"The Duke of Guise," he tells us, "ought to have represented a great
prince, that had inserved to some most detestable villainy, to please
the rage or lust of a tyrant; such great courtiers have been often
sacrificed, to appease the furies of the tyrant's guilty conscience;
to expiate for his sin, and to attone the people. For a tyrant
naturally stands in fear of such wicked ministers, is obnoxious to
them, awed by them, and they drag him to greater evils, for their own
impunity, than they perpetrated for his pleasure, and their own
ambition[23]."
Sure, he said not all this for nothing. I would know of him, on what
persons he would fix the sting of this sharp satire? What two they
are, whom, to use his own words, he "so maliciously and mischievously
would represent?" For my part, I dare not understand the villainy of
his meaning; but somebody was to have been shown a tyrant, and some
other "a great prince, inserving to some detestable villainy, and to
that tyrant's rage and lust;" this great prince or courtier ought to
be sacrificed, to atone the people, and the tyrant is persuaded, for
his own interest, to give him up to public justice. I say no more, but
that he has studied the law to good purpose. He is dancing on the rope
without a metaphor; his knowledge of the law is the staff that poizes
him, and saves his neck. The party, indeed, speaks out sometimes, for
wickedness is not always so wise as to be secret, especially when it
is driven to despair.
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