opinion; and, indeed, it may be obferved, that all but murderers have, at their laft hour, the common fenfations of mankind pleading in their favour.

From this conviction of the inequality of the punishment to the offence, proceeds the frequent folicitation of pardons. They who would rejoice at the correction of a thief, are yet fhocked at the thought of deftroying him. His crime fhrinks to nothing, compared with his mifery; and severity defeats itself by exciting pity.

The gibbet, indeed, certainly difables those who die upon it from infesting the community; but their death seems not to contribute more to the reformation of their affociates, than any other method of feparation. A thief feldom paffes much of his time in recollection or anticipation, but from robbery haftens to riot, and from riot to robbery; nor, when the grave closes upon his companion, has any other care than to find another.

The frequency of capital punishments, therefore, rarely hinders the commiffion of a crime, but naturally and commonly prevents its detection, and is, if we proceed only upon prudential principles, chiefly for that reafon to be avoided. Whatever may be urged by cafuifts or politicians, the greater part of mankind, as they can never think that to pick the pocket and to pierce the heart is equally criminal, will fcarcely believe that two malefactors fo different in guilt can be justly doomed to the fame punishment: nor is the neceffity of fubmitting the confcience to human laws fo plainly evinced, fo clearly stated, or fo generally allowed, but that the pious, the tender, T 2

and

and the juft, will always fcruple to concur with the community in an act which their private judgment cannot approve.

He who knows not how often rigorous laws produce total impunity, and how many crimes are concealed and forgotten for fear of hurrying the offender to that ftate in which there is no repentance, has converfed very little with mankind. And whatever

epithets of reproach or contempt this compaffion may incur from thofe who confound cruelty with firmness, I know not whether any wife man would with it lefs powerful, or lefs extensive.

If thofe whom the wifdom of our laws has condemned to die, had been detected in their rudiments of robbery, they might, by proper difcipline and useful labour, have been disentangled from their habits, they might have escaped all the temptation to fubfequent crimes, and paffed their days in reparation and penitence, and detected they might all have been, had the profecutors been certain that their lives would have been spared. I believe, every thief will confefs, that he has been more than once feized and difmiffed; and that he has fometimes ventured upon capital crimes, because he knew, that those whom he injured would rather connive at his efcape, than cloud their minds with the horrors of his death.

All laws against wickednefs are ineffectual, unlefs fome will inform, and fome will profecute; but till we mitigate the penalties for mere violations of property, information will always be hated, and profecution dreaded. The heart of a good man

cannot

cannot but recoil at the thought of punishing a flight injury with death; especially when he remembers, that the thief might have procured fafety by another crime, from which he was reftrained only by his remaining virtue.

The obligations to affift the exercise of publick justice are indeed strong; but they will certainly be overpowered by tenderness for life. What is punished with severity contrary to our ideas of adequate retribution, will be seldom discovered; and multitudes will be suffered to advance from crime to crime, till they deserve death, becaufe, if they had been fooner profecuted, they would have fuffered death before they deferved it.

This fcheme of invigorating the laws by relaxation, and extirpating wickedness by lenity, is fo remote from common practice, that I might reasonably fear to expofe it to the publick, could it be fupported only by my own obfervations: I fhall, therefore, by afcribing it to its author, Sir Thomas More, endeavour to procure it that attention, which I wifh always paid to prudence, to justice, and to mercy.

NUMB. 115. TUESDAY, April 23, 1751.

Quedam parva quidem, fed non toleranda maritis.

Some faults, tho' fmall, intolerable grow.

SIR,

To the RAMBLER.

ISIT down, in purfuance of my

late

Juv

DRYDEN

engagement, to recount the remaining part of the adventures that befel me in my long queft of conjugal felicity, which, though I have not yet been fo happy as to obtain it, I have at least endeavoured to deferve by unwearied diligence, without fuffering from repeated disappointments any abatement of my hope, or repreffion of my activity.

You must have obferved in the world a fpecies of mortals who employ themselves in promoting matrimony, and without any visible motive of intereft or vanity, without any discoverable impulfe of malice or benevolence, without any reafon, but that they want objects of attention and topicks of conversation, are inceffantly bufy in procuring wives and husbands. They fill the ears of every single man and woman with fome convenient match, and when they are informed of your age and fortune, offer a partner of life with the fame readiness, and the fame indifference, as a salesman, when he has taken measure by his eye, fits his cuftomer with a coat.

It might be expected that they should foon be dif couraged from this officious interpofition by resent

ment

ment or contempt; and that every man should determine the choice on which fo much of his happiness must depend, by his own judgment and obfervation yet it happens, that as these proposals are generally made with a fhew of kindness, they feldom provoke anger, but are at worst heard with patience, and forgotten. They influence weak minds to approbation; for many are fure to find in a new acquaintance, whatever qualities report has taught them to expect; and in more powerful and active understandings they excite curiofity, and fometimes, by a lucky chance, bring perfons of fimilar tempers within the attraction of each other.

I was known to poffefs a fortune, and to want a wife; and therefore was frequently attended by these hymeneal folicitors, with whofe importunity I was fometimes diverted, and fometimes perplexed; for they contended for me as vultures for a carcafe ; each employing all his eloquence, and all his artifices, to enforce and promote his own scheme, from the fuccefs of which he was to receive no other advantage than the pleasure of defeating others equally eager, and equally induftrious.

An invitation to fup with one of those busy friends, made me by a concerted chance acquainted with Camilla, by whom it was expected that I fhould be fuddenly and irresistibly enfiaved. The lady, whom the fame kindness had brought without her own concurrence into the lifts of love, seemed to think me at leaft worthy of the honour of captivity; and exerted the power, both of her eyes and wit, with fo much art and fpirit, that though I had been too often deceived by appearances to devote myself irrevocably