and shout loud enough to be heard from San Casciano.  But when evening falls I go home and enter my writing-room.  On the threshold I put off my country habit, filthy with mud and mire, and array myself in royal courtly garments; thus worthily attired, I make my entrance into the ancient courts of the men of old, where they receive me with love, and where I feed upon that food which only is my own and for which I was born.  I feel no shame in conversing with them and asking them the reason of their actions.  They, moved by their humanity, make answer; for four hours’ space I feel no annoyance, forget all care; poverty cannot frighten, nor death appall me.  I am carried away to their society.  And since Dante says “that there is no science unless we retain what we have learned,” I have set down what I have gained from their discourse, and composed a treatise, De Principatibus, in which I enter as deeply as I can into the science of the subject, with reasonings on the nature of principality, its several species, and how they are acquired, how maintained, how lost.  If you ever liked any of my scribblings, this ought to suit your taste.  To a prince, and especially to a new prince, it ought to prove acceptable.  Therefore I am dedicating it to the Magnificence of Giuliano.’

[1] This letter may be compared with others of about the same date.  In one (Aug. 3, 1514) he says:  ’Ho lasciato dunque i pensieri delle cose grandi e gravi, non mi diletta piu leggere le cose antiche, ne ragionare delle moderne; tutte si son converse in ragionamenti dolci,’ etc.  Again he writes (Dec. 4, 1514):  ’Quod autem ad me pertinet, si quid agam scire cupis, omnem meae vitae rationem ab eodem Tafano intelliges, quam sordidam ingloriamque, non sine indignatione, si me ut soles amas, cognosces.’  Later on, we may notice the same language.  Thus (Feb. 5, 1515), ‘Sono diventato inutile a me, a’ parenti ed agli amici,’ and (June 8, 1517) ’Essendomi io ridotto a stare in villa per le avversita che io ho avuto ed ho, sto qualche volta un mese che non mi ricordo di me.’

Further on in the same letter he writes:  ’I have talked with Filippo Casavecchia about this little work of mine, whether I ought to present it or not; and if so, whether I ought to send or take it myself to him.  I was induced to doubt about presenting it at all by the fear lest Giuliano should not even read it, and that this Ardinghelli should profit by my latest labors.  On the other hand, I am prompted to present it by the necessity which pursues me, seeing that I am consuming myself in idleness, and I cannot continue long in this way without becoming contemptible through poverty.  I wish these Signori Medici would begin to make some use of me, if it were only to set me to the work of rolling a stone.[1] If I did not win them over to me afterwards, I should only complain of myself.  As for my book, if they read it, they would perceive that the fifteen years I have spent