s
no prince so bad, whose favorites and ministers are not worse. There is
hardly any prince without a favorite, by whom he is governed in as
arbitrary a manner as he governs the wretches subjected to him. Here the
tyranny is doubled. There are two courts, and two interests; both very
different from the interests of the people. The favorite knows that the
regard of a tyrant is as unconstant and capricious as that of a woman;
and concluding his time to be short, he makes haste to fill up the
measure of his iniquity, in rapine, in luxury, and in revenge. Every
avenue to the throne is shut up. He oppresses and ruins the people,
whilst he persuades the prince that those murmurs raised by his own
oppression are the effects of disaffection to the prince's government.
Then is the natural violence of despotism inflamed and aggravated by
hatred and revenge. To deserve well of the state is a crime against the
prince. To be popular, and to be a traitor, are considered as synonymous
terms. Even virtue is dangerous, as an aspiring quality, that claims an
esteem by itself, and independent of the countenance of the court. What
has been said of the chief, is true of the inferior officers of this
species of government; each in his province exercising the same tyranny,
and grinding the people by an oppression, the more severely felt, as it
is near them, and exercised by base and subordinate persons. For the
gross of the people, they are considered as a mere herd of cattle; and
really in a little time become no better; all principle of honest pride,
all sense of the dignity of their nature, is lost in their slavery. The
day, says Homer, which makes a man a slave, takes away half his worth;
and, in fact, he loses every impulse to action, but that low and base
one of fear. In this kind of government human nature is not only abused
and insulted, but it is actually degraded and sunk into a species of
brutality. The consideration of this made Mr. Locke say, with great
justice, that a government of this kind was worse than anarchy: indeed
it is so abhorred and detested by all who live under forms that have a
milder appearance, that there is scarcely a rational man in Europe that
would not prefer death to Asiatic despotism. Here then we have the
acknowledgment of a great philosopher, that an irregular state of nature
is preferable to such a government; we have the consent of all sensible
and generous men, who carry it yet further, and avow that dea