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Updated: June 22, 2025
Now there being no other commonwealth but this in art or nature, it is no wonder if Machiavel has shown us that the ancients held this only to be good; but it seems strange to me that they should hold that there could be any other, for if there be such a thing as pure monarchy, yet that there should be such a one as pure aristocracy or pure democracy is not in my understanding.
His answer was: "My lord, there is not any public person, nor any magistrate, that has written on politics, worth a button. All they that have been excellent in this way have been private men, as private men, my lord, as myself. There is Plato, there is Aristotle, there is Livy, there is Machiavel.
"Nay, madam," answered Melville, "in such emergence, and he being the bearer of Lord Seyton's message, I will venture to say, before him and these fair ladies, whose truth and fidelity I dispute not I say I will venture to say, that there are other modes besides that of open trial, by which deposed sovereigns often die; and that, as Machiavel saith, there is but one step betwixt a king's prison and his grave."
"That handsome tiger-cat has laid her claw on it, I am certain. But she won't confess; red-hot pincers would not drag a secret from her, if she meant to keep it. I doubt if she will even betray herself by a blush. Poor Constance! What chance had she against such a Machiavel in petticoats? I am bad at diplomacy, too.
"The Italian princes, of whom Machiavel speaks, only play the part of men before their servants. Most of the smaller princes, and especially those of Germany, ruin themselves by spending sums far exceeding their revenues, and thus by vanity are led to want. Even the youngest scion of the least important salaried prince imagines himself as great as Louis.
Whence Machiavel concludes it positively, that a commonwealth unprovided of such a refuge, must fall to ruin; for her course is either broken by the blow in one of those cases, or by herself, while it startles her out of her orders.
Grumkow, a very Machiavel after his sort, knew the nature of the royal animal as no other did. Grumkow, purchased by his Pension of 500 pounds, is dog-cheap at the Money, as Seckendorf often urges at Vienna, Is he not?
And who told king Dick that his nervous arm and massy club, were insufficient without the aid of the preacher of terror? Neither of them had read, or heard of Machiavel. Who taught this black orator, that the priesthood must seek shelter behind the throne, from the hostilities of reason?
"These things considered, I cannot see how an agrarian, as to the fixation or security of a government, can be less than necessary. And if a cure be necessary, it excuses not the patient, his disease being otherwise desperate, that it is dangerous; which was the case of Rome, not so stated by Machiavel, where he says, that the strife about the agrarian caused the destruction of that commonwealth.
'I remember Machiavel observes, that every state should entertain a perpetual jealousy of its neighbours, that so it should never be unprovided when an emergency happens; in like manner should reason be perpetually on its guard against the passions, and never suffer them to carry on any design that may be destructive of its security; yet, at the same time, it must be careful, that it don't so far break their strength as to render them contemptible, and, consequently, itself unguarded.
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