more than the imprisonment or banishment of the King. He shows the futility and inconsistency of every plea drawn from the example afforded by his death; and, without justifying the mode adopted by Cromwell and his adherents, in subjecting their monarch to trial and to a public execution, he is content to call it less dishonourable than the secret assassination of Edward II. Richard II. Henry VI. and Edward V. His commendation, if such it should be called, is bestowed, not upon the justice, but the publicity of the act.

But while we reprobate the cruel persecutors of the cruel Strafford, let us not forget that, in the reign of Charles II. “intimidation, corruption, and illegal evidence were employed to obtain a verdict against Sydney; and that convictions against evidence, sentences against law, enormous fines and cruel imprisonments, were the principal engines employed for breaking the spirit of individuals, and fitting their necks for the yoke."*

I will not deny that the words "justify or excuse," may, without any great violence of construction, be applied to Mr. Fox's sentence upon the fate of "Casal and other tyrants." But shall it be said that persons who approve of the manner in which Cæsar was put to death, are necessarily bad citizens or bad men? Was not the deed applauded in ancient times by the humane Cicero,† the virtuous Marcus Brutus, and even the stern and ex

* Mr. Fox's History, page 55.

The cruelty of this execrable tyrant in other respects ought not to be forgotten. "During the Usurpation men had been convicted of high treason, but simple death was the utmost infliction, and the axe or the halter put the speediest period to the existence of the criminal. But on the restoration of the monarchy, the old barbarity of the laws was admitted in its full horror. The bowels were torn from the yet breathing sufferer, and the public feeling was either disgusted or hardened by the spectacle of torture, or the most ferocious punishment."-Symmons's Life of Milton, p. 430.

+ "Cæsare interfecto, inquit Antonius, statim alte extollens M. Brutus pugionem, Ciceronem nominavit, atque ei recuperatam libertatem est gratulatus."-Philippic 2nd.

Among other pleas Cicero afterwards says, " quid interest, inter suasorem facti et probatorem. Omnes boni quantum in ipsis fuit, Cæsarem interfecerunt."-Ibid.

emplary Cato? If we descend to the opinions of men in our own country, and even in our own age, we shall find that an emniently pious prelate, and another illustrious scholar, have expressed the same approbation of tyrannicide which Mr. Fox has expressed, but in terms more energetic and more copious; and that Mr. Hume, the zealous advocate for kings, has assigned for the practice the same reason, and, in substance, the same apology which Mr. Fox has assigned, in the want of trial for of fenders.

"Gladium suum," says Bishop Lowth, "pariter et lyram patriæ et libertati Alcæus consecraverat. Equidem tam vehemens tamque animosum dicendi genus, a tali ingenio tractatum, permultum habuisse momenti necesse est in hominum mentibus, cum ad omnem honestatem erigendis, tum a scelere absterrendis; maxime vero in favendo, et sustentando illo vigore animi atque generosa 'Aqúoei, quæ libertatis alumna eadem est et custos. Num verendum erat ne quis tyrannidem Pisistratidarum Athenis instaurare auderet, ubi in omnibus conviviis, et æque ab infirma plebe in compitis quotidie cantaretur Ekóλtov illud Cal

Akenside alludes to the story in these animated lines:

"Look then abroad through Nature, to the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense;
And speak, O Man! does this capacious scene
With half that kindling majesty dilate

Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate,
Amid the crowd of patriots; and his arm

Aloft extending, like eternal Jove,

When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,
And bade the father of his country hail !
For lo! the tyrant prostrate on the dust,
And Rome again is free."

Pleasures of Imagination, book i. Akenside has been suspected of a bias towards republicanism. But is every republican an advocate for assassination? Akenside more than "half meets the question" of Cæsar's death. But does it follow, from his approbation of the Roman conspirators, that he would have applauded the assassin of an English sovereign ?

listrati nescio cujus, sed ingeniosi certe Poetæ et valde boni Civis?" Lowth then quotes the regicide Σkóλtov at full, and thus proceeds: "Quod si post Idus Martias e Tyrannoctonis quispiam tale aliquod carmen plebi tradidisset, inque suburram, et fori circulos, et in ora vulgi intulisset, actum profecto fuisset de partibus deque dominatione Cæsarum. Plus mehercule valuisset unum 'Αρμοδίου Μέλος quam Ciceronis Philippicæ omnes."*

This passage, without the aid of a comment, sufficiently shows the judgment and the feelings of the learned writer upon the tyrannicides of antiquity.

