terest for a reconciliation to her miftres, who had turned her out at night for breaking fix teeth in a tortoiseshell comb: fhe had attended her lady from a diftant province, and having not lived long enough to fave much money, was deftitute among ftrangers, and though of a good family, in danger of perifhing in the streets, or of being compelled by hunger to prostitution. I made no fcruple of promifing to reflore her; but upon my first application to Sophronia, was answered with an air which called for approbation, that if the neglected her own affairs, I might fufpect her of neglecting mine; that the comb ftood her in three half-crowns; that no fervant fhould wrong her twice; and that indeed fhe took the firft opportu nity of parting with Phillida, because, though fhe was honeft, her conftitution was bad, and fhe thought her very likely to fall fick. Of our conference I need not tell you the effect; it furely may be forgiven me, if on this occafion I forgot the decency of common forms.

From two more ladies I was difengaged by finding, that they entertained my rivals at the fame time, and determined their choice by the liberality of our fettlements. Another I thought myself juftified in forfaking, because fhe gave my attorney a bribe to favour her in the bargain; another becaufe I could never foften her to tenderness, till fhe heard that most of my family had died young; and another, because, to increase her fortune by expecta tions, fhe reprefented her fifter as languishing and confumptive.

I fhall in another letter give the remaining part of my hiftory of courtship. I prefume that I fhould

hitherto

hitherto have injured the majefty of female virtue, had I not hoped to transfer my affection to higher merit.

I am, &c.

HYMENÆUS.

NUMB. 114. SATURDAY, April 20, 1751.

Audi,

Nulla unquam de morte hominis cuncatio longa eft.

When man's life is in debate,

The judge can ne'er too long deliberate.

Juv.

DRYDEN.

POWER and fuperiority are fo flattering and

delightful, that, fraught with temptation and expofed to danger as they are, scarcely any virtue is fo cautious, or any prudence fo timorous, as to decline them. Even thofe that have most reverence for the laws of right, are pleased with fhewing that not fear, but choice, regulates their behaviour; and would be thought to comply, rather than obey. We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass; and, as the Roman fatirist remarks, he that has no defign to take the life of another, is yet glad to have it in his hands.

From the fame principle, tending yet more to degeneracy and corruption, proceeds the defire of investing lawful authority with terrour, and governing by force rather than perfuafion. Pride is unwilling to believe the neceffity of affigning any other

reafon

reason than her own will; and would rather maintain the most equitable claims by violence and penalties, than defcend from the dignity of command to dif pute and expoftulation.

It may, I think, be fufpected, that this political arrogance has sometimes found its way into legiflative affemblies, and mingled with deliberations upon property and life. A flight perusal of the laws by which the measures of vindictive and coercive justice are established, will discover fo many disproportions between crimes and punishments, fuch capricious diftinctions of guilt, and fuch confufion of remiffness and severity, as can fcarcely be believed to have been produced by publick wifdom, fincerely and calmly ftudious of publick happiness.

The learned, the judicious, the pious Boerhaave relates, that he never faw a criminal dragged to execution without asking himself, "Who knows "whether this man is not lefs culpable than me?" On the days when the prifons of this city are emptied into the grave, let every fpectator of the dreadful proceffion put the fame queftion to his own heart. Few among those that crowd in thousands to the legal maffacre, and look with carelessness, perhaps with triumph, on the utmoft exacerbations of human mifery, would then be able to return without horrour and dejection. For, who can congratulate himself upon a life paffed without fome act more mifchievous to the peace or profperity of others, than the theft of a piece of money?

It has been always the practice, when any par ticular fpecies of robbery becomes prevalent and common, to endeavour its fuppreffion by capital denunciations,

nunciations. Thus, one generation of malefactors is commonly cut off, and their fucceffors are frighted into new expedients; the art of thievery is aug-: mented with greater variety of fraud, and fubtilized to higher degrees of dexterity, and more occultmethods of conveyance. The law then renews the pursuit in the heat of anger, and overtakes the offender again with death. By this practice, capital inflictions are multiplied, and crimes, very different in their degrees of enormity, are equally subjected to the feverest punishment that man has the power of exercifing upon man.

The lawgiver is undoubtedly allowed to estimate the malignity of an offence, not merely by the lofs or pain which fingle acts may produce, but by the general alarm and anxiety arifing from the fear of mischief, and infecurity of poffeffion: he therefore exercises the right which focieties are fuppofed to have over the lives of thofe that compofe them, not fimply to punish a tranfgreffion, but to maintain order, and preferve quiet; he enforces thofe laws with severity that are most in danger of violation, as the commander of a garrifon doubles the guard on that fide which is threatened by the enemy.

This method has been long tried, but tried with fo little fuccefs, that rapine and violence are hourly increafing, yet few feem willing to defpair of its efficacy, and of those who employ their speculations upon the prefent corruption of the people, fome propose the introduction of more horrid, lingering, and terrifick punishments; fome are inclined to accelerate the executions; fome to difcourage pardons; and all feem to think that lenity has given VOL. V.

T

con

confidence to wickedness, and that we can only be rescued from the talons of robbery by inflexible rigour, and fanguinary juftice.

Yet fince the right of fetting an uncertain and arbitrary value upon life has been difputed, and fince experience of paft times gives us little reason to hope that any reformation will be effected by a periodical havock of our fellow-beings, perhaps it will not be ufelefs to confider what confequences might arise from relaxations of the law, and a more rational and equitable adaptation of penalties to offences.

Death is, as one of the ancients obferves, to twv pobεpwv pobegwτalov, of dreadful things the most dreadful ; an evil, beyond which nothing can be threatened by fublunary power, or feared from human enmity or vengeance. This terror fhould, therefore, be referved as the last refort of authority, as the strongest and most operative of prohibitory fanctions, and placed before the treasure of life, to guard from invafion what cannot be restored. To equal robbery with murder is to reduce murder to robbery, to con. found in common minds the gradations of iniquity, and incite the commiffion of a greater crime to prevent the detection of a lefs. If only murder were punished with death, very few robbers would stain their hands in blood; but when, by the laft act of cruelty, no new danger is incurred, and greater fecurity may be obtained, upon what principle fhall we bid them forbear?

It may be urged, that the fentence is often mitigated to fimple robbery; but furely this is to confefs that our laws are unreafonable in our own

opinion;