obvious to eye-fight. From many passages in the Old Teftament it appears, that the external act only, with its confequences, was regarded. Ifaac, imitating his father Abraham, made his wife Rebecca pafs for his fifter. Abimelech, King of the Philistines, having difcovered the imposture, faid to Ifaac, "What is this thou "hast done unto us? One of the people

might lightly have lien with thy wife, " and thou fhouldst have brought guilti"nefs upon us (a)." Jonathan was condemned to die for tranfgreffing a prohibition he had never heard of (b.) A fin of ignorance, i. e. an action done without ill intention, required a facrifice of expiation (c). Saul, defeated by the Philiftines, fell on his own fword: the wound not being mortal, he prevailed on a young Amalekite, to pull out the fword, and to dispatch him with it. Jofephus (d) says, that David ordered the criminal to be delivered up to juftice as a regicide.

The Greeks appear to have wavered greatly about intention, fometimes holding it essential to a crime, and fometimes

(a) Genefis, chap. 26.
(c) Leviticus, chap. 4.

(b) 1 Samuel, xiv. 44. (d) Book 3. of Antiquities. difregarding

difregarding it as a circumftance of no moment. Of thefe contradictory opinions, we have pregnant evidence in the two tragedies of Oedipus; the first taking it for granted, that a crime confifts entirely in the external act and its consequences; the other holding intention to be indifpenfable. Oedipus had killed his father Laius, and married his mother Jocasta; but without any criminal intention, being ignorant of his relation to them. And yet history informs us, that the gods punished the Thebans with peftilence, for fuffering a wretch fo grofsly criminal to live. Sophocles, author of both tragedies, puts the following words in the mouth of Tirefia's the prophet.

-Know then,

That Oedipus, in fhameful bonds united,
With thofe he loves, unconfcious of his guilt,
Is yet moft guilty.

And that doctrine is efpoufed by Aristotle in a later period; who holding Oedipus to have been deeply criminal, tho' without intention, is of opinion, that a more proper fubject for tragedy never was brought upon the stage. Nay as a philo

fopher

fopher he talks currently of any involuntary crime. Oreftes, in Euripides, acknowledges himself to be guilty in killing his mother; yet afferts with the fame breath, that his crime was inevitable, a neceffary crime, a crime commanded by religion.

In Oedipus Coloneus, the other tragedy mentioned, a very different opinion is maintained. A defence is made for that unlucky man, agreeable to found moral principles; that, having had no bad intention, he was entirely innocent; and that his misfortunes ought to be ascribed to the wrath of the gods.

Thou who upbraid'ft me thus for all my woes,
Murder and inceft, which against my will
I had committed; fo it pleas'd the gods,
Offended at my race for former crimes.
But I am guiltless: can't thou name a fault
Deferving this For, tell me, was it mine,
When to my father, Phoebus did declare,
That he fhould one day perifh by the hand
Of his own child; was Oedipus to blame,
Who had no being then? If, born at length
To wretchednefs, he met his fire unknown,

And flew him; that involuntary deed

Can't thou condemn? And for my fatal marriage, Doft thou not blush to name it? was not the

Thy fifter, the who bore me, ignorant

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A a

And

And guiltless woman! afterwards my wife,

And mother to my children? What she did, she
did unknowing.

But, not for that, nor for my murder'd father,
Have I deferv'd thy bitter taunts: for, tell me,
Thy life attack'd, wouldst thou have staid to ask
Th' affaffin, if he were thy father? No;
Self-love would urge thee to revenge the infult.
Thus was I drove to ill by th' angry gods;
This, fhould my father's foul revifit earth,
Himself would own, and pity Oedipus.

Again, in the fourth act, the following prayer is put up for Oedipus by the cho

rus,

O grant,

That not opprefs'd by tort'ring pain,

Beneath the ftroke of death he linger long;

But swift, with easy steps, descend to Styx's drear

abode;

For he hath led a life of toil and pain;

May the juft gods repay his undeserved woe.

The audience was the fame in both plays. Did they think Oedipus to be guilty in the one play, and innocent in the other? If they did not, how could both plays be relished? if they did, they must have been grofsly ftupid.

The statues of a Roman Emperor were held fo facred, that to treat them with any contempt

contempt was high treason. This ridiculous opinion was carried fo far out of common fenfe, that a man was held guilty of high treafon, if a stone thrown by him happened accidentally to touch one of these ftatues. And the law continued in force till abrogated by a refcript of Severus Antoninus (a).

In England, fo little was intention regarded, that cafual homicide, and even homicide in felf-defence, were capitally punished. It requires ftrong evidence to vouch fo abfurd a law; and I have the ftrongest, viz. the act 52° Henry III. cap. 26. converting the capital punishment into a forfeiture of moveables. The fame abfurdity continued much longer to be law in Scotland. By act 19. parl. 1649, renewed act 22. parl. 1661, the capital punishment is converted to imprisonment, or a fine to the wife and children. In a period fo late as the Reftoration, strange blindness it was not to be fenfible, that homicide in felf-defence, being a lawful act juftified by the strictest rules of morality, fubjects not a man to punishment,

(a) 1. 5. ad leg. Jul. Majeft,

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