At his house, 42, George's Square, Edinburgh, James Home of Linhouse, Esq. W. S. At Bath, Dame Sarah Gordon, relict of the late Sir Wm. Gordon of Embo, Bart. 3. At Seafield, Ireland, Mrs Elizabeth Lett, in the 104th year of her age. Out of fifty-six children and grand-children, the deceased was present at the birth of forty. In her 59th year she was delivered of her youngest child, Charles Lett, Esq. 4. At Rome, Maria Theresa of Parma, Queen of Charles IV. of Spain, and mother of Ferdinand VII. King of Spain. This princess was born at Parma, on the 9th December 1751, and was married on the 4th September 1765. At Strokestown House, county of Roscommon, in the 81st year of his age, the Right Hon. Maurice Lord Baron Hartland. His Lordship was married, in 1765, to the Hon. Catherine Moore, daughter of Stephen Lord Mount-Cashel, and is survived by her ladyship, by whom he has left issue, the Hon. Major-General Thomas Mahon, now Lord Hartland, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 9th dragoons; the Hon. Major-General Stephen Mahon, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 7th dragoon guards; and the Hon. and Rev. Maurice Mahon, one of the Prebendaries of St Patrick's Cathedral. - At Kelso, on the 19th of October last, Robert, aged 21; on the 22d ultimo, James, aged 26, sons of Mr Robert Scott, Fans, and this day Janet Cochrane, his wife, aged 59. -At London, Mrs Hamilton Ann Hathorn Stewart, widow of the late Dr William Cunninghame, physician at Bristol. 5. At Kilmarnock, George Rutherford, Esq. cashier, and one of the partners of the Kilmarnock Bank. of James Dove, Esq. and daughter of Ar chibald Douglas, Esq. of Adderstone, in the county of Roxburgh. 5. At Edinburgh, Miss Mary Patoun, daughter of the late Francis Patoun, Esq. At Palmerston, near Dumfries, Mr Megget, aged 80. He breakfasted with his family in his usual good health, and in two hours was a corpse ! 6. At his house, near Hamilton, John Boyes. Esq. of Wellhall. At her house, Castle Street, the Honourable Henrietta Napier, daughter of the late William Lord Napier. 8. Suddenly, the Rev. Herbert Mends, minister of the Presbyterian Congregation in Batter-street, Exeter, in which situation he officiated for the long period of 34 years. 9. At Stutgard, her Majesty the reigning Queen of Wirtemberg. 10. At Paris, Count Beauharnois, the Ex-Senator, father of the Grand Duchess of Baden. He was son of Madame Beauharnois, known in the literary world for several productions of merit, and cousin of Count Alexander Beauharnois, Member of the Constituent Assembly, and first husband of the late Empress Josephine. At her father's house, Abercromby Place, Edinburgh, Anne Maria Mair, daughter of Colonel Mair, Deputy Governor of Fort George. 12. At Edinburgh, Mr James M'Culloch, of the Royal Hotel. 13. At his apartments in Somerstown, near London, after a lingering illness, Dr John Wolcot, so well known to the literary world under the name of " Peter Pindar, in the 81st year of his age. At Aberdeen, Mrs Elizabeth Arbuthnot, wife of William Forbes, Esq. of Echt. At Duddingston Manse, Mary Helen, youngest daughter of the Rev. John Thomson. At Perth, Robert Marshall, Esq. 14. At Nelson, Mr Allan Craig, student of divinity, fourth son of George Craig of Kirkton, Esq. At Hinton St George, in Somersetshire, Earl Paulet. The Noble Lord, on the preceding evening, had directed the horses to be put to the post chariot early the next day. At five o'clock in the morning, the Countess was alarmed by the sudden indisposition of the Earl; he was seized with an apoplectic fit, and never spoke afterwards. His Lordship lingered until eleven at night, when he expired, in the 63d year of his age. George Ramsay and Co. Printers. The Correspondents of the EDINBURGH MAGAZINE AND LITERARY MISCELLANY are respectfully requested to transmit their Communications for the Editors to ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE and COMPANY, Edinburgh, or LONGMAN and COMPANY, London, to whom also order for the Work should be particularly addressed. Printed by George Ramsay & Co.. THE EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, AND LITERARY MISCELLANY. MARCH 1819. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE PROGRESS gainst crimes acquire a milder charac OF OPINION ON THE CRIMINAL LAW AND THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. A RESTLESS love of change is a bad thing; but a blind hatred of all change is still worse. Change, which implies action, must produce experience, the parent of wisdom; but an obstinate adherence to what is, merely because it is, excludes the possibility of improvement. Rash innovation is dangerous, not because our ancestors were necessarily wise, but because the habits, views, and feelings of society cannot be altered at once by any legislative enactment. The peace of society requires that the public law, and the public mind, should harmonize with each other. It is equally perilous to step far before, or to stop far behind the public sentiment. Goguet has well and justly said, that necessity, occasioned by the crimes and disorders which every where prevailed, rather than deep reflection or foresight, put mankind upon making laws. It is absurd, therefore, to look uniformly for wisdom in what is handed down to us by our forefathers. Neither should we take it for granted, that every thing that is old is rust or cobweb. It is our duty to preserve what we have, till we have all the certainty that can be attained in morals, that something better can be substituted. We should neither be file nor obstinate. But, without being either the one or the other, we may easily perceive that all coercive laws originated in resentment, and we need not wonder, therefore, that severity disfigures all early codes, and that as society