expression of the Italian mind; not without fine and noble enthusiasm, but habituated to oppose craft to power, the noble energies of intellectual acuteness to brute force? Such, in fact, appears to be Mr. Hallam's view; it is impossible to be more fair at once to the excellencies and the sins of Machiavelli's celebrated treatise. We quote only two passages, because we are anxious to reserve some space for the observations on the Discorsi, Machiavelli's greater, but at the same time, less known work. 'None of the explanations assigned for the motives of Machiavel in The Prince is more groundless than one very early suggested, that by putting the house of Medici on schemes of tyranny, he was artfully luring them to their ruin. Whether this could be reckoned an excuse, may be left to the reader; but we may confidently affirm that it contradicts the whole tenor of that treatise. And, without palliating the worst passages, it may be said that few books have been more misrepresented. It is very far from true, that he advises a tyrannical administration of government, or one likely to excite general resistance, even to those whom he thought, or rather knew from experience, to be placed in the most difficult position for retaining power, by having recently been exalted to it. The Prince, he repeatedly says, must avoid all that will render him despicable or odious, especially injury to the property of citizens, or to their honour. This will leave him nothing to guard against but the ambition of a few. Conspiracies, which are of little importance while the people are well affected, become unspeakably dangerous as soon as they are hostile. Their love, therefore, or at least the absence of their hatred, is the basis of the governor's security, and far better than any fortresses. A wise prince will honour the nobility, at the same time that he gives content to the people. If the observance of these maxims is likely to subvert a ruler's power, he may be presumed to have designed the ruin of the Medici. The first duke in the new dynasty of that house, Cosmo I., lived forty years in the practice of all Machiavel would have advised, for evil as well as good; and his reign was not insecure.'—pp. 558, 559. Mr. Hallam proceeds to describe that which is of darker taint in The Prince. He concludes with this paragraph: 'The eighteenth chapter, on the manner in which princes should observe faith, might pass for a satire on their usual violations of it, if the author did not too seriously manifest his approbation of them. The best palliation of this, and of what else has been justly censured in Machiavel, is to be derived from his life and times. These led him to consider every petty government as in a continual state of self-defence against treachery and violence, from its ill-affected citizens, as well as from its ambitious neighbours. It is very difficult to draw the straight line of natural right in such circumstances; and neither perhaps the cool reader of a remote age, nor the secure subject of a well-organised community, is altogether a fair arbiter of what has been done or counselled in days of peril and necessity; relatively, I mean, to the persons, not to the objective character of actions. There is certainly a steadiness of of moral principle and Christian endurance, which tells us that it is better not to exist at all, than to exist at the price of virtue; but few indeed of the countrymen and contemporaries of Machiavel had any daim to the practice, whatever they might have to the profession, of such integrity. His crime, in the eyes of the world, and it was truly a crime, was to have cast away the veil of hypocrisy, the profession of a religious adherence to maxims which at the same moment were violated.' -p. 560. We transcribe without mutilation the remarks on the Discourses of Machiavel. It is well for society, with its present manifest tendencies, to consider the influence of democracy in all its bearings. It is true that great wisdom is required to apply the lessons of ancient history, or of political writers so far removed from our own times, and living in a social state so different from our own as Machiavelli. But to the calm and judicious mind, which can separate that which is universal and immutable, from that which is extraneous and temporary-which can frame and adapt the great leading principles to modern uses-they are not less worthy of study. But we break off, as well aware that we can add nothing to the authority of Mr. Hallam on such subjects. The discourses of Machiavel upon the first books of Livy, though not more celebrated than The Prince, have been better esteemed. Far from being exempt from the same bias in favour of unscrupulous politics, they abound with similar maxims, especially in the third book; but they contain more sound and deep thinking on the spirit of small republics, than could be found in any preceding writer that has descended to us; more probably, in a practical sense, than the Politics of Aristotle, though they are not so comprehensive. In reasoning upon the Roman government, he is naturally sometimes misled by confidence in Livy; but his own acquaintance with modern Italy was in some measure the corrective that secured him from the errors of ordinary antiquaries. 