hand. These chiefs, it is true, were Christians, and there is a great difference between the principles of a christian warrior and those of a pagan hero.

But why were these men, whom christianity restrained when they would have put themselves to death, restrained by nothing when they chose to poison, assassinate, and bring their conquered enemies to the scaffold? Does not the Christian religion forbid these murders much more than self-murder, of which the New Testament makes no mention?

The apostles of suicide tell us, that it is quite allowable to quit one's house when one is tired of it. Agreed: but most men would prefer sleeping in a mean house to lying in the open air.

I once received a circular letter from an Englishman, in which he offered a prize to any one who should most satisfactorily prove, that there are occasions on which a man might kill himself. I made no answer: I had nothing to prove to him. He had only to examine whether he liked better to die than to live.

Another Englishman came to me at Paris, in 1724: he was ill, and promised me that he would kill himself if he was not cured by the 20th of July. He accordingly gave me his epitaph, in these words-“ Valete cura!"." Farewell care!"-and gave me twentyfive louis to get a small monument erected to him at the end of the faubourg St. Martin. I returned him his money on the 20th of July, and kept his epitaph.

In my own time, the last prince of the house of Courtenai, when very old, and the last of the branch of Lorraine-Harcourt, when very young, destroyed themselves, almost without its being heard of. These occurrences cause a terrible uproar the first day; but when the property of the deceased has been divided, they are no longer talked of.

The following most remarkable of all suicides has just occurred at Lyons, in June, 1770

A young man well known, who was handsome, well made, clever, and amiable, fell in love with a young woman whom her parents would not give to him. So far, we have nothing more than the opening

scene of a comedy: the astonishing tragedy is to follow.

The lover broke a blood-vessel, and the surgeons informed him there was no remedy. His mistress engaged to meet him, with two pistols and two daggers, in order that, if the pistols missed, the daggers might the next moment pierce their hearts. They embraced each other for the last time: rose-coloured ribbons were tied to the triggers of the pistols; the lover holding the ribbon of his mistress's pistol, while she held the ribbon of his. Both fired at a signal given, and both fell at the same instant.

Of this fact the whole city of Lyons is witness. Pætus and Arria, you set the example; but you were condemned by a tyrant, while love alone immolated these two victims.

Laws against Suicide.

Has any law, civil or religious, ever forbidden a man to kill himself, on pain of being hanged after death, or on pain of being damned?

It is true that Virgil has said

Proxima deinde tenent mosti loca, qui sibi lethum
Insontes peperêre manu, lucemque perosi

Projecêre animas. Quàm vellent æthere in alto
Nunc et pauperiem et duros perferre labores!
Fata obstant, tristique palus inamabilis undâ
Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa coërcet.

NEIS, lib. vi. v. 434 et seq.

The next in place, and punishment, are they
Who prodigally throw their souls away-
Fools, who, repining at their wretched state,
And loathing anxious life, suborn their fate:
With late repentance now they would retrieve
The bodies they forsook, and wish to live;
Their pains and poverty desire to bear,

To view the light of heav'n and breathe the vital air ;-
But Fate forbids, the Stygian floods oppose,

And, with nine circling streams, the captive souls inclose.

DRYDEN.

Such was the religion of some of the pagans; yet, notwithstanding the weariness which awaited them in the next world, it was an honour to quit this by killing themselves ;-so contradictory are the ways of men.

And amongst us, is not duelling unfortunately still honourable, though forbidden by reason, by religion, and by every law? If Cato and Cæsar, Anthony and Augustus, were not duellists, it was not that they were less brave than our Frenchmen. If the duke of Montmorency, marshal de Marillac, De Thou, CinqMars, and so many others, chose rather to be dragged to execution in a waggon, like highwaymen, than to kill themselves like Cato and Brutus, it was not that they had less courage than those Romans, nor less of what is called honour. The true reason is, that at Paris self-murder in such cases was not then the fashion but it was the fashion at Rome.

:

The women of the Malabar coast throw themselves, living, on the funeral-piles of their husbands. Have they, then, more courage than Cornelia? No; but in that country it is the custom for the wives to burn themselves.

