had but one neck,' 'found (when he fell) they had many hands.'
A tyrant, how great and mighty soever he may seem to cowards and sluggards, is but one creature, one animal.
That sentence is worthy of Landor; and those who would reproach Ben Jonson with the extravagance of his monarchical doctrines or theories must admit that such royalism as is compatible with undisguised approval of regicide or tyrannicide might not irrationally be condoned by the sternest and most rigid of republicans.
The next eight notes or entries deal in a somewhat desultory fashion with the subject of government; and display, as might be expected, a very singular combination or confusion of obsolete sophistry and superstition with rational and liberal intelligence. He attacks Machiavelli repeatedly, but there is a distinct streak of what is usually understood as Machiavellism in the remark, for example, that when a prince governs his people 'so as they have still need of his administration (for that is his art) he shall ever make and hold them faithful.' In answer to Machiavelli's principle, of cruelty by proxy, he pleads with great and simple force of eloquence against all principles of
