Chapter D: FORENSIC, IN PRIVATE CAUSES.--I. Action for Libel (Greek: dike (9)

McGEE, THOMAS D'ARCY (1825-1868), Irish-Canadian politician and writer, second son of James McGee, a coast-guard, was born at Carlingford, Co. Louth, on the 13th of April 1825. He early showed a remarkable aptitude for oratory. At the age of thirteen he delivered a speech at Wexford, and when four years later he emigrated to America he quickly gained a reputation as a writer and public speaker in the city of Boston. He thus attracted the attention of O'Connell, and before he was twenty years of age he returned to London to become parliamentary correspondent of the _Freeman's Journal_, and shortly afterwards London correspondent of the _Nation_, to which he also contributed a number of poems. He married in 1847 Mary Theresa Caffry, by whom he had two children. In 1846 he became one of the moving spirits in the "Young Ireland" party, and in promoting the objects of that organization he contributed two volumes to the "Library of Ireland." On the failure of the movement in 1848 McGee escaped in the disguise of a priest to the United States, where between 1848 and 1853 he established two newspapers, the _New York Nation_ and the _American Celt_. His writings at first were exceedingly bitter and anti-English; but as years passed he realized that a greater measure of political freedom was possible under the British constitution than under the American. He had now become well-known as an author, and as a lecturer of unusual ability. In 1857 McGee, driven from the United States by the scurrilous attacks of the extreme Irish revolutionaries, took up his abode in Canada, and was admitted to the bar of the province of Lower Canada in 1861. At the general election in 1858 he was returned to parliament as the member for Montreal, and for four years he was regarded as a powerful factor in the house. On the formation of the Sandfield-Macdonald-Sicotte administration in 1862 he accepted the office of president of the council. When the cabinet was reconstructed a year later the Irish were left without representation, and McGee sought re-election as a member of the opposite party. In 1864 he was appointed minister of agriculture in the administration of Sir E. P. Tache, and he served the country in that capacity until his death. He actively supported the policy of federation and was elected a member of the first Dominion parliament in 1867. On the 7th of April 1868, after having delivered a notable speech in the house, he was shot by an assassin as he was about to enter his house at Ottawa. His utterances against the Fenian invasion are believed to have been the cause of the crime for which P. J. Whelan was executed. McGee's loss was keenly felt by all classes, and within a few weeks of his death parliament granted an annuity to his widow and children. McGee had great faith in the future of Canada as a part of the empire. Speaking at St John, N.B., in 1863, he said: "There are before the public men of British America at this moment but two courses: either to drift with the tide of democracy, or to seize the golden moment and fix for ever the monarchical character of our institutions. I invite every fellow colonist who agrees with me to unite our efforts that we may give our province the aspect of an empire, in order to exercise the influence abroad and at home of a state, and to originate a history which the world will not willingly let die." Sir Charles Gavan Duffy considered that as a poet McGee was not inferior to Davis, and that as an orator he possessed powers rarer than those of T. F. Meagher.

McGee's principal works are: _A Popular History of Ireland_ (2 vols.,
New York, 1862; 1 vol., London, 1869); _Irish Writers of the
Seventeenth Century_ (Dublin, 1846); _Historical Sketches of O'Connell
and his Friends_ (Boston, 1844); _Memoirs of the Life and Conquests of
Art McMurrogh, King of Leinster_ (Dublin, 1847); _Memoir of C. G.
Duffy_ (Dublin, 1849); _A History of the Irish Settlers in North
America_ (Boston, 1851); _History of the Attempts to establish the
Protestant Reformation in Ireland_ (Boston, 1853); _Life of Edward
Maginn, Coadjutor Bishop of Derry_ (New York, 1857); _Catholic History
of North America_ (Boston, 1854); _Canadian Ballads and Occasional
Pieces_ (New York, 1858); _Notes on Federal Governments Past and
Present_ (Montreal, 1865); _Speeches and Addresses, chiefly on the
Subject of the British American Union_ (London, 1865); _Poems_, edited
by Mrs M. A. Sadleir with introductory memoir (New York, 1869). See
Fennings Taylor, _The Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee_ (Montreal, 1867); J.
K. Foran, _Thomas D'Arcy McGee as an Empire Builder_ (Ottawa, 1904);
H. J. O'C. French, _A Sketch of the Life of the Hon. T. D. McGee_
(Montreal); Appleton's _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_., iv. 116;
N. F. Dvin's _Irishman in Canada_ (1887); C. G. Duffy, _Four Years of
Irish History_ (1883); Alfred Webb, _Compendium of Irish Biography_
(Dublin, 1878). (A. G. D.)

McGIFFERT, ARTHUR CUSHMAN (1861- ), American theologian, was born in Sauquoit, New York, on the 4th of March 1861, the son of a Presbyterian clergyman of Scotch descent. He graduated at Western Reserve College in 1882 and at Union theological seminary in 1885, studied in Germany (especially under Harnack) in 1885-1887, and in Italy and France in 1888, and in that year received the degree of doctor of philosophy at Marburg. He was instructor (1888-1890) and professor (1890-1893) of church history at Lane theological seminary, and in 1893 became Washburn professor of church history in Union theological seminary, succeeding Dr Philip Schaff. His published work, except occasional critical studies in philosophy, dealt with church history and the history of dogma. His best known publication is a _History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age_ (1897). This book, by its independent criticism and departures from traditionalism, aroused the opposition of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church; though the charges brought against McGiffert were dismissed by the Presbytery of New York, to which they had been referred, a trial for heresy seemed inevitable, and McGiffert, in 1900, retired from the Presbyterian ministry and entered the Congregational Church, although he retained his position in Union theological seminary. Among his other publications are: _A Dialogue between a Christian and a Jew_ (1888); a translation (with introduction and notes) of Eusebius's _Church History_ (1890); and _The Apostles' Creed_ (1902), in which he attempted to prove that the old Roman creed was formulated as a protest against the dualism of Marcion and his denial of the reality of Jesus's life on earth.

