But there is an agitation and disquietude of mind full fraught with the terrors of conscious guilt. This is not only productive of frequent fuicide, but also of its worst fort; fince it has to answer for "caufe" as well as "effect," and confequently must excite all our abhorrence. As long as a man can indulge his inordinate appetites of any kind to the full, there is little fear of his committing violence on himself; but when once from any concurrence of circumstances he begins, first to doubt, and then to experience, the little probability of their future gratification, his foul becomes a prey to the tyranny of corroding paflions. Unsatisfied luft gnaws at his heart, or he is checked in the career of ambitious and golden profpects, or deprived of lawless power. His rapine and cruelty are on the eve of discovery; his extortion, violence, and fraud, are on the point of configning him to infamy and ruin. The loffes of the gamingtable annihilate his property, whilft enjoyment and peace are ftrangers to his breaft. When his pride is thus chagrined and mortified, and, the dread of difgrace, poverty and punishment befets him around, what can follow but shame, vexation and difguft? Friends forfake, disappointment goads, remorse imbitters, rage renders frantic, hope, the laft refuge of the wretched, fails, defpair fucceeds, and life becomes a burden. The tumultuous conflict is now near upon clofing:-"Why fhould I live to be miferable, when the remedy "is in my own power?"

Eternity ne'er steals one thought between,
"And fuicide completes the fatal scene [u].”

[u] Gamblers, a Poem.-ANON.

"There took her gloomy flight

"On wing impetuous a black fullen foul

"Blafted from hell with horrid luft of death.”—YOUNG, Night V.

The following personification of suicide in Savage's Wanderer (Canto 2.) is poetical and just.

"Here the lone hour a blank of life displays,

"Till now bad thoughts a fiend more active raise;

"A fiend in evil moments ever nigh,

"Death in her hand and phrenfy in her eye.
"Her eye all red and funk :-a robe fhe wore.
"With life's calamities embroider'd o'er.
"A mirror in one hand collective fhows

"Varied and multiplied that group of woes:

The

The distant preparations of the mind for this dreadful catastrophe have their foundation in want of principle; the operating motive is always interested and selfish, and generally wicked, as being preceded by a life of fenfuality and corrupt practices; whilst its immediate harbinger " Despair," is of all the incentives of human action the most mean [x] and defpicable. Defpair can never be pro

"This endless foe to generous toil and pain
"Lolls on a couch for ease, but lolls in vain.
"She mufes o'er her woe-embroider'd veft,
"And felf-abhorrence heightens in her breast.
"To shun her care the force of fleep she tries,

"Still wakes her mind, though flumbers doze her eyes.

"She dreams, ftarts, rifes, ftalks from place to place,
"With reftlefs, thoughtful, interrupted pace :
"Now eyes the fun and curses every ray;
"Now the green ground, where colour fades away.
"Dim fpectres dance; again her eye fhe rears,
"Then from the blood-fhot ball wipes purpled tears.
"Then presses hard her brow with mischief fraught,
"Her brow half burfts with agony of thought:-

"From me (fhe cries) pale wretch! thy comfort claim,
"Born of Defpair and Suicide my name."

[x] Defpair is pourtrayed in the following lines from Spenfer's Fairy Queen.
"Ere long they come, where that fame wicked wight *

"His dwelling has low in an hollow cave,

«Far underneath a craggy clift ypight,

"Dark, doleful, dreary, like a greedy grave
"That ftill for carrion carcaffes doth crave:
"On top whereof ay dwelt the ghaftly owl,
"Shrieking his baleful note, which ever drave
"Far from that haunt all other cheerful fowl;
"And all about it wandering ghofts did wail and howl.
"And all about old ftocks and ftubs of trees,
"Whereon nor fruit nor leaf was ever feen,
"Did hang upon the ragged rocky knees;
"On which had many wretches hanged been,
"Whofe carcaffes were scattered on the green,

And thrown about the clifts. Arrived there
"That bare-head knight, for dread and doleful teen,
"Would fain have fled, ne durft approachen near,
"But the other forced him ftay and comforted in fear.
* Despairs

ductive

"The

ductive of good, but abounds with evil. Cowardly in its principle, it flies from exertion; pitiful in its end, it regards felf alone. The defperate man is ripe for any outrage or violence on himself or others; he cares neither what he does nor what becomes of him: on which account every wife government endeavours to discourage defpair, as much as poffible [x], in its system of policy; every prudent father does the fame in the management of his children; every man of common fenfe in his own perfonal conduct. "While there is life there "is hope," is a common faying: but the defponding man is ever ready to extinguish hope itself by self-affaffination. The application of fuch a desperate remedy is fo frequent and truly deplorable, that it is a great happiness for any one not to be able to appeal to his own domestic or friendly feelings on the fubject: in his more general and focial regards he is fure to fuffer. Whereas vigour and exertion might have performed wonders; and many an one by a proper application of these harmless remedies, rather than of the fword or pistol,

L

"The darkfome cave they enter; when they find
"That curfed man low fitting on the ground,

Mufing full fadly in his fullen mind;
"His greafy locks, long growing and unbound,
"Disorder'd hung about his fhoulders round,
"And hid his face; through which his hollow eyne
"Look'd deadly dull, and ftared as astound;

« His raw-bone cheeks through penury and pine
"Were shrunk into his jaws, as he did never dine.

