ever lived, seems to have acted most steadily according to the rules laid down by you; I mean Richard III., King of England.  He stopped at no crime that could be profitable to him; he was a dissembler, a hypocrite, a murderer in cool blood.  After the death of his brother he gained the crown by cutting off, without pity, all who stood in his way.  He trusted no man any further than helped his own purposes and consisted with his own safety.  He liberally rewarded all services done him, but would not let the remembrance of them atone for offences or save any man from destruction who obstructed his views.  Nevertheless, though his nature shrunk from no wickedness which could serve his ambition, he possessed and exercised all those virtues which you recommend to the practice of your prince.  He was bold and prudent in war, just and strict in the general administration of his government, and particularly careful, by a vigorous execution of the laws, to protect the people against injuries or oppressions from the great.  In all his actions and words there constantly appeared the highest concern for the honour of the nation.  He was neither greedy of wealth that belonged to other men nor profuse of his own, but knew how to give and where to save.  He professed a most edifying sense of religion, pretended great zeal for the reformation of manners, and was really an example of sobriety, chastity, and temperance in the whole course of his life.  Nor did he shed any blood, but of those who were such obstacles in his way to dominion as could not possibly be removed by any other means.  This was a prince after your heart, yet mark his end.  The horror his crimes had excited in the minds of his subjects, and the detestation it produced, were so pernicious to him, that they enabled an exile, who had no right to the crown, and whose abilities were much inferior to his, to invade his realm and destroy him.

Machiavel.—­This example, I own, may seem to be of some weight against the truth of my system.  But at the same time it demonstrates that there was nothing so new in the doctrines I published as to make it reasonable to charge me with the disorders and mischiefs which, since my time, any kingdom may have happened to suffer from the ambition of a subject or the tyranny of a prince.  Human nature wants no teaching to render it wicked.  In courts more especially there has been, from the first institution of monarchies, a policy practised, not less repugnant than mine to the narrow and vulgar laws of humanity and religion.  Why should I be singled out as worse than other statesmen?

Guise.—­There have been, it must be owned, in all ages and all states, many wicked politicians; but thou art the first that ever taught the science of tyranny, reduced it to rules, and instructed his disciples how to acquire and secure it by treachery, perjuries, assassinations, proscriptions, and with a particular caution, not to be stopped in the progress of their crimes by any check of the conscience or feeling of the heart, but to push them as far as they shall judge to be necessary to their greatness and safety.  It is this which has given thee a pre-eminence in guilt over all other statesmen.