things were not done in a corner, not in remote provinces, where knowledge was circulating slowly, but at the heart where it beat strongest, within a little space of a learned university, and a day's journey of a great metropolis, and in the midst of a people who said they were of Christ!

In turning from such sad scenes to the merciful administration of our laws for which this age and this country are distinguished; to the numerous charities for the miserable; to the assistance ever ready to be extended to the unfortunate, and to the compassion with which even guilt is regarded, we have abundant reason to be grateful for the blessings so bountifully bestowed upon us.

Two centuries ago this progress of benevolence was foreseen by a philosopher, whose works are a continued exposition of the intimate connection between knowledge and charity, a constant lesson that, "science without love is but a tinkling cymbal." Lord Bacon, with his usual authority of conscious

a weak or a hard-hearted man. But I do know that in the Augustan age of English literature and science, when our country was adorned by a Newton, a Halley, Swift, a Clarke, and an Addison, this judge, in 1712, condemned Jane Wenham at Hertford, who in consequence perhaps of a controversy that arose upon her case, rather than from any inter position of Powel, was not executed; and that four years afterwards he at Huntingdon condemned for the same crime, Mary Hickes and her daughter Elizabeth, an infant of eleven years old, who were executed on Saturday the seventeenth of July, 1716. At the beginning of the same century, of which English philosophers and English scholars talk with triumph, two unhappy wretches were hung at Northampton, the 17th of March, 1705; and upon July the 22d, 1712, five other witches suffered the same fate at the same place.

wisdom and happiness of familiar illustration, thus speaks in his work upon human philosophy: "Being

now at some pause, looking back into that I have "passed through, this writing seemeth to me, as "far as a man can judge of his own work, not "much better than that noise or sound which mu"sicians make while they are tuning their instru"ments, which is nothing pleasant to hear, but yet "is a cause why the music is sweeter afterwards: "so have I been content to tune the instruments of "the Muses, that they may play who have better "hands. And, surely, when I set before me the "condition of these times, from the height of "men's wits: the excellent monuments of ancient "writers which, as so many great lights, shine "before us: the art of printing: the traversed bosom "of the ocean and of the world: the leisure where"with the civilized world abounds, and the inse

cr

parable quality that attends time itself, which is

ever more and more to disclose truth, I cannot but "be raised to the persuasion that the learning of "this third period of time, blessed beyond former "times by sacred and divinely inspired religion, "will far surpass the learning of Græcia and of "Rome: if men will but well and wisely know their "own strength and weakness, and, instead of tear

ing and rending one another with contradictions, " and, in a civil rage, bearing arms and waging war

against themselves, will conclude a peace, and, "with joint forces, direct their strength against "nature herself, and take her high towers, and "dismantle her fortified holds, and thus enlarge the

"borders of man's dominion, so far as Almighty "God of his goodness shall permit."(")

That human knowledge is yet capable of some improvement; that christianity has not yet subdued all enemies under its feet; that there are many in the world who need pity and some by whom pity is denied, are truths which will not be disputed: but it has in England been asserted that the penal code of England does not admit of amelioration, and that a disposition to mitigate any supposed severity in our law originates, not in humanity, but in romantic enthusiasm, in mistaken effeminate sensibility.-Until these assertions are proved, pride may refuse, but charity will permit doubt to be entertained, where more than doubt has been expressed by Mr. Pitt,(') by Mr. Fox,(*)

(1) Advancement of Learning, in the beginning and conclusion of that part which relates to Human Philosophy.

(i) It is a satisfaction to me to reflect that I am justified in my opinion by the concurrent testimony of many able statesmen: and particularly by an honourable friend of mine, now no more, whose whole life was devoted to the service of his country. So deeply was Mr. Pitt convinced of the improper severity of our laws, that, to my knowledge, that distinguished person had it in contemplation to submit the whole of our penal code to the revision of some able lawyers, for the purpose of digesting a plan to diminish the sanguinary nature of its punishments, so inconsistent with the justice and humanity, for which this country is so peculiarly distinguished. Mr. Wilberforce's Speech in the House of Commons, May 2, 1810.

(*) Characters of Charles James Fox, by Philopatris Varvicensis. Page 505. About four years ago I was present at a most interesting conversation between a very learned person who presides in our ecclesiastical and admiralty courts, and Mr. Fox, upon the rigour of our penal còde, and upon the responsibility of those who administer it to the judgment of the public. That conversation gives me abundant reason to believe that Mr. Fox, if he were now among us, would dissent from scarcely one of the opinions which I have here submitted, to your consideration.

