CHAP. XII.: The same Subject continued.

LET us not look for magnanimity in despotic governments. The prince cannot impart a greatness which he has not himself: with him there is no such thing as glory.

It is in monarchies we behold the subjects encircling the throne, and cheered by the irradiancy of the sovereign: there it is that each person, filling, as it were, a larger space, is capable of exercising those virtues which adorn the soul, not with independence, but with true dignity and greatness.