he bodies
of condemned criminals were exposed to public ignominy, and their
children, a more serious evil, were reduced to poverty by the
confiscation of their fortunes. But, if the victims of Tiberius and
Nero anticipated the decree of the prince or senate, their courage and
despatch were recompensed by the applause of the public, the decent
honors of burial, and the validity of their testaments. The exquisite
avarice and cruelty of Domitian appear to have deprived the unfortunate
of this last consolation, and it was still denied even by the clemency
of the Antonines. A voluntary death, which, in the case of a capital
offence, intervened between the accusation and the sentence, was
admitted as a confession of guilt, and the spoils of the deceased were
seized by the inhuman claims of the treasury. Yet the civilians have
always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life;
and the posthumous disgrace invented by Tarquin, 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; 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.

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:
the law by which he is condemned is inscribed not only on brass or
marble, but on the conscience of the offender, and his guilt is commonly
proved by the testimony of a single fact. But our relations to each
other are various and infinite; our obligations are created,
annulled, and modified, by injuries, benefits, and promises; and the
interpret