21 



MACHIAVELLI, NICCOLO. 



MACKA.Y, CHARLES. 



Rome, 10th of December 1513, after humorously describing his mode 

 of life in the country, mentions this treatise on which he was then 

 engaged, and tells him that he wishes to show to the Medici " that 

 he had not spent the 15 years in which he had studied the art of 

 government in sleeping or playing, so that they might think of em- 

 ploying a man who had acquired experience at the expense of others ;'" 

 and he adds, " I wish that these gignori Medici would employ me, 

 were it only in rolling a stone. They ought not to doubt my fidelity. 

 My poverty is a testimony of it.'' These expressions show clearly 

 enough that Machiavelli's object in writing the 'Principe' was to 

 recommend himself t > the Medici. All the ingenious surmises of later 

 critics about his wishing to render absolute princes odious to the 

 people, or to induce the Medici, by following his precepts, to render 

 themselves insupportable and thus bring about their own fall and the 

 restoration of the republic, are completely overthrown. Machiavelli 

 saw clearly enough that the Medici were too firmly seated at Florence 

 to be dislodged, and although he was himself partial to a rational 

 system of civil liberty, if consistent with a strong government, he was 

 still uiore attached to the national honour and independence of his 

 country; and what he dreaded most was, that, through some rash 

 ebullitions of party spirit, foreigners might be enabled to interfere and 

 enslave Florence, as they had enslaved Louibardy and Naples. At 

 the end of his ' Principe ' (ch. zxv.) be displays this feeling with great 

 energy, in a passage which explains sufficiently that Machiavelli wrote 

 LU ' Principe ' to please the Medici and to encourage them in their 

 views of Italian dominion. 



