No. 114.] SATUrday, April 20, 1751. -Audi, Nulla unquam de morte hominis cunctatio longa est. When man's life is in debate, The judge can ne'er too long deliberate. JUV. DRYDEN. severest punishment that man has the power of exercising upon man. The lawgiver is undoubtedly allowed to estimate the malignity of an offence, not merely by the loss or pain which single acts may produce, but by the general alarm and anxiety arising from the fear of mischief, and insecurity of possession. he therefore exercises the right which societies POWER and superiority are so flattering and de- are supposed to have over the lives of those that lightful, that, fraught with temptation and expos- compose them, not simply to punish a transgresed to danger as they are, scarcely any virtue is sion, but to maintain order, and preserve quiet; so cautious, or any prudence so timorous, as to he enforces those laws with severity that are most decline them. Even those that have most rever-in danger of violation, as the commander of a ence for the laws of right, are pleased with show-garrison doubles the guard on that side which is ing that not fear, but choice, regulates their be- threatened by the enemy. haviour; 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 satirist remarks, he that has no design to take the life of another, is yet glad to have it in his hands. This method has been long tried, but tried with so little success, that rapine and violence are hourly increasing, yet few seem willing to despair of its efficacy, and of those who employ their speculations upon the present corruption of the people, some propose the introduction of more horrid, lingering, and terrific punishments; some are inclined to accelerate the executions; some to discourage pardon; and all seem to think that lenity has given confidence to wickedness, and that we can only be rescued from the talons of robbery by inflexible rigour, and sanguinary justice. From the same principle, tending yet more to degeneracy and corruption, proceeds the desire of investing lawful authority with terror, and governing by force rather than persuasion. Pride is unwilling to believe the necessity of assigning any other reason than her own will; and would rather maintain the most equitable claims by vio- Yet since the right of setting an uncertain and lence and penalties, than descend from the dig- arbitrary value upon life has been disputed, and nity of command to dispute and expostulation. since experience of past times gives us little reaIt may, I think, be suspected, that this politi-son to hope that any reformation will be effected cal arrogance has sometimes found its way into legislative assemblies, and mingled with deliberations upon property and life. A slight perusal of the laws by which the measures of vindictive and coercive justice are established, will discover so many disproportions between crimes and punishments, such capricious distinctions of guilt, and such confusion of remissness and severity, as can scarcely be believed to have been produced by public wisdom, sincerely and calmly studious of public happiness. by a periodical havoc of our fellow-beings, per haps it will not be useless to consider what con sequences 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 observes, rò rŴv pоbεpwv pobεpúтaтov, of dreadful things the most dreadful; an evil beyond which nothing can be threatened by sublunary power, or feared from human enmity or vengeance. This terror should, therefore, be reserved as the last resort of authoThe learned, the judicious, the pious Boerhaave rity, as the strongest and most operative of prorelates, that he never saw a criminal dragged to hibitory sanctions, and placed before the treasure execution without asking himself, "Who knows of life, to guard from invasion what cannot be whether this man is not less culpable than me?" restored. To equal robbery with murder is to On the days when the prisons of this city are reduce murder to robbery, to confound in comemptied into the grave, let every spectator of the mon minds the gradations of iniquity, and incite dreadful procession put the same question to his the commission of a greater crime to prevent the own heart. Few among those who crowd in detection of a less. If only murder were punished thousands to the legal massacre, and look with with death, very few robbers would stain their carelessness, perhaps with triumph, on the ut- hands with blood; but when by the last act of most exacerbations of human misery, would cruelty, no new danger is incurred, and greater then be able to return without horror and dejec-security may be obtained, upon what principle tion. For, who can congratulate himself upon a shall we bid them forbear? life passed without some act more mischievous to the peace or prosperity of others, than the theft of a piece of money? It may be urged, that the sentence is often mitigated to simple robbery; but surely this is to confess that our laws are unreasonable in our It has been always the practice when any