and decisive engagements for the languid and dilatory operations
of his countrymen. He attaches very little importance to the
invention of gunpowder. Indeed he seems to think that it ought
scarcely to produce any change in the mode of arming or of
disposing troops. The general testimony of historians, it must be
allowed, seems to prove that the ill-constructed and ill-served
artillery of those times, though useful in a siege, was of little
value on the field of battle.

Of the tactics of Machiavelli we will not venture to give an
opinion: but we are certain that his book is most able and
interesting. As a commentary on the history of his times, it is
invaluable. The ingenuity, the grace, and the perspicuity of the
style, and the eloquence and animation of particular passages,
must give pleasure even to readers who take no interest in the
subject.

The Prince and the Discourses on Livy were written after the fall
of the Republican Government. The former was dedicated to the
young Lorenzo di Medici. This circumstance seems to have
disgusted the contemporaries of the writer far more than the
doctrines which have rendered the name of the work odious in
later times. It was considered as an indication of political
apostasy. The fact however seems to have been that Machiavelli,
despairing of the liberty of Florence, was inclined to support
any government which might preserve her independence. The
interval which separated a democracy and a despotism, Soderini
and Lorenzo, seemed to vanish when compared with the difference
between the former and the present state of Italy, between the
security, the opulence, and the repose which she had enjoyed