misery, and out of compassion. In some parts of America a, women have been known to destroy female children to relieve them from the burthen of life; and Sir John Chardin says b the Mahometan Tartars often murdered their infants, thinking thereby to screen them from a multitude of inconveniences and miseries.

The offering of little children, at Carthage, inflamed the mothers of Rome; and yet, some centuries after, they could calmly behold the sacrifice of the Christians, during the persecutions of Nero (A.D. 64); Domitian (94); Trajan (107); Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (153); Severus (203); Maximin (236); Decius (250); Gallus (252); Valerian (258); and of Diocletian (303):-till Constantine, (in 313), gave free license for the exercise of the Christian faith. I have specified the dates, in order, the more fully, to mark the progress and pertinacity of human cruelty: but it is a triumph against philosophy to observe how conspicuous, in this catalogue of impiety, are the names of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. The sacrifice of Christians, indeed, frequently followed the commonest accidents of natural casualties. "If the Tiber ascend to the walls of Rome," exclaimed Tertullian"; "if the Nile does not cover the fields; if the earth is agitated by earthquakes; and if there is a famine, or a pestilence; what is the result? The Christians are thrown to the lions"."

Wanton and detestable, as these cruelties appear, even Christians themselves have exercised barbarities, not unequal, against persons of their own faith. And those, too, only because differences have arisen on points of little comparative importance! The Assassines, a people dependent on Phenicia, believed, that the surest road to the paradise of Mahomet, was to assassinate some one of a contrary religion.

a

Raynal, Hist. des Indes, t. iv. ch. vii. 10.

b Harris's Collection, b. iii. c. 11, 865.

с

Apolog. cap. xlii.

d Tacitus has a striking passage: Annal., lib. xv. c. 44.

Catholic priests have occasionally exceeded even this enormity of error. Disregarding the canon, laid down in the ecclesiastical history of Socrates, that "the orthodox church persecutes no one;" such crimes have been committed, under the awful authority of religion, in France, Italy, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland, that their horrors no language can describe! The massacre of the Sicilian Vespers; of St. Bartholomew; of Moscow; of the Irish Protestants :-these, and the various methods of torture, once practised on the continent, were not only sufficient to coagulate the blood, but even to congeal the very soul with horror.

The church of Rome has frequently sanctioned the crime. of assassination. When Admiral Coligny was murdered in France, there was a public thanksgiving at Rome; a solemn procession, and a jubilee. Pope Gregory XIII. struck a medal on the occasion; and hung up a picture, representing the deed, even in his hall of audience. Te Deums, too, were sung in the churches, in honour of the massacres of Prague, Ismael, and Warsaw! "The great spirit," exclaimed St. Augustin," is patient: and he is patient," he continues, "because he is immortal."

In Java, previous to the arrival of Europeans, any person, who murdered a superior, was beheaded; his heart fixed upon a bambu; his body quartered, and delivered to wild beasts. But if a superior killed an inferior, he only forfeited a thousand doits. In Celebes, the compensation for killing a man is thirty dollars; for killing a woman forty. In Greece it was parricide in a slave to kill a free man in his own defence ! In some countries it is less criminal to destroy a man, than to steal a sheep, or kill a stag d. In Spain it was once a less crime to commit murder, than to contract a low

a Lib. xi. c. 3.

b Raffles' Hist. Java; art. Administration of Justice, vol. i. p. 289.

e Bosman, p. 143, ed. 1721.

d Vide Laws of William I.

marriage. "Those who eat mushrooms," says Yama", the legislator of India, "fully equal in guilt the most despicable of all deadly sinners." And the Tartars, in the reign of Genghis Khan, thought it no sin to rob or to kill: but no man was allowed to lean against a whip, or to strike a horse with his bridle; under the penalty of death ".

What, in the whole code of barbarous nations, can be more gigantically criminal, than the enactment of the following law, even in Britain? This monstrous law decreed, that when a person, charged with a crime, refused to plead, he should be taken from the court; laid in a dark room, naked upon the earth, without either bedding or straw; a little raiment was put over his hips, and his head and feet were covered. One arm was drawn to one end of the room by a cord, the other arm to another quarter: and his two legs to the other cardinal points. An iron or stone, as heavy as could be borne, was then placed upon his body. On the next day were presented to him three small pieces of barley bread, with no drink. On the third day he had as much water as he could drink, but no bread. And in this manner he was fed, till he died.

