e those tyrants whom they
adored with the most abject flattery. As magistrates and senators they
were admitted into the great council, which had once dictated laws
to the earth, whose authority was so often prostituted to the vilest
purposes of tyranny. Tiberius, and those emperors who adopted his
maxims, attempted to disguise their murders by the formalities of
justice, and perhaps enjoyed a secret pleasure in rendering the senate
their accomplice as well as their victim. By this assembly, the last of
the Romans were condemned for imaginary crimes and real virtues. Their
infamous accusers assumed the language of independent patriots, who
arraigned a dangerous citizen before the tribunal of his country; and
the public service was rewarded by riches and honors. The servile judges
professed to assert the majesty of the commonwealth, violated in the
person of its first magistrate, whose clemency they most applauded when
they trembled the most at his inexorable and impending cruelty. The
tyrant beheld their baseness with just contempt, and encountered their
secret sentiments of detestation with sincere and avowed hatred for the
whole body of the senate.

II. The division of Europe into a number of independent states,
connected, however, with each other by the general resemblance of
religion, language, and manners, is productive of the most beneficial
consequences to the liberty of mankind. A modern tyrant, who should find
no resistance either in his own breast, or in his people, would soon
experience a gentle restrain form the example of his equals, the dread
of present censure, the advice of his allies, and the apprehension of
his enemies. The object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow
limits of his dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate,
a secure refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of
complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But the empire of the
Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the hands of
a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his
enemies. The slave of Imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to
drags his gilded chain in Rome and the senate, or to were out a life of
exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the frozen bank of the Danube,
expected his fate in silent despair. To resist was fatal, and it was
impossible to fly. On every side he was encompassed with a vast extent
of sea and land, which he could never hope to tra