nment of it. [1]

'Thus when Words and Show are apt to pass for the substantial things
they are only to express, there would need no more to enslave a
Country but to adorn a Court; for while every Man's Vanity makes him
believe himself capable of becoming Luxury, Enjoyments are a ready
Bait for Sufferings, and the Hopes of Preferment Invitations to
Servitude; which Slavery would be colour'd with all the Agreements, as
they call it, imaginable. The noblest Arts and Artists, the finest
Pens and most elegant Minds, jointly employ'd to set it off, with the
various Embellishments of sumptuous Entertainments, charming
Assemblies, and polished Discourses; and those apostate Abilities of
Men, the adored Monarch might profusely and skilfully encourage, while
they flatter his Virtue, and gild his Vice at so high a rate, that he,
without Scorn of the one, or Love of the other, would alternately and
occasionally use both: So that his Bounty should support him in his
Rapines, his Mercy in his Cruelties.

'Nor is it to give things a more severe Look than is natural, to
suppose such must be the Consequences of a Prince's having no other
Pursuit than that of his own Glory; for, if we consider an Infant born
into the World, and beholding it self the mightiest thing in it, it
self the present Admiration and future Prospect of a fawning People,
who profess themselves great or mean, according to the Figure he is to
make amongst them, what Fancy would not be debauched to believe they
were but what they professed themselves, his mere Creatures, and use
them as such by purchasing with their Lives a boundless Renown, which
he, for want of a more just Prospect, would place in the Number of his
Slaves, and the Extent of his Territories? Such undoubtedly would be
the tragical Effects of a Prince's living with no Religion, which are
not to be surpassed but by his having a false one.

'If Ambition were spirited with Zeal, what would follow, but that his
People should be converted into an Army, whose Swords can make Right
in Power, and solve Controversy in Belief? And if Men should be
stiff-neck'd to the Doctrine of that visible Church, let them be
contented with an Oar and a Chain, in the midst of Stripes and
Anguish, to contemplate on him, _whose Yoke is easy, and whose Burthen
is light_.

'With a Tyranny begun on his own Subjects, and Indignation that others
draw their