recommend to the practice of
your prince. He was bold and prudent in war, just and strict in the
general administration of his government, and particularly careful, by a
vigorous execution of the laws, to protect the people against injuries or
oppressions from the great. In all his actions and words there
constantly appeared the highest concern for the honour of the nation. He
was neither greedy of wealth that belonged to other men nor profuse of
his own, but knew how to give and where to save. He professed a most
edifying sense of religion, pretended great zeal for the reformation of
manners, and was really an example of sobriety, chastity, and temperance
in the whole course of his life. Nor did he shed any blood, but of those
who were such obstacles in his way to dominion as could not possibly be
removed by any other means. This was a prince after your heart, yet mark
his end. The horror his crimes had excited in the minds of his subjects,
and the detestation it produced, were so pernicious to him, that they
enabled an exile, who had no right to the crown, and whose abilities were
much inferior to his, to invade his realm and destroy him.

_Machiavel_.--This example, I own, may seem to be of some weight against
the truth of my system. But at the same time it demonstrates that there
was nothing so new in the doctrines I published as to make it reasonable
to charge me with the disorders and mischiefs which, since my time, any
kingdom may have happened to suffer from the ambition of a subject or the
tyranny of a prince. Human nature wants no teaching to render it wicked.
In courts more especially there has been, from the first institution of
monarchies, a policy practised, not less repugnant than mine to the
narrow and vulgar laws of humanity and religion. Why should I be singled
out as worse than other statesmen?

_Guise_.--There have been, it must be owned, in all ages and all states,
many wicked politicians; but thou art the first that ever taught the
science of tyranny, reduced it to rules, and instructed his disciples how
to acquire and secure it by treachery, perjuries, assassinations,
proscriptions, and with a particular caution, not to be stopped in the
progress of their crimes by any check of the conscience or feeling of the
heart, but to push them as far as they shall judge to be necessary to
their greatness and safety. It is this which has given thee a
pre-eminence in guilt over all other statesmen