A lion hunting a
flock of sheep or a herd of wild asses is a more poetical object
than they; and we even take part with the lordly beast, because our
vanity or some other feeling makes us disposed to place ourselves in
the situation of the strongest party. So we feel some concern for
the poor citizens of Rome when they meet together to compare their
wants and grievances, till Coriolanus comes in and with blows and
big words drives this set of 'poor rats', this rascal scum, to their
homes and beggary before him. There is nothing heroical in a
multitude of miserable rogues not wishing to be starved, or
complaining that they are like to be so: but when a single man comes
forward to brave their cries and to make them submit to the last
indignities, from mere pride and self-will, our admiration of his
prowess is immediately converted into contempt for their
pusillanimity. The insolence of power is stronger than the plea of
necessity. The tame submission to usurped authority or even the
natural resistance to it has nothing to excite or flatter the
imagination: it is the assumption of a right to insult or oppress
others that carries an imposing air of superiority with it. We had
rather be the oppressor than the oppressed. The love of power in
ourselves and the admiration of it in others are both natural to
man: the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave.
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