forely oppreffed in civil wars carried on by the nobles against each other, turned defperate, gathered together in bodies, refolving to extirpate all the nobles. A party of them, anno 1358, forced open the castle of a knight, hung him upon a gallows, violated in his prefence his wife and daughters, roasted him upon a spit, compelled his wife and children to eat of his flesh, and terminated that horrid scene with maffacring the whole family, and burning the caftle. When they were asked, fays Froiffard, why they committed fuch abominable actions, their answer was, "That they did as they faw others do ; "and that all the nobles in the world "ought to be destroyed." The nobles, when they got the upper hand, were equally cruel. They put all to fire and fword, and maffacred every peasant who came in the way, without troubling themfelves to feparate the innocent from the guilty. The Count de Ligny encouraged his nephew, a boy of fifteen, to kill with his own hand fome prisoners who were his countrymen; in which, fays Monftrelet, the young man took great delight. How much worse than brutal must have been

the

the manners of that age! for even a beast of prey kills not but when inftigated by hunger. The third act of stealing from the lead-mines in Derby was, by a law of Edward I. punifhed in the following manner. A hand of the criminal was nailed to a table; and, in that condition, he was left without meat or drink, having no means for freedom but to employ the one hand to cut off the other. The barbarity of the English at that period made fevere punishments neceffary: but the punishment mentioned goes beyond feverity; it is brutal cruelty. The barbarous treatment of the Jews during the dark ages of Christianity, gives pregnant evidence, that Chriftians were not fhort of Pagans in cruelty. Poisoning and affaffination were moft licentiously perpetrated no farther back than the laft century. Some pious men made vigorous efforts in more than one general council to have affaffination condemned, as repugnant to the law of God; but in vain *.

* It required the ferocity and cruelty of a barbarous age to give currency to a Mahometan doctrine, That the fword is the most effectual means of con

verting

I

I wish to soften the foregoing fcene: it may be foftened a little. Among barbarians, punishments must be fanguinary, as their bodies only are fenfible of pain, not their minds *.

The refloration of arts and feiences in Europe, and a reformation in religion, had a wonderful effect in fweetening manners, and promoting the interefts of fociety. Of all crimes high treafon is the most involved in circumftances, and the most diffi-cult to be defined or circumfcribed. yet, for that crime are referved the moft exquifite torments. In England, the punishment is, to cut up the criminal a

And

verting men to a dominant religion. The establishment of the Inquifition will not permit me to fay, that Chriftians never put in practice a doctrine fo deteftable on the contrary, they furpaffed the Mahometans, giving no quarter to heretics either in this life, or in that to come. The eternity of hell-torments is a doctrine no lefs inconfiftent with the juflice of the Deity, than with his benevolence.

The Ruffians are far from refinement either in manners or feelings. The Baron de Manstein, talkingof the feverity of Count Munich's military difcipline, obferves, that it is indifpenfible in Ruffia, where mildnefs makes no impreffion; and that the Ruffians are governed by fear, not by love.

VOL. I.

Z z

live,

live, to tear out his heart, to dash it about his ears, and to throw it into the flames. The fame punishment continues in form, not in reality: the heart indeed is torn out, but not till the criminal is strangled. Even the virulence of religious zeal is confiderably abated. Savonarola was condemned to the flames as an impious impoftor; but he was firft privately ftrangled. The fine arts, which humanize manners, were in Italy at that time accelerating toward perfection. The famous Latimer was in England condemned to be burnt for herefy: but bags of gunpowder were put under his arms, that he might be burnt with the least pain. Even Knox, a violent Scotch reformer, acknowledges, that Wishart was ftrangled before he was thrown into the flames for herefy. So bitter was the late perfecution against the Jefuits, that not only were their perfons profcribed, but in many places their books, not even excepting books upon mathematics, and other abftract fubjects. That perfecution resembled in many particulars the perfecution against the knights-templars fifty-nine of the latter were burnt alive the former were really less inno

cent;

cent; and yet fuch humanity prevails at prefent, that not a drop of Jefuit-blood has been shed. A bankrupt in Scotland, if he have not fuffered by unavoidable misfortune, is by law condemned to wear a party-coloured garment. That law is not now put in execution, unless where a bankrupt deferves to be ftigmatized for his culpable misconduct.

Whether the following late inftance of barbarity do not equal any of those above mentioned, I leave to the reader. No traveller who vifited Petersburgh during the reign of the Empress Elizabeth can be ignorant of Madam Lapouchin, the great ornament of that court. Her intimacy with a foreign ambassador having brought her under fufpicion of plotting with him against the government, she was condemned to undergo the punishment of the knout. At the place of execution, she appeared in a genteel undrefs, which heightened her beauty. Of whatever indifcretion fhe might have been guilty, the sweetnefs of her countenance and her compofure, left not in the fpectators the slightest fufpicion of guilt. Her youth alfo, her beauty, her life and spirit pleaded for her.

But