be condemned to the galleys for life. Shall we go still higher? Henry VIII., though a violator of every law, decreed the punishment of the stake to all who should deny transubstantiation; who asserted that it was lawful for priests to marry; or who should presume to declare auricular confession to be unnecessary. And this reminds us of the Emperor Macrinus. He was cruel to the extremity of cruelty to answer the purposes of his lust; yet he punished adultery by tying the guilty parties together, and burning them alive. He would himself commit a murder, and glory in the act. The Roman imperial history abounds with similar instances.

Italy, more than any other country,-has been, in all ages, remarkable for admiring what are called deep strokes of policy. To excite admiration, heroic enterprizes are not quite so imperative as successful ones. Virtue excites the admiration of the few; splendid policy that of the many.

It cannot be concealed, that most statesmen strain at gnats, and swallow not only camels, but large camels. Hence, to abridge the sentiments of a French historian*, it cannot be otherwise than conceded, that the iniquity of many laws, the unjust distribution of property, the insolence of rank, the impunity of wealth, and the abuse of power, have often driven good subjects into rebellion, and converted even good men into criminals. Perish the hand, that, in the brilliancy of an action, loses all consideration of its injustice.

Men gaze on a dead body, habited in funeral para

* Raynal.

phernalia, with fear and awe. They witness a battle or an execution with far different emotions. One skull affects the mind more than twenty, because it concentrates it. As Napoleon was riding over the field, after the battle of the Moskwa, the foot of his horse encountered a wounded man. It elicited his last breath! Napoleon was affected; and one of his aide-de-camps, to pacify the feeling, observed that the man was only a Russian. After victory,' returned the Emperor, 'dying men are no longer enemies.' This is, no doubt, a fine sentiment; but Napoleon might have recollected, that a fine sentiment, after an atrocious deed, is but a poor equivalent; besides, the Regent Duke of Orleans, many years before, had employed not only the same sentiment, but the very words. Napoleon was, in a thousand instances, not only a very correct but a very successful imitator.

Princes, indeed, sometimes make use of very specious arguments wherewith to justify their cruel deeds. We cannot forget the consolation, which Peter the Great is made* to pour into the ears of Catherine, when about to appear before the seat of Minos:- How shall I answer him,' says Catherine, when he requires an account of the thousands sacrificed within the walls of 'Ismailoff, of Otchakof, and in the suburbs of Warsaw?' 'Say,' answers Peter, that, perhaps, the ' least bloody wars are those in which the most blood ' is apparently spilt; and that to amaze one's enemies 'by splendid victories, which awe them, is more hu

* L'Ombre de Catherine II. aux Champs Elysées.

mane than to suffer armies to be destroyed by a series of insignificant battles perpetually renewed.'

Alexander could see a field of battle, strewed with the dreadful evidences of his own folly, pride, and extravagance, unmoved; but when his horse, Bucephalus, died, he could weep! He could weep, too, when he heard that the finest lion in Babylon had been kicked to death by an ass.

"A falcon, towering in his pride of place,

Was, by a mousing owl, hawk'd at and kill'd.'

He crucified two thousand Tyrians, and passed on; he murdered Clytus, and wept again!

What do we learn from the fidelity of Zopyrus, as related with admiration by Herodotus *, Justin †, and Plutarch? The act of Zopyrus was atrocity itself; and the consent and co-partnercy of Darius still worse. Yet glory has ever been attached to the act, because it seems to have emanated from the chief virtue of a soldier-fidelity. Alas! many are the crimes which we associate with virtues.

CCII.

WHO INJURE THEIR OWN CAUSES.

It is certain, that some persons injure their own causes much more essentially than all the persons to whom they are opposed. Dr. Birch says § of John, Duke of Lauderdale, that he was, in his principles, much against + In Apoph.

*Vol. iii. c. 156.

+ Lib. i. c. 10. § P. 118; folio.

popery and arbitrary government; and yet, by a fatal train of passions and interests, he made way for the one, and had almost established the other.

Many men of the present day have equally injured their good old cause of vanity and corruption: for hostility to freedom of action, speech, and thought, does but extend the knowledge of those benefits, and serves to strengthen and accelerate their growth; so that, in the end, they will leave to despotism no hiding-place, no generating principle; therefore, no power either of extension or of renewal.

' Myriads on myriads, insect armies waft

Keen in the poison'd breeze; and wasteful eat
Through buds and bark, into the blacken'd core
Their eager way*.?

The time will come, perhaps, when even these will eat no longer. Heaven speed such a result!

CCIII.

WHO CAN SOAR OR SIT.

THE indigo bird, richly plumaged, sometimes flies along the gardens, bushes, and road-sides; and at others mounts the tallest trees, and chants for half-an-hour at a time. A friend said to me, yesterday, 'I can soar ' with the eagle, or sit with the wren.'

With an original want of flexibility, delicacy, and gentleness, this friend won his way through neglect, hatred, envy, jealousy, and penury; and at length sits quietly under his vine-tree, sweetening and sanctifying

Thomson; Spring, 120.

the admiration of his children for all that is great, good, and illustrious. His mind is hushed in the contemplation of a great design.

CCIV.

WHO CONTRACT THEIR WANTS.

In a well-regulated state a man, with industry, may obtain almost every thing he desires, if he will but contract his wants into the circle of his means; but it is not so in an ill-regulated community, because, in a society of that kind, men are unable to obtain even the commonest necessaries, unless they plan and struggle for more than they want. In the first instance, they plan and strive for the things wanted, and obtain the whole; in the second, they plan for double what is wanted, and lose the whole; or if they do obtain the whole, or even a part, the pain of acquiring is more than equivalent to the pleasure of acquiring.

In the former instance, the pleasure of pursuit is even superior to the pleasure of possession; in the latter the pleasure of pursuit is lost in the pain arising from the trouble and hazard of obtaining. The journey of the one is performed, as it were, in a day of May; that of the other in the dreary hours of November, December, January, and February.