fowre yere, the great feares, the sodaine flightes and the
marveilous losses: and so three most mighty states which were in
Italie, have bene dievers times sacked and destroyed. But that
which is worse, is where those that remaine, continue in the
very same errour, and liev in the verie same disorder and
consider not, that those who in olde time would keepe their
states, caused to be done these thinges, which of me hath beene
reasoned, and that their studies were, to prepare the body to
diseases, and the minde not to feare perills. Whereby grewe that
Cæsar, Alexander, and all those men and excellent Princes in
olde time, were the formost amongst the fighters, going armed on
foote: and if they lost their state, they would loose their
life, so that they lievd and died vertuously.'

Such was the clay that waited the moulding of the potter's hand.
'Posterity, that high court of appeal, which is never tired of
eulogising its own justice and discernment,' has recorded harsh sentence
on the Florentine. It is better to-day to let him speak for himself.

[Sidenote: _The Prince_.]

The slender volume of _The Prince_ has probably produced wider
discussion, more bitter controversy, more varied interpretations and a
deeper influence than any book save Holy Writ. Kings and statesmen,
philosophers and theologians, monarchists and republicans have all and
always used or abused it for their purposes. Written in 1513, the first
year of Machiavelli's disgrace, concurrently with part of the
_Discorsi_, which contain the germs of it, the book represents the
fulness of its author's thought and experience. It was not till after
Machiavelli's death, that it was published in 1532, by order of Clement