children are charming. Here is one written soon before his death to his
little son Guido.--'Guido, my darling son, I received a letter of thine
and was delighted with it, particularly because you tell me of your full
recovery, the best news I could have. If God grants life to us both I
expect to make a good man of you, only you must do your fair share
yourself.' Guido is to stick to his books and music, and if the family
mule is too fractious, 'Unbridle him, take off the halter and turn him
loose at Montepulciano. The farm is large, the mule is small, so no harm
can come of it. Tell your mother, with my love, not to be nervous. I
shall surely be home before any trouble comes. Give a kiss to Baccina,
Piero, and Totto: I wish I knew his eyes were getting well. Be happy and
spend as little as you may. Christ have you in his keeping.'--There is
nothing exquisite or divinely delicate in this letter, but there are
many such, and they were not written by a bad man, any more than the
answers they evoke were addressed to one. There is little more save of a
like character that is known of Machiavelli the man. But to judge him
and his work we must have some knowledge of the world in which he was to
move and have his being.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: State of Italy.]

At the beginning of the sixteenth century Italy was rotten to the core.
In the close competition of great wickedness the Vicar of Christ easily
carried off the palm, and the Court of Alexander VI. was probably the
wickedest meeting-place of men that has ever existed upon earth. No
virtue, Christian or Pagan, was there to be found; little art that was
not sensuous or sensual. It seemed as if Bacchus and Venus and Priapus
had come to their own again, and yet Rome had not ceased to call herself