If Mr. Fox had lived to assist in allaying the storm by which Europe is now

agitated,

by Sir William Blackstone, (') by Dr. Johnson,(")

agitated, that mind which had provided redress for African slaves, would, I trust, have been turned with due wariness, but due firmness and activity, to the relief of those unhappy wretches at home, who "in the world, and the "world's law," often "find no helper;" who are pitied for a moment, and in a moment forgotten; and who perish without leaving any lasting impression of terror from their sufferings, which almost cease to be exemplary, when they are frequent, excessive, and promiscuous.

(1) Blackstone, in vol. iv. page 18, of his Commentaries, says: "Yet, though, " in this instance, we may glory in the wisdom of the English law, we shall find it more difficult to justify the frequency of capital punishment to be found there"in; inflicted (perhaps inattentively) by a multitude of successive independent "statutes, upon crimes very different in their natures. It is a melancholy truth "that, among the variety of actions which men are daily liable to commit, no "less than an hundred and sixty have been declared, by act of parliament, to be "felonies without benefit of clergy; or, in other words, to be worthy of instant "death. So dreadful a list, instead of diminishing, increases the number of "offenders. The injured, through compassion, will often forbear to prosecute; "juries, through compassion, will sometimes forget their oaths, and either "acquit the guilty or mitigate the nature of the offence; and judges, through "compassion, will respite one half of the convicts, and recommend them to the "royal mercy. Among so many chances of escaping, the needy and hardened "offender overlooks the multitude that suffer; he boldly engages in some des66 perate attempt, to relieve his wants or supply his vices; and, if unexpectedly "the hand of justice overtakes him, he deems himself peculiarly unfortunate, "in falling at last a sacrifice to those laws, which long impunity has taught him to contemn." And in page 371 of the same volume, he says, "that if the plan of penitentiary-houses be properly executed, and its defects "timely supplied, there is reason to hope that such a reformation may be "effected in the lower classes of mankind, and such a gradual scale of "punishment affixed to all gradations of guilt, as may in time supersede the "necessity of capital punishment except for very atrocious crimes."

(m) Rambler, No.114. The learned, the judicious, the pious Boerhaave relates, that he never saw a criminal dragged to execution without asking himself, "Who knows whether this man is not less culpable than me?" On the days when the prisons of this city are emptied into the grave, let every spectator of the dreadful procession put the same question to his own heart. Few among those that crowd in thousands to the legal massacre, and look with carelessness, perhaps with triumph, on the utmost exacerbations of human misery, would then be able to return without horror and dejection. For, who can congratu late himself upon a life passed without some act more mischievous to the peace or prosperity of others than the theft of a piece of money?

It

by Lord Ashburton, (") by Sir Edward Coke,(°) by Sir

It has always been the practice, when any particular species of robbery becomes prevalent and common, to endeavour its suppression by capital denunciations. Thus, one generation of malefactors is commonly cut off, and their successors are frighted into new expedients; the art of thieving is augmented by greater variety of fraud, and subtilized to higher degrees of dexterity, and more occult methods 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 severest punishment that man has the power of exercising upon man.

(") ENGLAND, contenting herself with the superior wisdom, humanity, and justice of her laws in all respects but one, and too fond of the ancient order of things has alone remained stationary. The nation, indeed, is fully sensible of the evil which attends a multitude of sanguinary laws, and the government itself begins to be alarmed with the magnitude of the mischief. Judge Blackstone was active in prosecuting a reform, and Lord Ashburton, it is said, was prevented by his death from bringing forward in parliament a plan for that purpose. A disposition to establish penitentiary houses has been discovered, and this rational expedient will probably be adopted when the Botany Bay Scheme has been sufficiently tried. Page 51 of Notes to Bradford's Inquiry how far the Punishment of Death is necessary in Pennsylvania.

(0) In the Epilogue to his third Institutes, he says, "True it is that we have "found by woful experience, that it is not frequent and often punishment that "doth prevent like offences, melior est enim justitia vere præveniens, quam severe (( puniens, agreeing with the rule of the physician for the safety of the body, "C præstat cautela, quam medela: and it is a certain rule, that, videbis eu sæpe com“mitti, quæ sæpe vindicantur; those offences are often committed, that are ❝ often punished: for the frequency of the punishment makes it so familiar, as "it is not feared. For example, what a lamentable case is it to see so many "christian men and women strangled on that cursed tree of the gallows, inso“much, as if in a large field a man might see together all the christians that, "but in one year, throughout England, come to that untimely and ignominious "death, if there were any spark of grace or charity in him it would make his "heart to bleed for pity and compassion.

"But the consideration of this preventing justice were worthy of the wisdom "of parliament, and in the mean time expert and wise men to make prepara❝tion for the same, as the text saith, ut benedicat eis Dominus. Blessed shall "he be that layeth the first stone of the building, more blessed that proceeds "in it, most of all that finisheth it, to the glory of God, and the honor of our king and nation.”