Under what tyranny should you like best to live? Under none; but if I must choose, I should less detest the tyranny of a single one, than that of many. A despot has always some good moments; an assemblage of despots, never. If a tyrant does me an injustice, I can disarm him through his mistress, his confessor, or his page; but a company of tyrants is inaccessible to all seductions. When they are not unjust, they are harsh, and they never dispense favors. If I have but one despot, I am at liberty to set myself against a wall when I see him pass, to prostrate myself, or to strike my forehead against the ground, according to the custom of the country; but if there is a company of a hundred tyrants, I am liable to repeat this ceremony a hundred times a day, which is very tiresome to those who have not supple joints. If I have a farm in the neighborhood of one of our lords, I am crushed; if I complain against a relative of the relatives of any one of our lords, I am ruined. How must I act? I fear that in this world we are reduced to being either the anvil or the hammer; happy at least is he who escapes this alternative. TYRANT. "Tyrannos," formerly "he who had contrived to draw the principal authority to himself"; as "king," "Basileus," signified "he who was charged with relating affairs to the senate." The acceptations of words change with time. "Idiot" at first meant only a hermit, an isolated man; in time it became synonymous with fool. At present the name of "tyrant" is given to a usurper, or to a king who commits violent and unjust actions. Cromwell was a tyrant of both these kinds. A citizen who usurps the supreme authority, who in spite of all laws suppresses the house of peers, is without doubt a usurper. A general who cuts the throat of a king, his prisoner of war, at once violates what is called the laws of nations, and those of humanity. Charles I. was not a tyrant, though the victorious faction gave him that name; he was, it is said, obstinate, weak, and ill-advised. I will not be certain, for I did not know him; but I am certain that he was very unfortunate. Henry VIII. was a tyrant in his government as in his family, and alike covered with the blood of two innocent wives, and that of the most virtuous citizens; he merits the execrations of posterity. Yet he was not punished, and Charles I. died on a scaffold. Elizabeth committed an act of tyranny, and her parliament one of infamous weakness, in causing Queen Mary Stuart to be assassinated by an executioner; but in the rest of her government she was not tyrannical; she was clever and manœuvering, but prudent and strong. Richard III. was a barbarous tyrant; but he was punished. Pope Alexander VI. was a more execrable tyrant than any of these, and he was fortunate in all his undertakings. Christian II. was as wicked a tyrant as Alexander VI., and was punished, but not sufficiently so.