cal point of view, are now
infinitely unimportant."

Truly, yes! The Crown-Prince's ANTI-MACHIAVEL, final correct edition (in
two forms, Voltaire's as corrected, and the Prince's own as written),
stands now in clear type; [Preuss, _OEuvres de Frederic,_ viii.
61-163.] and, after all that jumble of printing and counter-printing, we
can any of us read it in a few hours; but, alas, almost none of us
with the least interest, or, as it were, with any profit whatever.
So different is present tense from past, in all things, especially
in things like these! It is sixscore years since the ANTI-MACHIAVEL
appeared. The spectacle of one who was himself a King (for the
mysterious fact was well known to Van Duren and everybody) stepping
forth to say with conviction, That Kingship was not a thing of attorney
mendacity, to be done under the patronage of Beelzebub, but of human
veracity, to be set about under quite Other patronage; and that, in
fact, a King was the "born servant of his People" (DOMESTIQUE Friedrich
once calls it), rather than otherwise: this, naturally enough, rose upon
the then populations, unused to such language, like the dawn of a new
day; and was welcomed with such applauses as are now incredible, after
all that has come and gone! Alas, in these sixscore years, it has been
found so easy to profess and speak, even with sincerity! The actual
Hero-Kings were long used to be silent; and the Sham-Hero kind grow
only the more desperate for us, the more they speak and profess!--This
ANTI-MACHIAVEL of Friedrich's is a clear distinct Treatise; confutes,
or at least heartily contradicts, paragraph by paragraph, the incredible
sophistries of Machiavel. Nay it leaves us, if we sufficiently force
our attention, with the comfortable sense that his Royal Highness is
speaking with conviction, and honestly from the heart, in the affair:
but that is all the conquest we get of it, in these days. Treatise
fallen more extinct to existing mankind it would not be easy to name.

Perhaps indeed mankind is getting weary of the question altogether.
Machiavel himself one now reads only by compulsion. "What is the use of
arguing with anybody that can believe in Machiavel?" asks mankind,
or might well ask; and, except for Editorial purposes, eschews any
ANTI-MACHIAVEL; impatient to be rid of bane and antidote both. Truly
the world has had a pother with this little Nicolo Machiavelli and his
perverse little Book:--pity almost that a Friedrich W