavelli, first published in 1767, is unquestionably genuine, and highly valuable. The unhappy circumstances

the greater part of his public life gave extraordinary encouragement to diplomatic talents. From the moment that Charles the Eighth descended from the Alps, the whole character of Italian politics was changed. The govern

Two other comedies without titles, the one in prose, the other in verse, ap-in which his country was placed during pear among the works of Machiavelli. The former is very short, lively enough, but of no great value. The latter we can scarcely believe to be genuine. Neither its merits nor its defects remind us of the reputed author. It was first printed in 1796, from a manuscript dis-ments of the Peninsula ceased to form covered in the celebrated library of the an independent system. Drawn from Strozzi. Its genuineness, if we have been rightly informed, is established solely by the comparison of hands. Our suspicions are strengthened by the circumstance, that the same manuscript contained a description of the plague of 1527, which has also, in consequence, been added to the works of Machiavelli. Of this last composition the strongest external evidence would scarcely induce us to believe him guilty. Nothing was ever written more detestable in matter and manner. The narrations, the reflections, the jokes, the lamentations, are all the very worst of their respective kinds, at once trite and affected, threadbare tinsel from the Rag Fairs and Monmouth Streets of literature. A foolish schoolboy might write such a piece, and, after he had written it, think it much finer than the incomparable introduction of the Decameron. But that a shrewd statesman, whose earliest works are characterised by manliness of thought and language, should, at near sixty years of age, descend to such puerility, is utterly inconceivable.

their old orbit by the attraction of the larger bodies which now approached them, they became mere satellites of France and Spain. All their disputes, internal and external, were decided by foreign influence. The contests of opposite factions were carried on, not as formerly in the senate-house or in the market-place, but in the antechambers of Louis and Ferdinand. Under these circumstances, the prosperity of the Italian States depended far more on the ability of their foreign agents, than on the conduct of those who were intrusted with the domestic administration. The ambassador had to discharge functions far more delicate than transmitting orders of knighthood, introducing tourists, or presenting his brethren with the homage of his high consideration. He was an advocate to whose management the dearest interests of his clients were intrusted, a spy clothed with an inviolable character. Instead of consulting, by a reserved manner and ambiguous style, the dignity of those whom he represented, he was to plunge into all the intrigues of the court at The little novel of Belphegor is plea- which he resided, to discover and flatter santly conceived, and pleasantly told. every weakness of the prince, and of But the extravagance of the satire in the favourite who governed the prince, some measure injures its effect. Ma- and of the lacquey who governed the chiavelli was unhappily married; and favourite. He was to compliment the his wish to avenge his own cause and mistress and bribe the confessor, to that of his brethren in misfortune, car-panegyrize or supplicate, to laugh or ried him beyond even the licence of weep, to accommodate himself to every fiction. Jonson seems to have com- caprice, to lu! every suspicion, to

treasure every hint, to be every thing, | again when, exhausted by disease and to observe every thing, to endure every overwhelmed by misfortunes, which no thing. High as the art of political in-human prudence could have averted, trigue had been carried in Italy, these were times which required it all.

he was the prisoner of the deadliest enemy of his house. These interviews On these arduous errands Machia- between the greatest speculative and velli was frequently employed. He was the greatest practical statesman of the sent to treat with the King of the age are fully described in the CorreRomans and with the Duke of Valen- spondence, and form perhaps the most tinois. He was twice ambassador at interesting part of it. From some the Court of Rome, and thrice at that passages in The Prince, and perhaps of France. In these missions, and in also from some indistinct traditions, several others of inferior importance, several writers have supposed a conhe acquitted himself with great dex- nection between those remarkable men terity. His despatches form one of the much closer than ever existed. The most amusing and instructive col- Envoy has even been accused of promptlections extant. The narratives are ing the crimes of the artful and merciclear and agreeably written; the re- less tyrant. But from the official marks on men and things clever and documents it is clear that their interjudicious. The conversations are re-course, though ostensibly amicable, was ported in a spirited and characteristic in reality hostile. It cannot be doubted, manner. We find ourselves introduced however, that the imagination of Mainto the presence of the men who, during twenty eventful years, swayed the destinies of Europe. Their wit and their folly, their fretfulness and their merriment, are exposed to us. We are admitted to overhear their chat, and to watch their familiar gestures. It is interesting and curious to recognise, in circumstances which elude the notice of historians, the feeble violence and shallow cunning of Louis the Twelfth ; the bustling insignificance of Maximilian, cursed with an impotent pruriency for renown, rash yet timid, obstinate yet fickle, always in a hurry, yet always too late; the fierce and hanghty energy which gave dignity to the eccentricities of Julius; the soft and graceful manners which masked the insatiable ambition and the implacable hatred of Cæsar Borgia.

We have mentioned Cæsar Borgia. It is impossible not to pause for a moment on the name of a man in whom the political morality of Italy was so strongly personified, partially blended with the sterner lineaments of the Spanish character. On two important occasions Machiavelli was admitted to his society; once, at the moment when Caesar's splendid villany achieved its most signal triumph, when he caught in one snare and crushed at one blow all his most formidable rivals; and

chiavelli was strongly impressed, and his speculations on government coloured, by the observations which he made on the singular character and equally singular fortunes of a man who under such disadvantages had achieved such exploits; who, when sensuality, varied through innumerable forms, could no longer stimulate his sated mind, found a more powerful and durable excitement in the intense thirst of empire and revenge; who emerged from the sloth and luxury of the Roman purple the first prince and general of the age; who, trained in an unwarlike profession, formed a gallant army out of the dregs of an unwarlike people; who, after acquiring sovereignty by destroying his enemies, acquired popularity by destroying his tools; who had begun to employ for the most salutary ends the power which he had attained by the most atrocious means; who tolerated within the sphere of his iron despotism no plunderer or oppressor but himself; and who fell at last amidst the mingled curses and regrets of a people of whom his genius had been the wonder, and might have been the salvation. Some of those crimes of Borgia which to us appear the most odious would not, from causes which we have already considered. have struck an Italian of the fifteenth

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