'These discourses are divided into three books, and contain 143 chapters with no great regard to arrangement; written probably as reflections occasionally presented themselves to the author's mind. They are built upon one predominant idea; that the political and military annals of early Rome having had their counterparts in a great variety of parallel instances which the recent history of Italy furnished, it is safe to draw experimental principles from them, and to expect the recurrence of similar consequences in the same circumstances. This reasoning, founded upon a single repetition of the event, though it may easily mislead us, from an imperfect estimate of the conditions, and does not give a high probability to our anticipations, is such as those intrusted with the safety of commonwealths ought not to neglect. But Machiavel sprinkles these discourses with thoughts of a more general cast, and often applies a comprehensive knowledge of history, and a long experience of mankind. 'Permanence, according to Machiavel, is the great aim of government. In this very common sentiment among writers accustomed to republican forms, although experience of the mischiefs generally attending upon change 60 Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe. change might lead to it, there is, no doubt, a little of Machiavel's original taint, the reference of political ends to the benefit of the rulers rather than that of the community. But the polity which he seems for the most part to prefer, though he does not speak explicitly, nor always perhaps consistently, is one wherein the people should at least have great weight. In one passage he recommends, like Cicero and Tacitus, the triple form, which endeavours to conciliate the power of a prince with that of nobility and a popular assembly; as the best means of preventing that cycle of revolutions through which, as he supposes, the simpler institutions would naturally, if not necessarily, pass; from monarchy to aristocracy, from that to democracy, and finally to monarchy again; though, as he observes, it rarely happens that there is time given to complete this cycle, which requires a long course of ages-the community itself, as an independent state, being generally destroyed before the close of the period. But, with this predilection for a republican polity, he yet saw its essential weakness in difficult circumstances; and hence observes that there is no surer way to ruin a democracy than to set it on bold undertakings, which it is sure to misconduct. He has made also the profound and important remark, that states are rarely either formed, or reformed, except by one man. 'Few political treatises can even now be read with more advantage than the Discourses of Machiavel; and in proportion as the course of civil society tends farther towards democracy, and especially if it should lead to what seems the inevitable consequence of democracy, a considerable subdivision of independent states, they may acquire an additional value. The absence of all passion, the continual reference of every public measure to a distinct end, the disregard of vulgar associations with names or persons, render him, though too cold of heart for a very generous reader, a sagacious and useful monitor for any one who can employ the necessary methods of correcting his theorems. formed a school of subtle reasoners upon political history, which, both in Italy and France, was in vogue for two centuries; and, whatever might be its errors, has hardly been superseded for the better by the loose declamation that some dignify with the name of philosophical politics, and in which we continually find a more flagitious and undisguised abandonment of moral rules for the sake of some idol of a general principle, than can be imputed to The Prince of Machiavel.' He With these remarks we close our, of necessity, imperfect and somewhat desultory notice of Mr. Hallam's first volume-the most important single volume that it has for some years been our duty to comment upon. By this specimen Mr. Hallam will confirm the solid and substantial reputation which he had already gained with all the sound and mature judges of literary excellence. By his completion of the work with the same care and in the same spirit, he will enable English literature to boast of the first full, impartial, and general view of the simultaneous progress of letters in every part of Europe. . ART. ART. III.-1. Letter from W. R. Hamilton, Esq., to the Earl of Elgin, on the New Houses of Parliament. Lond. 1836. 2. A Second Letter from the same to the same. Ibid. 1837. 