407 
C 11 u 
Mary lived, the fame barbarous tragedy would have 
been adted in Ireland. But the moft (hocking of all adts 
of fanaticifm with which the faithful page of hiftory 
hath yet been fulli'ed,' appears to be the Pariiian flaugh- 
ter,, ©r malTacre of St. Bartholomew’s day. For parti¬ 
culars of this bloody fcene, fee under that head in vol. 
ii. p. 764 of this Encylopaedia. If fuch cruelties have 
been the refult of bigotry and fanaticifm among Chrif- 
tians, we cannot wonder to find flill more horrible ex¬ 
amples of cruelty amongft the ancient pagans and Jews. 
■Commodus, the Roman emperor, when but twelve 
years old, gave a (hocking inllance of his cruelty at Cen- 
tumcellas, now called Civita Vecchia, when, finding the 
•water in which he bathed fomewhat too warm, he com¬ 
manded the perfon who attended the bath to be tjirown 
into the furnace ; nor was he fatisfied till thofe who were 
.about him pretended to have put his order in execution. 
After his fucceflion to the empire, he equalled, if he did 
not exceed, in cruelty, Caligula, Domitian, and even Nero 
himfelf; playing, we may fay, with the blood of his 
fubjedts and fellow-creatures, of whom he caufed great 
numbers to be racked and butchered in his prefence, 
merely for his diverfion. Hiftorians relate many in- 
ftances of his cruelty very odd and monftrous. He caufed 
one to be thrown to wild beads for reading the life of 
Caligula, written by Suetonius ; becaufe that tyrant and 
he had been born on the fame day of the month, and in 
many bad qualities refembled each other. Seeing one 
day a corpulent man pafs by, he immediately cut him 
afund^r, partly to try his (trength, in which he excelled 
all men, and partly out of curiofity, as himfelf owned, 
to fee his intrails drop out at once. He took pleafure in 
cutting off the feet, and putting out the eyes, of fuch 
as he met in his rambles through the city ; telling the 
former, after he had thus maimed them, by way of rail¬ 
lery, that they now belonged to the nation of the Mo- 
nopodii ; and the latter, that they were now become 
Lufcenii; alluding to the words Lufcinia, a nightingale, 
and lu/cus, one-eyed. Some he murdered becaufe, they 
were negligently dreffed; others becaufe they feemed 
trimmed with too much nicety. He affumed the name 
and habit of Hercules, appearing publicly in a lion’s 
(kin, with a huge club in his hand, and ordering feveral 
perfons, though not guilty of any crimes, to be difguifed 
like monfters, that by knocking out their brains he might 
have a better claim to the title, the great deftroyer of 
monfters. In fhort, the (bedding of human blood feemed 
to be his chief diverfion. 
Alexander Jannaeus, prince and high-prieft of the Jews, 
being affronted at the feaft of tabernacles, a civil waren- 
fued between him and his fubjects. In the courfe of this 
war, which continued for fix years, Alexander, having 
taken a city wherein a great number had (hut themlelves 
up, he carried eight hundred of them to Jerufalem, and 
caufed them all to be crucified in one day. When they 
were fixed to the crofs, he ordered their wives and chil¬ 
dren to be brought out, and to have their throats cut 
before their faces. During this cruel execution, the 
high-prieft regaled his wives and concubines in'a place 
from which they faw all that palfed ; and this light was 
to them the principal part of the entertainment. Hor¬ 
rid gratification! 
Pifo, the Roman general, had fent two foldiers out 
foraging ; one of them returning without his companion, 
Pifo, concluding he had murdered him, ordered the poor 
man to be hanged. While the executioner was preparing 
to difpatch him, the other foldier, who had only ftrayed a 
little out of the way, returned to the camp, to the great 
Joy of the whole army. When the two foldiers had em¬ 
braced, the hangman brought them both to Pifo, think¬ 
ing it would be a great pleafure to him that the life of 
an innocent man was not facrificed. But this monfter 
ordered them all three to be put to death, from the fol¬ 
lowing diabolical train of reafoning : the firft foldier; be- 
eaufe he was already condemned; the fecond, b*c«uife, 
t 
5 L T Y. 
by draggling abroad, he had caufed his fellow’s death ; 
and the hangman, becaufe he had not obeyed the orders 
of his general. Montaigne's EJfays. 
