His translations from Machiavelli are not so easily traced, nor is any explanation possible for his having delayed for nearly 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 Peacock, in Fleet street.{2}
The Works of the Famous Nicholas Machiavel, Citizen and Secretary of Florence. Containing, 1. The History of Flornce. 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 Titus 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.
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 Title.] The Second Edition. Printed for J. Starkey, C. Harper, and J. Amery, at the Miter, the Flower de luce, and the Peacock, 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 pass through the Civil War and Protectorate to realize that a transition from the divinely anointed ruler to a self-constituted 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 constitutional 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 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 kingship. 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.