MACHIAVELLI'S FOURTH CENTENARY

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 74, 24 September 1927, Page 21

MACHIAVELLI'S FOURTH CENTENARY

THE PARADOX OF. "THE PRINCE" (By "Ajax.") To read "The Prince" again and to road Macaulay's/essay on its author again- are two very easy and cheerful ways of celebrating Machiavelli's fourth centenary, and it was in discharging the second of these pleasant flntiea that I discovered for the first tStn* that Macaulay's famous essay !Was itself a centenary production. He took for his text a French translation of the works of Maehiavelli which had appeared two years previously, made fun. in his opening paragraph of the literary fashion of putting the name of a book at the head of an article in which, it is never mentioned again, but failed apparently to mention the centenary which a writer of to-day would irelcome as a much more satisfactory pretext. It was m March, 1827, that Macaulay's article appeared in the "Edinburgh Beview." ■ It is of course etill readable, and it is a great tribute to the powers of a young man of 26 that the researches of a century which has done more for the study of Machiavelli than the previous three have not pnt it completely out of date. For three centuries Machiavelli had been more reviled than read.

As Voltaire has said of Dante that his fame Is secure because nobody reads him, so in an inverse sense, says Lord Morley, the bad name of MachiavelU grew worse, because men reproached, confuted, and cursed, but seldom read.

Macaulay at any rate did not fail for lack of- reading. Ha had read not only "The Prince" but everything else that Machiavelli had written. He had also a wide knowledge of Italian literature and history, and he sought) to interpret "The Prince" in the light of Machiavelli's other writings, and the man in the-light of his age. Both attempts were inspired by a sound critical method, but Professor Villari, ■while giving the essay high praise as "the. first-attempt at a serious and complete study of Machiavelli"—the first in three hundred years!—complains that by explaining the contradictions in Machiavelli's mind and character by tho contradictions in those of his contemporaries, Maeaulay had substituted two enigmas for one, and "at the cost of denying Machiavelli any individuality or originality." .■Whether he could explain contradic-. tions of this kind or not, Macaulay certainly had a genius for stating them.

We doubt, he says, whether it would be possible to find, In all the many volumes of his (Machiavelli's) composition, a sinsle expression indicating that dissimulation and treachery had ever struck him as discreditable. : After this, it may seem ridiculous to s»y that'we are acquainted with few writings which exhibit so much elevation of sentiment; so pure and warm a zeal for the public good; or so just a view of the duties and rights of citizens, as those of Machia,TelH. Tet so It is.

Macanlay goes on to say that even ■Within tho narrow limits of "The Prince" itself many passages could be selected to illustrate both sides of this remark, and that to readers of his age «ndi country the inconsistency appears, »t first, "perfectly bewildering."

The whole man seems, he says, to bo an enigma,' a* grotesque assemblage of incongruous qualities, selfishness and generosity ,s cruelty and. benevolence, craft aud simplicity, , abject villainy and romantic heroism. One sentence 1b such as a veteran diplomatist would scarcely write in cipher for the direction of his most confidential spy; the next seems to be extracted-from a theme composed by an ardent school boy on thu death of Leonldas. An act of dexterous pertldy; and an act or patriotic self-devotion, call forth the same kind and the same degree of. respectful admiration. The moral sensibility of the writer seems at ouco to be morbidly obtuse and morbidly acute. Two characters altogether dissimilar are united In him. They are not merely joined, but . Interwoven. They are tho warp and the woof of, his mind; and their combination, like that of the variegated threads in shot silk, gives to tho whole texture a glancing and ever-changing appearance. The explanation might have been easy. If he had been a »cry weak or a very affected man. But he ' was evidently neither the one nor the other. His works prove, beyond all contradiction, that his understanding was strong, his taste pure, and his sense of the ridiculous exquisitely keen. „« In another passage. Macaulay pays a high.compliment to the style in which these qualites find expression. . : The judicious and candid mind of MnchlaTelH shows itself, he says, in his luminous ■ and' polished language. .■•..- • • • • * Macaulay's' meaning is always unMigtaKable, but I cannot say sis much for the,very able writer, of the leading' article on "Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)" which appeared in "The Times Literary Supplement" of the 26th June. He praises the style of Machiavelli even more highly than Maeaulay," but while Macaulay speaks €>t Maehiavelli's strength of understanding and purity of taste, this writer finds in Maehiavelli's purity of keart the secret of his power. : /: It has. been said. In a tone of reproach, §aj3 the "T.L.S." writer, that Machiavelli makes no attempt "to persuade." Certainly he was no prophet. For he wa3 concerned first of all with truth, not with persuasion, which Is one reason why his prose Is great prose, not only of Italian but a model of style for any language. He Is a partial Aristotle of politics. But ho is partial not- because his vision is distorted or his judgment biased, or because of any lack of moral interest, but because of his passion for ' the unity, peace, and prosperity of his country. What makes him a great writer, and for ever a solitary figure, is the purity and erer less "Machiavellian" than' Machiavelli. Only the pure in heart can blow the gaff on human nature as. Machiavelli has done. This is beyond question very clever, "but I cannot pretend to understand it. Blessed is the patriot whose passion is so intense that he does not care by what crimes his country's interests are promoted. Blessed are the pure in heart? for,they do not worry about cruelty or treachery as long as it is helping the cause. The "T.L.S." man, of course, does not'mean that, but what he does mean is beyond my comprehension.