McGILLIVRAY, ALEXANDER (c. 1730-1793), American Indian chief, was born near the site of the present Wetumpka, in Alabama. His father was a Scotch merchant and his mother the daughter of a French officer and an Indian "princess." Through his father's relatives in South Carolina, McGillivray received a good education, but at the age of seventeen, after a short experience as a merchant in Savannah and Pensacola, he returned to the Muscogee Indians, who elected him chief. He retained his connexion with business life as a member of the British firm of Panton, Forbes & Leslie of Pensacola. During the War of Independence, as a colonel in the British army, he incited his followers to attack the western frontiers of Georgia and the Carolinas. Georgia confiscated some of his property, and after the peace of 1783 McGillivray remained hostile. Though still retaining his British commission, he accepted one from Spain, and during the remainder of his life used his influence to prevent American settlement in the south-west. So important was he considered that in 1790 President Washington sent an agent who induced him to visit New York. Here he was persuaded to make peace in consideration of a brigadier-general's commission and payment for the property confiscated by Georgia; and with the warriors who accompanied him he signed a formal treaty of peace and friendship on the 7th of August. He then went back to the Indian country, and remained hostile to the Americans until his death. He was one of the ablest Indian leaders of America and at one time wielded great power--having 5000 to 10,000 armed followers. In order to serve Indian interests he played off British, Spanish and American interests against one another, but before he died he saw that he was fighting in a losing cause, and, changing his policy, endeavoured to provide for the training of the Muscogees in the white man's civilization. McGillivray was polished in manners, of cultivated intellect, was a shrewd merchant, and a successful speculator; but he had many savage traits, being noted for his treachery, craftiness and love of barbaric display. (W. L. F.)

MACGILLIVRAY, WILLIAM (1796-1852), Scottish naturalist, was born at Aberdeen on the 25th of January 1796. At King's College, Aberdeen, he graduated in 1815, and also studied medicine, but did not complete the latter course. In 1823 he became assistant to R. Jameson, professor of natural history in Edinburgh University; and in 1831 he was appointed curator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, a post which he resigned in 1841 to become professor of natural history and lecturer on botany in Marischal College, Aberdeen. He died at Aberdeen on the 4th of September 1852. He possessed a wide and comprehensive knowledge of natural science, gained no less from personal observations in different parts of Scotland than from a study of collections and books. His industry and extensive knowledge are amply shown in his published works. He assisted J. J. Audubon in his classical works on the _Birds of America_, and edited W. Withering's _British Plants_. His larger works include biographies of A. von Humboldt, and of zoologists from Aristotle to Linnaeus, a _History of British Quadrupeds_, a _History of the Molluscous Animals of Aberdeen, Banff and Kincardine_, a _Manual of British Ornithology_, and a _History of British Birds_, in 5 vols. (1837-1852). The last work holds a high rank from the excellent descriptions of the structure, habits and haunts of birds, and from the use in classification of characters afforded by their anatomical structure. His _Natural History of Deeside_, posthumously published by command of Queen Victoria, was the result of a sojourn in the highlands of Aberdeenshire in 1850. He made large collections, alike for the instruction of his students and to illustrate the zoology, botany and geology of the parts of Scotland examined by him, especially around Aberdeen, and a number of his original water-colour drawings are preserved in the British Museum (Natural History).

His eldest son, JOHN MACGILLIVRAY (1822-1867), published an account of
the voyage round the world of H.M.S. "Rattlesnake," on board of which
he was naturalist. Another son, PAUL, published an _Aberdeen Flora_ in
1853.

MacGREGOR, JOHN ["ROB ROY"] (1825-1892), Scottish canoeist, traveller and philanthropist, son of General Sir Duncan MacGregor, K.C.B., was born at Gravesend on the 24th of January 1825. He combined a roving disposition with a natural taste for mechanics and for literature. In 1839 he went to Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1844 to Trinity, Cambridge, where he was a wrangler. He was called to the bar in 1851, but did not pursue his profession. He travelled a great deal in Europe, Egypt, Palestine, Russia, Algeria and America, and between 1853 and 1863 was largely occupied with researches into the history and methods of marine propulsion. He was the pioneer of British canoeing. In 1865 he started on a long canoeing cruise in his "Rob Roy" canoe, and in this way made a prolonged water tour through Europe, a record of which he published in 1866 as _A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe_. This book made MacGregor and his canoe famous. He made similar voyages in later years in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the North Sea and Palestine. Another voyage, in the English Channel and on French waters, was made in a yawl. He published accounts of all these journeys. He did not, however, confine his energies to travelling. He was active in charity and philanthropic work, being one of the founders of the Shoe-black Brigade. In 1870 and again in 1873 he was elected on the London school board. He died at Boscombe on the 16th of July 1892.

MACH, ERNST (1838- ), Austrian physicist and psychologist, was born on the 18th of February 1838 at Turas in Moravia, and studied at Vienna. He was professor of mathematics at Grätz (1864-1867), of physics at Prague (1867-1895), and of physics at Vienna (1895-1901). In 1879 and 1880 as _Rector Magnificus_ he fought against the introduction of Czech instead of German in the Prague University. In 1901 he was made a member of the Austrian house of peers. In philosophy he began with a strong predilection for the physical side of psychology, and at an early age he came to the conclusion that all existence is sensation, and, after a lapse into noümenalism under the influence of Fechner's _Psychophysics_, finally adopted a universal physical phenomenalism. The Ego he considers not an entity sharply distinguished from the Non-ego, but merely, as it were, a medium of continuity of sensory impressions. His whole theory appears to be vitiated by the confusion of physics and psychology.

