tible, are not without some share of it; but it is indeed most peculiar to man; as one of your laureats justly expressed it, though perhaps not. without some partiality to his own mind.

Compassion proper to mankind appears,

Which nature witness'd when she lent us tears.
Of tender sentiments we only give

This proof, to weep is our prerogative;

To shew, by pitying looks and melting eyes,
How with our neighbours' woes we sympathize.
Who can all sense of others' ills escape,
Is but a brute at best in human shape.
This natural piety did first refine

Our wit, and rais'd our thoughts to things divine:
This proves our spirit of the gods' descent,

While that of beasts is prone and downward bent:
To them but earth-born life they did dispense;
To us, for mutual aid, celestial sense.

His majesty has been most graciously pleased to grant his pardon to one of the lords taken in Scotland, and to respite the execution of several others of the lower class of those unhappy criminals, who were condemned at the same time they were whom you have seen suffer at Kennington Common; which act of truly royal clemency, I should think, must not only endear him more to all his good and faithful subjects, but also convert the most virulent malcontent, and turn the voice of faction into admiration.

I am astonished, therefore, to find that any one can express the least dissatisfaction at it; nor can account for such a behaviour any other way, than that, expecting a great number of holidays, and consequently fresh matter of discourse for a long time after they were over, is such a disappointment as you cannot brook without chagrin.

Strange, unnatural propensity!-I am loth to say what such a disposition resembles; but what it does not, even the meanest and most illiterate among you is not so ignorant as not to know, how much soever you may attempt to palliate it.

Mercy, you confess yourselves, is the darling attribute of heaven; and if the king, heaven's delegate, and who, it must also be acknowledged, had much more reason to be offended than any of his subjects can pretend to be; if he, I say, discovered an inclination to extend it, I cannot help being of opinion, that it was a presumption, both to heaven and to the king, to urge too much on the side of justice; as by the same parity of reason, it would be equally unjustifiable in any one to entertain a hard thought of his majesty for refusing clemency in some The law, it is true, condemns; but it is the king's undoubted prerogative to save, and is indeed the richest jewel in his crown. The

cases.

author of Hudibras was a man of great humour, but his sentiments were always allowed to be extremely just, as well as elegant, whenever he has a mind to be serious: what he delivers on the subject now upon the tapis, are not, I think, less so than any in his poem; for which reason I take the liberty to repeat them.

The laws that are inanimate,

And feel no sense of love or hate,
That have no passions of their own,
Nor pity to be wrought upon,
Are only proper to inflict
Revenge on criminals as strict.
But to have power to forgive,
Is empire and prerogative;
And 'tis in crowns a nobler gem,

To grant a pardon, than condemn.

I observe, however, and with very great pleasure, that the noble and genteel part of the town are far from being so rigid: many of the former have used their utmost endeavours to excite that compassion which has since been found; and a great number of the latter testify their satisfaction at its being accomplished. It is only your little authors, hackneys for the publishers of newspapers, who by their writings would fain influence the low and unthinking part of their readers, to imagine that his majesty does an in

jury both to himself and people, in pardoning even any one of those who have been led astray from their duty, however the circumstances which induced them to it either really are, or may have been, represented to him.

These remonstrances, as well as the papers they contribute to the filling up, will soon be buried in oblivion; but if they should have any weight, as I hope they never will, I could wish they might be immortalized to the shame and confusion of the authors; since I can never be brought to believe they write in this manner, inspired by any true affection to his majesty's person or government; but rather that so unseasonable a zeal is calculated to serve purposes, neither for the glory of the one, or true interest of the other.

The number, however, of those who preach this doctrine of severe justice, is but small, to those who are unwarily seduced by it. To them I therefore speak at this time, and should think myself happy if I could prevail on them to see the fallacy of it.

I would not have you imagine, that, because I have mentioned those who have been convicted of high treason, I mean to particularize them as the most proper objects of compassion: no, I abhor, equally with yourselves, a crime of

so black and heinous a nature: it was only as at present they engross the attention of the town (and places were advertised to be let out to such as were desirous of beholding the execution, and were actually hired for that purpose by some persons whom it would better have become to have employed their time and money in a different manner), that I took the liberty of expressing my sentiments of the matter; for, in truth, it is not the fate of the guilty, but the humour of such who testify an impatience and kind of fondness for being eye-witnesses of it, that gives me the most concern. The meanest

and most common malefactors, who are condemned every sessions, are yet your fellowcreatures, have the same share in futurity with yourselves; and that depravity of human nature which has brought them to so sad an end, should, methinks, rather excite in you emotions of shame and sorrow, than any of a contrary

sort.

It is not therefore this person, nor that crime, be the one never so dangerous, or the other never so detestable, that, according to my way of thinking, can excuse beholding the punishment with any sort of pleasure, or even with indifference. Besides, as I believe there is no one so wholly void of natural affection, as to be a wil