444 
ments, and the opinion deduced from 
them, Mr. Rofcoe tays:—** Yet it feems 
impoifible to fubfcribe fericufly to this 
opinion : exclufive of the deftruétive max- 
ims, which are fcattered more or lefs 
though all the Florentine Secretary's 
works, perhaps not a fingle trace of this 
fuppofed irony is to be difcovered. Nu- 
merous as the excellent refleCtions are in 
this treatife, it muft ftill be reckoned a 
moft flagitious work, and one at which 
every virtuous mind muft infantly revolt. 
Nothing is fo fuperb as the genius of 
Machiavel; nothing appears fo horrid as 
his heart.”,-———“* If Machiavel’s ¢ I/ Prin- 
cipe had not appeared, we fhould not have 
been able to have boafted of the ¢ Anti- 
Machiavel,”’ the fruit of the youth and 
folitude of one of the greateft monarchs 
that have ever reigned. The antidote is 
fo delicious, that even the poifon becomes 
palatable, and we fwallow it with eager- 
* nefs to tafte the lufcious medicine which 
counteracts its fubtilty.’ How much 
more confolatory would have been this re- 
fleftion, if the mighty monarch had eaten 
this fruit of his youth and folitude in ma- 
turer years, and in the feafon of his ac- 
tivity! If the King of Pruffia commit- 
ted an error in his early years, by writing 
his Anti-Machiavel, he expiated it by a 
Jong life, religioufly devoted to plunder, 
perfidy, and devaitation, by giving the 
lie to his own work ; and, when the mer- 
ciful hand of Death had pvt a ftop to his 
career of ruin, by leaving, as a legacy, in 
his Inftructions to General-officers, the art 
of maffacring mankind by the help of 
treachery, where fimple force is ineffec- 
tual! 
I cannot abftain from quoting one more 
paffage from Mr. Rofcoe’s highly finithed 
Hiftory, becaufe it feems to be ftrikingly 
alluftrative, not only of Machiavel’s real po- 
litical fentiments, but alfo of the fecret 
manner by which he was obliged to pro- 
agate them, and therefore corroborative 
of the fufpected irony in J] Principe :— 
¢ Within thefe few years, the Florentine 
Secretary’s admirable proje&t for the re- 
formation of the Government of Florence 
by the order of Leo X. has been publith- 
~ed for the firft time, and his ‘zeal for the 
liberty and freedom of his country is vi- 
fible in every page (Baretti’s Edit. ato. 
London,.1772). ‘The outward appearance 
‘of fovereignty, with all its attendant 
pompand majefty,according to hisplan,was 
‘go have been wholly velted in the Medici, 
Defence of Machiavel, 
[ fune 1, 
whilft the real powet was artfully ecn- 
trived to reft with the people. Leo X. © 
faw through the defign ; Maehiavel was 
applauded, but, from that moment, ceafed 
to be confulted.” This fing'e faét furely 
raifes Machiavel to an eminence, which 
noPhilippic againft him will ever be able to 
reach. 
The Letter in the Harleian Mifcellany 
adds confufion to another unfettled point 
re({pecting Machiavel, namely, the time of 
his death. Some of his biographers affert, 
that he died of a medicine, which he un- 
fortunately took as a prefervative, in the 
year 1527. Paulus Jovius ftates his 
death to have taken placeinrs30. L’A- 
vocat fays the fame: Poccianti fays he 
died in 1526; and his fon Peter, in a 
letter, dated June, 1527, ftates his father 
to have died on the 22d of that month. 
This laft, one would have thought, would 
have been excellent authority; but, if fo, 
why do the biographers of Machiavel dif- 
agree on the fubjeét? The authority of 
the father, however, it mult be acknow- 
ledged, is better than that of the fon: the 
fa& probably was (if the Letter in the 
Harleian Mifcellany is not a forgery, for 
which I know no grounds of fufpicion), 
that the fon’s letter was actually dated 
1537, but,through the error of fome prin- 
ter or tranferiber, has come down to us 
as having been written in 1527. ‘The 
following reafons make this probable: in 
the firft place, Machiavel was born in 
May, 1469; if he diedin i527, he was 
only fifty-eight years old at the time of his 
death. Now, aman who has not feen fixty, 
is by no means likely to fpeak of the lo- 
quacity incident to perfons of his time of ~ 
life, &c. or to mention his age in the man- 
ner which Machiavel has done in the be- 
ginning of this Vindication*. 
In the next place, Machiavel mentions 
«¢ the happy and hopeful reign of our new 
Prince Gofimo+:’’ Cofimo tucceeded that 
«* monfter of luft and cruelty, Alexander,” 
and was not proclaimed ‘* Chief of the 
Florentine Republic’ till the 9th of Janua- 
ry, in the year one thoufand, five hundred, 
and thirty feven. 
* The paffages referred to are printed im 
Italics, in the extraéts which I have given: 
—See page 441. 
+ See the early part of this article. ane 
