h the AEneid bears to the Iliad.

But it is now time that I should say a few words about the principles of
murder, not with a view to regulate your practice, but your judgment: as
to old women, and the mob of newspaper readers, they are pleased with
anything, provided it is bloody enough. But the mind of sensibility
requires something more. _First_, then, let us speak of the kind of person
who is adapted to the purpose of the murderer; _secondly_, of the place
where; _thirdly_, of the time when, and other little circumstances.

As to the person, I suppose it is evident that he ought to be a good man;
because, if he were not, he might himself, by possibility, be contemplating
murder at the very time; and such "diamond-cut-diamond" tussles, though
pleasant enough where nothing better is stirring, are really not what a
critic can allow himself to call murders. I could mention some people (I
name no names) who have been murdered by other people in a dark lane; and
so far all seemed correct enough; but, on looking farther into the matter,
the public have become aware that the murdered party was himself, at the
moment, planning to rob his murderer, at the least, and possibly to murder
him, if he had been strong enough. Whenever that is the case, or may be
thought to be the case, farewell to all the genuine effects of the art. For
the final purpose of murder, considered as a fine art, is precisely the
same as that of tragedy, in Aristotle's account of it, viz., "to cleanse
the heart by means of pity and terror." Now, terror there may be, but how
can there be any pity for one tiger destroyed by another tiger?

It is also evident that the person selected ought not to be a public
character. For instance, no judicious artist would have attempted to murder
Abraham Newland. For the case was this; everybody read so much about
Abraham Newland, and so few people ever saw him, that there was a fixed
belief that he was an abstract idea. And I remember that once, when I
happened to mention that I had dined at a coffee-house in company with
Abraham Newland, everybody looked scornfully at me, as though I had
pretended to have played at billiards with Prester John, or to have had an
affair of honor with the Pope. And, by the way, the Pope would be a very
improper person to murder: for he has such a virtual ubiquity as the father
of Christendom, and, like the cuckoo, is so often heard but never seen,
that I suspect most people regard _him_ al