Page:The Works of the Famous Nicholas Machiavel.djvu/14

The EPISTLE this Province. You will see your own Country refusing obedience to the Emperors, by reason of the divisions, and those divisions continuing till under the protection of your Family, it began to settle into a Government. And because it was your Holiness particular command, that in my character of your Ancestors, I should avoid all kind of flattery, true praise not being more pleasing to you, than counterfeit is ungrateful; fearing in my description of the bounty of Giovanni, the wisdom of Cosmo, the courtesie of Piero, the magnificence and solidity of Lorenzo, I may aeem to have transgressed your Holineas direction, I do most humbly excuse my self, both in that, and whatever else in my descriptions may appear unfaithful to your Holiness dissatisfaction; for finding the Memoirs and Relations of those who in sundry ages made any mention of them, full of their commendations, I must either present them as I found them, or pass them by as if I envied them. And if (as some write) under their great and egregious exploits there was always some latent and ambitious design, contrary to the interest and liberty of the publick. I know nothing of it, and am not bound to relate it: for in all my Narrations I never desired to cloak or palliate a dishonourable action with an honourable pretence; nor to traduce a good adion, though to a contrary end. But how far I am from flattery, is to be seen in the whole course of my History, especially in my Speeches and private Discourfes, which do plainly, and without reservation, describe with the sentences and order of their language, the dignity and humour of the persons. I avoid likewise in all places such words as are impertinent to the verity, or reputation of History; so that no man who considers my Writings impartially, can charge me with adulation; especially if he observes how little or nothing I have said of your Holiness own Father, whose life was too short to discover him to the world, and