cient for its own errors; and disdains the arts by which the inevitable variations of human opinion are easily concealed from the multitude. As eloquence always partakes of exaggeration, it necessarily magnifies the apparent dissimilarity between the different opinions of an eloquent writer. Where the colouring is most splendid, the contrasts are most striking; and even the slightest shades of difference will be more perceptible. Every revolution of the present age has been an event in Mad. de Staël's private life. In a person of ardent sensibility amidst the agitations of an eventful life, we shall not severely blame some tendencies towards new exaggerations; and we cannot wonder that she should be disposed to an almost undistinguishing partiality for the character and measures of the enemies of her persecutor. The operation of so just a resentment on judgment, is neither to be forgotten nor condemned. In estimating her character it may, perhape, be respected; but in weighing her authority it must be deducted. Whatever may be the oscillations of a susceptible mind in a stormy atmosphere, Madame de Staël, we are persuaded, is destined to be the permanent advocate of justice, of humanity, of resistance to tyranny, and reformation of abuse. Her animosity to corruption and oppression will ultimately be without distinction of party or country-or with no other distinction than that superior indignation which enlightened minds feel, when these evils disgrace and weaken the cause which they themselves espouse.

On the question of suicide, it is perhaps possible to state the whole truth more plainly and dispassionately than has been hitherto done. It must be admitted, that every act by which a man voluntarily causes his own death, is not criminal. All such acts are, however, suicides. Whether a man produced his own death by swallowing a cup of poison, or by mounting a breach, (supposing death to be in both cases foreseen as the inevitable consequence of the act,) it is evident that in both cases he equally kills himself. But it is obvious, that there are circumstances in which it is a duty to do acts of which a man's own death is the necessary result. This is no uncommon dictate of military obedience. In all operations of war, it is a duty to hazard life; and a greater degree of the same obligation may require its sacrifice: If it were constantly criminal to cause the destruction of one's life, there must be a criminality of the same kind, though of an inferior degree, in risking it. It is vain to say, that a volunteer on a forlorn hope has a chance of escape; for it may be said with equal truth, that there is also a chance of the failure of the deadliest poison. The agent, in both cases, expects his own death and in that of the soldier, the moral approbation is highest, and the fame is most brilliant, where death is the most certain. This, indeed, is so far from being an uncommon case, that it comprehends a very

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large class of human actions; being not only the duty of soldiers, but of all those who are engaged in eminently perilous occupations --and occasionally of all human beings. It is required from men of the most obscure condition, who are neither trained to any delicacy of moral perception, nor supported by the prospect of reputation. Its violation is punished by death, or by the heaviest and most irremissible disgrace. Maternal affection renders the feeblest and most timid women capable of discharging this stern and terrible duty.

Besides these suicides of duty, there are other cases of the hazard or sacrifice of life, which, not being positively prescribed by the rules of conduct, are considered as acts of virtue of the most arduous nature, requiring singular magnanimity, and justly distinguished by the most splendid reputation. Codrus and Decius present themselves to the recollection of every reader. When a Scotch Highland gentleman personated Prince Charles Stuartwhen Madame Elizabeth presented herself to the furious rabble as Marie Antoinette-every human heart acknowledges the generous virtue which made the first sacrifice, and the second expose life, in order to preserve the life of others, to whom they were bound by no stronger ties than those of attachment and friendship, strengthened by the momentary impulse of compassion. But these suicides of patriotism or loyalty are acts done in a conspicuous place, by those who are bred from their infancy to consider honour and disgrace as the first objects of human pursuit and avoidance. Innumerable instances, however, of the same sort, in totally different circumstances, show the power of human nature to do the same acts without the bribe of fame. Backwardness in mounting a breach, or boarding a ship, is a rare occurrence. Volunteers for service of the most desperate danger are easily found. Every case of a shipwreck, or a fire, exhibits examples of devoting life, for the preservation sometimes of utter strangers-very often, indeed, of persons to whom there is no obligation of duty, and no tie of affection. Mere compassion renders the lowest of the mob for a moment capable of so sublime a sacrifice.

There are other suicides, which, without being either demanded by duty, or performed for the preservation of a community or an individual, are yet generally considered as acts which, whether they be strictly moral or not, can only be performed by minds of the most magnanimous virtue. The suicide of Cato is of this class. It was not to defeat usurpation, or to preserve the laws and liberties of Rome, that he destroyed his own life. In that case, the moral qualities of the act would have admitted no dispute: but it was done when he despaired of his country. It arose from his horror of tyranny, and the feeling of intolerable shame at the prospect of life under an arbitrary master; and it is to be justified by

the tendency of the example to save the world from future tyran nies, by strengthening and perpetuating these most useful sentiments, and to contribute throughout all ages to diffuse the love of liberty among mankind. As liberty is the only security for just and humane government, it must be owned that the diffusion of such sentiments seems to be a higher interest of mankind, and a more worthy object of self sacrifice, than the preservation of any individual, or even of any state. But it is scarcely worth discussing what precise judgment ought to be formed of the act of Cato, as long as all good men must unite in admiration and reverence for the mind from which it proceeded. The merit of Regulus's return to Carthage was enhanced, in the opinion of one of the most sensible and moderate of moralists, principally by his certain knowledge of the death which his barbarous tormentors had prepared for him. His voluntary death was, however, very different from that of Cato. The strictest rules of duty required that he should neither advise his country against his conscience, nor violate his pledged faith to the enemy. Every case where a man prefers death to guilt, is a suicide of duty. Of this nature is all martyrdom, where life is to be saved only by false professions, or by compliances which the conscience of the martyr deems still more criminal. Among the early christians, as indeed among most persecuted bodies of men, there prevailed a sort of ambition of martyrdom, which the fathers of the church condemned as the fruit of misguided zeal, but which was considered by the people with reverence, as an honourable proof of a more sincere and intrepid attachment to religion than that which was shown by the cautious prudence of lukewarm brethren. Dying men deplored the natural death which robbed them of the honours of martyrdom. Many who were present at the trial and condemnation of their fellow christians, cried out, "we too are christians," that they might follow their brethren to the stake. Those who fled from persecution were stigmatized by the more severe fathers; and those who purchased an indemnity from the magistrate, were thought little inferior in guilt to those who sacrificed to idols. So great was the rage for this species of suicide, though evidently unjustifiable, that the Roman magistrates sometimes (though too seldom and too late) discovered their best policy, even for their own purposes, to consist in mortifying and repelling the crowds of candidates for martyrdom.

