Hyperbolical tyrant, who breakfafts on the wind, than in little Norval, as harmless as the babe unborn.

Adieu.

LETTER LXXIX.

FROM THE SAME.

I HAVE always regarded the spirit of mercy which appears in the Chinese laws with admiration. An order for the execution of a criminal is carried from court by flow journeys of fix miles a day, but a pardon is fent down with the most rapid difpatch. If five fons of the fame father be guilty of the fame offence, one of them is forgiven, in order to continue the family and comfort his aged parents in their decline.

Similar to this, there is a fpirit of mercy breathes through the laws of England, which fome erroneoufly endeavour to fupprefs; the laws however seem unwilling to punish the offender, or to furnish the officers of juftice with every means of acting with feverity. Those who arreft debtors are denied the use of arms, the nightly watch is permitted to reprefs the diforders of the drunken citizens only with clubs; Juftice in fuch a cafe feems to hide her terrors, and permits fome offenders to escape rather than load any with a punishment difproportioned to the crime.

Thus it is the glory of an Englishman, that he is. not only governed by laws, but that these are alfo tempered by mercy; a country restrained by fevere laws, and thofe too executed with feverity (as in Japan) is under the moft terrible species of tyranny;

a royal

a royal tyrant is generally dreadful to the great, but numerous penal laws grind every rank of people, and chiefly thofe leaft able to refift oppreffion, the poor.

It is very poffible, thus for a people to become flaves to laws of their own enacting, as the Athenians were to thofe of Draco. "It might firft happen," fays the hiftorian," that men with pecu"liar talents for villainy, attempted to evade the or"dinances already established; their practices there"fore, foon brought on a new law levelled against "them; but the fame degree of cunning which had "taught the knave to evade the former ftatutes, "taught him to evade the latter alfo; he flew to "new fhifts, while Juftice pursued with new ordinances; ftill, however, he kept his proper dif❝tance, and whenever one crime was judged penal by the ftate, he left committing it in order to "practise fome unforbidden fpecies of villainy. "Thus the criminal against whom the threatnings "were denounced always efcaped free; while the "fimple rogue alone felt the rigour of juftice. In "the mean time penal laws became numerous, al"moft every perfon in the ftate unknowingly at "different times offended, and was every moment

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fubject to a malicious profecution." In fact, penal laws, inftead of preventing crimes, are generally enacted after the commiffion; inftead of repreffing the growth of ingenious villainy, only multiply deceit, by putting it upon new shifts and expedients of practifing with impunity.

Such laws, therefore, refemble the guards which are fometimes impofed upon tributary princes, apparently indeed to fecure them from danger, but in reality to confirm their captivity.

Penal laws, it must be allowed, fecure property in a ftate, but they also diminish perfonal fecurity in

the fame proportion: there is no pofitive law, how equitable foever, that may not be fometimes capable of injuftice. When a law enacted to make theft punishable with death, happens to be equitably executed, it can at beft only guard our poffeffions; but when by favour or ignorance Juftice pronounces a wrong verdict, it then attacks our lives, fince in fuch a cafe the whole community fuffers with the innocent victim; if therefore in order to fecure the effects of one man, I fhould make a law which may take away the life of another, in fuch a cafe to attain a fmaller good, I am guilty of a greater evil; to fecure fociety in the poffeffion of a bauble, I render a real and valuable poffeffion precarious. And indeed the experience of every age may ferve to vindicate the affertion: no law could be more just than that called lefæ Majeftatis, when Rome was governed by Emperors. It was but reasonable, that every confpiracy against the adminiftration fhould be detected and punished; yet what terrible flaughters fucceeded in confequence of its enactment; profcrip tions, ftranglings, poifonings, in almost every family of diftinction; yet all done in a legal way, every criminal had his trial, and loft his life by a majority of witneffes.

And fuch will ever be the cafe, where punishments are numerous, and where a weak, vicious, but above all, where a mercenary magiftrate is concerned in their execution; fuch a man defires to fee penal laws increased, fince he too frequently has it in his power to turn them into inftruments of extortion; in fuch hands the more laws, the wider means, not of fatisfying juftice, but of fatiating avarice.

A mercenary magiftrate who is rewarded in proportion, not to his integrity, but to the number he

convicts,

convicts, must be a perfon of the most unblemished character, or he will lean on the fide of cruelty; and when once the work of injuftice is begun, it is impoffible to tell how far it will proceed; it is faid of the Hyæna that naturally it is no way ravenous, but when once it has tafted human flesh, it becomes the moft voracious animal of the foreft, and continues to perfecute mankind ever after: a corrupt magiftrate may be confidered as a human Hyæna; he begins perhaps by a private fnap, he goes on to a morfel among friends, he proceeds to a meal in public, from a meal he advances to a furfeit, and at laft fucks blood like a vampyre.

Not into fuch hands fhould the adminiftration of juftice be entrusted, but to thofe who know how to reward as well as to punifh. It was a fine faying of Nangfu the emperor, who being told that his enemies had raised an infurrection in one of the diftant provinces, Come then, my friends, faid he, follow me, and I promise you that we fhall quickly deftroy them; he marched forward, and the rebels fubmitted upon his approach. All now thought that he would take the moft fignal revenge, but were furprized to fee the captives treated with mildness and humanity. How! cries his firft minifter, is this the manner in which you fulfil your promife? your royal word was given that your enemies fhould be destroyed, and behold you have pardoned all, and even careffed fome! I promised, replied the emperor, with a generous air, to destroy my enemies, I have fulfilled my word, for fee they are enemies no longer; I have made friends of them.

This, could it always fucceed, were the true method of deftroying the enemies of a state; well it were if rewards and mercy alone could regulate the commonwealth; but fince punishments are fome

times neceffary, let them at least be rendered terrible, by being executed but feldom, and let Juftice lift her fword rather to terrify than revenge.

Adieu,

I HAVE as yet given you but a short and imperfect defcription of the Ladies of England. Woman, my friend, is a fubject not eafily understood, even in China; what therefore can be expected from my knowledge of the fex in a country where they are univerfally allowed to be riddles, and I but a stranger?

To confefs a truth, I was afraid to begin the defcription, left the fex fhould undergo fome new revolution before it was finished; and my picture fhould thus become old before it could well be faid to have ever been new. To day they are lifted upon ftilts, to-morrow they lower their heels and raise their heads; their cloaths at one time are bloated out with whalebone; at present they have laid their hoops afide and are become as flim as mermaids. All, all is in a state of continual fluctuation, from the Mandarin's wife, who rattles through the ftreets in her chariot, to the humble femftrefs, who clatters over the pavement in iron-fhod pattens.

What chiefly diftinguishes the fex at prefent is the train. As a Lady's quality or fashion was once determined here by the circumference of her hoop, both are now measured by the length of her tail.

Women