par- own opinion; and, indeed, it may be observed, ticular species of robbery becomes prevalent and that all but murderers have, at their last hour, common, to endeavour its suppression by capital the common sensations of mankind pleading in denunciations. Thus, one generation of male- their favour. From this conviction of the inefactors is commonly cut off, and their successors quality of the punishment to the offence, proare frightened into new expedients; the art of ceeds the frequent solicitation of pardons. They thievery is augmented with greater variety of who would rejoice at the correction of a thief, fraud, and subtilized to higher degrees of dexte-are yet shocked at the thought of destroying rity, 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 him. His crime shrinks to nothing, compared with his misery; and severity defeats itself by exciting pity. The gibbet, indeed, certainly, disables those. who die upon it from infesting the community; but their death seems not to contribute more to the reformation of their associates, than any other method of separation. A thief seldom passes much of his time in recollection or anticipation, but from robbery hastens to riot, and from riot to robbery; nor, when the grave closes upon his companion, has any other care than to find another. sonably fear to expose it to the public, could it be supported only by my own observations. I shall, therefore, by ascribing it to its author, Sir Tho mas More, endeavour to procure it that attention, which I wish always paid to prudence, to justice, and to mercy. No. 115.] TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 1751. Quadam parva quidem, sed non toleranda maritis. Some faults, though small, intolerable grow. JUV DRYDEN The frequency of capital punishments, therefore, rarely hinders the commission of a crime, but naturally and commonly prevents its detection, and is, if we proceed only upon prudential principles, chiefly for that reason to be avoided. Whatever may be urged by casuists 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 scarcely believe that two malefactors so different in guilt can be justly doomed to the same punishment; nor is the necessity of submitting the conscience to hu- I SIT down, in pursuance of my late engagement, man laws so plainly evinced, so clearly stated, or to recount the remaining part of the adventures so generally allowed, but that the pious, the ten-that befell me in my long quest of conjugal felicider, and the just, will always scruple 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 state in which there is no repentance, has conversed very little with mankind. And whatever epithets of reproach or contempt this compassion may incur from those who confound cruelty with firmness, I know not whether any wise man would wish it less powerful, or less extensive. If those whom the wisdom of our laws has condemned to die, had been detected in their rudiments of robbery, they might, by proper discipline and useful labour, have been disentangled from their habits, they might have escaped all the temptations to subsequent crimes, and passed their days in reparation and penitence, and detected they might all have been, had the prosecutors been certain that their lives would have been spared. I believe, every thief will confess, that he has been more than once seized and dismissed; and that he has sometimes ventured upon capital crimes, because he knew, that those whom he injured would rather connive at his escape, than cloud their minds with the horrors of his death. All laws against wickedness are ineffectual, unless some will inform, and some will prosecute; but till we mitigate the penalties for mere violations of property, information will always be hated, and prosecution dreaded. The heart of a good man cannot but recoil at the thought of punishing a slight injury with death; especially when he remembers that the thief might have procured safety by another crime, from which he was restrained only by his remaining virtue, The obligations to assist the exercise of public 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, because, if they had been sooner prosecuted, they would have suffered death before they deserved it. SIR, TO THE RAMBLER, ty, which, though I have not yet been so happy as to obtain it, I have at least endeavoured to deserve by unwearied diligence, without suffering from repeated disappointments any abatement of my hope, or repression of my activity. You must have observed in the world a species of mortals who employ themselves in promoting matrimony, and without any visible motive of interest or vanity, without any discoverable impulse of malice or benevolence, without any reason but that they want objects of attention and topics of conversation, are incessantly busy in procuring wives and husbands. They fill the ears of every single man and woman with some convenient match; and when they are informed of your age and fortune, offer a partner for life, with the same readiness, and the same