ON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH
Fraser’s Magazine for January 1831 contains an article on Capital Punishment in which the author introduces an extract from an essay by Hazlitt on the same subject. The extract is thus introduced: ‘It forms part of an essay which was written a few years ago by the late W. Hazlitt, at the request of a society then existing in London for obtaining a repeal of that formidable law, and seems to contain pretty much the sum of what might be brought forward against that punishment by a philosophical reasoner. It has never yet been published.’ Hazlitt’s essay has not been discovered, and this rather obscure fragment is reprinted from Fraser’s Magazine.
PAGE [466]. Beccaria. Cesare, Marchese de Beccaria (1735?–1794), whose famous work, On Crimes and Punishments, appeared in 1764. ‘It is not the intensity,’ etc. Cf. Beccaria, chap. xxviii. ‘Crimes are more effectually prevented,’ etc. Ibid. chap, xxvii. [470]. In Mr. Bentham’s phrase. See (e.g) Theory of Legislation, Part III. chap. vi. Note. For Burgh’s book see vol. IV. (Reply to Malthus), p. 85 et seq. and notes.
ADDENDA TO THE NOTES IN VOLS. I.–XI.
[VOL. I. ]
PAGE 3. The miser ‘robs himself,’ etc. Cf. Joseph Andrews, Book IV. chap. vii. 23. ‘Because on earth,’ etc. See vol. X., note to p. 63. 52. ‘A mistress,’ etc. Goldsmith, The Traveller, 152. 57. ‘Pure,’ etc. Dryden, Persius, Sat. II. l. 133. 68. ‘Two happy things,’ etc. The Tatler (No. 40) quotes the epigram thus:
‘In marriage are two happy things allowed,
A wife in wedding-sheets, and in a shroud.
How can a marriage state then be accursed,
Since the last day’s as happy as the first?’