But Machiavelli gave little heed to institutions, scarcely any at all to laws and customs. Furthermore, he was so entirely guided by his instinct of divination as to care little for the historic exactitude of particular facts. To ascertain the infinite number of inaccuracies and blunders contained in his book, and which would be unpardonable in a modern writer, his narrative must be compared with the contemporary accounts of the old chroniclers, some of which were known to him. Not only are there frequent errors of date, but also of the names and number of magistrates and of the framework of institutions. It would seem that while divining the spirit of events, he simultaneously remoulded them according to his own fancy. Sometimes we find him appropriating entire pages from Cavalcanti's history, even transcribing the fictitious speeches attributed by that chronicler to historic characters, and by a few touches of his own pouring new life into the dull narrative without troubling to undertake any fresh research. Thus, his book, although a valuable guide, is also an unsafe one. He cannot always abstain from transplanting a true fact to the place best suited to his own theories, thus filling up inconvenient gaps without many scruples of conscience. His aim, so he tells us, was to investigate the causes of parties and revolutions. What is now designated as local colour--_i.e._, the historic colour of facts--is entirely absent from his narrative, and particularly from that of the earlier days of the Republic. Men adhere to different factions, sometimes commit evil, sometimes generous deeds, but are apparently always the same in his eyes. To what extent the clear appreciation of events is hampered by this theory may easily be imagined. Then, too, as Machiavelli draws nearer to his own times, he sees the constitution of the Republic changing and decaying, freedom disappearing, and a thousand personal passions arising to hasten the overthrow of enfeebled institutions. A knowledge of minute particulars would be doubly desirable at this period to make us understand the social revolution in question; but Machiavelli, though always a fifteenth-century Florentine, never lost sight of the example of Titus Livy and other Roman writers, and consequently, like all the scholars of his age, was inspired with a lofty contempt for any small details apt to endanger the epic unity of historic narrative. Then, later on, in approaching the distinct domination of the Medici, under whose rule he was living, he turns aside with ill-concealed disgust from the internal vicissitudes of the Republic and gives his whole attention to external events. He then discourses of warfare and of the Italian policy that was the passion of his life. In the midst of court intrigues and the contested predominance of this or that party, we find him chiefly concerned in ascertaining how a new prince might best reunite the scattered members