Miscellaneous Essays | Page 4

to. For it is scandalous that
such things should go on in a Christian land. Even in a heathen land,
the toleration of murder was felt by a Christian writer to be the most
crying reproach of the public morals. This writer was Lactantius; and
with his words, as singularly applicable to the present occasion, I shall
conclude: "Quid tam horribile," says he, "tam tetrum, quam hominis
trucidatio? Ideo severissimis legibus vita nostra munitur; ideo bella
execrabilia sunt. Invenit tamen consuetudo quatenus homicidium sine
bello ac sine legibus faciat: et hoc sibi voluptas quod scelus vindicavit.
Quod si interesse homicidio sceleris conscientia est,--et eidem facinori
spectator obstrictus est cui et admissor; ergo et in his gladiatorum
cædibus non minus cruore profunditur qui spectat, quam ille qui facit:
nec potest esse immunis à sanguine qui voluit effundi; aut videri non
interfecisse, qui interfectori et favit et proemium postulavit." "Human
life," says he, "is guarded by laws of the uttermost rigor, yet custom has
devised a mode of evading them in behalf of murder; and the demands
of taste (voluptas) are now become the same as those of abandoned
guilt." Let the Society of Gentlemen Amateurs consider this; and let me
call their especial attention to the last sentence, which is so weighty,
that I shall attempt to convey it in English: "Now, if merely to be
present at a murder fastens on a man the character of an accomplice; if
barely to be a spectator involves us in one common guilt with the

perpetrator; it follows of necessity, that, in these murders of the
amphitheatre, the hand which inflicts the fatal blow is not more deeply
imbrued in blood that his who sits and looks on: neither can he be clear
of blood who has countenanced its shedding; nor that man seem other
than a participator in murder who gives his applause to the murderer,
and calls for prizes in his behalf." The "_præmia postulavit_" I have not
yet heard charged upon the Gentlemen Amateurs of London, though
undoubtedly their proceedings tend to that; but the "_interfectori favil_"
is implied in the very title of this association, and expressed in every
line of the lecture which I send you.
I am, &c. X. Y. Z.
* * * * *
LECTURE.
GENTLEMEN,--I have had the honor to be appointed by your
committee to the trying task of reading the Williams' Lecture on
Murder, considered as one of the Fine Arts; a task which might be easy
enough three or four centuries ago, when the art was little understood,
and few great models had been exhibited; but in this age, when
masterpieces of excellence have been executed by professional men, it
must be evident, that in the style of criticism applied to them, the public
will look for something of a corresponding improvement. Practice and
theory must advance pari passu. People begin to see that something
more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to
kill and be killed--a knife--a purse--and a dark lane. Design, gentlemen,
grouping, light and shade, poetry, sentiment, are now deemed
indispensable to attempts of this nature. Mr. Williams has exalted the
ideal of murder to all of us; and to me, therefore, in particular, has
deepened the arduousness of my task. Like Æschylus or Milton in
poetry, like Michael Angelo in painting, he has carried his art to a point
of colossal sublimity; and, as Mr. Wordsworth observes, has in a
manner "created the taste by which he is to be enjoyed." To sketch the
history of the art, and to examine its principles critically, now remains
as a duty for the connoisseur, and for judges of quite another stamp
from his Majesty's Judges of Assize.
Before I begin, let me say a word or two to certain prigs, who affect to
speak of our society as if it were in some degree immoral in its
tendency. Immoral! God bless my soul, gentlemen, what is it that

people mean? I am for morality, and always shall be, and for virtue and
all that; and I do affirm, and always shall, (let what will come of it,)
that murder is an improper line of conduct, highly improper; and I do
not stick to assert, that any man who deals in murder, must have very
incorrect ways of thinking, and truly inaccurate principles; and so far
from aiding and abetting him by pointing out his victim's hiding-place,
as a great moralist[1] of Germany declared it to be every good man's
duty to do, I would subscribe one shilling and sixpense to have him
apprehended, which is more by eighteen-pence than the most eminent
moralists have subscribed for that purpose. But what then? Everything
in this world has two handles. Murder, for instance, may be laid hold of