mer occasion, were 900 gentlemen, almost all of whom, it appears, were led out in parties of from 40 to 70, after being confined some time in a church, and massacred in a neighbouring plain, now called the Martyrs' Meadow. The ancient inhabitants of Spain are said to have prepared a kind of poison from a certain herb to be ready in extremities, and it proved fatal without any pain.* Hannibal committed suicide by means of poison, which he always carried in his ring, from the dread of being delivered up to those enemies whom he had so bravely combated. That it has been customary to carry poison both in ancient and modern times, is established from the authority of historians of the best credit: and its ready ministry hastened the completion of many tragedies. When the king of Mauritania, dreading the shame and exposure of his weakness in his union to a captive queen, he retired to his tent, where the agitation which he suffered became audible to those standing around it. "At last, uttering a deep groan he called one of his faithful attendants, in whose custody was the poison, kept according to the custom of kings, to meet the reverse of fortune, and after it was mixed in a cup he ordered it to be carried cord of its sittings. Haxo, however, was shot, from his desperate resistance of the soldiers of Charette, the Vendean chief, who had commanded them to take him alive. Pliny Historia Naturalis, lib. xvi. cap. 20.-Strabo, lib. iii. tom. i. p. 251. to Sophonisba, recommending to her to remember her father, her country, and the two sovereigns to whom she had been united, for she could not fall alive into the hands of the Romans." Sophonisba mildly received the cup, saying she took it as a nuptial gift, and one not unacceptable if her husband could offer nothing better: yet she would have been more content if she had not entered into wedlock on the verge of her funeral rites; and then drank the contents without fear or hesitation.* § 11. Suicide to escape Servitude.-As it is the nature of mankind to hope the best, so do they seldom resort to suicide when the most distant prospect opens of a remedy to their evils. But the apprehension of evil, we have just observed, is sometimes in itself intolerable: it seems beyond endurance, and many will rather die than agree to suffer. In this country, as is well known, while the great proportion of the inhabitants have been ready for perils, as they were earnest for reputation, not a few have voluntarily disabled themselves from their horror of naval and military service when liable to be called on for either. During the late consulate in France, nine conscripts being drawn for the army, they remained for a time in concealment, and when discovered they continued to entertain such an un Livy, lib. xxx. cap. 15. Forma erat insignis, et florentissima ætas, cap. 12. conquerable aversion to military service, that encouraging each other to suicide, they drowned themselves together.* It may be very readily concluded, that suicide is frequently the close of a life of slavery; for truly no condition can be more deplorable than that of servitude under merciless masters: Neither, perhaps, is it rare, when perpetual and rigorous confinement is the lot of the prisoner. The slave and the prisoner too often are subservient to the wanton caprice of tyrants, whose conscience does not hold them accountable for their actions, and who may commit their barbarities in secret. Maltreatment in freedom sometimes conducts the unhappy object to despair. Snelgrave, the surgeon of a Guinea ship, affirms, that the Cormantine negroes, carried to the West India islands, despise punishment, and even death itself; and if treated with severity to make them work, "twenty or more have hanged themselves in a plantation."† Perhaps no place of confinement exists, not even in these islands, where the prisoner is safe from extortion and oppression; and if this may be practised, as it assuredly is frequently here, we may conceive the aggravations in other countries. Fifty Malabar pirates having been taken and thrown into a *Holcroft, Travels, vol. ii. p. 200. + Snelgrave, Account of some parts of Guinea, p. 173. dungeon at Goa, where Dellon, the relator of the fact, was afterwards imprisoned by the inquisition, "the horrible famine which they suffered cast more than forty of them into such despair, that they strangled themselves with their turbans."* These are the last of all suicides which possibly can come to light; for many have been plunged into dungeons from which they were fated never to escape alive. § 12. Suicide from Indigence.-Notwithstanding the unconquerable violence of the passions, the sense of dishonour, the dread of an enemy, disappointed affections, or impatience of controul, may lead to unreflecting suicide; that resulting from simple weariness of life, from melancholy or indigence, perhaps is the sequel of long premeditation. The statesman never quits the brink of a precipice, the warrior is always opposed to danger, the philosopher reasons himself into the belief that 66 conceiving death an evil, alone makes it so;"† and all feeling the uncertainties of their condition, who cannot consent to reverses, must be supposed in a certain state of readiness for that change which may be effected through the medium of their own hands. But is not this a grievous alternative to the watchful citizen, the lowly, industrious, and willing artizan, who vainly struggles to obtain his own * Dellon, History of the Inquisition at Goa, ch. 5. and the bread of his dependant family? Are not the privations inseparable from an humble sphere, a sufficient evil in themselves, that the sun shall rise only to light the labourer to his toil, and go down on the scanty earnings which are to gain his scanty fare? Yet it is distressing to find that hardships may become intolerable even to those inured to rigour, that disappointments may prove greater than can be borne. As indigence urges mankind, they are the more reluctant to disclose the truth in soliciting relief of their necessities. Alas! the remark of the poet is too true, that poverty makes men ridiculous. The stratagems to disguise it are infinite. * 2 Perhaps many examples of such suicides do not reach our observation: the station of the perpetrator tends in itself to concealment; perhaps also when they do occur, they are committed in a way which renders it equivocal, whether they are voluntary, or the result of necessity. Certainly they are very often contemplated, and it is probable they are by no means few.† An affecting instance happened in London, where Robert Smith, * Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se Quam quod ridiculos homines facit. Juvenal, Sat. iii. v. 152. + Wendeborn, View of England, vol. i. p. 244, 245: “Po verty, arising from the dearness of living and numberless taxes in England, I have frequently found to induce the unfortunate to suicide." |