From  this  outline  of  the  fragment  De  Republirn.  we  have
reason  to  think  that  it  bore  a  greater  resemblance  to  the  Dis-
courses of  Macchiavelli,  than  to  the  Dialogue  of  Plato  which  we
have  just  examined :  or  rather  it  would  seem  to  have  been  a  sort
of  medium  between  those  celebrated  productions.  If  it  was
more  sober  and  practical  than  the  Greek  philosopher's,  it  was  far
less  so  than  that  of  the  Florentine  Secretary.  The  Somnium
Scipionis,  for  instance,  would  have  been  quite  out  of  place  in  the
Discourses.  Macchiavelli  had  no  sentiment  and  very  little  ima-
gination. His  unrivalled  excellence  (for  unrivalled  he  is)  con-
sists in  a  cold,  calculating,  "long-sighted  and  strong-nerved"  rea-
son— seasoned,  as  is  proved  by  Belfagor  and  Mandragola,  with  a
good  deal  of  vivacity  and  wit.  "But  there  was  no  more  faith
in  him  than  in  a  stewed  prune."  He  was  a  heartless  Italian  di-
plomatist, who  had  learned  to  be  a  speculative  republican— where
Milton,  and  Sidney,  and  Harrington  afterwards  imbibed  their
more  sincere  love  ot  liberty— in  the  schools  of  antiquity,  and
whose  head  was  full  of  the  notion,  so  rife  at  that  time  in  Italy,
of  the  superiority  of  the  antique  over  the  gothic  model}  and  of
the  Pseudo-descchdants  of  the  Romans  over  the  whole  race  of
V Itramontane  barbarians.  The  merit  of  his  discourses  we  admit
to  be  of  the  very  highest  order.  They  are  the  best  work  of  the
kind  extant — less  metaphysical  than  Aristotle's  Politics — more
philosophical  and  comprehensive  than  our  own  Federalist — and
not  to  be  degraded  by  a  comparison  with  the  random  epigrams
of  Montesquieu.  It  would  have  been  a  curious  thing  to  have
collated  Cicero's  exposition  of  the  Roman  government  and  policy,
with  a  work  upon  the  same  subject,  written  at  the  end  of  fiAeeti
centuries,  without  any  of  those  advantages  which  his  eera  and
situation  gave  the  Roman  consul  and  philosopher.  From  the  re-
mark of  Tubero,  however,  in  the  dialogue  De  Republican  that
Seipio  had,  so  far,  rather  delivered  a  panegyric  on  the  Roman
constitution,  than  a  political  discourse  of  general  application  and
practical  tendency,  we  doubt  very  much  whether  the  latter  had
made,  by  any  means,  so  full  an  analysis  of  the  subject  as  thl
commentator  upon  the  first  Decade  of  Livy.
