days after. The Dauphin, as he came from baptism, was brought to the king, to whom he said that he had been just baptised. 'I am glad of it, my son,' said the king, but what is your name?'

6

My name,' replied the young prince, is Louis the fourteenth,' without thinking on what he said, and perhaps even not knowing the consequence of it. And yet this answer afflicted the king: in the condition that he was, he took it for an ill omen, and turning to the other side, not yet,' said he, 'not yet.' Some flatterer (for princes have the misfortune to have such before they can speak) had already possessed this royal infant with the great name he was soon to bear; which was the cause of this little mortification he innocently gave the king his father."-Art. Louis XIII.

LUCRETIA.

(Her conduct argued.)

THE Heathens who praise Lucretia, ground their panegyrics upon her extreme sense of glory, and the reputation of a chaste wife, and her great delicacy as to this point of honour; which was so very great as not to permit her to survive the affront which had been offered her. What a certain critic borrows from St Augustin, whose meaning he has not rightly taken, is founded on a false supposition, that Lucretia killed herself to punish herself for the commission of a crime. It is an ignorance of the state of the question this lady knew herself innocent, and yet would die, that no lewd woman should have the face to live, under the pretence that Lucretia had the cowardice to survive her rape.

One of the most reasonable objections of St. Augustin is, that self murder is a crime; and he. strengthens his argument by the encomiums that are given to Lucretia. He reasons" ad hominem," against the Heathens, and alleges to them "the laws of their

own tribunals. These laws would have obliged them to punish a man who had killed Lucretia. You would therefore be obliged," continues he, "to punish her, if she was accused before you of having killed herself. But if you answer, that it is impossible to punish her, since she is not in being, why do you accumulate so many praises upon the murderer of a virtuous person?" I do not pretend to justify those who would say in favour of this lady, that St Augustin has condemned her by principles she did not know; for she was ignorant of the axioms of the Christian religion, which forbid all attempts upon our own lives. She might therefore have complained of being brought before such a tribunal: she might have declined the jurisdiction, and appealed to her natural judges, to those ideas of grandeur and heroical glory, which have persuaded so many people that it is better to die, than to live in disgrace; but, as I have already said, this is an answer with which I shall not concern myself; I choose rather this other reflection. The Roman magistrates, whom St Augustin speaks to, and demands for judges of the question, might have quickly undeceived him, by showing that the laws, which gave no authority to private persons over one another's lives, debar not any one the privilege of disposing of his own. Do not you know they might have said in what admiration the Catos, the Brutuses, the Cassiuses, and so many other illustrious Romans have ever been, who preferred death, to a life that would have made them witnesses to the oppression of liberty, or exposed them to the discretion of their enemies, or a languishing condition. Are you ignorant with what eulogies that courage of Portia and Arria have been crowned? Know you not that we have seen, with some displeasure, that Cleopatra, who had dishonoured herself by her debaucheries, should have the glory she did not deserve, of preferring death before the disgrace of being led in triumph? In a word, are you ignorant

how the resolution of private persons has been admired, or even of whole towns, of perishing by precipice or fire, rather than to fall into their enemies' hands? The nation whom you look upon as the favourite people of the true God, blamed not Saul, its first king, and one of the valiantest princes of his age for having prevented, by killing himself, the disgrace of falling into the hands of the conqueror. His successor, one of your greatest prophets, nevertheless gave him the greatest praises. Do not the books of the same nation give the same praises to a hero who imitated the action of king Saul? And after this will tell us, you "whoever should have killed Lucretia, would have been punishable; and therefore she is punishable for having killed herself?" Learn to reason better, and remember, that the maxims of the noblest and most august sect that ever was among the Greeks, favour this lady's proceeding.

It is certain St Augustin took a wrong method in recurring to the maxims of the Heathens, as a rule for the condemnation of Lucretia. I know well enough that they were not all of the opinions of the Stoics, and there were some great philosophers, who condemned self murder. I know also, it has been said, "that it was rather cowardice than a proof of courage, to forego life, to be rid of trouble and pain; and that a man, who resolves to struggle long with his ill fortune, discovers as much firmness as he who kills himself, shews weakness. I know, there have been many among the Heathens who have been of this opinion; but they wanted on their side glory and lustre; they were only considered as the populace; the other faction was the nobility, the distinguished party, the school of heroism; and it might be represented to them that, like counterfeit bravoes, they assumed honourable names, and gave the names of constancy and intrepidity to an excessive love of life, and an excessive fear of death. They were so

fond of life, that nothing was able to give them a disgust of it: : dishonour, poverty, the most gloomy dungeons, the most inveterate diseases, did not disfigure it in their eyes; it appeared to them amiable even in this equipage. Death was not able to put on any disguise that could conceal the least feature of its ugly face. This, might they say, was the principle of that great courage in which they gloried, and which made them consider the action of Lucretia as the effect of cowardice.

"Ita

Let us now examine St Augustin's dilemma. hæc caussa ex utroque latere coarctatur, ut si extenuatur homicidium, adulterium confirmetur; si purgatur adulterium, homicidium cumuletur: nec omnino invenitur exitus, ubi dicitur: si adulterata, cur laudata? si pudica, cur occisa?—This case has its difficulties on each side, so that if the murder be extenuated, the adultery is confirmed; if we acquit her of adultery, she must be charged with murder: nor can we any way answer this charge, viz. If she was an adultress, why is she praised? if chaste, why did she kill herself?" He pretends, that this lady's murder cannot be extenuated without aggravating the adultery, nor her adultery extenuated without aggravating her murder. But, to show that he had not diligently examined this matter, it suffices to say that his argument proves too much; for by a like reasoning, we ought to blame a person who deserves great praises. It sometimes happened, that in the first ages, very pious young women, who were consecrated to celibacy for the service of God, were violated. This is but too common a case at present; and we daily hear the story of an abbess who, with her nuns, had passed through the hands of an Irish company in Piedmont, and who made her complaints to Monsieur de Catinat. Let us suppose that a nun should, in this case, contract such a melancholy, as might bring upon her a mortal distemper. Let us

suppose that the testimony of her conscience, fortified with the strongest consolations that a Divine could give, were unable to relieve her. Let us suppose she had conceived such a value for the purity of body and mind, that the bare idea of the most involuntary defilement should cast her into an insupportable affliction, of which she should die; wonld not this be a convincing proof of an exquisite chastity? Would not her innocence and virtue stand in a clear light? Whereas, if we follow St Augustin's dilemma, as much as you give to her affliction, you take from her chastity, "si pudica, cur mortua?" You see then, that there is more subtilty than solidity, in this father's argument: and thus you see Lucretia perfectly screened from St Augustin's attacks, except in respect of the murder; for if she had died of grief only, both he, and the other fathers of the church had, by this kind of death, confirmed the praises of her incomparable chastity.

It has been said that religion had no share in this action of Lucretia. A learned man* has opposed this opinion by some remarks, which deserve to be discussed. Three observations have been made in the Miscellaneous Thoughts upon Comets. That for the three first ages of ancient Rome, the modesty, frugality, and chastity of women were very remarkable; and there were some who manifested a very lively sense of honour. That this sense of honour could not be inspired into the Roman women by the religion they professed; since it was necessary, to that end, that their religion should teach them, that immodesty was displeasing to the gods: but far from that it taught them the contrary, that the gods themselves were excessively lewd. That, if Lucretia had loved chastity from a principle of religion; or, which is the same thing, if she had loved it in obedi

* Bayle himself in his Pensées diversés, sur les Cometes, chap. clxxx, pag. 557.