indifference, as a salesman, when he has taken measure by his eye, fits his customer with a coat, It might be expected that they should soon be discouraged from this officious interposition by resentment or contempt; and that every man should determine the choice on which so much of his happiness must depend, by his own judg ment and observation; yet it happens, that as these proposals are generally made with a show of kindness, they seldom provoke anger, but are at worst heard with patience, and forgotten, They influence weak minds to approbation; for many are sure to find in a new acquaintance, whatever qualities report has taught them to expect; and in more powerful and active under standings they excite curiosity, and sometimes by a lucky chance, bring persons of similar tempers within the attraction of each other, I was known to possess a fortune, and to want a wife; and therefore was frequently attended by these Hymeneal solicitors, with whose importunity I was sometimes diverted, and sometimes perplexed; for they contended for me as vultures for a carcass; each employing all his eloquence, and all his artifices, to enforce and promote his own scheme, from the success of which he was to receive no other advantage than the pleasure of defeating others equally eager and equally industrious, An invitation to sup with one of those busy This scheme of invigorating the laws by relax-friends, made me, by a concerted chance, acation, and extirpating wickedness by lenity, is so quainted with Camilla, by whom it was expected remote from common practice, that I might rea- that I should be suddenly and irresistibly en turbance or altercation. I therefore soon resolved to address her, but was discouraged from prosecuting my courtship, by observing that her apartments were superstitiously regular; and that, unless she had notice of my visit, she was never to be seen. There is a kind of anxious cleanliness which I have always noted as the characteristic of a slattern; it is the superfluous scrupulosity of guilt, dreading discovery, and shunning suspicion; it is the violence of an effort against habit, which being impelled by external motives, cannot stop at the middle point. slaved. The lady whom the same kindness had | whom chance had brought her into company. brought without her own concurrence into the In Nitella I promised myself an easy friend, with lists of love, seemed to think me at least worthy whom I might loiter away the day without disof the honour of captivity; and exerted the power, both of her eyes and wit, with so much art and spirit, that though I had been too often deceived by appearances to devote myself irrevocably at the first interview, yet I could not suppress some raptures of admiration, and flutters of desire. I was easily persuaded to make nearer approaches; but soon discovered that a union with Camilla was not much to be wished. Camilla professed a boundless contempt for the folly, levity, ignorance, and impertinence of her own sex; and very frequently expressed her wonder that men of learning or experience could Nitella was always tricked out rather with submit to trifle away life with beings incapable nicety than elegance; and seldom could forbear of solid thought. In mixed companies she always to discover by her uneasiness and constraint, associated with the men, and declared her satis- that her attention was burdened, and her imafaction when the ladies retired. If any short ex-gination engrossed: I therefore concluded, that cursion into the country was proposed, she commonly insisted upon the exclusion of women from the party; because, where they were admitted, the time was wasted in frothy compliments, weak indulgences, and idle ceremonies. To show the greatness of her mind, she avoided all compliance with the fashion; and to boast the profundity of her knowledge, mistook the various textures of silk, confounded tabbies with damasks, and sent for ribands by wrong names. She despised the commerce of stated visits, a farce of empty form without instruction; and congratulated herself, that she never learned to write message cards. She often applauded the noble sentiment of Plato, who rejoiced that he was born a man rather than a woman; proclaimed her approbation of Swift's opinion, that women are only a higher species of monkeys; and confessed, that when she considered the behaviour, or heard the conversation of her sex, she could not but forgive the Turks for suspect-piness of accompanying her, which, after a short ing them to want souls. being only occasionally and ambitiously dressed, she was not familiarized to her own ornaments. There are so many competitors for the fame of cleanliness, that it is not hard to gain informa tion of those that fail, from those that desire to excel; I quickly found, that Nitella passed her time between finery and dirt; and was always in a wrapper, nightcap, and slippers, when she was not decorated for immediate show. I was then led by my evil destiny to Charyb dis, who never neglected an opportunity