Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/298

MAC After the sack of Rome, 6th May, 1527, Machiavelli was following the army for the relief of the pope when he learned that the Medici were once more expelled from Florence, and the state reconstituted as before their restoration. His long and faithful public services stood him in no stead at this crisis; his recent acquiescence in the Medicean rule outweighing the remembrance of them. His death took place on the 22nd June of the same year. Its immediate cause was an overdose of opium, taken medicinally; and it seems more than doubtful whether chagrin at his countrymen's ill opinion had, as some have assumed, anything to do with it. Machiavelli died poor, leaving four sons and a daughter by his wife Marietta Corsini. His public character stands without reproach. He was a patriot, zealous and indefatigable for his country's honour and service, disinterested, endowed with singular firmness and penetration, reticent or outspoken as the public interests required, and, as it would seem, not only honest in his main purposes, but as free from the small arts of obliquity and duplicity as can well be expected from a man who professes policy, and not morals, as his function. In his private character he is said to have been an unfaithful husband, somewhat a gourmand, and extravagant, or rather perhaps, careless, in expenditure. His orthodoxy too has been questioned; yet he received the sacraments on his deathbed, and possibly the imputation rests chiefly upon his political opposition to the temporal power of the popes. He was reputed obliging, though caustic, in personal intercourse. He was of middle height and olive complexion, with a countenance of great sagacity and some closeness, mixed with humour and eagerness; the portraits, however, differ considerably. It is upon his writings that the prevalent notion of his character, embodied in the phrase "Machiavellian policy," depends. Their chronology is uncertain, but appears to be somewhat as follows:—I. "La Mandragola," a prose comedy, licentious, but one of the best in the language, written towards 1498; four others are less famous. II. "First Decennial of Events in Italy from 1494 to 1504," a chronicle in the poetic form of terza rima; a second Decennial comes down to 1510 only. III. "The Prince." This is the world-famous book which has done more to blacken the character of Machiavelli than all his acts and other writings put together. He had begun writing it, with the view already stated, as early as 1513; it was not published, according to the best evidence, till 1532, after the author's death. Viewed dispassionately, and as what it professes itself to be, it is a manual of policy for the sovereign of a newly-acquired territory, desirous of settling and extending his power. It tells him, from the experience of past history, how this can be most surely done, and asserts, without subterfuge and without revulsion of feeling, that the surest method is one which cannot fail oftentimes to violate moral principle. It cites Cesare Borgia as an example, in some respects, of successful policy. On the whole the book tends to identifying the interests of the prince with those of the country. It is certainly not a moral book; but is properly to be viewed rather as a disquisition proceeding upon other than moral data, than as a preaching of immorality. IV. "Discourses on the first Decade of Livy," written about the same time as the "Prince," and in much the same range of thought, full of masterly and magnanimous readings of the lessons of Roman history. V. "A Treatise on the art of War," somewhat later. Opinions are greatly divided as to the value of Machiavelli's views in this book. Frederick the Great is said to have esteemed it highly. Two of Machiavelli's chief points are, the importance of infantry and the banefulness of mercenary troops. He had during his secretaryship prevailed upon the state to raise a national militia, then quite a novelty in Florence. VI. "History of Florence to the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent," 1492, finished towards 1525; a work of admirable insight, and nervous, concise eloquence. It does not evidence any great research, but presents the facts simply, boldly, and in their true relations. Besides these works there are several minor ones of history and public affairs, poems, a humorous tale—"Belphegor," &c. Machiavelli's political correspondence was first published in 1767. Of his other works the first complete edition was produced in 1550, with some smoothing of phraseology to suit the taste of the day; and this text has been followed by all subsequent editions, save the last by Le Monnier, 1843-52.—W. M. R.  