natural right of a citizen to
dispose of his life; and the posthumous disgrace invented by Tarquin,
[207] to check the despair of his subjects, was never revived or
imitated by succeeding tyrants. The powers of this world have indeed
lost their dominion over him who is resolved on death; and his arm can
only be restrained by the religious apprehension of a future state.
Suicides are enumerated by Virgil among the unfortunate, rather than the
guilty; [208] and the poetical fables of the infernal shades could not
seriously influence the faith or practice of mankind. But the precepts
of the gospel, or the church, have at length imposed a pious servitude
on the minds of Christians, and condemn them to expect, without a
murmur, the last stroke of disease or the executioner. [Footnote 204:
Polyb. l. vi. p. 643. The extension of the empire and city of Rome
obliged the exile to seek a more distant place of retirement.]

[Footnote 205: Qui de se statuebant, humabanta corpora, manebant
testamenta; pretium festinandi. Tacit. Annal. vi. 25, with the Notes of
Lipsius.]

[Footnote 206: Julius Paulus, (Sentent. Recept. l. v. tit. xii. p.
476,) the Pandects, (xlviii. tit. xxi.,) the Code, (l. ix. tit. l.,)
Bynkershoek, (tom. i. p. 59, Observat. J. C. R. iv. 4,) and Montesquieu,
(Esprit des Loix, l. xxix. c. ix.,) define the civil limitations of
the liberty and privileges of suicide. The criminal penalties are the
production of a later and darker age.]

[Footnote 207: Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxvi. 24. When he fatigued his
subjects in building the Capitol, many of the laborers were provoked to
despatch themselves: he nailed their dead bodies to crosses.]

[Footnote 208: The sole resemblance of a violent and premature death has
engaged Virgil (Aeneid, vi. 434--439) to confound suicides with infants,
lovers, and persons unjustly condemned. Heyne, the best of his editors,
is at a loss to deduce the idea, or ascertain the jurisprudence, of the
Roman poet.]

The penal statutes form a very small proportion of the sixty-two books
of the Code and Pandects; and in all judicial proceedings, the life or
death of a citizen is determined with less caution or delay than
the most ordinary question of covenant or inheritance. This singular
distinction, though something may be allowed for the urgent necessity of
defending the peace of society, is derived from the nature of criminal
and civil jurisprudence. Our duties to the state are simple and uniform