"His garment, nought but many ragged clouts,
"With thorns together pinn'd and patched was,
"The which his naked fides he wrapt abouts;
"And him befide there lay upon the grafs
"A dreary corfe, whofe life away did pafs
"All-wallowed in his own yet lukewarm blood,
"That from his wound yet welted fresh, alas!

"In which a rusty knife fast fixed stood,

"And made an open paffage for the gufhing flood."

[Y] "Nil defperandum," is a moft inftructive leffon; and never was it more wifely applied on a public occafion than by the Roman fenate after the battle of Canna; when, ftifling every vindictive feeling, they met their imprudent conful Varro with thanks, " that he had not despaired of the republic." The effect was anfwerable; defpondency vanifhed, and the Roman arms were ultimately triumphant. Private inftances alfo are innumerable, wherein the exertion of this ufeful maxim has produced the moft wonderful and advantageous confequences.

might not only have prevented the tears of friendly forrow from being fhed over his untimely grave, but have reftored himself to peace and happiness by the conqueft of his troubles, difappointments, and vices.

!

CHA P. IV.

A vicious and defperate action should at least be voluntary, and have fome prospect of advantage or pleasure.-The fuicide has not always this apology: led to it against his own inclinations to life by principles of modern honour-Principles of honour (when it differs from confcience and virtue) founded on opinions and customs of men, and thought more binding by many than any moral or religious obligation.-Honour leads to fuicide againft a defire of life, in countenancing the duel.-The murder committed indeed by the hands of another, but made our own deed by giving or accepting the challenge.-Laws of modern honour affix neceffity of the payment of gambling debts; hence most frequent fuicide; - not through weariness of life, but want of means to gamble on.—If fuicide be a crime when voluntary, how much greater when committed even in despite, as it were, of our own inclinations.-Duelling and gaming to be treated at large hereafter.— Courage the mean between fear and rashness.—Suicide a compound of these two, and therefore has no connexion with courage, which depends on their feparation.Courage must be accompanied by particular circumstances to render it laudable: thefe enumerated, and found not confiftent with fuicide.-Not meant to maintain, that cowards alone commit fuicide, but only that the act in itself implies no true courage.—No judgment to be formed of a man's courage from the mode of his death; his behaviour at that time depending fo much on circumftances.-The objection, "that to overcome the natural horrors of death by fuicide must imply "courage," answered.-The question, "is it not more courageous to die by one's

own hand than to live under ignominy?" anfwered (as far as it is necessary in this place).-The idea of plucking up courage to fly from pain and mifery noticed: more true courage manifefted in enduring than in flying from trouble.—The refolution exhibited in fuicide, arifing from a mixture of fear and rafhness, deferves

no better a name than prefumption and daringness: it therefore adds to the general guilt" of fuicide.—Suicide, with respect to its general guilt, the foul offspring of vile progenitors.

W

HEN an action is highly vicious and defperate in its commiffion, the least that can be looked for is, that it fhould be voluntarily undertaken on the expectation of fome advantage or pleasure to arife from its execution. But it unfortunately happens for the felf-murderer, that even this poor apology is not always within his reach; fince there are fituations, which drive him to stain his hands with his own blood, even against all his interefts, his inclinations and strong defires of life. What these fituations or principles are fhall now be confidered. The word " Honour," whenever it has a meaning distinct from conscience and virtue, must have for its bafis certain opinions and customs of men; and principles formed according to fuch opinions are apt to have a greater influence over many in the regulation of their conduct, than all other rules of moral or religious obligation. However, is it not a matter of ferious grief to think, that the words Honour and Virtue, which must fo truly import the fame thing in their genuine fignification, should be fo widely feparated in their prefent use, as not only in many inftances to imply a difference, but even a contradiction? The point of examination then is, whether, when the ideas of virtue and religion are discarded, or at least considered only in a secondary light, the principles of modern honour will be a fafeguard against the commiffion of fuicide; or whether they will not in many inftances lead directly to its perpetration, and that even contrary to a man's strongest defires of life's continuance?---To pafs by many a fashionable vice, which implies no fashionable dishonour, there is one most prevailing, but unchriftian practice, to which the laws of honour point, which must be deemed a direct species of felf-murder; and that is, "the Duel." The mischief, indeed, is done by the hand of another; but when that hand is challenged to hazard the effect, wherein lies the difference with respect to the criminal part of the action? In ancient times the man of confequence often put himself to death by the hand of another, by his flave, his armour-bearer; in modern days he calls out one of his own rank to the chance of doing the fame office for him. But as the nature of honour is very fufceptible of affront, the hazard of life is proportionably great, and equal to the irritability of a man's difpofition. The principle of duelling then is a most dangerous