condemned by a court of judicature; nor are we once reminded what that judicature was, by whom appointed, by whom influenced, by whom called upon, to receive that detestable evidence, the very recollection of which, even at this distance of time, fires every honest heart with indignation.  As well might we palliate the murders of Tiberius, who seldom put to death his victims without a previous decree of his senate.  The moral of all this seems to be, that whenever a prince can, by intimidation, corruption, illegal evidence, or other such means, obtain a verdict against a subject whom he dislikes, he may cause him to be executed without any breach of indispensable duty; nay, that it is an act of heroic generosity if he spares him.  I never reflect on Mr. Hume’s statement of this matter but with the deepest regret.  Widely as I differ from him upon many other occasions, this appears to me to be the most reprehensible passage of his whole work.  A spirit of adulation towards deceased princes, though in a good measure free from the imputation of interested meanness, which is justly attached to flattery when applied to living monarchs, yet, as it is less intelligible with respect to its motives than the other, so is it in its consequences still more pernicious to the general interests of mankind.  Fear of censure from contemporaries will seldom have much effect upon men in situations of unlimited authority:  they will too often flatter themselves that the same power which enables them to commit the crime will secure them from reproach.  The dread of posthumous infamy, therefore, being the only restraint, their consciences excepted, upon the passions of such persons, it is lamentable that this last defence (feeble enough at best) should in any degree be impaired; and impaired it must be, if not totally destroyed, when tyrants can hope to find in a man like Hume, no less eminent for the integrity and benevolence of his heart than for the depth and soundness of his understanding, an apologist for even their foulest murders.

Thus fell Russell and Sidney, two names that will, it is hoped, be for ever dear to every English heart.  When their memory shall cease to be an object of respect and veneration, it requires no spirit of prophecy to foretell that English liberty will be fast approaching to its final consummation.  Their department was such as might be expected from men who knew themselves to be suffering, not for their crimes, but for their virtues.  In courage they were equal, but the fortitude of Russell, who was connected with the world by private and domestic ties, which Sidney had not, was put to the severer trial; and the story of the last days of this excellent man’s life fills the mind with such a mixture of tenderness and admiration, that I know not any scene in history that more powerfully excites our sympathy, or goes more directly to the heart.