of seizing a new prey when it came within her reach. I thought myself quickly made happy by permission to attend her to public places, and pleased my own vanity with imagining the envy which I should raise in a thousand hearts, by appearing as the acknowledged favourite of Charybdis. She soon after hinted her intention to take a ramble for a fortnight, into a part of the kingdom which she had never seen. I solicited the hap reluctance, was indulged me. She had no other It was the joy and pride of Camilla to have curiosity on her journey, than after all possible provoked, by this insolence, all the rage of ha- means of expense; and was every moment taking tred, and all the persecutions of calumny; nor occasion to mention some delicacy, which was she ever more elevated with her own supe-knew it my duty upon such notices to procure. riority, than when she talked of female anger and female cunning. Well, said she, has nature provided that such virulence should be disabled by folly, and such cruelty be restrained by impotence. After our return, being now more familiar, she told me, whenever we met, of some new diver sion; at night she had notice of a charming company that would breakfast in the gardens; and in the morning had been informed of some Camilla doubtless expected, that what she lost new song in the opera, some new dress at the on one side, she should gain on the other; and playhouse, or some performer at a concert whom imagined that every male heart would be open to she longed to hear. Her intelligence was such, a lady, who made such generous advances to the that there never was a show, to which she did borders of virility. But man, ungrateful man, not summon me on the second day; and as she instead of springing forward to meet her, shrunk hated a crowd, and could not go alone, I was back at her approach. She was persecuted by obliged to attend at some intermediate hour, and the ladies as a deserter, and at best received by pay the price of a whole company. When we the men only as a fugitive. I, for my part, passed the streets, she was often charmed with amused myself a while with her fopperies, but some trinket in the toyshops; and, from modenovelty soon gave way to detestation, for no- rate desires of seals and snuff-boxes, rose, by dething out of the common order of nature can be grees, to gold and diamonds. I now began to long borne. I had no inclination to a wife who find the smile of Charybdis too costly for a prihad the ruggedness of a man without his force, vate purse, and added one more to six-and-forty and the ignorance of a woman without her soft-lovers, whose fortune and patience her rapacity ness; nor could I think my quiet and honour to had exhausted. be intrusted to such audacious virtue as was hourly courting danger, and soliciting assault. My next mistress was Nitella, a lady of gentle inien, and soft voice, always speaking to approve, and ready to receive direction from those with Imperia then took possession of my affections, but kept them only for a short time. She had newly inherited a large fortune, and having spent the earlier part of her life in the perusal of romances, brought with her into the gay world all the pride of Cleopatra; expected nothing less because I kept my coat clean, and my comthan vows, altars, and sacrifices; and thought plexion free from freckles; and did not come her charms dishonoured, and her power in-home, like my brother, mired and tanned, nor fringed, by the softest opposition to her senti- carry corn in my hat to the horse, nor bring dirty ments, or the smallest transgression of her com- curs into the parlour. mands. Time might indeed cure this species of pride in a mind not naturally undiscerning, and vitiated only by false representations; but the operations of time are slow; and I therefore left her to grow wise at leisure, or to continue in error at her own expense. Thus I have hitherto, in spite of myself, passed my life in frozen celibacy. My friends, indeed, often tell me, that I flatter my imagination with higher hopes than human nature can gratify; that I dress up an ideal charmer in all the radiance of perfection, and then enter the world to look for the same excellence in corporeal beauty. But surely, Mr. RAMBLER, it is not madness to hope for some terrestrial lady unstained with the spots which I have been describing; at least, I am resolved to pursue my search; for I am so far from thinking meanly of marriage, that I believe it able to afford the highest happiness decreed to our present state; and if, after all these miscarriages, I find a woman that fills up my expectation, you shall hear once more from Yours, &c. I was the second son of a country gentleman by the daughter of a wealthy citizen of London. My father having by his marriage freed the estate from a heavy mortgage, and paid his sisters their portions, thought himself discharged from all obligation to further thought, and entitled to spend the rest of his life in rural pleasures. He therefore spared nothing that might