"It is notorious," says Macaulay, "that Niccolo Machiavelli, out of whose surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the devil, was through life a zealous republican. In the same year in which he composed his manual of kingcraft, he suffered imprisonment and torture in the cause of public liberty. It seems inconceivable that the martyr of freedom should have designedly acted as the apostle of tyranny." The real object and meaning of his celebrated book, The Prince, have been subjects of dispute for centuries. One old critic says, "Machiavel is a strenuous defender of democracy; he was born, educated, and respected under that form of government, and was a great enemy to tyranny. Hence it is that he does not favor a tyrant: it is not his design to instruct a tyrant, but to detect his secret attempts, and expose him naked and conspicuous to the poor people. Do we not know there have been many princes such as he describes? Why are such princes angry at being immortalized by his means? This excellent author's design was, under the show of instructing the prince, to inform the people." Another says, "I must say that Machiavel, who passed everywhere for a teacher of tyranny, detested it more than any man of his time; as may easily appear by the tenth chapter of the first book of his Discourses, in which he expresses himself very strongly against tyrants." Nardi, his contemporary, calls his works "panegyrics upon liberty." Bayle says, "The Jesuit Porsevin, who had not read The Prince, was nevertheless the cause of its being condemned by the Inquisition. He charges Machiavel with such things as are not in The Prince. His charges were made upon passages from a work, published anonymously, entitled Anti-Machiavel, and not from The Prince. The Prince was published about the year 1515, and dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, nephew to Leo X. It did not prejudice the author with this pope, who nevertheless was the first who threatened those with excommunication that read a prohibited book!"