WORKS.--_Kompendium der Physik für Mediziner_ (Vienna, 1863);
_Einleitung in die Heimholtz'sehe Musiktheorie_ (Grätz, 1866); _Die
Gesch. u. d. Wurzel d. Satzes von d. Erhaltung d. Arbeit_ (Prague,
1872); _Grundlinien d. Lehre v. d. Bewegungsempfindungen_ (Leipzig,
1875); _Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung_ (Leipzig, 1883; rev. ed.,
1908; Eng. trans., T. J. McCormack, 1902); _Beiträge zur Analyse d.
Empfindungen_ (Jena, 1886), 5th ed., 1906, entitled _Die Analyse d.
Empfindungen; Leitfaden d. Physik für Studierende_ (Prague, 1881, in
collaboration); _Populärwissenschaftliche Vorlesungen_ (3rd ed.,
Leipzig, 1903); _Die Prinzipien d. Wärmelehre_ (2nd ed., 1900);
_Erkenntnis und Irrtum_ (Leipzig, 1905).

MACHAERODUS, or MACHAIRODUS, the typical genus of a group of long-tusked extinct cats, commonly known as sabre-tooths. Although best regarded as a sub-family (_Machaerodontinae_) of the _Felidae_, they are sometimes referred to a separate family under the name _Nimravidae_ (see CARNIVORA). The later forms, as well as some of the earlier ones, are more specialized as regards dentition than the modern _Felidae_, although in several other respects they exhibit more primitive features. The general type of dentition is feline, but in some instances more premolars are retained, as well as a small tubercular molar behind the lower carnassial. The characteristic feature is, however, the great development of the upper canines, which in the more specialized types reach far below the margin of the lower jaw, despite the development of a flange-like expansion of the extremity of the latter for their protection. In these extreme forms it is quite evident that the jaws could not be used in the ordinary manner; and it seems probable that in attacking prey the lower jaw was dropped to a vertical position, and the huge upper tusks used as stabbing instruments. The group is believed to be derived from a creodont allied to the Eocene _Palaeonictis_ (see CREODONTA).

_Nimravus_, of the American Oligocene, with two premolars and two molars in the lower jaw, and comparatively short upper canines, seems to be the least specialized type; next to which comes _Hoplophoneus_, another North American Oligocene genus, in which the tubercular lower molar is lost, and the upper canine is longer. It is noteworthy, however, that this genus retains the third trochanter to the femur, which is lost in _Nimravus_. _Machaerodus_, in the wider sense, includes the larger and more typical forms. In the Pliocene of France and Italy it is represented by _M. megantereon_, a species not larger than a leopard, and allied forms occur in the Pliocene of Greece, Hungary, Samos, Persia, India and China, as well as in the Middle Miocene of France and Germany. Far larger is the Pleistocene _M. cultridens_ of the caverns of Europe, with serrated upper tusks several inches in length. From Europe and Asia the sabre-toothed tigers may be traced into North and thence into South America, the home of _M. (Smilodon) neogaeus_, the largest of the whole tribe, whose remains occur in the Brazilian caves and the silt of the Argentine pampas. This animal was as large as a tiger, with tusks projecting seven inches from the jaw and very complex carnassials; the feet were very short, with only four toes to the hind-pair, and the humerus has lost the foramen at the lower end. Very noteworthy is the occurrence of an imperfectly known specialized type--_Eusmilus_--in the Lower Oligocene of Europe and perhaps also North America. Unlike all other cats, it had only two pairs of lower incisors, and the large cheek-teeth were reduced to the carnassial and one premolar in advance of the same. (R. L.*)

MACHALE, JOHN (1791-1881), Irish divine, was born on the 15th of March 1791 at Tuber-na-Fian, Mayo, and was educated at Maynooth, where after graduating in 1814 he was ordained priest and appointed lecturer in theology, succeeding to the professoriate in 1820. In 1825 he became coadjutor bishop of Killala, and in July 1834 archbishop of Tuam and metropolitan. He visited Rome in 1831, and was there again at the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin (Dec. 1854) and in 1869-1870 at the Vatican council. Though he did not favour the dogma of Papal Infallibility he submitted as soon as it was defined. Machale was an intensely patriotic Irishman, who fought hard for Catholic Emancipation, for separate Roman Catholic schools, and against the Queen's Colleges. He translated part of the _Iliad_ (Dublin, 1861), and made an Irish version of some of Moore's melodies and of the Pentateuch. He died at Tuam on the 7th of November 1881.

MACHAULT D'ARNOUVILLE, JEAN BAPTISTE DE (1701-1794), French statesman, was a son of Louis Charles Machault d'Arnouville, lieutenant of police. In 1721 he was counsel to the parlement of Paris, in 1728 _maître des requêtes_, and ten years later was made president of the Great Council; although he had opposed the court in the _Unigenitus_ dispute, he was appointed intendant of Hainaut in 1743. From this position, through the influence at court of his old friend René Louis, Marquis d'Argenson, he was called to succeed Orry de Fulvy as controller-general of the finances in December 1745. He found, on taking office, that in the four years of the War of the Austrian Succession the economies of Cardinal Fleury had been exhausted, and he was forced to develop the system of borrowings which was bringing French finances to bankruptcy. He attempted in 1749 a reform in the levying of direct taxes, which, if carried out, would have done much to prevent the later Revolutionary movement. He proposed to abolish the old tax of a tenth, which was evaded by the clergy and most of the nobility, and substitute a tax of one-twentieth which should be levied on all without exception. The cry for exceptions, however, began at once. The clergy stood in a body by their historical privileges, and the outcry of the nobility was too great for the minister to make headway against. Still he managed to retain his office until July 1754, when he exchanged the controllership for the ministry of marine. Foreseeing the disastrous results of the alliance with Austria, he was drawn to oppose more decidedly the schemes of Mme de Pompadour, whose personal ill-will he had gained. Louis XV. acquiesced in her demand for his disgrace on the 1st of February 1757. Machault lived on his estate at Arnouville until the Revolution broke out, when, after a period of hiding, he was apprehended in 1794 at Rouen and brought to Paris as a suspect. He was imprisoned in the Madelonnettes, where he succumbed in a few weeks, at the age of ninety-three.

