principles of the Governo Misto to the existing state of things in Florence.  This lucid and learned disquisition is wound up (p. 188) with a mournful expression of the doubt which hung like a thick cloud over all the political speculations of both Guicciardini and Machiavelli:  ’I hold it very doubtful, and I think it much depends on chance whether this disorganized constitution will ever take new shape or not ... and as I said yesterday, I should have more hope if the city were but young; seeing that not only does a state at the commencement take form with greater facility than one that has grown old under evil governments, but things always turn out more prosperously and more easily while fortune is yet fresh and has not run its course,’ etc.[3] In reading the Dialogue on the Constitution of Florence it must finally be remembered that Guicciardini has thrown it back into the year 1494, and that he speaks through the mouths of four interlocutors.  Therefore we may presume that he intended his readers to regard it as a work of speculative science rather than of practical political philosophy.  Yet it is not difficult to gather the drift of his own meaning.

[1] Cf. Ricordi, cxl.:  ’Chi disse uno popolo, disse veramente uno animale pazzo, pieno ni mille errori, di mille confusioni, sanza gusto, sanza diletto, sanza stabilita.’  It should be noted that Guicciardini here and elsewhere uses the term Popolo in its fuller democratic sense.  The successive enlargements of the burgher class in Florence, together with the study of Greek and Latin political philosophy, had introduced the modern connotation of the term.

[2] A lucid criticism of the three forms of government is contained in Guicciardini’s Comment on the second chapter of the first book of Machiavelli’s Discorsi (Op.  Ined. vol. i. p. 6):  ’E non e dubio che il governo misto delle tre spezie, principi, ottimati e popolo, e migliore e piu stabile che uno governo semplice di qualunque delle tre spezie, e massime quando e misto in modo che di qualunque spezie e tolto il buono e lasciato indietro il cattivo.’  Machiavelli had himself, in the passage criticised, examined the three simple governments and declared in favor of the mixed as that which gave stability to Sparta, Rome, and Venice.  The same line of thought may be traced in the political speculations of both Plato and Aristotle.  The Athenians and Florentines felt the superior stability of the Spartan and Venetian forms of government, just as a French theorist might idealize the English constitution.  The essential element of the Governo Misto, which Florence had lost beyond the possibility of regaining it, was a body of hereditary and patriotic patricians.  This gave its strength to Venice; and this is that which hitherto has distinguished the English nation.

    [3] Compare Ricordi Politici e Civili, No. clxxxix., for a
    lament of this kind over the decrepitude of kingdoms, almost
    sublime in its stoicism.