contribute to the completion of his felicity; he procured the best guns and horses that the kingdom could supply, paid large salaries to his groom and huntsman, and became the envy of the country for the discipline of his hounds. But, above all his other attainments, he was eminent for a breed of pointers and setting-dogs, which by long and vigilant cultivation he had so much improved, that not a partridge or heathcock could rest in security; and game of whatever species, that dared to light upon his manor, was beaten down by his shot, or covered with his nets. My elder brother was very early initiated in the chace, and, at an age when other boys are creeping like snails unwillingly to school, he could wind the horn, beat the bushes, bound over hedges, and swim rivers. When the huntsman one day broke his leg, he supplied his place with equal abilities, and came home with the scut in his hat, amidst the acclamations of the whole village. I being either delicate or timorous, less desirous of honour, or less capable of sylvan heroism, was always the favourite of my mother; My mother had not been taught to amuse her self with books, and being much inclined to despise the ignorance and barbarity of the country ladies, disdained to learn their sentiments or conversation, and had made no addition to the notions which she had brought from the precincts of Cornhill. She was, therefore, always recount ing the glories of the city; enumerating the succession of mayors; celebrating the magnificence of the banquets at Guildhall; and relating the civilities paid her at the companies' feasts by men, of whom some are now made aldermen, some have fined for sheriffs, and none are worth less than forty thousand pounds. She frequently displayed her father's greatness; told of the large bills which he had paid at sight; of the sums for which his word would pass upon the Exchange; the heaps of gold which he used on Saturday night to toss about with a shovel; the extent of his warehouse, and the strength of his doors; and when she relaxed her imagination with lower subjects, described the furniture of their country-house, or repeated the wit of the clerks and porters. By these narratives I was fired with the splendour and dignity of London, and of trade. I therefore devoted myself to a shop, and warmed my imagination from year to year with inquiries about the privileges of a freeman, the power of the common council, the dignity of a wholesale dealer, and the grandeur of mayoralty, to which my mother assured me that many had arrived who began the world with less than myself. I was very impatient to enter into a path, which led to such honour and felicity; but was forced for a time to endure some repression of my eagerness, for it was my grandfather's maxim, that a young man seldom makes much money, who is out of his time before two-and-twenty. They thought it necessary, therefore, to keep me at home till the proper age, without any other employment than that of learning merchants' accounts, and the art of regulating books; but at length the tedious days elapsed, I was transplanted to town, and, with great satisfaction to myself, bound to a haberdasher. My master, who had no conception of any virtue, merit, or dignity, but that of being rich, had all the good qualities which naturally arise from a close and unwearied attention to the main chance; his desire to gain wealth was so well tempered by the vanity of showing it, that, without any other principle of action, he lived in the esteem of the whole commercial world; and was always treated with respect by the only men, whose good opinion he valued or solicited, those who were universally allowed to be richer than himself. By his instructions I learned in a few weeks to handle a yard with great dexterity, to wind tape neatly upon the ends of my fingers, and to make up parcels with exact frugality of paper and pack thread; and soon caught from my fellowapprentices the true grace of a counter-bow, the careless air with which a small pair of scales is to be held between the fingers, and the vigour and sprightliness with which the box, after the riband has been cut, is returned into its place. [ of my purse; and that it is fine, when a man can Having no desire of any higher employment, and therefore applying all my powers to the knowledge of my trade, I was quickly master of all that could be known, became a critic in small wares, contrived new variations of figures, and new mixtures of colours, and was sometimes consulted by the weavers, when they projected fashions for the ensuing spring. With all these accomplishments, in the fourth year of my apprenticeship I paid a visit to my Liends in the country, where I expected to be received as a new ornament of the family, and consulted by the neighbouring gentlemen as a master of pecuniary knowledge, and by the ladies as an oracle of the mode. But unhappily, at the first public table, to which I was invited, appeared a student of the Temple, and an officer of the guards, who looked upon