His son, LOUIS CHARLES MACHAULT D'ARNOUVILLE (1737-1820), was bishop of Amiens from 1774 until the Revolution. He was famous for his charity; but proved to be a most uncompromising Conservative at the estates general of 1789, where he voted consistently against every reform. He emigrated in 1791, resigned his bishopric in 1801 to facilitate the concordat, and retired to the ancestral château of Arnouville, where he died in 1820.

MACHAUT, GUILLAUME DE (c. 1300-1377), French poet and musician, was born in the village of Machault near Réthel in Champagne. Machaut tells us that he served for thirty years the adventurous John of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia. He followed his master to Russia and Poland, and, though of peaceful tastes himself, saw twenty battles and a hundred tourneys. When John was killed at Crécy in 1346 Machaut was received at the court of Normandy, and on the accession of John the Good to the throne of France (1350) he received an office which enabled him to devote himself thenceforth to music and poetry. Machaut wrote about 1348 in honour of Charles III., king of Navarre, a long poem much admired by contemporaries, _Le Jugement du roi de Navarre_. When Charles was thrown into prison by his father-in-law, King John, Machaut addressed him a _Confort d'ami_ to console him for his enforced separation from his young wife, then aged fifteen. This was followed about 1370 by a poem of 9000 lines entitled _La Prise d'Alexandrie_, one of the last chronicles cast in this form. Its hero was Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cyprus. Machaut is best known for the strange book telling of the love affair of his old age with a young and noble lady long supposed to be Agnes of Navarre, sister of Charles the Bad; Paulin Paris in his edition of the _Voir dit_ (_Historie vraie_) identified her as Perronne d'Armentières, a noble lady of Champagne. In 1362, when Machaut must have been at least sixty-two years of age, he received a rondeau from Perronne, who was then eighteen, expressing her devotion. She no doubt wished to play Laura to his Petrarch, and the _Voir dit_ contains the correspondence and the poems which they exchanged. The romance, which ended with Perronne's marriage and Machaut's desire to remain her _doux ami_, has gleams of poetry, especially in Perronne's verses, but its subject and its length are both deterrent to modern readers. But Machaut with Deschamps marks a distinct transition. The _trouvères_ had been impersonal. It is difficult to gather any details of their personal history from their work. Machaut and Deschamps wrote of their own affairs, and the next step in development was to be the self-analysis of Villon. Machaut was also a musician. He composed a number of motets, songs and ballads, also a mass supposed to have been sung at the coronation of Charles V. This was translated into modern notation by Perne, who read a notice on it before the Institute of France in 1817.

Machaut's _Oeuvres choisies_ were edited by P. Tarbe (Rheims and
Paris, 1849); _La Prise d'Alexandrie_, by L. de Mas-Latrie (Geneva,
1877); and _Le Livre du voir-dit_, by Paulin Paris (1875). See also F.
G. Fétis, _Biog. universelle des musiciens ..._ (Paris, 1862), and a
notice on the _Instruments de musique au xiv^e siècle d'après
Guillaume de Machaut_, by E. Travers (Paris, 1882).

MACHIAVELLI, NICCOLÒ (1469-1527), Italian statesman and writer, was born at Florence on the 3rd of May 1469. His ancestry claimed blood relationship with the lords of Montespertoli, a fief situated between Val di Pesa and Val d'Elsa, at no great distance from the city. Niccolò's father, Bernardo (b. 1428), followed the profession of a jurist. He held landed property worth something like £250 a year of our money. His son, though not wealthy, was never wholly dependent upon official income.

Of Niccolò's early years and education little is known. His works show wide reading in the Latin and Italian classics, but it is almost certain that he had not mastered the Greek language. To the defects of Machiavelli's education we may, in part at least, ascribe the peculiar vigour of his style and his speculative originality. He is free from the scholastic trifling and learned frivolity which tainted the rhetorical culture of his century. He made the world of men and things his study, learned to write his mother-tongue with idiomatic conciseness, and nourished his imagination on the masterpieces of the Romans.

The year of Charles VIII.'s invasion and of the Medici's expulsion from Florence (1494) saw Machiavelli's first entrance into public life. He was appointed clerk in the second chancery of the commune under his old master, the grammarian, Marcello Virgilio Adriani. Early in 1498 Adriani became chancellor of the republic, and Machiavelli received his vacated office with the rank of second chancellor and secretary. This post he retained till the year 1512. The masters he had to serve were the _dieci di libertà e pace_, who, though subordinate to the _signoria_, exercised a separate control over the departments of war and the interior. They sent their own ambassadors to foreign powers, transacted business with the cities of the Florentine domain, and controlled the military establishment of the commonwealth. The next fourteen years of Machiavelli's life were fully occupied in the voluminous correspondence of his bureau, in diplomatic missions of varying importance, and in the organization of a Florentine militia. It would be tedious to follow him through all his embassies to petty courts of Italy, the first of which took place in 1499, when he was sent to negotiate the continuance of a loan to Catherine Sforza, countess of Forli and Imola. In 1500 Machiavelli travelled into France, to deal with Louis XII. about the affairs of Pisa. These embassies were the school in which Machiavelli formed his political opinions, and gathered views regarding the state of Europe and the relative strength of nations. They not only introduced him to the subtleties of Italian diplomacy, but also extended his observation over races very different from the Italians. He thus, in the course of his official business, gradually acquired principles and settled ways of thinking which he afterwards expressed in writing.