Machiavelli says, at the beginning of his treatise (c. 2), that he 

 does not intend to treat of republics, of which he had spoken in 

 former works, nor of hereditary principalities, because these are by 

 precedent and custom firm and secure ; but be intends to treat of 

 what he styles mixed principalities; that is to gay, where anew ruler 

 or prince takes possession of a country, in which he must necessarily 

 havo many enemies, lie illustrates, by examples from ancient ami 

 modern history, how a new ruler can secure himself in bis recently 

 acquired possession!. In the 7th chapter he gives a sketch of the 

 method pursued by Cesare Borgia, whose political art he extols. The 

 8th chapter treats of those who usurp the government of their own 

 country, and he instances Oliverotto, the petty tyrant of Ferino, 

 who after one year of usurped power fell by the arts of a greater and 

 more able tyrant, Cesare Borgia. The 9th chapter treats of those new 

 princes who, without any criminal violence, but with the consent of 

 their countrymen, have risen to the supreme power. Chapter 10 treats 

 of the strength of the various principalities. Chapter 11 concerns 

 ecclesiastical states, and especially that of Home. Chapters 12, 13, 14, 

 treat of the military force, mercenary, auxiliary, and native, showing 

 the danger of relying upon the first two species of troops. Chapter 15 

 treaU of the things which bring to princes praise or blame. Chapter 16 

 of liberality and parsimony. Chapter 17 of cruelty and clemency, 

 and whether it is better to bo loved than feared. He says the sove- 

 reign, should be feared without being hated, and with this view he 

 ought to abstain from touching the women and the property of hi* 

 subjects ; and he repeats, that even in cases of punishment for treason, 

 he ought not to resort to confiscation, " because men sooner forget 

 the death of their father than the losg of their patrimony.'' The 

 18th chapter, which has been considered as the most obnoxious, is in 

 answer to the question, " In what manner ought a prince to keep 

 faith ? " Macbiavolli begins by observing that everybody knows how 

 laudable it is for a prince to keep his faith, and to live with integrity 

 and not to practise craft : but yet, he adds, we have seen in our own 

 tunes that tho-e princes who have cared little about faith and" have 

 knowu how to deceive mankind have effected great things. There are 

 two w.ijs of ruling, one by the laws and the other by force : the former 

 is proper for men, the other for beasts ; but as the former is not al ways 

 sutliuient, one must resort to the second, and adopt the ways both of 

 the lion and of the fox. If all men were good, this lesson were not 

 good ; but as they are bad, and would not keep faith with you, you 

 mutt not keep faith with them. And then he cites the example of 

 Alexander VI., who did nothing else but deceive men, and never 

 thought of any other means, always confirming his promises with the 

 most solemn oaths, and always succeeding in deceiving others. In 

 chapter 19 Machiavelli, among other things, praises tho institutions of 

 the kingdom of Franca at tbat time ; and he approves of the parlia- 

 ment as a check upon the nobility. Chapter 20 speaks of fortresses, 

 of factions, of the balance to be kept between various parties in the 

 state, lie says the beat fortification for a prince is to be liked by his 

 people. Chapter 21 is entitled, 'How is a Prince to conduct himself 

 in order to acquire reputation ?' and the author adduces the example 

 of Ferdinand the Catholic. Chapter 22 treats of the secretaries of 

 princes. 23, That flatterers ought to be shunned. 24, Why and how ' 

 have the Italian princes lost their states .' 25, That fortune has a 

 great share in human affairs, and how we can resist its influence. 

 26, Exhortation to deliver Italy from the barbarians. Had Machia- 

 velli written his book in the form, of a commentary upou history, 

 instead of adopting a <ii lactic style, all that he says would be no more 

 than matter of fact, for it was openly practised in his age, aud had 

 been practised long before him. Moral considerations are of course 

 tot iliy out of the question in such a work. But even in its didactic 

 form, most of iU precepts were not new. Gille Colonne (Frater : 



-iEgidius Komanus),an Austin friar, preceptor to Philippe le Bel, wrote 

 for the instruction of his pupil a treatise, ' De Regimiue Principum,' 

 I afterwards printed at Venice in 1473, and translated into Spanish 

 under the title of ' llegimiento de los Principes,' for the instruction of 

 I the Infante Don Pedro of Castile. This book was probably before the 

 j eyes of Machiavelli when he composed his ' Principe.' Several of the 

 j obnoxious principles of that treatise are also found in the 'Memoirs' 

 of Comines, and in the ' Politic ' of Aristotle. 



The 'Principe* was first published, after Machiavelli's death, at 

 Rome in 1532, with tho permission of Clement VII. The ' Legazioni,' 

 or letters of the political missions of Machiavelli, which are the key 

 to his ' Principe,' were not made public till the middle of the last 

 century. 



In 1516 Machiavelli wrote his 'Discorsi sulla prima Deca di Tito 

 Livio,' or commentary on the first ten books of Livy, which are still 

 much admired. After the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, in 1519, 

 Cardinal Giulio having become governor of Florence, both he and 

 Leo X. seem to have remembered Machiavelli, and it was at Leo's 

 request that he wrote a ' Discorso sopra Riformare lo stato di Fireuze,' 

 which was a plan of a new constitution for that state. 



After 1521 Machiavelli was again employed on various missions. 

 He was sent once to Venice, in 1525, and several times to his friend 

 Guicciardini, who was governor, first of Modena, and then of Parma, 

 for the pope. This was the time when Pope Clement VII. and the 

 French were allied a?aiust Charles V., and when the Imperial nrmy 

 under Bourbon was threatening to cross the Apennines, no one knew 

 whether to fall upon Tuscany or upon Rome. Machiavelli was seat 

 ; to Parma to spy their motions. He returned to Florence in May 

 1527, after Bourbon's army had gone to Rome. Being unwell in the 

 stomach, he took some medicine of his own, upon which he grew worse, 

 and died, after receiving the sacrament, on the 22nd June, at the age 

 of fifty-eight. A letter of one of his amis describes the particulars of 

 bis death. He left five children by his wife Marietta Corsini, but little 

 or no fortune. He was buried in the family vault iu the church 

 of Santa Crooe : but it was only in 1787 that a monument was raised 

 to his memory, through the exertions aud liberality of Karl Cowper. 



