private individual is naturally. and necessarily. ignorant of the art of commanding. He is, therefore, deficient in knowledge; and his power of will equally fail him, because he has no troops on whose attachment and fidelity he can depend. Besides, those states which are so suddenly formed, many things in nature growing so quickly, do not take sufficient root to prevent the first gust of an adverse wind, or the first tempest, from overturning them; unless, as we have already observed, those who so suddenly become princes possess talents so very superior, that they immediately discover the means. of preserving what fortune has placed in their hands; and after becoming princes, merely apply those aids which others had adopted previously to.their becoming princes.
To illustrate these two modes of becoming a sovereign, either by good fortune or superior talent, I will cite two examples of our own time, viz. those of Francis Sforza and of Cæsar Borgia. The former, by lawful means and by his great abilities, from a private individual became Duke of Milan, and he preserved with little difficulty what had cost him so much to acquire. Cæsar Borgia (commonly called the Duke Valentino) acquired a sovereignty by the good fortune of his father, and lost it as soon as his father was, no more. Yet, he put every wheel in motion, and employed every means that skill and prudence could suggest, to
