was translated into Turkish, the Sultans have been more addicted
than formerly to the custom of strangling their brothers. Lord
Lyttelton charges the poor Florentine with the manifold treasons
of the house of Guise, and with the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Several authors have hinted that the Gunpowder Plot is to be
primarily attributed to his doctrines, and seem to think that his
effigy ought to be substituted for that of Guy Faux, in those
processions by which the ingenious youth of England annually
commemorate the preservation of the Three Estates. The Church of
Rome has pronounced his works accursed things. Nor have our own
countrymen been backward in testifying their opinion of his
merits. Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a
knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the Devil.

[Nick Machiavel had ne'er a trick,
Tho' he gave his name to our old Nick.

Hudibras, Part iii. Canto i.

But, we believe, there is a schism on this subject among the
antiquarians.]

It is indeed scarcely possible for any person, not well
acquainted with the history and literature of Italy, to read
without horror and amazement the celebrated treatise which has
brought so much obloquy on the name of Machiavelli. Such a
display of wickedness, naked yet not ashamed, such cool,
judicious, scientific atrocity, seemed rather to belong to a
fiend than to the most depraved of men. Principles which the most
hardened ruffian would scarcely hint to his most trusted