To exquisite taste, and learning quite unparalleled, Sir William Jones is known to have united the most benevolent temper and the purest morals. But shall we accuse him of a bias towards assassination because he translated the Scholion of Callistratus, or because he has imitated a glowing and animated Fragment of Alcæus? I will quote, in part, the words of that most amiable and most wonderful man.

"Thus Harmodius shone thy blade,

Thus, Aristogiton! thine,
Whose, when Britain calls for aid,
Whose shall now delay to shine?
Dearest youths in islands blest,+
Not like recreant idlers dead,
You with fleet Pelides rest,

And with godlike Diomede."

* Prælect. I. de Sac. Poes. Heb.

+ In some Latin verses ad libertatem, Sir William Jones writes in the same strain :

Here it must be fairly allowed that Sir William Jones, when writing English poetry, and fired at the moment with the spirit of an antient Greek poet, transferred to Britain a precedent from Athens. But if he had been writing prose, he was too good an historian, too good a logician, and too good a citizen, to have confounded the Athenian with the English government. Speaking of his own contemporaries, he tells us that the deed of

Ex ore cum Bruti sonaret

Sanguine Cæsareo rubentis

Vox grata Divis, grataque Tullio."

If Mr. Fox had written the foregoing verses they would have been urged as proofs of his guilt, and I should have said, "multa in homine, Demea,

Signa insunt, ex quibus conjectura facile fit;
Duo cum idem faciunt, sæpe, ut possis dicere,
Hoc licet impune facere huic, illi non licet:
Non quod dissimilis res sit, sed quod is qui facit."
Terent. Adelph.

The general tenor of Jones's political writings, and the contents of a particular book which produced a well-known prosecution at Shrewsbury, would enable me to repel any comparisons injurious to Mr. Fox. But I honour both these worthies, and both do I acquit of any bias to the assassination of kings.

Cremutius was accused for having praised Brutus, and for having called Cassius, Romanorum ultimum. In his defence he says, "Titus Livius eloquentiæ ac fidei præclarus in primis, Cn. Pompeium tantis laudibus tulit, ut Pompeianum eum Augustus appellaret. Neque id amicitiæ eorum offecit. Scipionem, Afranium, hunc ipsum Cassium, hunc Brutum, nusquam latrones, et parricidas, quæ nunc vocabula imponuntur, sæpe ut insignes viros nominat. Asinii Pollionis scripta egregiain eorundem memoriam tradunt."-Taciti Annal. lib. iv. par. 8.

If any prosecution had been commenced against Lowth, or Jones, or Akenside, for supposed inuendos in their commendation of the Roman Tyrannicides, each of them might have said with Cremutius: "Suum cuique decus posteritas rependit. Nec deerunt, si damnatio ingruit, qui non modo Cassii et Bruti, sed etiam mei meminerint." Let the accusers of such writers remember the remark of Tacitus upon the ultimate effects of such accusations. "Punitis ingeniis gliscit auctoritas. Neque aliud externi reges, aut qui eadem sævitia usi sunt, nisi dedecus sibi, atque illis gloriam peperere."

Wentworth was not less glorious, nor the meed of Lenox less

brilliant.

"Noblest chiefs! a hero's crown

Let th' Athenian patriots claim,
You less fiercely won renown,
You assum'd a milder name.
They through blood for glory strove,
You more blissful tidings bring,

They to death a tyrant drove,

You to fame restor'd a king."

I should hope that a friendship begun in childhood, and continued, without interruption, through boyhood, youth, and manhood, enables me to understand the character of Sir William Jones; and, believing myself to understand it, I have no hesitation in asserting that, with all his fondness for the tyrannicides of antiquity, he would have looked with horror upon the assassin of an English king. Catching, indeed, the spirit of antiquity, when he was imitating antient poets, Sir William thus writes in his translation and expansion of the Fragment from Alcæus :

"Men who their duties know,

But know their rights and knowing dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aim'd blow,

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain.

These constitute a state."

Such was the language of an English subject, and an English Judge. But I disdain to vindicate him, as he would have disdained to vindicate himself, from the charge of being an advocate for the assassination of Christian kings.

Let us now turn to Mr. Hume: "The maxims of antient politics contain, in general, so little humanity and moderation, that it seems superfluous to give any particular reason for the violences committed at any particular period: yet I cannot forbear observing that the laws, in the latter ages of the Roman Commonwealth, were so absurdly contrived, that they obliged the heads of parties to have recourse to these extremities. All capital punishments were abolished. However criminal, or, what is more, however dangerous any citizen might be, he could