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 Peacock, 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 Titus
Livius. 9. The Art of War. 10. The Marriage of Belphegery a Novel.{3}