And some, we know, when they by wilful act
A single human life have wrongly taken, 10
Pass sentence on themselves, confess the fact,
And, to atone for it, with soul unshaken
Kneel at the feet of Justice, and, for faith
Broken with all mankind, solicit death.
[200] “In the third and fourth sonnets the reader is prepared to regard as low and effeminate the views which would estimate life and death as the most important of all sublunary conditions.” (Sir Henry Taylor.)—Ed.
[201] Lucius Junius Brutus, who condemned his sons to die for the part they took in the conspiracy to restore the Tarquins. (See Livy, book ii.)—Ed.