They thought that life, honour, and every comfort was given to them by the justice of a king. And the same inclinations would have remained with their posterity, if the character of their kings had not changed. But you perceive that kind of government was ruined by the injustice of one man. L. I do perceive it, and I am desirous of knowing the course of these changes, not only in our own country, but in all governments. XLII. “It will be for you,” said Scipio, “when I shall have given my opinion of that kind of government which I prefer, to give a more accurate account of the mutations in governments; although I do not think them much to be apprehended in the form I am inclined to. But a regal form of government is particularly and most certainly exposed to change. When a king begins to be unjust, that form of government perishes at once. The tyrant is, at the same time, the worst of all conditions of government, and the nearest to the best. Whom, if the better class have overturned, which for the most part happens, the commonwealth possesses that second class of the three. And this is a sort of royalty; a paternal government of the principal people, for the benefit of the rest. But if the people cast out or slay the tyrant; rejoicing in their own deed, they are more moderate, as long as they know and feel the value of being so, in their endeavour to protect the commonwealth constituted by themselves. But when the populace have bent their force against a just king, and have stripped him of his kingdom; or even, as it happens very often, have tasted the blood of the better class, and have prostrated the whole republic in their madness; think not that the vexed ocean or the wildest conflagration, can be more easily kept down, than the unbridled insolence of the multitude. XLIII. Then is produced what in Plato is so clearly described, if I can in any manner express it in Latin, a thing difficult to be done, but I will endeavour. “It is then,” he says, “when the insatiable throats of the people, parched with the thirst of liberty, and led on by rash demagogues, have greedily drank, not temperate but too unalloyed draughts of freedom. Then the magistrates and chiefs, unless they are too lenient and indulgent, permitting them every excess of liberty; are pursued, impeached, insulted, and called oppressors, kings, and tyrants.” I think this part of his works is known to you. L. I am well acquainted with it.