By heav'n there's treason in his aspect !
That cheerless gloom, those eyes that pore on earth, That bended body, and those folded arms,
Are indications of a tortur'd mind,
And blazon equal villainy and shame.
Shirley's Edward the Black Prince.
Think on th' insulting scorn, the conscious pangs,
The future miseries that await th' apostate.
For know, that treason,
And prostituted faith, like strumpets vile,
The slaves of appetite, when lust is sated-
Are turn'd adrift to dwell with infamy,
By those that us'd them.
When force invades the gift of nature, life,
The eldest law of nature bids defend :
And if, in that defence, a tyrant fall,
His death's his crime, not ours.
Dryden's Don Sebastian.
If I'm traitor, think, and blush, thou tyrant,
Whose injuries betray'd me into treason,
Effac'd my loyalty, unhing'd my faith,
And hurry'd me from hopes of heav'n to hell!
All these, and all my yet unfinish'd crimes,
When I shall rise to plead before the skies,
I charge on thee to make thy damning sure.
Tyrant! it irks me so to call my prince,
But just resentment, and hard usage join'd
Th' unwilling word, and grating as it is,
Take it, for 'tis thy due.
If you intrust the government to others,
That act these crimes, who but yourself's to blame?
Tyranny, that savage, brutal power,
Which not protects, but still devours mankind.
Denham's Sophy.
Yes, a most notorious villain;
To see the sufferings of my fellow-creatures,
And own myself a man: To see our senators
Cheat the deluded people with a shew
Of liberty, which yet they ne'er must taste of.
They say, by them our hands are free from fetters,
Yet whom they please they lay in basest bonds;
Bring whom they please to infamy and sorrow;
Drive us like wrecks down the rough tide of power,
Whilst no hold's left to save us from destruction :
All that bear this are villains, and I one,
Not to rouse up at the great call of nature,
And check the growth of these domestic spoilers,
That make us slaves, and tell us 'tis our charter.
Otway's Venice Preserved.
Justice is lame, as well as blind, amongst us :
The laws corrupted to their ends that make them,
Serve but for instruments of some new tyranny,
That every day starts up t' enslave us deeper.
That foe to justice, scorner of all law;
That beast, which thinks mankind are born for one,
And made by Heav'n to be a monster's prey;
That heaviest curse of groaning nations, tyranny.
Rowe's Lady Jane Grey, a. 3, s. I.
What, alas! is arbitrary rule?
He's far the greater and the happier monarch
Whose power is bounded by coercive laws,
Since, while they limit, they preserve his empire.
Trap's Abramule.
I am told, thou call'st thyself a king, Know, if thou art one, that the poor have rights: And power, in all its pride, is less than justice. Hill's Merope.
Decius. Cæsar sends health to Cato
Cato. Could he send it
To Cato's slaughtered friends it would be welcome.
Yet I must tell thee, it would better suit
A fierce despotic chief of barbarous slaves,
Than the calm dignity of one who sits
In the grave senate of a free republic,
To talk so high, and as it were to thrust
Plebeians from the native rights of man.
Thomson's Coriolanus, a. 3, s. 3.
To bind th' ambitious and unjust by treaties:
These they elude a thousand specious ways;
Or, if they cannot find a fair pretext,
They blush not in the face of Heaven to break them.
A time, a righteous time, reserv'd in fate,
When these oppressors of mankind shall feel
The miseries they give; and blindly fight
For their own fetters too?
Thomson's Sophonisba, a. 1, s. 2.
When those whom Heav'n distinguishes o'er millions,
Profusely gives them honours, riches, power,
Whate'er th' expanded heart can wish; when they,
Accepting the reward, neglect the duty,
Or, worse, pervert those gifts to deeds of ruin;
Is there a wretch they rule so mean as they!
Guilty, at once, of sacrilege to Heaven,
And of perfidious robbery to man.
Mallet and Thomson's Alfred.
O thou Almighty! awful, and supreme!
Redress, revenge an injur'd nation's wrongs:
Show'r down your curses on the tyrant's head!
Arise the judge, display your vengeance on him,
Blast all his black designs, and let him feel
The anxious pains with which his country groans.
Martyn's Timoleon.
Tho' the structure of a tyrant's throne
Rise on the necks of half the suffering world;
Fear trembles in the cement: Prayers and tears,
And secret curses sap its mould'ring base,
And steal the pillars of allegiance from it;
Then let a single arm but dare the sway,
Headlong it turns, and drives upon destruction.
Brooke's Gustavus Vasa.
Not claim hereditary, not the trust
Of frank election;
Not ev❜n the high anointing hand of Heav'n
Can authorise oppression; give a law
For lawless pow'r; wed faith to violation;
On reason build misrule, or justly bind
Allegiance to injustice.-Tyranny
Absolves all faith; and who invades our rights,
Howe'er his own commence, can never be
But an usurper
Power is a curse when in a tyrant's hands,
But in a bigot tyrant's-treble curse.
To send the injur'd unredress'd away,
How great soe'er the offender, and the wrong'd
Howe'er obscure, is wicked, weak and vile,
Degrades, defiles, and should dethrone a king.
Trusts not to men: mighty within his chamber
The watch-dog guards his couch, the only friend
He now dare trust.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald, a. 5, s. 3.
Now hath his loaded soul gone to its place,
And ne'er a pitying voice from all his kind,
Cries, "God have mercy on him!" Ibid. a. 5, s. 5.
Shall we resign
Our hopes, renounce our rights, forget our wrongs,
Because an impotent lip beneath a crown,
Cries "Be it so."
All laws of God, of nature, and of nations,
Devote such, like the savage beasts of prey,
At any time, by every hand to perish !
What
Are a few drops of human blood? 'tis false,
The blood of tyrants is not human; they,
Like to incarnate Molochs, feed on ours,
Until 'tis time to give them to the tombs
Which they have made so populous. Oh world!
Oh men! what are ye, and our best designs,
That we must work by crime to punish crime?
Byron's Doge of Venice, a. 4, s. 2.
Thy suing to these men were but the bleating
Of the lamb to the butcher, or the cry
Of seamen to the surge: I would not take
A life eternal, granted at the hands
Of wretches, from whose monstrous villainies
I sought to free the groaning nations.
With one foot in the grave, with dim eyes, strange
To tears, save drops of dotage, with long white
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