ot have committed the errors which
cost this country so dearly. They would not have relied upon bringing
the war to a successful end by aid of a party among the French: they
would not have confided in the reports of emigrants; and they would not
have supposed that because the French finances were in confusion, France
was therefore incapable of carrying on war with vigour and ability; men
and not money being the sinews of war, as Machiavelli had taught, and the
revolutionary rulers and Buonaparte after them had learnt. Each of these
errors they committed, though all were marked upon the chart!

_Sir Thomas More_.--Such maxims are like beacons on a dangerous shore,
not the less necessary, because the seaman may sometimes be deceived by
false lights, and sometimes mistaken in his distances; but the
possibility of being so misled will be borne in mind by the cautious.
Machiavelli is always sagacious, but the tree of knowledge of which he
had gathered grew not in Paradise; it had a bitter root, and the fruit
savours thereof, even to deadliness. He believed men to be so malignant
by nature that they always act malevolently from choice, and never well
except by compulsion, a devilish doctrine, to be accounted for rather
than excused by the circumstances of his age and country. For he lived
in a land where intellect was highly cultivated, and morals thoroughly
corrupted, the Papal Church having by its doctrines, its practices, and
its example, made one part of the Italians heathenism and superstitious,
the other impious, and both wicked.

The rule of policy as well as of private morals is to be found in the
Gospel; and a religious sense of duty towards God and man is the first
thing needful in a statesman: herein he has an unerring guide when
knowledge fails him, and experience affords no light. This, with a clear
head and a single heart, will carry him through all difficulties; and the
just confidence which, having these, he will then have in himself, will
obtain for him the confidence of the nation. In every nation, indeed,
which is conscious of its strength, the minister who takes the highest
tone will invariably be the most popular; let him uphold, even haughtily,
the character of his country, and the heart and voice of the people will
be with him. But haughtiness implies always something that is hollow:
the tone of a wise minister will be firm but calm. He will neither
truckle to his enemies in the vain hope of con