The ancient Germans had only two capital crimes;-treachery and cowardice. All other crimes might be compensated. Murder was venial. Even the French salique law made an essential difference, in regard to a Frank and a Roman murderer. The former was fined two hundred sols e e; the latter one hundred; and for a Roman tributary only fortyfive. In Cyprus, assassination is compromised by a few hun

■ Sir Wm. Jones, vol. ii. p. 117, 4to.

b Carpini's Relation. Vide Montesquieu, b. xxiv. p. 128.

Fleta, l. i. t. 34, s. 33. This sentence, the technical name of which is peine forte et dure, is supposed to have been introduced in the reign of Edward I. The last instance, I believe, was that of Lord Greville, charged with the murder of a tenant.

d Tacitus de Mor. Germ.

e

Montesquieu, b. xxviii. c. 3.

If

dred piastres: according to the age of the deceased. between thirty and thirty-five", the penalty is five hundred piastres.

The laws of the twelve tables were extremely severe"; till they were silently abrogated by what was called the Persian law. "At this period," says the greatest of all legal authorities," the republic flourished. Under the emperors severe punishments were revived; and then the empire fell,"

с

In cases of treason, the laws of Macedon extended death to all the relations of the party convicted; and that such severity was not unfrequently practised in the times of the Roman emperors, is evident from a passage in the pandects of Justinian: whenced one of the papal bulls derived the affectation of mercy, in ordaining a living punishment, in comparison with which death might be esteemed, not only a relief, but an honour. Burlamaquie has observed, that "as all human institutions are founded on the laws of God, so no human laws should be permitted to contradict them." And yet torture was enacted upon the hypocritical pretence, that it arose out of a tenderness for the lives of men !

In the reigns of Theodosius and Valentinian, it was a capital offence to endeavour to convert a Pagan to Judaism, Christianity, or any other religion;-a monstrous license in the exercise of legislative authority! But in St. Domingo, during its early possession by the Spaniards, so little respect was paid to human life and error, that many of them made vows to destroy twelve Pagan Indians, every day, in honour of the twelve apostles.

In Greece, several children were condemned, for pulling up

b In Pegu, creditors may sell their debtor, his wife, and all his children; but, by the laws of the twelve tables, they might even cut his body in pieces, and each creditor have his share. This construction, however, has been, and may be, justly doubted.

d Comment., b. iv. c. 29.

VOL. II.

Quint. Curt., lib. vi.

e On the Law of Nature and Nations. f Raynal, Hist. East and West Indies, b. vi.

T

a shrub in a sacred grove: and the Athenian judges even caused a child to be executed, for merely picking up a leaf of gold, which had fallen from the crown on the head of Diana's statue.

The following instances of cruelty are parallels worthy of each other. The fanatic, Damien, having attempted the life of Louis XV., after undergoing many exquisite tortures was condemned to die. At the place of execution he was stripped naked, and fastened by iron gyves to a scaffold. His right hand was put into a liquid of burning sulphur: his legs, arms, and thighs, were torn with red-hot pincers: then boiling oil and melted resin, sulphur and lead, were poured into the gashes and, as a finale to this horrible tragedy, he was torn to pieces by four horses. The Dutch of Batavia a punished the chief of a supposed conspiracy, with twenty of his companions, in the following manner :-They stretched them on a cross; tore the flesh from their arms, legs, and breasts, with hot pincers. They ripped up their bellies, and threw their hearts in their faces. Then they cut off their heads, and exposed them to the fowls of the air. After this they returned public thanks to heaven!

The Turkish history furnishes many instances. The city of Famagusta having been bravely defended by a Venetian nobleman, named Bragadin, at length surrendered to the superior force of Mustapha. The conduct of Bragadin had been that of a valiant and skilful general; but Mustapha was so enraged at the ability he had displayed in the siege, that he caused him to be flayed alive. Then he stuffed his skin with straw, tore his body in pieces, and scattered his several members over the different parts of the fortifications. The head and skin were sent to Constantinople; where they were bought by his brother, who caused them to be buried at Venice, in the church of St. Paul and St. John. But this is an instance of clemency, when compared with many Turkish practices.