faithful, humane, religious, just, these he may be and above all should seem to be, nor should any word escape his lips to give the lie to his professions:  and in fact he should not leave these qualities but when he must.  He should, if possible, practise goodness, but under necessity should know how to pursue evil.  He should keep faith until occasion alter, or reason of state compel him to break his pledge.  Above all he should profess and observe religion, ’because men in general judge rather by the eye than by the hand, and every one can see but few can touch.’  But none the less, must he learn (as did William the Silent, Elizabeth of England, and Henry of Navarre) how to subordinate creed to policy when urgent need is upon him.  In a word, he must realise and face his own position, and the facts of mankind and of the world.  If not veracious to his conscience, he must be veracious to facts.  He must not be bad for badness’ sake, but seeing things as they are, must deal as he can to protect and preserve the trust committed to his care.  Fortune is still a fickle jade, but at least the half our will is free, and if we are bold we may master her yet.  For Fortune is a woman who, to be kept under, must be beaten and roughly handled, and we see that she is more ready to be mastered by those who treat her so, than by those who are shy in their wooing.  And always, like a woman, she gives her favours to the young, because they are less scrupulous and fiercer and more audaciously command her to their will.

[Sidenote:  The Appeal.]

And so at the last the sometime Secretary of the Florentine Republic turns to the new Master of the Florentines in splendid exhortation.  He points to no easy path.  He proposes no mean ambition.  He has said already that ’double will that Prince’s glory be, who has founded a new realm and fortified it and adorned it with good laws, good arms, good friends, and good examples.’  But there is more and better to be done.  The great misery of men has ever made the great leaders of men.  But was Israel in Egypt, were the Persians, the Athenians ever more enslaved, down-trodden, disunited, beaten, despoiled, mangled, overrun and desolate than is our Italy to-day?  The barbarians must be hounded out, and Italy be free and one.  Now is the accepted time.  All Italy is waiting and only seeks the man.  To you the darling of Fortune and the Church this splendid task is given, to and to the army of Italy and of Italians only.  Arm Italy and lead her.  To you, the deliverer, what gates would be closed, what obedience refused!  What jealousies opposed, what homage denied.  Love, courage, and fixed fidelity await you, and under your standards shall the voice of Petrarch be fulfilled: 

Virtu contro al furore
Prendera l’arme e fia il combatter corto: 
Che l’antico valore
Negl’ Italici cor non e ancor morto.

Such is The Prince of Machiavelli.  The vision of its breathless exhortation seemed then as but a landscape to a blind man’s eye.  But the passing of three hundred and fifty years of the misery he wept for brought at the last, almost in perfect exactness, the fulfilment of that impossible prophecy.