me with a smile of contempt, which destroyed at once all my hopes of distinction, so that I durst hardly raise my eyes for fear of encountering their superiority of mien. Nor was my courage revived by any opportunities of displaying my knowledge; for the templar entertained the company for part of the day with historical narratives and political observations; and the colonel afterwards detailed the adventures of a birth-night, told the claims and expectations of the courtiers, and gave an account of assemblies, gardens, and diversions. I, indeed, essayed to fill up a pause in a parliamentary debate with a faint mention of trade and Spaniards; and once attempted, with some warmth, to correct a gross mistake about a silver breast-knot; but neither of my antagonists seemed to think a reply necessary; they resumed their discourse without emotion, and again engrossed the attention of the company; nor did one of the ladies appear desirous to know my opinion of her dress, or to hear how long the carnation shot with white, that was then new amongst them, had been antiquated in town. As I knew that neither of these gentlemen had more money than myself, I could not discover what had depressed me in their presence; nor why they were considered by others as more worthy of attention and respect; and therefore resolved, when we met again, to rouse my spirit, and force myself into notice. I went very early to the next weekly meeting, and was entertaining a small circle very successfully with a minute representation of my lord mayor's show, when the colonel entered careless and gay, sat down with a kind of unceremonious civility, and without appearing to intend any interruption, drew my audience away to the other part of the room, to which I had not the courage to follow them. Soon after came in the lawyer, not indeed with the same attraction of mien, but with greater powers of language: and by one or other the company was so happily amused, that I was neither heard nor seen, nor was able to give any other proof of my existence than that I put round the glass, and was in my turn permitted to name the toast. My mother indeed endeavoured to comfort me in my vexation, by telling me, that perhaps these showy talkers were hardly able to pay every one his own; that he who has money in his pocket needs not care what any man says of him; that if I minded my trade, the time will come when lawyers and soldiers would be glad to borrow out set his hands to his sides, and say he is worth forty thousand pounds every day of the year These and many more such consolations and encouragements I received from my good mother, which, however, did not much allay my uneasiness; for having by some accident heard, that the country ladies despised her as a cit, Í had therefore no longer much reverence for her. opinions, but considered her as one whose ignorance and prejudice had hurried me, though without ill intentions, into a state of meanness and ignominy, from which I could not find any possibility of rising to the rank which my ancestors had always held. I returned, however, to my master, and busied myself among thread, and silks, and laces, but without my former cheerfulness and alacrity. I had now no longer any felicity in contemplating the exact disposition of my powdered curls, the equal plaits of my ruffles, or the glossy blackness of my shoes; nor heard with my former elevation those compliments which ladies sometimes condescended to pay me upon my readiness in twisting a paper, or counung out the change. The term of Young Man, with which I was sometimes honoured, as I carried a parcel to the door of a coach, tortured my imagination; I grew negligent of my person, and sullen in my temper; often mistook the demands of the customers, treated their caprices and objections with contempt, and received and dismissed them with surly silence. My master was afraid lest the shop should suffer by this change of my behaviour; and, therefore, after some expostulation, posted me in the warehouse, and preserved me from the danger and reproach of desertion, to which my discontent would certainly have urged me, had I continued any longer behind the counter. In the sixth year of my servitude my brother died of drunken joy, for having run down a fox that had baffled all the packs in the province. I was now heir, and with the hearty consent of my master commenced gentleman. The adventures in which my new character engaged me shall be communicated in another letter, by Sir, Yours, &c. MISOCAPELUS. SIR, NOTHING has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend. All industry must be excited by hope; and as the student often proposes no other reward to himself than praise, he is easily discouraged by contempt and insult. He who brings with him into a clamorous multitude the timidity of recluse speculation, and has never hardened his front in pub lic life, or accustomed his passions to the vicissi tudes and accidents, the triumphs and defeats of mixed conversation, will blush at the stare of pe |