MODERN POLICY. 255 



dice: 'Tis a figure in politics to make every 

 infirmity a fault, and every fault a crime : and 

 if the people be disposed to alteration, these 

 must be first urged against a monarch to depose 

 him, or, if need be, to murder him ; which is 

 commendable, if you can dress him up like a 

 tyrant, as you may find it justified by an honest 

 Scot,* v^ho complains, that there are not some 

 glorious rewards appointed for tyrannicides: 

 and by the best of orators :t the Grecians gave 

 divine honours to those that killed tyrants. 

 And by the tragedian : J 



More grateful victim none to Jove can bring. 

 Than is the blood of slaughtered unjust king. 



And secondly, these personal faults must be 

 artificially devolved upon monarchy itself. 



There remains to disperse the commendation 

 of that government which is intended for a 

 successor : if aristocracy, the long-lived pros- 

 perity of Sparta and Venice, is a very plausible 

 evidence of its goodness; if democracy, the 

 happiness of the Romans under their tribunes, 



* Buchanan. 



f Graecos, Deorum honores tribuisse iis, qui Tyrannos neca- 

 verunt. Cicero pro Milone. 



\ Victima baud ulla amplior potest, 

 Magisve opima mactari Jovi, 

 Quam Rex iniquus. Seneca Hercules furens. 