Another sort of suicide was allowed by the most illustrious of the early doctors of christianity. Led, probably, by that fanatical and ascetic spirit which tainted their moral doctrines respecting the intercourse between the sexes, they allowed a woman to kill herself, in order to prevent an involuntary, and, therefore, imaginary, pollution of the body, where the mind was to remain per VOL. III, New Series.

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fectly spotless. They did not, indeed, with Lucretia, claim this privilege, from the shame of past violation; but they permitted it, for the prevention of that which was to come. It is unnecessary to observe, that this opinion can be justified by no principle; but it is evidently an excrescence from the principle of a suicide of duty, and proceeds partly from the confusion of guilt with disgrace, and partly, also, from the abusive application of moral terms to physical things. Though actions not immoral seldom continue long to be thought dishonourable among a civilized people, yet the degree of disgrace is often by no means proportioned to that of immorality. Thus, mercenary prostitution, when it arises from poverty, extenuates the vice, but renders the degradation deeper. Every outward mark of a disgraceful act is itself disgraceful. Though nothing can be immoral which is not voluntary, yet it may be ignominious to have involuntarily suffered from the brutality of others. A Bramin forfeits his civil rank and sacred character by what only the utmost cruelty could have compelled him to endure. The case of a virtuous man, discredited by calumnies, of which refutation does not repair the injurious ef fect, must be owned to be attended with considerable perplexity. But the more sound casuistry must forbid him to take refuge in voluntary death. The possibility of escaping from dishonour is a temptation to undervalue honour. A good man ought not to murmur at that necessity which compels him to confute calumny by his life. But though it be not a justifiable case of suicide, it seems to be one of the most excusable which can be imagined; and when a mind, stung by unmerited dishonour, determines on this dreadful remedy, and resolves on leaving an example which may deter some from calumny, and others from the imprudence which supplies the calumniator with weapons, though the action must be blamed as a deviation from the most elevated morality, yet the man may be pitied, and even loved, for a purity and ardour of moral feeling, of which the rigorous censors of his conduct were probably incapable.

Opposed to these voluntary deaths, which are enjoined or applauded, are two classes of culpable suicide, which may be termed the criminal and the vitious. A criminal suicide is that by which a man, under the influence of selfish impatience or apprehension, 1 withdraws himself from the performance of evident, urgent, and important duties. Every duty imposes the secondary obligation

› preserve the means of performing it, and, consequently, to preserve life, which comprehends all these means. The most homely ins tances are the best illustrations. A man on whose labour a family depended for bread, could not disable himself from earning it by mutilating his limbs without a great crime: but in destroying his ife, he commits a greater crime of the same nature. To es

cape from his difficulties to America or China, while he left a family destitute in England, would be a crime of great magnitude-but to commit suicide, in like circumstances, would be to abscond without the possibility of return. Men are so linked together, that this plain consideration is sufficient in most cases of blamable suicide. Where a man is so insulated, that his duties become faint and general, all selfish suicide argues at least the vitious purpose of withdrawing from the practice of virtue, and destroying the power of rendering service to mankind. For these purposes, life is to be endured when it is miserable, as well as sacrificed when it is most happy; and though the speculator may assign the boundaries of the obligation, they will not be discovered by a generous man when he is called to make the effort. It is a fact, which must be equally acknowledged by the followers of all moral theories, that it is a more excellent habit to regard life as an instrument of serving others, than as a source of gratification to our selves. It is also equally true, that this habitual disposition renders him who feels it more happy, as well as more virtuous, than if his mind were more constantly directed towards his own enjoyments. Whether this last circumstance be the motive which does, or the reason which ought to make good men applaud and cultivate benevolence, is a question disputed by moral theorists, but wholly foreign to the present purpose. All systems agree in what is essential to the regulation of moral judgment or moral conduct. According to all principles, it is evident, that it is never praiseworthy, or even lawful, to sacrifice life, but in the observ ance of duty, or in the practice of virtue; that suicide, to be moral, must be for others; and that if there be a few beings so eminently useless, as well as miserable, that their case approaches to an exception, they are to be viewed with that mercy which is the first virtue of frail creatures, and without which we are unable to contemplate perfection.

Madame de Staël calls the suicides of duty and virtue by the names of devotion and sacrifice; and perhaps thus to distinguish them from the suicides of selfishness, may have a useful effect on the feelings. But to arrange the various sorts of suicide according to their motives and tendency-as criminal codes distinguish homicides-into justifiable, excusable, and culpable-seems to us a manner of considering the subject which is not without its use, and which we have accordingly followed, without pretending that it is universally the best. It is impossible not to concur with Madame de Staël in rejecting that very vulgar commonplace, which represents suicide to be a proof of cowardice. To suffer well, is a proof of patience, of fortitude, or of firmness; but boldly to seek the means of deliverance from suffering, is the office of courage. Patience endures the gangrened limb-courage encoun