the miseries of Italy; the necessity of unity and the evils of the Papacy which prevents it.  In this book dedicated to a Pope he scants nothing of his hatred of the Holy See.  For ever he is still seeking the one strong man in a blatant land with almost absolute power to punish, pull down, and reconstruct on an abiding foundation, for to his clear eyes it is ever the events that are born of the man, and not the man of the events.  He was the first to observe that the Ghibellines were not only the Imperial party but the party of the aristocrats and influential men, whereas the Guelphs were the party not only of the Church but of the people, and he traces the slow but increasing struggle to the triumph of democracy in the Ordinamenti di Giustizia (1293).  But the triumph was not final.  The Florentines were ’unable to preserve liberty and could not tolerate slavery.’  So the fighting, banishments, bloodshed, cruelty, injustice, began once more.  The nobles were in origin Germanic, he points out, the people Latin; so that a racial bitterness gave accent to their hate.  But yet, he adds impartially, when the crushed nobility were forced to change their names and no longer dared be heard ’Florence was not only stripped of arms but likewise of all generosity.’  It would be impossible to follow the History in detail.  The second, seventh and eighth books are perhaps the most powerful and dramatic.  Outside affairs and lesser events are lightly touched.  But no stories in the world have been told with more intensity than those of the conspiracies in the seventh and eighth books, and none have given a more intimate and accurate perception of the modes of thought and feeling at the time.  The History ends with the death of Lorenzo de Medici in 1492.  Enough has been said of its breadth of scope and originality of method.  The spirit of clear flaming patriotism, of undying hope that will not in the darkest day despair, the plangent appeal to Italy for its own great sake to rouse and live, all these are found pre-eminently in the History as they are found wherever Machiavelli speaks from the heart of his heart.  Of the style a foreigner may not speak.  But those who are proper judges maintain that in simplicity and lucidity, vigour, and power, softness, elevation, and eloquence, the style of Machiavelli is ‘divine,’ and remains, as that of Dante among the poets, unchallenged and insuperable among all writers of Italian prose.

[Sidenote:  Other Works.]

Though Machiavelli must always stand as a political thinker, an historian, and a military theorist it would leave an insufficient idea of his mental activities were there no short notice of his other literary works.  With his passion for incarnating his theories in a single personality, he wrote the Life of Castruccio Castracani, a politico-military romance.  His hero was a soldier of fortune born Lucca in 1281, and, playing with a free hand, Machiavelli weaves a life of adventure and romance in which his constant