advances, the laws a ter. For laws, as is remarked by the author already quoted, ought not only to protect the lives and promote the peace of society in general,-they ought also to consult the happiness of individuals; to provide for their subsistence,-to prevent occasions of discord,-to form their hearts and minds by inspiring them with such sentiments as may promote the harmony and peace of families. Had the penal code of this country been severe only in its origin, we might have shared the disgrace with the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans but the stain which will be most difficult to remove from us is, that the greater number of our capital felonies are comparatively of recent enactment; and that, while the other nations of Europe have been softening their laws, we have been going on, legislatively at least, in a contrary direction. We have thus become a byeword abroad; and the facility with which penal laws may be enacted, has long been a bye-word even at home. And, what is still more remarkable, the legislature of the country has been proceeding in this extraordinary manner, while the tide of public opinion has been rising higher and higher against capital punishments. We have at present, we believe, above 200 capital felonies in our statute-books. Four of these were constituted in the reign of the Plantagenets; in that of the Tudors twenty-seven; in that of the Stuarts, thirty-six; in that of the Brunswicks, one hundred and fifty-six. But, notwithstanding the temper of our Parliaments, the general opinion has triumphed in practice; for execu tions have lessened in proportion as the laws awarding capital punishments have been increased! So opposite, in this respect, is the law from the prac tice, that it has become an exception to the rule where the law takes effect! There must be something radically wrong in the system which presents such a phenomenon. It is one, in deed, productive of many evils; but before proceeding to examine these, it may be prudent, for the purpose of both interesting and convincing our readers, to take a short review of the progress of public opinion; since authority in cases of this description is sometimes of more consequence than reason. But theft, or other offences, (which, though in themselves heinous, are too lightespecially in countries professing Christiunity to be punished with death,) thar by subjecting them to ignominious stigmas or mutilation.' Exactly a century afterwards, that is, in 1620, LORD BACON states, in one of his aphorisms on universal justice, that " certainty is so essential to a law, as without it a law cannot be just; so, if the law give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to obey? A law, then, ought to give warning before it strike; and it is a good rule that is the best law which gives least liberty to the arbitrage of the judge, which is that the certainty thereof effecteth." We shall show by and by how systematically this rule is violated under our existing laws and practice. In the mean time, we give another of his lordship's aphorisms. "The prophet saith, Pluet super eos laqueos; now, there are no worse snares than the snares of law, especially penal; if they be immense for number, and, through the alterations of times, unprofitable, they do not present a torch, but spread a net to our feet." This is the essence of what has "been so fully exposed and demonstrated in our own day by Mr BENTHAM, ceeds slowly in vanquishing prejudice. Reason put forth her voice early, but her warnings were neglected; she exposed evils, and insisted on a timeous correction of them, but she was disregarded; and it was not until crimes increased so as to threaten the very dissolution of society, that necessity, which first put men on the making of laws, put us also to the undoing of them. The two great maxims of modern times are, that certainty in the law is better than severity, and that it is of much more importance to prevent crimes than to punish them. these principles are by no means new. So far back as the year 1520, Sir THоMAS MORE, speaking of the boast of English lawyers of the strict execution of the laws against thieves, insomuch that there were sometimes twenty hung on one gibbet, and their wonder, that, since so few escaped, there were yet so many thieves left, said, "There was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punish--a striking proof that reason proing thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for, as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual, simple theft not be ing so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his life,-no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find out no other way of livelihood. There are dreadful punishments enacted a gainst thieves; but it were much better to make such good provisions, by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it. If you suffer your people to be ill educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves, and then punish them?" About the same year, (1520,) ERASMUS remarked, that "the civil magistrate would act more judiciously by employing upon public works criminals convicted of certain kinds of Sir WALTER RALEIGH, a contemporary of Bacon, is also an advocate for clemency in the administration of justice. Sir EDWARD COKE, another contemporary, and a still greater authority, mentions, that, even in his time, it had been found by woful experience, that it is not frequent and often punishment that doth prevent like offences; melior est enim justitia verè præveniens, quam severe puniens; and it is a certain rule, that videbis ea sæpe committi, quæ sæpe vindicantur. Those offences are often committed that are often punished; for the fre quency of the punishment makes it so familiar as it is not feared. For |