Machiavelli

by Thomas Babington Macaulay

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Genres: History

Paperback

First published July 1, 2003

About the author

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay PC was an English poet, historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer, and on British history. He also held political office as Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841 and Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1848.

As a young man he composed the ballads Ivry and The Armada, which he later included as part of Lays of Ancient Rome, a series of very popular ballads about heroic episodes in Roman history which he composed in India and published in 1842.

During the 1840s he began work on his most famous work, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, publishing the first two volumes in 1848. At first, he had planned to bring his history down to the reign of George III. After publication of his first two volumes, his hope was to complete his work with the death of Queen Anne in 1714. The third and fourth volumes, bringing the history to the Peace of Ryswick, were published in 1855. However, at his death in 1859, he was working on the fifth volume. This, bringing the History down to the death of William III, was prepared for publication by his sister, Lady Trevelyan, after his death.

Reviews

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas Babington Macaulay’s essay on Machiavelli appears in volume 27 of The Harvard Classics. You can read it via this link. The volume is dedicated to English essays, and Macaulay was renowned for his short-form nonfiction work addressing historical, critical, and political themes. This essay examines Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), the turbulent Italian world he lived in, and the bizarre (apparent) contradiction that a man who fought for Republican principles also wrote the handbook for autocratic corruption, The Prince .

I found Macaulay’s essay to be pretty good, more interesting for its insight into the Italian Renaissance than Machiavelli himself. For more in-depth analysis of these topics, I recommend the book Be Like the Fox by Erica Benner.



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[Image: Cover of the Delphi Classics’ The Harvard Classics]

Citation:
Macaulay, T.B. (2018). Machiavelli. In C. W. Eliot (Ed.), The Harvard classics (eBook). Delphi Classics. https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/t... (Original work published 1850)

Title: Essay On Machiavelli
Author(s): Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859)
Year: 1850
Series: The Harvard Classics (1909): Volume 27 - Delphi Complete Harvard Classics and Shelf of Fiction
Genre: Nonfiction - Essay: Biography & History
Date(s) read: 9/30/25
Book 200 in 2025
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