But that, after the apathy of the fifteenth century, is still a passion.

The rectitude of instinct and the intense convictions of the earlier age have been exchanged for a scientific clairvoyance, a 'stoic-epicurean acceptance' of the facts of vitiated civilization, which in men like Guicciardini and Machiavelli is absolutely appalling.

Nearly all the authors of this period bear a double face.

They write one set of memoirs for the public, and another set for their own delectation.

In their inmost souls they burn with the zeal for liberty: yet they sell their abilities to the highest bidder--to Popes whom they despise, and to Dukes whom they revile in private.