seventy years of age, and soon after totally lost his sight. He passed the remainder of his days cheerfully, superintending the studies of his disciples.

The year * in which Galileo died gave birth to our great countryman, Sir Isaac Newton. Little need be said of his wonderful attainments in mathematics, optics, and astronomy; for, contrary to the usual course of things, justice was done to them even in his own day. He received high academical honours during his life, and was interred with great solemnity in Westminster Abbey. But the name of Newton will long survive the remembrance of all the perishable tributes that man could pay to his memory. It will live while

there is a man on earth who honours science and can appreciate genius.

* 1642.

ESSAY III.

ON THE SENTENCE OF DEATH PRONOUNCED

BY JUNIUS BRUTUS ON HIS OWN SONS.

"Guilt and greatness equal ran,

And all that raised the hero, sunk the man."

POPE.

THE injunction explicitly laid on us, in the New Testament, not to "do evil that good may come," has been of incalculable assistance to the erring judgment of men. The real merit, or demerit, of an action, depends unquestionably on the motives from which it springs; but the springs of action are so various and obscure, and so liable to misconstruction, the workings of the human will are so complicated and unsearchable, that we frequently can scarcely understand our own motives, and may be thankful for the plain rule quoted above, which, on most occasions, may save us the pains of scrutinizing into those of our neighbours, since we know that all deeds must be

judged by their own nature, without reference to their consequences, and that the prospect of a good result cannot justify an evil action. But among the ancients, who lived in ignorance of the divine law, the acts of men could only be judged by their motives. Slight was then the difference between heroism and delinquency; murder, rapine, and fraud, were sanctified by undaunted firmness and misguided zeal; and virtue and crime were only distinguished from each other by the spirit that prompted, not by the deeds that marked them. In order, therefore, fairly to appreciate the actions of those days, we must ascend as far as possible to their motives; and nothing can be more difficult than to form a just estimate of those which may have actuated Junius Brutus in the condemnation of his sons. In the Christian world, the nature of such a deed, were its perpetration even possible, could admit of no argument; its atrocity would not for a moment be tolerated; there could be, in our estimation, no counterpoise to its unnatural cruelty for we have been taught to consider the things of this world as "the chaff before the wind," and the love of our country as subordinate to the love of mercy. We must, therefore, endeavour, for the discussion of this subject,

to transport ourselves back, in imagination, to the days of Brutus, to surmount the horror which a Christian feels in approaching such a theme, and, divesting our minds of every habitual view of heavenly things, to enter into the feelings of a Roman,―of one who believed that all sacrifices, even those of human blood, were acceptable to the gods. We may then, with more fairness, proceed to the consideration of the various motives which may be supposed to have operated on the mind of Brutus when he formed the resolution which places him either above or below humanity-the dreadful resolution of sacrificing his children.

Rome had been recently released from a state of abject slavery, and Junius Brutus was the mainspring of her emancipation. The brutal Sextus had paid the penalty of his crime; but his father, though in banishment, was still alive, and those who conspired for his restoration were justly considered as enemies to civil liberty, and amenable to punishment for disturbing the peace of the state. In this predicament did the sons of Brutus stand; conspirators against their father and their country's liberty; their condemnation was a just retribution for their crime, and a salutary warn

ing to other factious spirits, and the exigency of the moment demanded it. Brutus, from his intimate acquaintance with the state of public affairs, must have seen this more clearly, and, from his activity in the preceding revolution, and the consequently inflamed state of his mind, on this particular subject, must also have felt it more keenly than any other person. And he probably conceived that it would be the means of conciliating the favour of the gods, to immolate his unfortunate offspring, and to offer up his own parental feelings a sacrifice to the good of his country.

On the other hand, Brutus had but lately been raised to the consular dignity; and all newly acquired power is precarious: the continuance of his power might, and probably did, depend on a decisive punishment of every shadow of rebellion, and a prompt and bold exaction of that obedience, which time had not yet rendered habitual, and which the spirit of faction was labouring to destroy.

The love of present popularity, and of future fame, which has at all times incited men to deeds of desperate heroism, must have operated on the mind of Brutus in a degree scarcely to be imagined by those who do not place their whole stake on