"He yearns for the virtue, the discipline, the frugality, the public spirit, of ancient Rome. He longs too for its martial ardour and glory. "All governments", he maintains, "deserve praise or blame as they are well or ill constituted for making war." Here as elsewhere Sidney is the disciple of Niccolò Machiavelli, the Florentine republican... There is no more eloquent testimony in the English language to the imaginative hold that classical images of political liberty can exert than Sidney's Discourses."