memory, that men of the fame wicked inclinations may be no lefs affrighted with their lasting ignominy, than enticed by their momentary glories. And that your highness may perceive, that I fpeak not all this out of any private animofity against the perfon of the late Protector, I affure you upon my faith, that I bear no more hatred to his name, than I do to that of Marius or Sylla, who never did me, or any friend of mine, the least injury; and with that, transported by a holy fury, I fell into this fudden rap ture: P. Curft be the man (what do I wish? as though But curft on let him be) who thinks it brave The balance of a nation: Against the whole but naked state, Who in his own light fcale makes up with arms the weight. 2. Who of his nation loves to be the first, [k] Countrey] This word, in the sense of patria, or as including in it the idea of a civil conftitution, is always fpelt by Mr. Cowley, I obferve, with an e before y-countrey;-in the fenfe of rus, without an -country-and this diftinction, for the fake of perfpicuity, may be worth preferving. Who Who would be rather a great monster, than The fon of earth with hundred hands Till thunder ftrikes him from the sky; The son of earth again in his earth's womb does lie. 3. What blood, confufion, ruin, to obtain A short and miferable reign! In what oblique and humble creeping wife But even his forked tongue strikes dead, 4. But no guards can oppofe affaulting fears, No more than doors, or close-drawn curtains keep (For, oh, a rebel red-coat 'tis) Does here his early hell begin, He fees his flaves without, his tyrant feels within, 5. Let, gracious God, let never more thine hand A tyrant is a rod and ferpent too, And brings worse plagues than Egypt knew. What darkness, to be felt, has buried us of late! 6. How has it fnatch'd our flocks and herds away! What greedy troops, what armed power The land, which every where they fill! 7. Come the eleventh plague, rather than this should be; Come rather peftilence, and reap us down; Let rather Roman come again, Or Saxon, Norman, or the Dane: In all the bonds we ever bore, We griev'd, we figh'd, we wept; we never blush'd be fore. 8. If by our fins the divine juftice be Call'd to this laft extremity, Some dreadful comet from on high, Should terribly forewarn the earth, As of good princes deaths, fo of a tyrant's birth." Here the spirit of verse beginning a little to fail, I ftopt: and his highness smiling, faid, "I was glad to fee you engaged in the enclosure of metre; for if you had ftaid in the open plain of declaiming declaiming against the word Tyrant, I must have had patience for half a dozen hours, till you had tired yourself as well as me. But pray, countreyman, to avoid this fciomachy, or imaginary combat with words, let me know, Sir, what you mean by the name of tyrant, for I remember that among your ancient authors, not only all kings, but even Jupiter himself (your juvaris pater) is fo termed; and perhaps, as it was used formerly in a good fenfe, fo we shall find it, upon better confideration, to be still a good thing for the benefit and peace of mankind; at least it will appear whether your interpretati on of it may be justly applied to the person, who is now the fubject of our difcourfe." "I call him (faid I) a tyrant, who either intrudes himfelf forcibly into the government of his fellow-citizens without any legal authority over them; of who, having a juft title to the government of a people, abuses it to the destruction, or tormenting of them. So that all tyrants are at the fame time ufurpers, either of the whole, or at least of a part, of that power which they affume to themselves; and no lefs are they to be accounted rebels, fince no man can ufurp authority over others, but by rebelling againft them who had it before, or at least against those laws which were his fuperiors; and in all these fenfes, no hiftory can afford us a more evident example of tyranny, or more out of all poffibility of excufe, or palliation, than that of the perfon person whom you are pleased to defend, whether wè confider his reiterated rebellions against all his fuperiors, or his ufurpation of the fupreme power to himself, or his tyranny in the exercife of it; and, if lawful princes have been esteemed tyrants by not containing themselves within the bounds of thofe laws which have been left them, as the sphere of their authority, by their forefathers, what shall we fay of that man, who, having by right no power at all in this nation, could not content himfelf with that which had fatisfied the most ambitious of our princes? nay, not with those vaftly extended limits of fovereignty, which he (disdaining all that had been prescribed and obferved before) was pleafed (but of great modefty) to fet to himself; not abftaining from rebellion and ufurpation even against his own laws, as well as thofe of the nation ?” "Hold, friend, (said his highness, pulling me by my arm) for I fee your zeal is transporting you again; whether the Protector were a tyrant in the exorbitant exercife of his power, we fhall fee anon; it is requifite to examine, first, whether he were fo in the ufurpation of it. And I fay, that not only he, but no man elfe, ever was, or can be fo; and that for thefe reafons. First, because all power belongs only to God, who is the fource and fountain of it, as kings are of all honours in their dominions. Princes are but his viceroys in the little provinces of this world, and to fome he gives their places |