In 1502 Machiavelli married Marietta Corsini, who bore him several children, with whom, in spite of his own infidelities, he lived on good terms, and who survived him twenty-six years. In the same year Piero Soderini was chosen gonfalonier for life, in accordance with certain changes in the constitution of the state, which were intended to bring Florence closer to the Venetian type of government. Machiavelli became intimately connected with Soderini, assisted him in carrying out his policy, suggested important measures of military reform which Soderini adopted, and finally was involved in ruin by his fall.

The year 1502 was marked by yet another decisive incident in Machiavelli's life. In October he was sent, much against his will, as envoy to the camp of Cesare Borgia, duke of Valentinois. The duke was then in Romagna, and it was Machiavelli's duty to wait upon and watch him. He was able now to observe those intricate intrigues which culminated in Cesare's murder of his disaffected captains. From what remains of Machiavelli's official letters, and from his tract upon the _Modo che tenne il duca Valentino per ammazzar Vitellozzo Vitelli_, we are able to appreciate the actual relations which existed between the two men, and the growth in Machiavelli's mind of a political ideal based upon his study of the duke's character. Machiavelli conceived the strongest admiration for Cesare's combination of audacity with diplomatic prudence, for his adroit use of cruelty and fraud, for his self-reliance, avoidance of half-measures, employment of native troops, and firm administration in conquered provinces. More than once, in letters to his friend Vettori, no less than in the pages of the _Principe_, Machiavelli afterwards expressed his belief that Cesare Borgia's behaviour in the conquest of provinces, the cementing of a new state out of scattered elements, and the dealing with false friends or doubtful allies, was worthy of all commendation and of scrupulous imitation. As he watched Cesare Borgia at this, the most brilliant period of his adventurous career, the man became idealized in his reflective but imaginative mind. Round him, as a hero, he allowed his own conceptions of the perfect prince to cluster. That Machiavelli separated the actual Cesare Borgia, whom he afterwards saw, ruined and contemptible, at Rome, from this radiant creature of his political fancy, is probable. That the Cesare of history does not exactly match the Duca Valentino of Machiavelli's writings is certain. Still the fact remains that henceforth Machiavelli cherished the ideal image of the statesman which he had modelled upon Cesare, and called this by the name of Valentino.

On his return to Florence early in January 1503, Machiavelli began to occupy himself with a project which his recent attendance upon Cesare Borgia had strengthened in his mind. The duties of his office obliged him to study the conditions of military service as they then existed in Italy. He was familiar with the disadvantages under which republics laboured when they engaged professional captains of adventure and levied mercenary troops. The bad faith of the condottiere Paolo Vitelli (beheaded at Florence in 1499) had deeply impressed him. In the war with Pisa he had observed the insubordination and untrustworthiness of soldiers gathered from the dregs of different districts, serving under egotistical and irresponsible commanders. His reading in Livy taught him to admire the Roman system of employing armies raised from the body of the citizens; and Cesare Borgia's method of gradually substituting the troops of his own duchy for aliens and mercenaries showed him that this plan might be adopted with success by the Italians. He was now determined, if possible, to furnish Florence with a national militia. The gonfalonier Soderini entered into his views. But obstacles of no small magnitude arose. The question of money was immediately pressing. Early in 1503 Machiavelli drew up for Soderini a speech, _Discorso sulla provisione del danaro_, in which the duty and necessity of liberal expenditure for the protection of the state were expounded upon principles of sound political philosophy. Between this date and the last month of 1506 Machiavelli laboured at his favourite scheme, working out memorials on the subject for his office, and suggesting the outlines of a new military organization. On the 6th of December 1506 his plan was approved by the signoria, and a special ministry, called the nove _di ordinanza e milizia_, was appointed. Machiavelli immediately became their secretary. The country districts of the Florentine dominion were now divided into departments, and levies of foot soldiers were made in order to secure a standing militia. A commander-in-chief had to be chosen for the new troops. Italian jealousy shrank from conferring this important office on a Florentine, lest one member of the state should acquire a power dangerous to the whole. The choice of Soderini and Machiavelli fell, at this juncture, upon an extremely ineligible person, none other than Don Micheletto, Cesare Borgia's cut-throat and assassin. It is necessary to insist upon this point, since it serves to illustrate a radical infirmity in Machiavelli's genius. While forming and promoting his scheme, he was actuated by principles of political wisdom and by the purest patriotism. But he failed to perceive that such a ruffian as Micheletto could not inspire the troops of Florence with that devotion to their country and that healthy moral tone which should distinguish a patriot army. Here, as elsewhere, he revealed his insensibility to the ethical element in human nature.

Meanwhile Italy had been the scene of memorable events, in most of which Machiavelli took some part. Alexander VI. had died suddenly of fever. Julius II. had ascended the papal chair. The duke of Valentinois had been checked in mid-career of conquest. The collapse of the Borgias threw Central Italy into confusion; and Machiavelli had, in 1505, to visit the Baglioni at Perugia and the Petrucci at Siena. In the following year he accompanied Julius upon his march through Perugia into the province of Emilia, where the fiery pope subdued in person the rebellious cities of the Church. Upon these embassies Machiavelli represented the Florentine dieci in quality of envoy. It was his duty to keep the ministry informed by means of frequent despatches and reports. All this while the war for the recovery of Pisa was slowly dragging on, with no success or honour to the Florentines. Machiavelli had to attend the camp and provide for levies amid his many other occupations. And yet he found time for private literary work. In the autumn of 1504 he began his _Decennali_, or _Annals of Italy_, a poem composed in rough terza rima. About the same time he composed a comedy on the model of Aristophanes, which is unfortunately lost. It seems to have been called _Le Maschere_. Giuliano de' Ricci tells us it was marked by stringent satire upon great ecclesiastics and statesmen, no less than by a tendency to "ascribe all human things to natural causes or to fortune." That phrase accurately describes the prevalent bias of its author's mind.