3. Letter to Sir Robert Peel, Bart., M.P., on the Expediency of a better System of Control over Buildings erected at the Public Expense. By Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Edward Cust. 1835. 4. Strictures on Architectural Monstrosities, &c. By T. Juvara. 1835. 5. An Apology for the Architectural Monstrosities of London, &c. By an Architect. 1835. 6. Thoughts on rebuilding the Houses of Parliament. By Arthur William Hakewill, Architect. 1835. 7. Answer to Thoughts on rebuilding, &c. By Benjamin Ferrey, Architect. 1835. 8. A Letter to A. W. Hakewill. By A. Welby Pugin, Architect. 1835. 9. Prospects of the Nation in regard to its National Gallery. By Charles Purser, Architect. 1833. 10. An Apology for the Designs of the Houses of Parliament marked Phil-Archimedes,' &c. Second edition, with a Supplement. By W. Wilkins. 1836. WE E have lately read (probably in some library for the diffusion of useful knowledge) that the wants and pleasures of mankind, productive of the arts, are all comprised in the supply of the three great necessities of life,-raiment, food, and habitation. The author continues to remark, with equal sagacity, that the two first of these sources of civilization are unfortunately restricted within narrow limits, as nobody can wish to wear above two or three coats at a time, or a larger portion of lower integuments than a Dutchman. Likewise, in spite of the skill with which our power of deglutition has been enlarged by gastronomy, there is still a point-valde deflendum!-beyond which the most intrepid gourmand cannot proceed and live. In these, then, as he observes and laments, great capitals cannot be indefinitely expended; and genius can seldom be either excited or rewarded, in proportion to the case of those more fortunate virtuosi who are employed in constructing or embellishing our dwellings. We, indeed, recollect instances in which this fundamental law of our nature has been somewhat contravened. In one of the economical reforms of Calonne or Necker, under the old monarchy of France, restricting the personal expenses of the sovereign as an example for his subjects, an ordonnance announced that, for the future, his majesty would graciously content himself with three hundred and sixty-five pairs of inexpressibles in each year, being at the rate of one pair per diem, with an addition only of an intercalary pair for the bissextile. Louis XV. had it seems considerably exceeded this orthodox allowance. The genius of French cookery has almost equally extended the powers of the digestive organs, in the second branch of this our‹trinodis necessitas.' Hence tailors, cooks, and dressmakers have always ranked higher in France than in any other civilized country, and have only recently approached to similar honours in the rest of Europe. But still the general rule holds good-and though a definite proportion must commonly exist between man and his coat or his dinner, his house has been observed to vary, as our author remarks, rather according to the size of his purse than to that of his person. And hence-Q.E.D.-the superior importance of architecture, and of the sister arts that contribute to embellish our residences. Fully satisfied with this philosophical view of the subject, we wish to pay some attention to the present state of a profession so important to ourselves, and have accordingly selected the pamphlets whose titles appear at the head of our article as exponents of its actual condition. Alas! we find it in a state of war; the Greeks appear at an almost interminable feud with the Goths; and the Commissioners suggested by Sir Edward Cust, unsalariedand unpitied in their thankless office-have, by their predilections, affronted the classic partizans, and probably, by their award, have dissatisfied all their eighty competitors, with the single exception of Mr. Barry. Non nostrûm tantas componere lites.' We leave that to the authority-as we hope for the comfort-of the two branches of the legislature, who, desirous of providing, if possible, a suitable habitation for themselves, have only the hazardous alternative of adopting the plan approved by the Commission, though denounced in no very measured terms by undoubted professional ability, or the still harder, as well as more tedious, task of devising a more competent tribunal. Will each limb of the legislature, in this dilemma, resolve to provide for its own respective accommodation, the reformed Commons with brick and plaster, in the newest style of our metropolitan boroughs and of public opinion, while the Lords are emulating Kenilworth and Burleigh? Or will a joint design, proposed by the lower house and amended by the peers, discussed at a free conference and re-amended by both, be submitted to the royal assent and to the admiration of posterity? We know not: but in the meantime we are startled at the following admission, which we fear may be just, and which led Sir Edward |