Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/137

111 XIV, ARMIES ON THE GARIGLIANO. Ill least above their grosser vices, was sunk in the chapter foulest corruptions that debase poor human nature. Was it surprising then, that the tree, thus cankered at heart, with all the goodly show of blossoms on its branches, should have fallen before the blast, which now descended in such pitiless fury from the moun- tains ? Had there been an invigorating national feeling, any common principle of coalition among the Italian states ; had they, in short, been true to themselves, they possessed abundant resources in their wealth, talent, and superior science, to have shielded their soil from violation. Unfortunately, while the other European states had been augmenting their strength incalculably by the consolidation of their scattered fragments into one whole, those of Italy, in the ab- sence of some great central point round which to rally, had grown more and more confirmed in their original disunion. Thus, without concert in action, and destitute of the vivifying impulse of patriotic sentiment, they were delivered up to be the spoil and mockery of nations, whom in their proud lan- guage they still despised as barbarians ; an impres- sive example of the impotence of human genius, and of the instability of human institutions, however excellent in themselves, when unsustained by public and private virtue.^ The great powers, who had now entered the lists. 2 The philosophic Machiavelli with more than his usual boldness discerned the true causes of the and bitterness of sarcasm, in the calamities, in the corruptions of his seventh book of his "Arte della country; which he has exposed, Guerra."