of their political degradation. Literature and taste, indeed,
still disguised with a flush of hectic loveliness and brilliancy
the ravages of an incurable decay. The iron had not yet entered
into the soul. The time was not yet come when eloquence was to be
gagged, and reason to be hoodwinked, when the harp of the poet
was to be hung on the willows of Arno, and the right hand of the
painter to forget its cunning. Yet a discerning eye might even
then have seen that genius and learning would not long survive
the state of things from which they had sprung, and that the
great men whose talents gave lustre to that melancholy period had
been formed under the influence of happier days, and would leave
no successors behind them. The times which shine with the
greatest splendour in literary history are not always those to
which the human mind is most indebted. Of this we may be
convinced, by comparing the generation which follows them with
that which had preceded them. The first fruits which are reaped
under a bad system often spring from seed sown under a good one.
Thus it was, in some measure, with the Augustan age. Thus it was
with the age of Raphael and Ariosto, of Aldus and Vida.

Machiavelli deeply regretted the misfortunes of his country, and
clearly discerned the cause and the remedy. It was the military
system of the Italian people which had extinguished their value
and discipline, and left their wealth an easy prey to every
foreign plunderer. The Secretary projected a scheme alike
honourable to his heart and to his intellect, for abolishing the
use of mercenary troops, and for organising a national militia.

The exertions which he made to effect this great object ought
alone to rescue his name from obloquy. Though his situation and