nt the wind blows; like a
maukin, fit only to scare away birds; like a nest left to swing upon
a bough when the bird is flown: these are uses to which we cannot
without a mixture of spleen and contempt behold the human carcass
reduced. We string up dogs, foxes, bats, moles, weasels. Man surely
deserves a steadier death.

[Footnote 1: Hieronimo in the Spanish Tragedy.]

Another reason why the ludicrous associates more forcibly with this
than with any other mode of punishment, I cannot help thinking to be,
the senseless costume with which old prescription has thought fit to
clothe the exit of malefactors in this country. Let a man do what he
will to abstract from his imagination all idea of the whimsical,
something of it will come across him when he contemplates the figure
of a fellow-creature in the daytime (in however distressing a
situation) in a nightcap. Whether it be that this nocturnal addition
has something discordant with daylight, or that it is the dress which
we are seen in at those times when we are "seen," as the Angel in
Milton expresses it, "least wise,"--this, I am afraid, will always be
the case; unless, indeed, as in my instance, some strong personal
feeling overpower the ludicrous altogether. To me, when I reflect
upon the train of misfortunes which have pursued men through life,
owing to that accursed drapery, the cap presents as purely frightful
an object as the sleeveless yellow coat and devil-painted mitre of
the San Benitos.--An ancestor of mine, who suffered for his loyalty
in the time of the civil wars, was so sensible of the truth of what I
am here advancing, that on the morning of execution, no entreaties
could prevail upon him to submit to the odious dishabille, as he
called it, but he insisted upon wearing, and actually suffered in,
the identical, flowing periwig which he is painted in, in the gallery
belonging to my uncle's seat in ----shire.

Suffer me, Mr. Editor, before I quit the subject, to say a word or
two respecting the minister of justice in this country; in plain
words, I mean the hangman. It has always appeared to me that, in the
mode of inflicting capital punishments with us, there is too much of
the ministry of the human hand. The guillotine, as performing its
functions more of itself and sparing human agency, though a cruel and
disgusting exhibition, in my mind has many ways the advantage over
_our way_. In beheading, indeed, as it was formerly practised in
England, and in