. justly. protesting against the misrepresentation of Maehiavelli as "hardly, more than a clever sycophant giving tips to tyrants on the best way of oppressing their subjects," the "T.L.S." essayist says:— .

"In France, not only religious partisans but "polltlQues"—notably Jean Bodin—fell foul or him. Bodin could not get over MacliiaTelll's praiso of Ccsare Borgia in "The Prince," although, to anyone who reads the book without prejudice, it should bo quite clear, in what respects and with what reser-

rations Machlavelll bestows his praise. Having read "The Prince" without, prejudice and with due regard to the reservations in question, I am nevertheless compelled to concur with Bodin and other unsophisticated readers of the book. When Macaulay described Machiavclli and Ccsare Borgia as "the greatest speculative and the greatest practical statesman of the age," he may have paid Cesare too high a compliment. But Cesare was certainly a brilliant leader in whom Machiavelli was justified in seeing.many of the characteristics of his ideal Prince and saviour of Italy. Lying and murder were, however, among the less ideal habits of Cesare with which in a practical world Machiavelli saw that his model Prince could not dispense. So impressed was he with the eminence in these departments' '■£ Cesare Borgia, then commonly known as Duko Valentino, that in addition to this general description in

"The Prince," he gave a minute account of the most conspicuous exhibition of the Duke's skill in an essay entitled "Description of the Methods adopted by the Duke Valentino when murdering Vitellozzo Vitalli, Oliverotto da Ferrno, the Signor Pagolo, and the Duke di Gravina Orsini."

It was one of the most beautiful little murder schemes in the world, and not with unseemly enthusiasm but in a strictly dispassionate and scientific spirit Machiavelli gives every detail of the procedure by which Cesare Borgia disarmed the suspicious of four of his most dangerous enemies,, manoeuvred them all into one of his castles, and there strangled the lot. It is in the same spirit that in the 7th chapter of "The Prince" Machiavelli sums up regarding this model murderer as follows: — When all the actions of the Duke are recalled, I do not know how to blame him, but rather it appears to me, as I have said, that I ought-to offer him for imitation to others, .are raised to government. Because he. having a lofty spirit and far-reaching alms, could not have regulated his conduct otherwise, and only the shortness of the life of Alexander and his own sickness frustrated his designs. . . . Only can he be blamed for the election of Julius the Second, in whom he made a bad choice, because, as is said, not being able to elect a Pope to his own mind, ha could have hindered any other from being elected Pope; and he ought never to have consented to the election of any cardinal. whom he had injured or who had cause to fear him If they became pontiffs. For men Injure either from fear or hatred. ... He who believes that new benefits will cause great personages to forget old Injuries is deceived. Therefore, tho Duke erred in his choice, and it was the cause of his ultimate ruin.

Was it De Quineey who said that many a man owed his fall to a murder of which he thought little enough' at the time? There was no such disturbing thought to darken the last days of Cesare Borgia. There was nothing wrong with those four murders at Sinigalia or any others in his long list. That unfortunate error of judgment about the election of a successor to Pi"S 111. was the one serious blot on his career. A Prince may murder as well as lie if the necessity arises, but let him never forget the moral of Cesare Borgia's fall—that "he who believes that new benefits will cause great personages to forget old injuries is deceived." In justice to Machiavelli, however, three things must be borne in mind—that the standards of his time and country, the strictness with which he limited the deceit and the violence of his ideal Prince to the service of his country, and the genuine achievements of Cesare Borgia's statesmanship in which crime and cunning had no part.

John A.'Symonfls, whose article on Machiavelli it is a pleasuro to find still holding its own, more than 30 years after his death, in the " Encyclopaedia' Britanniea," puts Machiavelli'b admiration of Cesare Borgia in true perspective:-— More than once, in the letters of his friend Vettori no less than in the pages of the "Principe" Machiavelli afterwards expressed his belief that Cesare Borgia's behaviour in conquest of provinces, the cementing of a new State out of scattered elements, and . dealing with false friends or doubtful allies was worthy of all condemnation and of scrupulous Imitation. There is no room- for cavil here unless it is in the last word but one. "Scrupulous 1' seems hardly the best epithet for the imitation of a thoroughly unscrupulous scoundrel. If a paradox were intended like Tennyson's, His honour rooted in dishonour stood. And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true, it would, of course, stand, for the rela; tion of tho Prince to virtue and vice is ossentially paradoxical. Otherwise "precise" might be a less disturbing epithet.