Guicciardini was the product of a cynical and selfish age, and his life illustrated its sordid influences. Of a cold and worldly temperament, devoid of passion, blameless in his conduct as the father of a family, faithful as the servant of his papal patrons, severe in the administration of the provinces committed to his charge, and indisputably able in his conduct of affairs, he was at the same time, and in spite of these qualities, a man whose moral nature inspires a sentiment of liveliest repugnance. It is not merely that he was ambitious, cruel, revengeful and avaricious, for these vices have existed in men far less antipathetic than Guicciardini. Over and above those faults, which made him odious to his fellow-citizens, we trace in him a meanness that our century is less willing to condone. His phlegmatic and persistent egotism, his sacrifice of truth and honour to self-interest, his acquiescence in the worst conditions of the world, if only he could use them for his own advantage, combined with the glaring discord between his opinions and his practice, form a character which would be contemptible in our eyes were it not so sinister. The social and political decrepitude of Italy, where patriotism was unknown, and only selfishness survived of all the motives that rouse men to action, found its representative and exponent in Guicciardini. When we turn from the man to the author, the decadence of the age and race that could develop a political philosophy so arid in its cynical despair of any good in human nature forces itself vividly upon our notice. Guicciardini seems to glory in his disillusionment, and uses his vast intellectual ability for the analysis of the corruption he had helped to make incurable. If one single treatise of that century should be chosen to represent the spirit of the Italian people in the last phase of the Renaissance, the historian might hesitate between the _Principe_ of Machiavelli and the _Ricordi politici_ of Guicciardini. The latter is perhaps preferable to the former on the score of comprehensiveness. It is, moreover, more exactly adequate to the actual situation, for the _Principe_ has a divine spark of patriotism yet lingering in the cinders of its frigid science, an idealistic enthusiasm surviving in its moral aberrations; whereas a great Italian critic of this decade has justly described the _Ricordi_ as "Italian corruption codified and elevated to a rule of life." Guicciardini is, however, better known as the author of the _Storia d'Italia_, that vast and detailed picture of his country's sufferings between the years 1494 and 1532. Judging him by this masterpiece of scientific history, he deserves less commendation as a writer than as a thinker and an analyst. The style is wearisome and prolix, attaining to precision at the expense of circumlocution, and setting forth the smallest particulars with the same distinctness as the main features of the narrative. The whole tangled skein of Italian