himself to be guided by it.  If a Man might promote the supposed Good of his Country by the blackest Calumnies and Falshoods, our Nation abounds more in Patriots than any other of the Christian World.  When Pompey was desired not to set Sail in a Tempest that would hazard his Life, It is necessary for me, says he, to Sail, but it is not necessary for me to Live:  [1] Every Man should say to himself, with the same Spirit, It is my Duty to speak Truth, tho’ it is not my Duty to be in an Office.  One of the Fathers hath carried this Point so high, as to declare, He would not tell a Lie, tho’ he were sure to gain Heaven by it.  However extravagant such a Protestation may appear, every one will own, that a Man may say very reasonably, He would not tell a Lie, if he were sure to gain Hell by it; or, if you have a mind to soften the Expression, that he would not tell a Lie to gain any Temporal Reward by it, when he should run the hazard of losing much more than it was possible for him to gain.

O.

[Footnote 1:  Quoted from Plutarch’s Life, Sec. 50.  Terser in the original:—­’[Greek:  Plein anagkae, zaen ouk anagkae.]’]

* * * * *

No. 508.  Monday, October 13, 1712.  Steele.

  ’Omnes autem et habentur et dicuntur Tyranni, qui potestate sunt
  perpetua, in ea Civitate quae libertate usa est.’

  Corn.  Nepos.

The following Letters complain of what I have frequently observed with very much Indignation; therefore I shall give them to the Publick in the Words with which my Correspondents, who suffer under the Hardships mention’d in them, describe them.

  Mr. SPECTATOR,

’In former Ages all Pretensions to Dominion have been supported and submitted to, either upon Account of Inheritance, Conquest or Election; and all such Persons who have taken upon ’em any Soveraignty over their Fellow-Creatures upon any other Account, have been always called Tyrants, not so much because they were guilty of any particular Barbarities, as because every Attempt to such a Superiority was in its Nature tyrannical.  But there is another sort of Potentates, who may with greater Propriety be call’d Tyrants, than those last mention’d, both as they assume a despotick Dominion over those as free as themselves, and as they support it by Acts of notable Oppression and Injustice; and these are the Rulers in all Clubs and Meetings.  In other Governments, the Punishments of some have been alleviated by the Reward of others; but what makes the Reign of these Potentates so particularly grievous, is, that they are exquisite in punishing their Subjects, at the same time they have it not in their power to reward ’em.  That the Reader may the better comprehend the Nature of these Monarchs, as well as the miserable State of those that are their Vassals, I shall give an Account of the King of the Company I am fallen into, whom