29 



palace, and the people are ignorant of his situation. What- 

 ever does not directly menace the palace and the capital, 

 makes no impression on proud, ignorant, and prejudiced 

 minds. As to the concatenation of events, the members 

 of his cabinet, or divan, are unable to trace, to foresee, or 

 even to conceive it. The science called politics, with its 

 several springs and laws, must here be very limited; the 

 whole is reduced to the reconciling of the political and 

 civil government of the country, to the domestic; the offi- 

 cers of state to those of the seraglio. Augustus and Tibe- 

 rius subjected satyrical writers to the punishment of trea- 

 son, as having violated the laAv of majesty. Cremutius 

 Cordus was accused of having called Cassius, " the last of 

 the Romans." We have, in the history of Henry I., an in- 

 stance of the situation of genius and talent, under despotic 

 power, in the fate olf an unfortunate minstrel,* who had 

 satyrized that monarch. A similar instance occurs, in the, 

 treatment which the author of a pasquinade experienced, 

 fiom Sixtus Quintus. 



We see something of the genius of arbitrary government, 

 in the various accounts of travels into China. There we 

 find, that the rulers do not encourage the approach of 

 strangers, and that they restrain the egress of their own 



■ >' i ■ subjects, 



* His name was Luke de Baras. He was sentenced to have his ej'es pulled 

 out; and though the Earl of Flanders warmly interceded for him, the cruel 

 sentence was executed, and the unhappy satyrist died of wound^ received in 

 struggling with the executioner. , n > >, 



