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EARLY CRITICISM OF 'THE PRINCE.' 39
abletohuman naturethatthereshouldhave been so general
a revoltagainstwhat were believedto be immoral doctrines;
and as it appeared impossible to admire The Prince without
sanctioning its doctrines, it was natural that the apologetic
interpretations should find favour, for they supplied the only
way of escaping the dilemma.
The amount of attention which was paid at an early
period to The Prince shows also that it must soon have
become a popular book; so that, in following the earlier
Machiavellian critics, we have to bear in mind the influence
exerted, first, by a violent and for the most part a
religious opposition; secondly, by the tendency to justify
perversely; and, thirdly, by the tendency to enjoy and appropriate
for particular selfish ends, in an uncritical spirit, leaving
out of sight the scientific question.
Before, however, the forms of thought which each attitude
tended to produce became fixed, and, as facts have proved,
exceedingly difficult to alter or modify except in comparatively
unimportant particulars, there were one or two cases in which
criticism seemed to waver, and balance between praise and
blame. This was no doubt due to some real recollection, or
half-understood tradition about Machiavelli's life. He had won
for himself, rightly or wrongly, the reputation of an ardent
republican, and The Prbzce, regarded from one point of view,
seemed a strange anomaly, a startling contradiction of the
principles by which Machiavelli was believed to have guided
his actions. The feeling that if The Prince were the tyrant's
handbook, Machiavelli himself must have been a curious combination
of opposites, led to such expressions as those used by
Busini, and after him by Varchi : in the following passages the
reader will notice that there is no hint of the theory of a secret
meaning': Busini's letter has already been referred to; the
text of it is as follows :--
i So far as I can discover, there is no hint of such an idea in anything written
before Machiavelli's death; nor m Machiavelli's works: the words which he
wrote to Gmeciardml in a letter of May I7, I52I, have been strangely misinterpreted
: ' Da un tempo in qua io non dico mai quello che io credo, n6 credo ms1
quel che 1o dico, e se pure e' mi vien detto qualche volta 1lvero, io lo nascondo
tra tante bugle, che _ difficile a ritrovarlo.' lOp. viii. I58.] Machiavelli's position
had long ago accustomed him to be retment, and to act and speak with the
greatest caution, without committing himself 1and it is to this habit of mind that