The greater part of 1506 and 1507 was spent in organizing the new militia, corresponding on the subject, and scouring the country on enlistment service. But at the end of the latter year European affairs of no small moment diverted Machiavelli from these humbler duties. Maximilian was planning a journey into Italy in order to be crowned emperor at Rome, and was levying subsidies from the imperial burghs for his expenses. The Florentines thought his demands excessive. Though they already had Francesco Vettori at his court, Soderini judged it advisable to send Machiavelli thither in December. He travelled by Geneva, all through Switzerland, to Botzen, where he found the emperor. This journey was an important moment in his life. It enabled him to study the Swiss and the Germans in their homes; and the report which he wrote on his return is among his most effective political studies. What is most remarkable in it is his concentrated effort to realize the exact political weight of the German nation, and to penetrate the causes of its strength and weakness. He attempts to grasp the national character as a whole, and thence to deduce practical conclusions. The same qualities are noticeable in his _Ritratti delle cose di Francia_, which he drew up after an embassy to Louis XII. at Blois in 1510. These notes upon the French race are more scattered than the report on German affairs. But they reveal no less acumen combined with imaginative penetration into the very essence of national existence.

Machiavelli returned from Germany in June 1508. The rest of that year and a large part of 1509 were spent in the affairs of the militia and the war of Pisa. Chiefly through his exertions the war was terminated by the surrender of Pisa in June 1509. Meanwhile the league of Cambray had disturbed the peace of Italy, and Florence found herself in a perilous position between Spain and France. Soderini's government grew weaker. The Medicean party lifted up its head. To the league of Cambray succeeded the Holy League. The battle of Ravenna was fought, and the French retired from Italy. The Florentines had been spectators rather than actors in these great events. But they were now destined to feel the full effects of them. The cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, who was present at the battle of Ravenna, brought a Spanish army into Tuscany. Prato was sacked in the August of 1512. Florence, in extreme terror, deposed the gonfalonier, and opened her gates to the princes of the house of Medici.

The government on which Machiavelli depended had fallen, never to rise again. The national militia in which he placed unbounded confidence had proved inefficient to protect Florence in the hour of need. He was surrounded by political and personal enemies, who regarded him with jealousy as the ex-gonfalonier's right-hand man. Yet at first it appears that he still hoped to retain his office. He showed no repugnance to a change of masters, and began to make overtures to the Medici. The _nove della milizia_ were, however, dissolved; and on the 7th of November 1512 Machiavelli was deprived of his appointments. He was exiled from Florence and confined to the dominion for one year, and on the 17th of November was further prohibited from setting foot in the Palazzo Pubblico. Ruin stared him in the face; and, to make matters worse, he was implicated in the conspiracy of Pier Paolo Boscoli in February 1513. Machiavelli had taken no share in that feeble attempt against the Medici, but his name was found upon a memorandum dropped by Boscoli. This was enough to ensure his imprisonment. He was racked, and only released upon Giovanni de' Medici's election to the papacy in March 1513. When he left his dungeon he retired to a farm near San Casciano, and faced the fact that his political career was at an end.

Machiavelli now entered upon a period of life to which we owe the great works that have rendered his name immortal. But it was one of prolonged disappointment and annoyance. He had not accustomed himself to economical living; and, when the emoluments of his office were withdrawn, he had barely enough to support his family. The previous years of his manhood had been spent in continual activity. Much as he enjoyed the study of the Latin and Italian classics, literature was not his business; nor had he looked on writing as more than an occasional amusement. He was now driven in upon his books for the employment of a restless temperament; and to this irksomeness of enforced leisure may be ascribed the production of the _Principe_, the _Discorsi_, the _Arte della guerra_, the comedies, and the _Historie fiorentine_. The uneasiness of Machiavelli's mind in the first years of this retirement is brought before us by his private correspondence. The letters to Vettori paint a man of vigorous intellect and feverish activity, dividing his time between studies and vulgar dissipations, seeking at one time distraction in low intrigues and wanton company, at another turning to the great minds of antiquity for solace. It is not easy to understand the spirit in which the author of the _Principe_ sat down to exchange obscenities with the author of the _Sommario della storia d'Italia_. At the same time this coarseness of taste did not blunt his intellectual sagacity. His letters on public affairs in Italy and Europe, especially those which he meant Vettori to communicate to the Medici at Rome, are marked by extraordinary fineness of perception, combined, as usual in his case, with philosophical breadth. In retirement at his villa near Percussina, a hamlet of San Casciano, Machiavelli completed the _Principe_ before the end of 1513. This famous book is an analysis of the methods whereby an ambitious man may rise to sovereign power. It appears to have grown out of another scarcely less celebrated work, upon which Machiavelli had been engaged before he took the _Principe_ in hand, and which he did not finish until some time afterwards. This second treatise is the _Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio_.