The other works of Machiavelli, not mentioned above, are ' Storie 

 Florentine,' which he presented to Clement VII. in 1525, aud which 

 came down to the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, in 1492. They 

 rank among the beit works on Italian history. The style of Machia- 

 velli is remarkably nervous, concise, and comprehensive, and very 

 different from that of his contemporary (and, it may be said, con- 

 tiuuator) Guicciardini. Machiavelli has left fragments which bring 

 down the history of Florence to 1499; 2, 'La Maudragora' and 'La 

 Clizia,' two comedies ; 3, ' L'Asino d'Oro,' an imitation of the ' Golden 

 Ass' of Apiileius; 4, 'Vita di Castruccio Castracani,' incomplete; 

 5, ' Sommario delle cose di Lucca,' which is a political and statistical 

 account of tbat republic; 6, 'Sette libri dell' Arte delli Guerra,' 

 which were highly esteemed by Frederick the Great of Prussia and 

 other competent judges ; 7, ' Discorso so la Lingua di Dante, Boccaccio, 

 e Petrarca, debba chiamarsi I taliaua, Toscana, o Fiorentina ; ' besides 

 minor productions and a multitude of letters. The best editions of 

 hu works collectively are those of Florence, 1783, 6 vols. 4to; 1796, 

 8 vols. 8vo; and 1818, 10 vols. 8vo. 



MACHIN, JOHN, succeeded Dr. Torriano as professor of astronomy 

 to Gresham College on the 16th of May 1713. His death is announced 

 iu the ' Gentleman's Magazine,' June 7th, 1751, but the date of his 

 birth is unknown. He is the author of a method for determining the 

 quadrature of the circle, by means of the known development of an 

 arc according to the ascending powers of its tangent, which he so 

 modified as to render rapidly convergent. It was however by means 

 of Dr. Halley's method that he computed the ratio of the circum- 

 ference of the circle to its diameter as far as one hundred places of 

 decimals. In the 'Philosophical Transactions' he wrote -1, A paper 

 'On the Curve of quickest Descent,' xxx., 1718; 2, 'A Case of Dis- 

 tempered Skin,' xxxvil, 1732; 3, ' Solution of Kepler's Problem,' xl., 

 1733. Besides the above, he published a pamphlet on the ' Laws of 

 the Moon's Motion according to Gravity,' which waa printed at the end 

 of Motte'a translation of Newton's ' Principia,' 8vo, 1729. 



* MACKAY, CHARLES, was born at Perth, but was removed early 

 to London, where he was educated. In 1830 he was iu Brussels, and 

 was there a witness of the events of the revolution, which separated 

 Belgium from Holland. In 1834, after having published a small 

 volume of poems, he became an assistant on the ' Morning Chronicle,' 

 where he continued for several years. In 1844 he waa appointed 

 editor of the ' Argus," a Glasgow newspaper, which situation he 

 resigned in 1847, on occasion of a dispute among tho Liberal party 

 as to the choice of a candidate to represent that city in parliament; 

 but while resident there, iu 1848, the university bestowed on him 

 the degree of LL.D. In the meantime he had produced several 

 works, and on his return to London devoted himself entirely to . 

 literature. In 1846 ho published in Glasgow a small work, ' Educa- 

 tion of the People, in. Letters to Viscount Morpeth,' ' Voices from 

 the Crowd,' a collection of poems, which had first appeared in the 

 'Daily Newa;' and 'Scenery and Poetry of the English Lakes,' 

 were published in the same year in London. In 1847 he wrote 

 ' Voices from the Mountains,' a small volume of poems. In 1848 

 appeared ' Town Lyrics, and other Poems.' In 1849 appeared, ' The 



