The poet's relations with the professional despot of the time are so cordial and constant as naturally to arouse astonishment in one unfamiliar with the political and social conditions of the period.
Even the hard-headed despot of Milan once deferred a military expedition because an astrological friend of Petrarch's declared the proposed time to be unpropitious.
The patriarchs, who accepted as superior one who rose above them simply because he was bishop of the imperial residence, had from that time forward to live under a despot who reigned in the name of the false prophet.
The single patriarch had himself become a despot in wielding the tyranny of the civil despot as his chief instrument.
Serving as they did a despot of unlimited powers, failure in the success of his arms was apt to lead to the immediate and violent death of the man in command.
That this ruthless despot should have been able so to change the whole style and manner of his address so late in life is only one proof the more of the marvellous gifts which he possessed.
There was no artifice left untried by the despot of Tunis.
His had been the life of the seaman and the soldier to begin with, and of later years that of a rude and unquestioned despot on a savage coast, surrounded by myrmidons to whom his voice had been as the voice of a god.
The despot who knew no mercy to the weak was not to be bound by the chains of honor.
Her knowledge of human nature enabled her to foresee with certainty what the result would be when the despot was raised to power; it would be war to the knife against liberty in every shape and form, and against all its supporters.
A despot might indeed be overthrown, but only to make way for the coronation of another despot.
We shall therefore simply point out, by means of instances, how indignantly or contemptuously he always refers to religion as the greatdespot and impostor of mankind.
It strips off the mystery that invests their craft, and shows them as they really are, a horde of bandits who levy black mail on honest industry, and preach a despotin heaven in order to maintain their own tyranny on earth.
The Netherlands would receive him as their sovereign, the king, with every mark of attachment and veneration, but he must come as a father to bless, not as a despot to chastise them.
Yet, as we know, it is precisely, in ancient as in modern times, the most absolute despot who is often the most financially embarrassed.
We have seen that the bloodiest despot is himself the slave of money, in the sense that he is compelled to employ it.
The petty despot of the man-made home is hindered in his humanness by too much manness.
It may be a weak one; the despot may be dethroned and overmastered by his little harem of one; but in that case she becomes the despot--that is all.
How otherwise happens it, that modern slavery looks quietly at the despot on the very spot where Leonidas expired?
Even the person of the despot there is never in safety.
Whatever the despot of savage tribes is pleased with becomes invested with a sort of sacredness.
Suna, the greatdespot of that country, reigned till 1857.
We have been told that General Jackson has won sundry battles, that he is an energetic man, prone by nature and by habit to the use of force, covetous of power, and a despot by taste.
But Necessity is the only real sovereign in the world, the only despot for whom there is no law.
Those who believe that the occasion makes the man must feel that the fifty-years rule of this despot upsets that theory.
Born a despot he was initiated into the mysteries of autocratic government by his wife.
The option lay only between a mitigated oligarchy in possession, and a despot in possibility; a contest wherein the affections of the people could rarely be counted upon in favor of the established government.
Mr. Le Gallienne's god is the old celestial despotof theology in a new costume.
The longing to escape this fresh outrage from the mighty despot seized upon Barbara more fiercely than ever, but flight in this crowd was impossible, and as she met Quijada's grave glance she forced herself to keep silence.
This woman, too, was bewailing the child which the cruel despot had torn from her.
But the Orthodox Serbs, led by their Despot George Brankovitch, whose ancestor had deserted to the Turks at Kosovo, hated Catholicism more than Islam, and sided with the Turk against Hunyadi.
The King of Bosnia, and Stefan, Despot of Serbia, declared war on each other and fought for several years.
The great nobleman of her imagination when she lay there dwindled to a whimsy infant, despot of his nursery, capricious with his toys; likely to damage himself, if left to himself.
An unsceptred despot bidden take a fair woman's eyes into his breast, saw and shrank.
The despot roves your fairest lands; And till he flies or fears, Your fields must grow but armed bands, Your sheaves be sheaves of spears!
The despot treads thy sacred sands, Thy pines give shelter to his bands, Thy sons stand by with idle hands, Carolina!
Perhaps if we lived at a Court of a magnificent despot we should learn that we are less highly civilized than we imagine ourselves; but that is a fire to the passions, and the extreme is not the perfect test.