Shocking it is, that whiclifoever way we turn our eyes, 
we are (till prefented with feenes of inhumanity and cru¬ 
elty. We fee innumerable examples in antiquity, many 
in the middle ages, and fome even in our own times. The 
torture was abolilhed but laft year in Ruffia; and im¬ 
palements is (till ufed in Turkey; and even towards 
(laves and domeftics in fome of the Chriftian fettlcments 
abroad ; particularly in Batavia and Surinam. The em¬ 
peror Mahmoud often pradtifed what he thought to be 
the fevered torment, which was to have the offending 
party cut in two by a (ingle blow of a feimetar about the 
diaphragm, and juft above the ftomach ; thus he thought 
a man muft die two deaths, both parts being feen full of 
life, and quivering for fome time after as if in extreme 
torment. But the greateft torments to look upon are 
not always the hardeft to be endured. Much more hor¬ 
rible were thofe which the fame emperor ufed againft 
certain lords of Epirus, whom he caufed to be (lowly 
dead all over, in which agony they lived a fortnight. 
Croefus caufed a gentleman who had revolted againft 
him to be led to a clothworker’s (hop, and there feraped 
and tortured with the carders and teazels till he died. 
George Sechel, leader of a revolt in Polina, was defeated 
by the waywode of Tranlylvania, and taken prifoner. 
He was for three days tied to a wooden-horfe, expofed 
to the tortures any man might think proper to inflidt 
upon him, during all which time the reft of the prifoners 
were kept from any kind of food : then his brother, for 
whofe fafety only he had intreated, was forced to drink 
his blood; and twenty of his moft favoured captains were 
compelled to feed upon his flefit, which they were forced 
to tear oft’ with their teeth from his living and agonizing 
body, and fwallow. When he was dead, the reft of his 
body and intrails were boiled, and given for food to the 
refidue of his ftarving followers. See Montaigne's EJfays. 
An aft of cruelty, fomewhat fitnilar to the practices 
of the noted Mrs. Brownrigg, was detedted and punilhed 
only in Marcli 1802, at Glafgow.. It was there fully 
proved, before a crowded court, that Mrs. M‘Lellan, 
aftifted by her niece, and two girls in her fervice, had 
been in the pradtice, for feveral months together, of exer- 
cifing the moft atrocious cruelties upon a poor orphan 
girl, on pretence of her negledting her work: that (he 
burnt her on almoft every part of the body with red-hot 
tongs, held the foies of her feet to the grate, laftied her 
with a knotted rope and a horfe-whip, to the effulion of 
her blood ; and fometimes carried her cruelty fo far as 
to throw herring-brine upon the wounds, to make them 
fmart. The poor victim at laft made her efcape from 
the houfe, and having obtained admiflion into the infir, 
mary at Glafgow, the magiftrates were made acquainted 
with her cafe, and diredied the.procurator Fifcal to infti- 
tute the profecution. 
Let us, however, not conclude from the foregoing in- 
ftances, that cruelty is a property of human nature. 
No, it is only an excrefcence of it: for who would argue 
from the natural or acquired hardnefs and infenfibiiity 
of a few mifereants, to the temper and texture of the 
whole (pecies? A Nero or a Caligula, are in reality not 
the rule of nature, but the exception of it: and not- 
withlhmding thefe untoward appearances, which arife 
from the very nature of liberty and virtue; an exadt 
and thorough enquiry into the formation of the luuruM 
mind, would convince every unprejudiced perfon that all 
thofe qualities which are truly original and inherent, 
are beneficial and falutary; and that fuch as arc of a 
contrary tendency are adventitious and accidental. The 
heart of man is naturally diftufive, its kind yvifties fpread 
abroad over the face of the creation, and thoufands 
there are who delight in nothing fo much as in doing 
good : but as the lame water which at one time Hows 
along in gentle dreams, gladdening a thoufand fields m 
its 
