accomplice, or avow, without the disguise of some palliating
sophism, even to his own mind, are professed without the
slightest circumlocution, and assumed as the fundamental axioms
of all political science.

It is not strange that ordinary readers should regard the author
of such a book as the most depraved and shameless of human
beings. Wise men, however, have always been inclined to look with
great suspicion on the angels and daemons of the multitude: and
in the present instance, several circumstances have led even
superficial observers to question the justice of the vulgar
decision. It is notorious that Machiavelli was, through life, a
zealous republican. In the same year in which he composed his
manual of King-craft, he suffered imprisonment and torture in the
cause of public liberty. It seems inconceivable that the martyr
of freedom should have designedly acted as the apostle of
tyranny. Several eminent writers have, therefore, endeavoured to
detect in this unfortunate performance some concealed meaning,
more consistent with the character and conduct of the author than
that which appears at the first glance.

One hypothesis is that Machiavelli intended to practise on the
young Lorenzo de Medici a fraud similar to that which Sunderland
is said to have employed against our James the Second, and that
he urged his pupil to violent and perfidious measures, as the
surest means of accelerating the moment of deliverance and
revenge. Another supposition which Lord Bacon seems to
countenance, is that the treatise was merely a piece of grave
irony, intended to warn nations against the arts of ambitious
men. It would be easy to show that neither of these solutions is