played at billiards with Prester John, or to have had an affair of honor with the Pope.  And, by the way, the Pope would be a very improper person to murder:  for he has such a virtual ubiquity as the father of Christendom, and, like the cuckoo, is so often heard but never seen, that I suspect most people regard him also as an abstract idea.  Where, indeed, a public character is in the habit of giving dinners, “with every delicacy of the season,” the case is very different:  every person is satisfied that he is no abstract idea; and, therefore, there can be no impropriety in murdering him; only that his murder will fall into the class of assassinations, which I have not yet treated.

Thirdly.  The subject chosen ought to be in good health:  for it is absolutely barbarous to murder a sick person, who is usually quite unable to bear it.  On this principle, no cockney ought to be chosen who is above twenty-five, for after that age he is sure to be dyspeptic.  Or at least, if a man will hunt in that warren, he ought to murder a couple at one time; if the cockneys chosen should be tailors, he will of course think it his duty, on the old established equation, to murder eighteen.  And, here, in this attention to the comfort of sick people, you will observe the usual effect of a fine art to soften and refine the feelings.  The world in general, gentlemen, are very bloody-minded; and all they want in a murder is a copious effusion of blood; gaudy display in this point is enough for them.  But the enlightened connoisseur is more refined in his taste; and from our art, as from all the other liberal arts when thoroughly cultivated, the result is—­to improve and to humanize the heart; so true is it, that—­

  ——­“Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes,
  Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.”

A philosophic friend, well known for his philanthropy and general benignity, suggests that the subject chosen ought also to have a family of young children wholly dependent on his exertions, by way of deepening the pathos.  And, undoubtedly, this is a judicious caution.  Yet I would not insist too keenly on this condition.  Severe good taste unquestionably demands it; but still, where the man was otherwise unobjectionable in point of morals and health, I would not look with too curious a jealousy to a restriction which might have the effect of narrowing the artist’s sphere.

So much for the person.  As to the time, the place, and the tools, I have many things to say, which at present I have no room for.  The good sense of the practitioner has usually directed him to night and privacy.  Yet there have not been wanting cases where this rule was departed from with excellent effect.  In respect to time, Mrs. Ruscombe’s case is a beautiful exception, which I have already noticed; and in respect both to time and place, there is a fine exception in the annals of Edinburgh, (year 1805,) familiar to every child in Edinburgh, but which has unaccountably been defrauded of its due portion of fame amongst English amateurs.  The case I mean is that of a porter to one of the banks, who was murdered whilst carrying a bag of money, in broad daylight, on turning out of the High Street, one of the most public streets in Europe, and the murderer is to this hour undiscovered.