Critical and Historical Essays, vol 1 | Page 3

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CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS, VOLUME II
BY THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II
FOREIGN HISTORY
MACHIAVELLI RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES WAR OF
THE SPANISH SUCCESSION FREDERIC THE GREAT
POLITICAL CONTROVERSY
SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES CIVIL DISABILTIES OF THE JEWS
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE
LITERARY CRITICISMS
BACON JOHN BUNYAN DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION
ADDISON SAMUEL JOHNSON MADAME D'ARBLAY BYRON
MONTGOMERY
INDEX
MACHIAVELLI (March 1827)
Oeuvres completes de MACHIAVEL, traduites par J. V. PERIER Paris:
1825.
Those who have attended to the practice of our literary tribunal are well
aware that, by means of certain legal fictions similar to those of
Westminster Hall, we are frequently enabled to take cognisance of
cases lying beyond the sphere of our original jurisdiction. We need
hardly say, therefore, that in the present instance M. Perier is merely a
Richard Roe, who will not be mentioned in any subsequent stage of the
proceedings, and whose name is used for the sole purpose of bringing
Machiavelli into court.
We doubt whether any name in literary history be so generally odious
as that of the man whose character and writings we now propose to
consider. The terms in which he is commonly described would seem to
import that he was the Tempter, the Evil Principle, the discoverer of
ambition and revenge, the original inventor of perjury, and that, before
the publication of his fatal Prince, there had never been a hypocrite, a

tyrant, or a traitor, a simulated virtue, or a convenient crime. One writer
gravely assures us that Maurice of Saxony learned all his fraudulent
policy from that execrable volume. Another remarks that since it 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