98 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



speed round its entire circuit while he waits for the 

 crash below, has something awful in it. How many 

 thoughts might have had time to rush through the 

 doomed brain as it whirled down that awful abyss 

 to be dashed on the hideous rocks ! and from that 

 thought, somehow, one's mind leaps, I cannot tell 

 why, to one of the liveliest of modern controversies, 

 and wonders, in the matter of punishment, what does 

 Lord "Westbury think would be a long enough term 

 for such a likely penitent as this same Tiberius or 

 what could be made of him, if he ever made his way 

 out of the everlasting prisons 1 This is a matter in 

 respect to which the untrained and arbitrary mind 

 has an advantage over its superiors ; but I cannot 

 help thinking it would be a great satisfaction, in 

 respect to the Tiberii of all ages and nations, if one 

 could hope that their spiritual necks were broken 

 over some grand Salto, and themselves made a sum- 

 mary end of at once and for ever which, however, 

 is an expedient which it is to be feared would please 

 neither party in the polemical question. In case his 

 victims by any happy chance should escape the rocks 

 and plunge into the sea, thus gaining a possibility of 

 escape, there were boats waiting underneath, under 

 the awful upright gloom of those noble cliffs, with 

 spears ready for the unfortunates, who surely, if 

 Dante had regulated the business, would have been 

 provided with a red-hot spear or two to receive their 

 murderer upon Avhen he came to join them. But 



