Instans Tyrannus

== The Threatening Tyrant. ( Men and Women , 1855; Dramatic Romances , 1868.) The title of this poem was suggested by Horace’s Ode on the Just Man ( Od. iii. 3. 1):— “Justum et tenacem propositi virum, Non civium ardor prava jubentium, Non vultus instant is tyranni,” etc. (‘The just man, firm to his purpose, is not to be shaken from his fixed resolve by the fury of a mob laying upon him their impious behests, nor by the frown of a threatening tyrant, etc.’) These lines are said to have been repeated by the celebrated De Witte while he was subject to torture. When men or causes are suppre ed by tyranny, the tyrant knows well in his heart that force alone, and not justice, enables him to crush opposition to his will; and he is the first to see, even if he do not acknowledge, the Divine Arm thrust forth from the heavens to protect his victims and avenge their wrongs. From some undefined cause a poor, contemptible man was the object of a tyrant’s hate: he struck him, tried to bribe him, tempted his blood and his flesh. Having tried every way to extinguish the man, he contrived thunder above and mine below him to destroy, as a rat in a hole, this friendle wretch, when suddenly the man saw God’s arm acro the sky. The man —“caught at God’s skirts, and prayed! So, I was afraid!” [Archdeacon Farrar refers the incidents of this poem to the persecution of the early Christians.— Browning Society Papers , Pt VII., p. 22*.]