that are known, the taverns and ale-houses are no better; add to these dice, cards, tables, foot-ball, tennis, and quoits, in which money runs fast away; and those that are initiated into them, must in conclusion betake themselves to robbing for a supply. Banish those plagues, and give order that these who have dispeopled so much soil, may either rebuild the villages that they have pulled down, or let out their grounds to such as will do it; restrain those engrossings of the rich that are as bad almost as monopolies; leave fewer occasions to idleness; let agriculture be set up again, and the manufacture of the wool be regulated, that so there may be work found for these companies of idle people, whom want forces to be thieves, or who now being idle vagabonds, or useless servants, will certainly grow thieves at last. If you do not find a remedy to these evils, it is a vain thing to boast of your severity of punishing theft; which though it may have the appearance of justice, yet in itself it is neither just nor convenient: for if you suffer your people to be ill educated, and their manners to

ference of the legislature. Sir Walter Scott describes our theatres, and describes them truly, as haunts of barefaced and incorrigible vice; (Life by Lockhart, vol. iv.) and in all ages taverns and bagnios have been synonymous terms.--Casaubon. ad Theophrast. Charact. p. 365.

42 Locke, who of all philosophers was probably the least likely to be carried away by his imagination, attributes no less influence to the education of youth. "The difference to be found in the manners and abilities of man, is owing more to their education than to anything else." Thoughts on Education, § 32, p. 44. This idea adopted by Helvetius, forms the basis of his treatise" de l'Homme," in which he undertakes to demonstrate " que

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?'

"While I was talking thus, the counsellor that was present had prepared an answer, and had resolved to resume all I had said, according to the formality of a debate, in which things are generally repeated more faithfully than they are answered ; as if the chief trial that were to be made, were of men's memories. So he said to me 'You have talked prettily for a stranger, having heard of many things among us, which you have not been able to consider well; but I will make the whole matter plain to you, and will first repeat in order all that you have said, then I will show how much the ignorance of our affairs have misled you, and will, in the last place answer all your arguments. And that I may begin where I promised, there were four

l'homme n'est vraiment que le produit de son education."Euvres, &c. vii. 5. Milton was scarcely less sanguine in his opinions of education, but his lofty original mind had formed to itself a very peculiar idea of that system of training which merits such an appellation, "The end of learning," he says, "is to repair the ruins of our first parents, by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection." Select Prose Works, vol. I. p. 144. Plato, long before, had conceived a similar idea of what education should be, though, on some points, his ideas were necessarily more imperfect than Milton's. Republic. t. vi. p. 334-346. Edit. Bekk.

things' Hold your peace,' said the cardinal ' for you will not have done soon that begin thus ; therefore we will at present ease you of the trouble of answering, and reserve it to our next meeting, which shall be to-morrow, if Raphael's affairs and yours can admit of it. But, Raphael,' said he to me, 'I would gladly know of you upon what reason it is that you think theft ought not to be punished by death. ?43 Would you give way to it? or do you propose any other punishment that will be more useful to the public? For since death does not restrain theft, if men thought their lives would be safe, what fear or force could restrain ill men ? On the contrary, they would look on the mitigation of the punishment as an invitation to commit more crimes.' I answered, 'It seems to me a very unjust thing to take away a man's life for a little money; for nothing in the world can be of equal value with a man's life :4 and if it is said, that it

43 On this subject the more humane and philosophical part of the world begin to adopt Sir Thomas More's opinion. It seems probable, moreover, that even in our own days, we shall in part see them acted upon,

44 The author of the "Utopia" was free, if ever any man was, from the influence of the debasing doctrine of castes, which, though openly maintained in the East only, is everywhere the genuine creed where hereditary distinctions of rank prevail. His humane and generous sentiments break forth on all occasions. He does not undervalue property, or counsel others to make light of it; but he refuses to consider any creation of man of equal value with the noblest of God's creations. He knew that taking away life for anything but murder is in itself murder, and that every one concerned in such an act will be judged as a murderer hereafter.

is not for the money that one suffers, but for his breaking the law, must say extreme justice is an extreme injury for we ought not to approve of these terrible laws that make the smallest offences capital; nor of that opinion of the Stoics that make all crimes equal, as if there were no difference to be made between the killing a man, and the taking his purse; between which, if we examine things impartially, there is no likeness nor proportion. God has commanded us not to kill, and shall we kill so easily for a little money? But if one shall say, that by that law we are only forbid to kill any, except when the laws of the land allow of it; upon the same grounds, laws may be made to allow of adultery and perjury in some cases: for God having taken from us the right of disposing, either of our own, or of other people's lives, if it is pretended that the mutual consent of men in making laws, allowing of manslaughter in cases in which God has given us no example, frees people from the obligation of the divine law, and so makes murder a lawful action; what is this, but to give a preference to human laws before the Divine ?45 And, if this is once admitted, by the same rule men may in all other things put what restrictions they please upon the laws of God. If by the Mosaical law, though it was rough and severe, as being a yoke laid on an obstinate and servile nation, men were only fined and not put to death for theft; we cannot imagine

45 This confirms what is advanced in the preceding note.

that in this new law of mercy, in which God treats us with the tenderness of a father, he has given us a greater licence to cruelty, than he did to the Jews. Upon these reasons it is, that I think the putting thieves to death is not lawful; and it is plain and obvious that it is absurd, and of ill consequence to the commonwealth, that a thief and a murderer should be equally punished: for if a robber sees that his danger is the same, if he is convicted of theft, as if he were guilty of murder, this will naturally set him on to kill the person whom otherwise he would only have robbed; since, if the punishment is the same, there is more security, and less danger of discovery, when he that can best make it is put out of the way; so that the terrifying thieves too much, provokes them to cruelty.46

"But as to the question, what more convenient way of punishment can be found? I think it is much easier to find out that than to invent anything that is worse. Why should we doubt but the way that was so long in use among the old Romans, who understood so well the arts of government, was very proper for their punishment? They condemned such as they found guilty of great crimes to work their whole lives in quarries, or to

46 Our contemporaries are at length coming over to Sir Thomas's opinion, and since the laws have been framed in a great measure upon this conviction, robberies have been comparatively seldom accompanied by murder. Greater mildness in punishment will necessarily produce corresponding mildness in crime.