Cast in the form of comments on the history of Livy, the _Discorsi_
are really an inquiry into the genesis and maintenance of states. The
_Principe_ is an offshoot from the main theme of the _Discorsi_,
setting forth Machiavelli's views at large and in detail upon the
nature of principalities, the method of cementing them, and the
qualities of a successful autocrat. Being more limited in subject and
more independent as a work of literary art, this essay detaches itself
from the main body of the _Discorsi_, and has attracted far more
attention. We feel that the _Principe_ is inspired with greater
fervency, as though its author had more than a speculative aim in
view, and brought it forth to serve a special crisis. The moment of
its composition was indeed decisive. Machiavelli judged the case of
Italy so desperate that salvation could only be expected from the
intervention of a powerful despot. The unification of Italy in a state
protected by a national army was the cherished dream of his life; and
the peroration of the _Principe_ shows that he meant this treatise to
have a direct bearing on the problem. We must be careful, however, not
to fall into the error of supposing that he wrote it with the sole
object of meeting an occasional emergency. Together with the
_Discorsi_, the _Principe_ contains the speculative fruits of his
experience and observation combined with his deductions from Roman
history. The two works form one coherent body of opinion, not
systematically expressed, it is true, but based on the same
principles, involving the same conclusions, and directed to the same
philosophical end. That end is the analysis of the conception of the
state, studied under two main types, republican and monarchical. Up to
the date of Machiavelli, modern political philosophy had always
presupposed an ideal. Medieval speculation took the Church and the
Empire for granted, as divinely appointed institutions, under which
the nations of the earth must flourish for the space of man's
probation on this planet. Thinkers differed only as Guelfs and
Ghibellines, as leaning on the one side to papal, on the other to
imperial supremacy. In the revival of learning, scholarship supplanted
scholasticism, and the old ways of medieval thinking were forgotten.
But no substantial philosophy of any kind emerged from humanism; the
political lucubrations of the scholars were, like their ethical
treatises, for the most part rhetorical. Still the humanists effected
a delivery of the intellect from what had become the bondage of
obsolete ideas, and created a new medium for the speculative faculty.
Simultaneously with the revival, Italy had passed into that stage of
her existence which has been called the age of despots. The yoke of
the Empire had been shaken off. The Church had taken rank among
Italian tyrannies. The peninsula was, roughly speaking, divided into
principalities and sovereign cities, each of which claimed autocratic
jurisdiction. These separate despotisms owned no common social tie,
were founded on no common _jus_ or right, but were connected in a
network of conflicting interests and changeful diplomatic
combinations. A keen and positive political intelligence emerged in
the Italian race. The reports of Venetian and Florentine ambassadors
at this epoch contain the first germs of an attempt to study politics
from the point of view of science.

At this moment Machiavelli intervenes. He was conscious of the change
which had come over Italy and Europe. He was aware that the old
strongholds of medieval thought must be abandoned, and that the
decaying ruins of medieval institutions furnished no basis for the
erection of solid political edifices. He felt the corruption of his
country, and sought to bring the world back to a lively sense of the
necessity for reformation. His originality consists in having extended
the positive intelligence of his century from the sphere of
contemporary politics and special interests to man at large regarded
as a political being. He founded the science of politics for the
modern world, by concentrating thought upon its fundamental
principles. He began to study men, not according to some
preconception, but as he found them--men, not in the isolation of one
century, but as a whole in history. He drew his conclusions from the
nature of mankind itself, "ascribing all things to natural causes or
to fortune." In this way he restored the right method of study, a
method which had been neglected since the days of Aristotle. He formed
a conception of the modern state, which marked the close of the middle
ages, and anticipated the next phase of European development. His
prince, abating those points which are purely Italian or strongly
tinctured with the author's personal peculiarities, prefigured the
monarchs of the 16th and 17th centuries, the monarchs whose motto was
_L'état c'est moi!_ His doctrine of a national militia foreshadowed
the system which has given strength in arms to France and Germany. His
insight into the causes of Italian decadence was complete; and the
remedies which he suggested, in the perorations of the _Principe_ and
the _Arte della guerra_, have since been applied in the unification of
Italy. Lastly, when we once have freed ourselves from the antipathy
engendered by his severance of ethics from the field of politics, when
we have once made proper allowance for his peculiar use of phrases
like _frodi onorevoli_ or _scelleratezze gloriose_, nothing is left
but admiration for his mental attitude. That is the attitude of a
patriot, who saw with open eyes the ruin of his country, who burned
above all things to save Italy and set her in her place among the
powerful nations, who held the duty of self-sacrifice in the most
absolute sense, whose very limitations and mistakes were due to an
absorbing passion for the state he dreamed might be reconstituted. It
was Machiavelli's intense preoccupation with this problem--what a
state is and how to found one in existing circumstances--which caused
the many riddles of his speculative writings. Dazzled, as it were,
with the brilliancy of his own discovery, concentrated in attention on
the one necessity for organizing a powerful coherent nation, he forgot
that men are more than political beings. He neglected religion, or
regarded it as part of the state machinery. He was by no means
indifferent to private virtue, which indeed he judged the basis of all
healthy national existence; but in the realm of politics he postponed
morals to political expediency. He held that the people, as
distinguished from the nobles and the clergy, were the pith and fibre
of nations; yet this same people had to become wax in the hands of the
politician--their commerce and their comforts, the arts which give a
dignity to life and the pleasures which make life liveable,
neglected--their very liberty subordinated to the one tyrannical
conception. To this point the segregation of politics from every other
factor which goes to constitute humanity had brought him; and this it
is which makes us feel his world a wilderness, devoid of atmosphere
and vegetation. Yet some such isolation of the subject matter of this
science was demanded at the moment of its birth, just as political
economy, when first started, had to make a rigid severance of wealth
from other units. It is only by a gradual process that social science
in its whole complexity can be evolved. We have hardly yet discovered
that political economy has unavoidable points of contact with ethics.

From the foregoing criticism it will be perceived that all the
questions whether Machiavelli meant to corrupt or to instruct the
world, to fortify the hands of tyrants or to lead them to their ruin,
are now obsolete. He was a man of science--one who by the vigorous
study of his subject matter sought from that subject-matter itself to
deduce laws. The difficulty which remains in judging him is a
difficulty of statement, valuation, allowance. How much shall we allow
for his position in Renaissance Italy, for the corruption in the midst
of which he lived, for his own personal temperament? How shall we
state his point of departure from the middle ages, his sympathy with
prevalent classical enthusiasms, his divination of a new period? How
shall we estimate the permanent worth of his method, the residuum of
value in his maxims?

