and lifts the club of the coarse village drunkard against the wife who has borne with his enormities. Nero killed his wife Octavia, as well as his mother Agrippina. Amalasuntha, queen of the Ostrogoths, was strangled in the bath by the order of a husband whom she had elevated. Gonzaga, prince of Mantua, ordered the execution of the princess, his spouse; and a prince of the house of Caraffa slew his wife from jealousy. The infuriated demon often strikes in his frenzy at the nearest object; and thus it is that, of all murders, that of a wife or of one who has been admitted to the place of a wife, is probably the most frequent, as well as the most shocking. Less often has the guilt of the murderess been found in the bosom of the wife. But Alboin, king of the Lombards, was a victim to the revenge of Rosamond, his queen, for the death of her father; Edward the Second, was murdered through the instigation of his "she-wolf" wife; Catharine the Second mounted the throne over the corpse of her husband; and Mary of Scotland at least wedded the murderer of Henry Darnley. In common life, the assassin of the husband has sometimes been the paramour of the wife; and there have been instances in our times when a strange thirst for destruction has been infused by the devil, and women have administered poison to one after another whom they had first allured to the nuptial bed. But as murder is the terrible exception from common death, so these are the terrible exceptions from common murder. They have been the utmost advances of sin and death and of their infernal author. Except where infanticide or human sacrifice has been a custom, and except the unlawful offspring destroyed as soon as born, very few in a million have died by the stroke or device of brother, or parent, or child, or kinsman, or consort. Still, almost every spot has its tale, of some half maniac father who has butchered his whole family as they lay asleep, or some frantic mother who has flung child after child into the rushing stream. Insanity, with which the powers of evil seem often to sport, as with a fortress forsaken by its garrison, very often inspires a deadly purpose towards the nearest objects of love: dark, dreadful thoughts shoot over the bewildered mind; and, though the guilt be wanting, the death is sometimes accomplished. It is as if it was designed that the first death which befell a human creature, with all its train of later fratricides and kindred crimes, should tell from how terrible a depth the victory of the seed of the woman must deliver the victims of sin. VII. Death by Murder. "Seest thou that lifeless corpse, those bloody wounds? See how he lies, who but so shortly since A living creature was, with all the powers Oh, what a heart had he who did this deed!" BAILLIE. APART from the more horrible atrocities of parricide, fratricide, and the murder of consorts or kindred, a multitude of men have been slain by the secret assassin, or the open, infuriated assailant. Monarchs in their palaces; chiefs at the head of armies; rich men lying in their chambers; travellers on the highway; husbands waylaid by the adulterer; adulterers in the arms of their paramours; men whose own crimes have been followed by the swift foot of the avenger; men who have been hated for the strict execution of their duty; men who have been involved in national, political, or family feuds ; each in the moment when he was most unguarded, have felt the sudden knife, or club, or axe, or ball, and fallen by the malice, the fury, the lust of gold, or the revenge, of a fellow-man. The fifth in descent from Cain was Lamech, who was remembered for those verses in which he owned that he had “slain a man to his wounding, and a young man to his hurt." It was no murder, when Eglon died by the dagger of Ehud, and Sisera by the nail and hammer of Jael. Whether the arm of the slayer was moved by a divine impulse or only by a patriotic determination, whether the act could be justified or only excused, the tyrant who had violated every right was the enemy of all the oppressed people, and had nothing to expect but from his own strength and vigilance. Such deeds can never be imitated under the Gospel; but they are not to be read as if we were reading of crimes. It was otherwise when Ishbosheth, as he lay on his bed at noon, was slain by the two sons of Rimmon, who hurried with his head across the plain. Four kings of Israel, and three of Judah, died through conspiracy. Gedaliah, the governor of the conquered Jews, was murdered by those who had just eaten his bread; and Hazael, who had just before recoiled at the prediction of his deed, smothered his sick and confiding sovereign. The brother and the son of Alexander the Great were successively placed on the throne, to fall after a little while by murder. His father, Philip, was struck by Pausanias, as, in great pomp, celebrating the marriage of his daughter, he entered the theatre. The magnificent Xerxes was murdered in his bed by one of his courtiers; three of his successors were also assassinated; and in the lines of Syrian, Egyptian, and Parthian princes, domestic slaughters were so frequent that the reader is scarcely shocked by the occurence, in their history, of less unnatural homicides. Scipio the younger was found, apparently strangled, in his bed: Pompey was murdered in a boat by three Egyptians, in sight of his wife from whom he had just parted; and Julius Cæsar fell down at the foot of the statue of Pompey, stabbed by the daggers of several senators. The Emperor Caligula was pierced in the neck by the poniard of one of his officers, as he passed through a gallery between the theatre and the palace: Claudius died by poison: the gross Vitellius, dragged through the streets of Rome, was murdered with many blows: Domitian was overpowered as he went to dinner: Commodus, after being poisoned by his concubine, was strangled by a strong wrestler: Caracalla was assassinated by a hired soldier, as he paused on a journey: the firm Galba, the rich Didius Julian, Macrinus, already deposed, the upright Pertinax, the wretched Heliogabalus in the arms of his mother, Alexander Severus in his tent, the gigantic Maximin, the associates Pupienus and Balbinus, Philip with his young son, Gallus and Gallienus, Aurelian and Probus, all were slain by their own soldiers; Carinus by a wronged husband; Numerian by his fatherin-law, in his litter: thus died the Pagan lords of the world. Of the Christian emperors, Constans was put to death in his bed by a rebellious officer: the second Valentinian was strangled, the third was murdered in the midst of his capital: Maurice was cruelly destroyed with his children and so died by the sword of the assassin, or by poison, Phocas, the murderer of Maurice, the second Constantine, the second Justinian, Constantine the Sixth, Leo the Armenian, Michael the Third, Romanus the Second and the Third, Nicephorus and Alexius the Fourth. Omar, Othman, and Ali, the second, third, and fourth, successors of Mahomet, all perished by the poniard; and so died, or by the bowstring, many a later caliph and sultan. In the earlier history of the modern nations of Europe, murder was as commonly the end of royalty. King Edmund the elder fell by the hand of a robber who had boldly sat down at his board, and then, having provoked him to seize him by the hair, stabbed him to the heart. Edward the Martyr was murdered at the instigation of his stepmother, Elfrida; Edmund Ironside |