No arts, indeed, are required to maintain an ascendant where terror alone
is opposed to force, where the powers of the sovereign are delegated entire
to every subordinate officer: nor can any station bestow a liberality of
mind in a scene of silence and dejection, where every breast is possessed
with jealousy and caution, and where no object, but animal pleasure,
remains to balance the sufferings of the sovereign himself, or those of his
subjects.
In other states, the talents of men are sometimes improved by the exercises
which belong to an eminent station; but here the master himself is probably
the rudest and least cultivated animal of the herd; he is inferior to the
slave whom he raises from a servile office to the first places of trust or
of dignity in his court. The primitive simplicity which formed ties of
familiarity and affection betwixt the sovereign and the keeper of his
herds, [Footnote: See Odyssey.] appears, in the absence of all affections,
to be restored, or to be counterfeited amidst the ignorance and brutality
which equally characterize all orders of men, or rather which level the
ranks, and destroy the distinction of persons in a despotical court.
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