After finishing the _Principe_, Machiavelli thought of dedicating it to one of the Medicean princes, with the avowed hope that he might thereby regain their favour and find public employment. He wrote to Vettori on the subject, and Giuliano de' Medici, duke of Nemours, seemed to him the proper person. The choice was reasonable. No sooner had Leo been made pope than he formed schemes for the aggrandizement of his family. Giuliano was offered and refused the duchy of Urbino. Later on, Leo designed for him a duchy in Emilia, to be cemented out of Parma, Piacenza, Reggio and Modena. Supported by the power of the papacy, with the goodwill of Florence to back him, Giuliano would have found himself in a position somewhat better than that of Cesare Borgia; and Borgia's creation of the duchy of Romagna might have served as his model. Machiavelli therefore was justified in feeling that here was an opportunity for putting his cherished schemes in practice, and that a prince with such alliances might even advance to the grand end of the unification of Italy. Giuliano, however, died in 1506. Then Machiavelli turned his thoughts towards Lorenzo, duke of Urbino. The choice of this man as a possible Italian liberator reminds us of the choice of Don Micheletto as general of the Florentine militia. To Lorenzo the _Principe_ was dedicated, but without result. The Medici, as yet at all events, could not employ Machiavelli, and had not in themselves the stuff to found Italian kingdoms.

Machiavelli, meanwhile, was reading his _Discorsi_ to a select audience in the Rucellai gardens, fanning that republican enthusiasm which never lay long dormant among the Florentines. Towards the year 1519 both Leo X. and his cousin, the cardinal Giulio de' Medici, were much perplexed about the management of the republic. It seemed necessary, if possible, in the gradual extinction of their family to give the city at least a semblance of self-government. They applied to several celebrated politicians, among others to Machiavelli, for advice in the emergency. The result was a treatise in which he deduced practical conclusions from the past history and present temper of the city, blending these with his favourite principles of government in general. He earnestly admonished Leo, for his own sake and for Florence, to found a permanent and free state system for the republic, reminding him in terms of noble eloquence how splendid is the glory of the man who shall confer such benefits upon a people. The year 1520 saw the composition of the _Arte della guerra_ and the _Vita di Castruccio_.

The first of these is a methodical treatise, setting forth
Machiavelli's views on military matters, digesting his theories
respecting the superiority of national troops, the inefficiency of
fortresses, the necessity of relying upon infantry in war, and the
comparative insignificance of artillery. It is strongly coloured with
his enthusiasm for ancient Rome; and specially upon the topic of
artillery it displays a want of insight into the actualities of modern
warfare. We may regard it as a supplement or appendix to the
_Principe_ and the _Discorsi_, since Machiavelli held it for a
fundamental axiom that states are powerless unless completely armed in
permanence. The peroration contains a noble appeal to the Italian
liberator of his dreams, and a parallel from Macedonian history,
which, read by the light of this century, sounds like a prophecy of
Piedmont.

The _Vita di Castruccio_ was composed at Lucca, whither Machiavelli
had been sent on a mission. This so-called biography of the medieval
adventurer who raised himself by personal ability and military skill
to the tyranny of several Tuscan cities must be regarded in the light
of an historical romance. Dealing freely with the outline of
Castruccio's career, as he had previously dealt with Cesare Borgia, he
sketched his own ideal of the successful prince. Cesare Borgia had
entered into the _Principe_ as a representative figure rather than an
actual personage; so now conversely the theories of the _Principe_
assumed the outward form and semblance of Castruccio. In each case
history is blent with speculation in nearly the same proportions. But
Castruccio, being farther from the writer's own experience, bears
weaker traits of personality.

In the same year, 1520, Machiavelli, at the instance of the cardinal
Giulio de' Medici, received commission from the officers of the
_Studio pubblico_ to write a history of Florence. They agreed to pay
him an annual allowance of 100 florins while engaged upon the work.
The next six years were partly employed in its composition, and he
left a portion of it finished, with a dedication to Clement VII., when
he died in 1527. In the _Historie fiorentine_ Machiavelli quitted the
field of political speculation for that of history. But, having
already written the _Discorsi_ and the _Principe_, he carried with him
to this new task of historiography the habit of mind proper to
political philosophy. In his hands the history of Florence became a
text on which at fitting seasons to deliver lessons in the science he
initiated. This gives the work its special character. It is not so
much a chronicle of Florentine affairs, from the commencement of
modern history to the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in 1492, as a
critique of that chronicle from the point of view adopted by
Machiavelli in his former writings. Having condensed his doctrines in
the _Principe_ and the _Discorsi_, he applies their abstract
principles to the example of the Florentine republic. But the _History
of Florence_ is not a mere political pamphlet. It is the first example
in Italian literature of a national biography, the first attempt in
any literature to trace the vicissitudes of a people's life in their
logical sequence, deducing each successive phase from passions or
necessities inherent in preceding circumstances, reasoning upon them
from general principles, and inferring corollaries for the conduct of
the future. In point of form the _Florentine History_ is modelled upon
Livy. It contains speeches in the antique manner, which may be taken
partly as embodying the author's commentary upon situations of
importance, partly as expressing what he thought dramatically
appropriate to prominent personages. The style of the whole book is
nervous, vivid, free from artifice and rhetoric, obeying the writer's
thought with absolute plasticity. Machiavelli had formed for himself a
prose style, equalled by no one but by Guicciardini in his minor
works, which was far removed from the emptiness of the latinizing
humanists and the trivialities of the Italian purists. Words in his
hands have the substance, the self-evidence of things. It is an
athlete's style, all bone and sinew, nude, without superfluous flesh
or ornament.