CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS, VOLUME II
By Thomas Babington Macaulay
CONTENTS
WAR OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN
CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS
THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON
INDEX AND GLOSSARY OF ALLUSIONS
MACHIAVELLI
(March 1827) Oeuvres completes de MACHIAVEL, traduites par J. V. PERIERParis: 1825.
THOSE who have attended to the practice of our literary tribunal arewell aware that, by means of certain legal fictions similar to those ofWestminster Hall, we are frequently enabled to take cognisance of caseslying beyond the sphere of our original jurisdiction. We need hardlysay, therefore, that in the present instance M. Perier is merely aRichard Roe, who will not be mentioned in any subsequent stage of theproceedings, and whose name is used for the sole purpose of bringingMachiavelli into court.
We doubt whether any name in literary history be so generally odious asthat of the man whose character and writings we now propose to consider.The terms in which he is commonly described would seem to import thathe was the Tempter, the Evil Principle, the discoverer of ambitionand revenge, the original inventor of perjury, and that, before thepublication of his fatal Prince, there had never been a hypocrite, atyrant, or a traitor, a simulated virtue, or a convenient crime.One writer gravely assures us that Maurice of Saxony learned all hisfraudulent policy from that execrable volume. Another remarks that sinceit was translated into Turkish, the Sultans have been more addictedthan formerly to the custom of strangling their brothers. Lord Lytteltoncharges the poor Florentine with the manifold treasons of the house ofGuise, and with the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Several authors havehinted that the Gunpowder Plot is to be primarily attributed to hisdoctrines, and seem to think that his effigy ought to be substituted forthat of Guy Faux, in those processions by which the ingenious youth ofEngland annually commemorate the preservation of the Three Estates. TheChurch of Rome has pronounced his works accursed things. Nor have ourown countrymen been backward in testifying their opinion of his merits.Out of his surname they have coi