In Japan, it is the custom for a man of honour, when he has been insulted by another man of honour, to rip open his belly in the presence of his enemy, and say to him-" Do thou likewise, if thou hast the heart." The aggressor is dishonoured for ever, if he does not immediately plunge a great knife into his belly.

The only religion in which suicide is forbidden by a clear and positive law, is Mahometanism. In the fourth sura it is said-" Do not kill yourself, for God is merciful unto you; and whosoever killeth himself through malice and wickedness, shall assuredly be burned in hell-fire."

This is a literal translation. The text, like many other texts, appears to want common sense. What is meant by "Do not kill yourself, for God is merciful"? Perhaps we are to understand-Do not sink under your misfortunes, which God may alleviate: do not be so foolish as to kill yourself to-day, since you may be happy to-morrow.

"And whosoever killeth himself through malice and wickedness."-This is yet more difficult to explain. Perhaps, in all antiquity, this never happened to any one but the Phædra of Euripides, who hanged herself

on purpose to make Theseus believe that she had been forcibly violated by Hippolytus. In our own times, a man shot himself in the head, after arranging all things to make another man suspected of the act.

In the play of George Dandin, his jade of a wife threatens him with killing herself to have him hanged. Such cases are rare. If Mahomet foresaw them, he may be said to have seen a great way.

The famous Duverger de Haurane, abbot of St. Cyran, regarded as the founder of Port Royal, wrote, about the year 1608, a treatise on suicide, which has become one of the scarcest books in Europe.

"The Decalogue," says he, "forbids us to kill. In this precept, self-murder seems no less to be comprised than murder of our neighbour. But if there are cases in which it is allowable to kill our neighbour, there likewise are cases in which it is allowable to kill ourselves.

"We must not make an attempt upon our lives until we have consulted reason. The public authority, which holds the place of God, may dispose of our lives. The reason of man may likewise hold the place of the reason of God: it is a ray of the eternal light."

St. Cyran extends this argument, which may be considered as a mere sophism, to great length; but when he comes to the explanation and the details, it is more difficult to answer him. He says “A man may kill himself for the good of his prince, for that of his country, or for that of his relations.

We do not, indeed, see how Codrus or Curtius could be condemned. No sovereign would dare to punish the family of a man who had devoted himself to death for him: nay, there is not one who would dare neglect to recompense it. St. Thomas, before St. Cyran, had said the same thing. But we need neither St. Thomas, nor cardinal Bonaventure, nor Duverger de Haurane, to tell us that a man who dies for his country is deserving of praise.

The abbot of St. Cyran concludes, that it is allowable to do for ourselves what it is noble to do for others. All that is advanced by Plutarch, by Seneca,

by Montagne, and by fifty other philosophers, in favour of suicide, is sufficiently known: it is a hacknied topic-a worn-out common-place. I seek not to apologise for an act which the laws condemn; but neither the Old Testament, nor the New, has ever forbidden man to depart this life when it has become insupportable to him. No Roman law condemned self-murder: on the contrary, the following was the law of the em peror Antonine, which was never revoked :

"If your father or your brother, not being accused of any crime, kill himself, either to escape from grief, or through weariness of life, or through despair, or through mental derangement, his will shall be valid; or, if he die intestate, his heirs shall succeed."

Notwithstanding this humane law of our masters, we still drag on a sledge, and drive a stake through the body of a man who has died a voluntary death: we do all we can to make his memory infamous; we dishonour his family as far as we are able; we punish the son for having lost his father, and the widow for being deprived of her husband. +

We even confiscate the property of the deceased; which is robbing the living of the patrimony which of right belongs to them. This custom is derived from our canon law, which deprives of Christian burial such as die a voluntary death. Hence it is concluded, that we cannot inherit from a man who is judged to have no inheritance in heaven. The canon law, under the head "De Pœnitentiâ," assures us, that Judas committed a greater crime in strangling himself than in selling our Lord Jesus Christ.

CELTS.

AMONG those who have had the leisure, the means, and the courage, to seek for the origin of nations, there have been some who have found that of our Celts,

* De bonis eorum qui sibi mortem. Leg. 3. ff. cod.

The year 1823 deserves to be marked in the annals of England, as that in which these odious violations of common decency and common feeling were done away-it is to be hoped for ever.-T.