The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-28 00:00:00

nsertiun

In the year 1821 there were 114 executions in England and
Wales. In 1828, the number was reduced to 59; in 1836, to
17 ; and in 1838, it was only 6. That this change bas been
effected without diminishing, even in the slightest degree, the
security of the persons and properties of men, is a matter of
the clearest evidence, the evidence of actual experience, which
cannot be disputed or falsified. The Government returns
prove, that there have been fewer highway robberies in the last
seven years, with 5 executions, than in the preceding seven
years, with 58 executions; that there have been fewer acts of
burglary and housebreaking in the last seven years, with only
2 executions, than in the preceding seven years, when 57 persons
suffered death for those crimes; that there has been less
horse-stealing in the last seven years, without any execution,
than in the preceding seven years, during which, for that offence
alone, 22 convicts were sent to the scaffold. Whatever experi-
ence has been acquired by this unexampled reform in the ad-
ministration of public justice has at least been safely and in
"eently gained. Some hundreds of offenders, had they com-
mitted their crimes a few years before, would have died by the
band of the executioner. They have been allowed to live.
Life, the only season of repentance•, with all its opportunities of
regaining the favour of an offended Deity, has been mer.
cifully continued to them; and from this lenity society has
derived no injury, no loss. Who then can fail to rejoice

at a result so consoling to humanity? For murder, nc
less than other crimes, the penalty of death, as an ex-
ample, is momentary, and of no beneficial effect :—it dis-
gusts the good, and brutalizes the bad, who witness the spec-
tacle of man cruelly destroyed by man ;—as an act of extreme
violence, it teaches violence to the people. ;—as an act of deli-
berate homicide, it diminishes the regard due to the sanctity of
life; and renders murder less revolting to the uninstructed mind.
For murder, as well as other crimes, it too often leads to im-
punity through the suppression of evidence by the associates or
acquaintance of the criminal, who recoil at the thought of be-
coming accessory to the death of one, with whom they had
formerly lived on terms of familiar intercourse.

LITERATURE.

EDINBURGH ICE VIEW.. No. CLI.
Longman, London, 1842.

There "are few illustrious characters of modern
times whose reputation has better stood the wear and
tear of years than that of Frederick the Second of
Prussia—the hero of the famous Seven Years' War—
who, single-handed, and with the odds at least twenty
to one against him, resisted the combined powers of
France, Austria, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and the
Germanic body ; and at the close of the war still kept
possession of Silesia, to wrest which from his iron
grasp had been the one leading object of the con-
federacy. The Prussians may well be proud of him
—though it must be confessed that admiration of a
ruthless warrior is a very vulgar and humiliating trait
in the character of any nation—for he is the only
great military genius they ever produced, the only
one in modern history who can bear an instant's com-
parison with Napoleon. Both these conquerors indeed
possessed many points in common. Both were equally
regardless of the faith of treaties ; both were equally
devoured by a love of false glory;, both looked to
France as the source and centre of European civi-
lization ; and the genius of both showed to the
greatest advantage under reverses which would have
utterly crushed less energetic minds. Napoleon
maintaining his last astonishing struggle in France,
with but a handful of dispirited troops, against the
whole overwhelming power of the Allies, hardly ex-
hibits more signal energy and fortitude of nature,
than Frederick, when disputing every square inch of
ground, with his capital in possession of the Austrians,
and his kingdom overrun with swarms of northern
barbarians. It is singular that both these illustrious
men, at one specially disastrous period of their career,
contemplated death, not in the field, but by poison ;
and we may add, that they were never so calm and
self-possessed, as when tottering to all appearance on
the verge of irretrievable ruin. But here our par-
rallel must stop. Frederick's military genius was the
growth of time and experience ; Napoleon's resembled
intuition, and seemed to shoot up, like the fairy palace
of Aladdin, in, a night. His very first battles were
brilliant victories, whereas those of the Prussian
Monarch were crushing defeats, brought on by his
own blunders. Napoleon took his position at once as
the chief warrior of the age; Frederick won his way
to fame by slow and painful degrees. In the former 's
estimation no renown was worth winning save that
acquired by the sword ; he affected indeed to admire
artists and men of science ; but it was a cold and con-
strained admiration, in which the heart had little
share. Frederick, on the contrary, entertained a
sincere and hearty respect for scientific and pictorial
genius. Literature, in particular, divided his attention
nearly equally with war ; and in his bitterest season
of adversity he could always derive consolation from
the manufacture of indifferent poesy. During his
campaigns the sword was only laid aside for the pen ;
and he was frequently awake in his tent, or in a shed,
scribbling wretched verse, hours after his officers and
soldiers were fast asleep. About the year 1759 an
edition of his poems was printed in England. As a
matter of course it excited public attention in no
ordinary degree—Frederick being then the great hero
of the day—but it soon sank into oblivion, and was
denounced in warmer terms than such a collection of
indecent,' irreligious rubbish deserved, by Gray and
Horace Walpole. We remember, a few years since,
glancing at some odd volumes of his Majesty's works,
in prose and verse, and were astonished to find how
few passages there were worth recollecting. The
imagery was all common-place • the philosophy was
merely that of Voltaire and Bolingbroke at second-
hand ; and the wit and sarcasm, even when genuine,
were of the coarsest and most offensive character.
But it is idle to enlarge on the literary peculiarities of
the Prussian King. He is long since defunct as an
author, and survives only as a warrior in the blood-
stained pages of history.
In the Number before us there is an admirable
sketch of the character of this celebrated despot, whose
military career is traced down to the close of the
Seven Years' War. We can scarcely doubt to whose
pen we are indebted for this rapid and brilliant sketch,
which betrays its author in every page. There is one
passage in it, however, which, as proceeding from a
zealous Whig, is somewhat exceptiohable, to say the
least of it. "Is it not perfectly clear," asks the Re-
viewer, " that if antiquated claims are to be set up
against recent treaties and long possession, the world
can never be at peace for a day ? We hold that the
transfer of Norway from Denmark to Sweden, was
an unjustifiable proceeding; but would the King of
Denmark be therefore justified in landing, without
any new provocation, in Norwv, and commencing
military operations there ?" If this is to be held
sound doctrine, then it follows that Poland has no
right to attempt to regain her independence. Re-
cent treaties and long possession" prove incontest
ably that Russia is justified in keeping her in a state
of abject slavery. In like manner, Italy is bound to
take no steps to overthrow Austrian domination, no
matter how grinding and insulting it may be. This
is a strange theory to be propounded in a Whig
Journal—in that very Journal, too, which has inva-
riably advocated the cause of the Poles, and been
loud in its denunciations of Austrian despotism in
Italy ! But to return to the subject more immedi-
ately before us. The Reviewer gives a highly di-
verting account of the intimacy and subsequent
quarrel between Frederick and Voltaire, who, it
is well-known, from havini, been sworn friends
became deadly enemies. The King, who admired
every thing French, invited the great wit and philoso-
pher of Ferney to Potsdam ; but soon after his arrival,
took offence at his inability to detect superlative ex-
cellence in the royal poetry, and testified his displea-
sure by giving orders that " his guest's allowance of
sugar and chocolate should be curtailed." On this
coming to Voltaire's ears, he " indemnified himself by
pocketing the wax-candles in the royal anti-
chamber l"—a mode of retaliation not altogether be-
coming the dignity of a philosopher. Of course this
extraordinary couple soon parted, never to meet
again ; and, indeed, considering their characters—
both being vain, irritable, and nervously apprehensive
of ridicule—we are only surprised how they managed
to keep the peace towards each other for two days
consecutively. It is a ridiculous circumstance that,
when Voltaire quitted Potsdam, he carried off with
him a manuscript volume of his Majesty's poems,
which enraged the royal author as much as if he had
wrested Silesia from his grasp. He took for granted
that the French wit meditated plagiarism on them;
and Voltaire, on the other hand, felt quite indignant
that he should be suspected of a design to steal such
rubbish. Ultimately, the volume was recovered by
the King, but not. Voltaire had been kept twelve