MACINTYRE,, commonly known throughout the Highlands as Donnacha Ban Nan Oran, a highland poet of considerable celebrity, was born in the year 1724. In his early years he was employed as forester to the duke of Argyll, and afterwards to the earl of Breadalbane. He fought on the loyal side in the rebellion of 1745, and afterwards served for six years in a fencible regiment raised by the earl of Breadalbane. He was then transferred to the city guard of Edinburgh, and died in that city in 1812, in his eighty-ninth year. M'Intyre's poems are very popular among the Highlanders. They are chiefly of a descriptive character, and have done much to preserve the memory of manners and customs which are rapidly disappearing. His love songs are remarkable for delicacy of sentiment, and his martial lyrics are characterized by fire and patriotism, as well as by humour and satiric wit. He knew no language but the Gaelic. A monument has been erected to his memory at Dalmally, in his native vale of Gleuorchy.—J. T.  MACK VON LEIBERICH,, Baron, an Austrian general, born at Neusslingen on the 22nd August, 1752; died 22nd October, 1828. He belonged to a family in the middle rank of life, but received a good education. On leaving college, he enlisted as private in a regiment of Austrian dragoons. He soon distinguished himself in the war with the Turks, and was attached to the staff. For his conduct before Lissa General Laudon appointed him his aid-de-camp. When war broke out with France, Mack was made quartermaster-general to the prince of Saxe-Coburg, and in that capacity directed the operations of the campaign of 1793. In 1794 he was sent to London to arrange a new campaign with the British government. He returned to the Netherlands, and the emperor of Austria made him major-general. His plans were adopted, but were not successful. The French arms were triumphant, and Mack obtained leave of absence and retired to Vienna. In 1797 he served with the army on the Rhine, and the following year was made commander-in-chief of the Neapolitan army to serve against France. Beaten by the French general, Macdonald, he was in danger of being assassinated by his own men, and resigned the command; gave himself up to the French general, Championnet; and was made prisoner of war. He could not procure an exchange, and contrary to the rules of war he escaped. The French government behaved very handsomely to him and sent him his horses, his property, and his aides-de-camp. In 1804 he commanded in the Tyrol. In 1805 he commanded in Bavaria. On the 18th October, 1805, he was caught at Ulm by the Emperor Napoleon, and capitulated with twenty-eight thousand men—a circumstance almost unprecedented. Napoleon sent him to Vienna, but there the Austrians imprisoned him. He was tried by commission and condemned to death; but the emperor commuted his punishment, and he was sent to Spielberg for a year. He then went to Vienna, and lived in poverty and obscurity till his death.—P. E. D.  * MACKAY,, a distinguished cultivator of botany and horticulture, was born in Scotland about the year 1778. He went to Ireland on the 25th April, 1805, and finally became superintendent of the botanic garden of Trinity college, Dublin He investigated the botany of Ireland, and published first a catalogue of Irish plants, and afterwards, in 1830, a complete Flora Hibernica, comprising the flowering plants, ferns, mosses, lichens, and algæ of Ireland, arranged according to the natural system. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and an associate of the Linnæan Society. Trinity college, Dublin, conferred on him the degree of LL D., as a mark of their estimation of his services to science in Ireland. One of the rare Irish heaths is called Erica mackaiana after him.—J. H. B.  MACKENZIE,, a distinguished traveller of the eighteenth century, was born about 1755, at Inverness, in Scotland. Early in life he became settled at Montreal, in the service of a commercial house engaged in the fur trade. The North-west Company, established in 1784 for the further prosecution of that trade, afterwards engaged Mackenzie in their employ. He was stationed at Fort Chipewyan, on the south shore of Lake Athabasca—then the most distant of the trading stations in the northern interior of the American continent. In the summer of 1789, embarking with a few attendants in a bark canoe, Mackenzie proceeded on a voyage of discovery to the northward. This journey led him, down the Slave River, into the Great Slave Lake, and thence into the great river which has since borne his name. He descended this river to its outlet in the Arctic Sea, and regained Fort Chipewyan after an absence of one hundred and two days. A voyage to England shortly after furnished such scientific aids as he felt necessary for further discovery and observation; and on his return to America he undertook the 