Part 3 (1/2)

This little pamphlet was put out in the poorest dress possible, bespeaking a press of meagre equipment, and a printer without an idea of the form which even the leaflet can a.s.sume in skilful hands. Without imprint, author's name, or any mark of identification, it indicates a secret impression and [33]issue--one of the many occasional pamphlets which appeared at the time from ”underground” shops which least of all wanted to be known as the agent of publication. Neville either avowed the authors.h.i.+p or it was traced to him, and the displeasure of Cromwell and banishment from London followed.

In 1681 he printed ”Discourses concerning Government,” which was much admired by Hobbes, and even Wood admits that it was ”very much bought up by the members [of parliament], and admired: But soon after, when they understood who the author was (for his name was not set to the book), many of the honest party rejected, and had no opinion of it” A later writer describes it as an ”un-Platonic dialogue developing a scheme for the exercise of the royal prerogative through councils of state responsible to Parliament, and of which a third part should retire every year.”{1} Reissued at the time under its better known t.i.tle--”Plato Redivivus”{2}--it was reprinted in 1742,{3} and again by Thomas Hollis in 1763.

1 Dictionary of National Biography, XL. 259.

2 Plato Redivivus, or A Dialogue concerning Government: wherein, by Observations drawn from other Kingdoms and States both ancient and modern, an Endeavour is used to discover the politick Distemper of our own; with the Causes and Remedies. The Second Edition, with Additions. In Octavo.

Price 2s. 6d. Printed for S. I. and sold by R. Dew. The Term Catalogues (Arber), 1.443--the issue for May, 1681. The initials S. I. do not again occur in the Catalogues, and R.

Dew is credited with only two issues, both in May, 1681, neither giving the location of his shop. The tract called out several replies, such as the anonymous Antidotum Brittanic.u.m and G.o.ddard's Plato's Demon, or the State Physician Unmasked ( 1684).

3 A copy is in the Library Company, Philadelphia.

His translations from Machiavelli are not so easily traced, nor is any explanation possible for his having delayed for nearly [34]thirty years publication of evidence of his admiration for the Florentine politician.

He was not alone in desiring to make the Italian political moralist better known, for translations of the ”Discourses” and ”The Prince,”

with ”some marginal animadversions noting and taxing his [Machiavelli's]

errors,” by E. D.{1} was published in a second edition in November, 1673, but I do not connect Neville with that issue. In the following year the connection of Charles Harper's name with the ”Florentine History” suggests Neville, as does a more ambitious undertaking of the ”Works,” first fathered by another London bookseller, but with which Harper was concerned in 1681:

The Florentine History, in Eight Books. Written by Nicholas Machiavel, Citizen and Secretary of Florence: now exactly translated from the Italian. In Octavo. Price, bound, 6s. Printed for Charles Harper, and J.

Amery, at the Flower de luce, and Peac.o.c.k, in Fleet street.{2}

The Works of the Famous Nicholas Machiavel, Citizen and Secretary of Florence. Containing, 1. The History of Florence. 2. The Prince. 3. The Original of the Guelf and Ghibilin Factions. 4. The life of Castrucio Castraceni. 5. The murther of Vitelli, etc., by Duke Valentine. 6. The State of France. 7. The State of Germany. 8. The Discourses of t.i.tus Livius. 9. The Art of War. 10. The Marriage of Belphegery a Novel.{3}

1 Edward Dacres.

2 The Term Catalogues (Arber i. 18--the issue for November 25,1674.) It was entered at Stationers' Hall, June 20, 1674, ”under the hands of Master Roger L'Estrange and Master Warden Mean” with the statement that the translation was made by ”J. D. Gent.”

3 This novel wa added by Starker to a translation of novels by Gomez deQueverdoy Villegas published in November, 1670.

The name of the printer suggests a connection with Neville.

[35]11. Nicholas Machiavel's Letter in Vindication of himself and his Writings. All written originally in Italian; and from thence newly and faithfully Translated in English. In Folio. Price, bound, 18s. Printed for J. Starkey at the Mitre in Flret street near Temple Bar.

[Same t.i.tle.] The Second Edition. Printed for J. Starkey, C. Harper, and J. Amery, at the Miter, the Flower de luce, and the Peac.o.c.k, in Flret street. Folio. Price, bound, 16s.{1}

1 The Term Catalogues (Arber) i.199--the issue for February, 1675. Entered at Stationers' Hall, February 4, 1674-75, ”under the hands of Master Roger L'Estrange and Master Warden Roycroft,” with the statement that the translation was made by ”J.B. Salvo iure cuilibet.” The resort to L'Estrange in both instances is suggestive. 2 Ib 453--the issue for June, 1681. ”The Works of that famous Nicholas Machiavel” is announced in the Catalogues, June, 1675, for publication by R. Boulter, in Cornhill, and at the same price of 18s., but I doubt if Neville had anything to do with that translation.

It may be admitted that questions of government were eagerly discussed in the seventeenth century. It was only needed to live under the Stuarts and to pa.s.s through the Civil War and Protectorate to realize that a transition from the divinely anointed ruler to a self-const.i.tuted governor resting upon an army, and again to a trial of the legitimate holder of royal prerogative, offered an education in matters of political rule which naturally led to a const.i.tutional monarchy, and which could not be equalled in degree or lasting importance until the American colonies of Great Britain questioned the policy of the mother country toward her all too energetic children. Hobbes' ”Leviathan, or the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil,”

appeared in 1651, a powerful argument for absolutism, but cast in such a form as to make the [36]writer an unwelcome adherent to royalty in exile.

In 1652 Filmer published his ”Observations concerning the Original of Government,” one of a series of tracts, completed by his ”Patriarcha,”

printed after his death, which has made him a prophet of the extreme supporters of the divine origin of kings.h.i.+p. These are only examples of the political discussion of the day, and to them may be added Harrington, whose ”Oceanan” appeared in 1656.{1} It satisfied no party or faction, and a second edition was not called for until 1700, when other writings of the author were added. This compilation was, in 1737, pirated by a Dublin printer, R. Reilly, who added Neville's ”Plato Redivivus;”{2} but the third English edition (1747), issued by the same printer who made the second edition, omitted Neville's tract.

1 Entered at Stationers' Hall by Livewell Chapman, September 19,1656. Eyre and Rivington, ii. 86.

2 Bibliotheca Liudeusianat ii. 4228.

THE STORY