d i clays n custody.for the supposed petty larceny! We
subjoin the Reviewer's details of the 'French philoso-
pher's first visit to Berlin : •
. "To Berlin he was invited by a series of letters,
couched in terms of the - most enthusiastic friendship
and admiration. For once the rigid parsimony of Frederick
seemed to have relaxed. Orders, honourable offices, a
liberal penson, a wall-served table, stately apartments
under a royal roof, were offered in return for the plea-
sure and honour which were expected from the society
of the first wit of the age. A thousand louis were re-
mitted for the charges of the journey. No ambassador
setting out from Berlin for a Court of the first rank, had
ever been more amply supplied. But Voltaire was not
satisfied. At a later period, when he possessed an am•
ple fortune, he was one of the most liberal of men ; but
till his means had become equal to .his wishes, his
• greediness for lucre was unrestrained either by justice
or by shame. Be had the effrontery to ask for a
thousand louis more, in order to enable him to bring
his niece, Madame Denis, the ugliest of coquettes, in hts
company. The indelicate rapacity of the poet pro-
duced its natural effect on the severe and frugal King.
The answer was a dry refusal. ' I did not,'said his Ma-
jesty, 'solicit the honour of the lady's society.' On this,
Voltaire went off into a paroxysm of childish rage.
' Was there ever such avarice ? lie has hundreds of

tubs full of dollars in his vaults, and haggles with me
about a poor thousand louis.' It seemed that the nego-
tiation would be broken off; but Frederick, with great
dexterity, affected indifference, and seemed inclined to
transfer his idolatry to Baculard and d'Arnaud. his
Majesty even wrote some bad verses, of which the sense
was, that Voltaire was a setting sun, and that Arnaud
was rising. Good-natured friends soon carried the lines

to Voltaire. He was in his bed. He jumped out in his
shirt, danced about the room with rage, and seat fir his
passport and his post horses. It was not difficult to
foresee the end of a connection which had such a be-
ginning. •

" "It was in the year.l7so that Voltaire left the great
capital, which he was not to see again till, after the lapse
of near thirty years, he returned, bowed down by ex-
treme old age, to die in the midst of a splendid and
ghastly triumph. His reception in Prussia was such as
might well have elated a less vain and excitable mind.

_ _......
He wrote to his friends at Path that the kindness and
the attention with which he had been welcomed sur-

passed description—that the King Was the most amiable
of men—that Potsdam was the paradise of philosophers.
He was created chamberlain, and received, together
with his gold key, the cross of an order, and a patent
ensuring to him a pension of eight hundred pounds ster-
ling a year, for life. A hundred and sixty pounds a year
were promised to his neice if she survived him. The
royal cooks and coachmen were put at his disposal. He
was lodged in the same apartments in which Saxe had
lived. when, at the height of power and glory, he visited
Prussia. Frederick, indeed, stooped for a time even to
use the language of adulation. He pressed to his lips
the meagre hand of the little grinning skeleton, whom
he regarded as the dispenser of immortal renown. He
would add, he said, to the titles which he owed to his