The Court of Cacus Part 9

"I think," said he, with a start, "I am ent.i.tled, and ought to get that five pounds from Dr Knox which is still unpaid on the body of the woman Docherty."

"Why," replied the astonished pietist, "Dr Knox lost by the transaction, as the body was taken from him."

"That was not my business," said Burke sharply. "I delivered the subject, and he ought to have kept it."

"But you forget," said the other, "that were the money paid, Hare would have the right to a half of it."

And then came, after a little meditation, the explanation.

"I have got a tolerable pair of trousers," he continued; "and since I am to appear before the public, I should like to be _respectable_. I have not a coat and waistcoat that I can appear in, and if I got the 5 I could buy them."

But it is to be admitted that while he shewed no real signs of penitence in a Calvinistic sense,--so different these we suspect, from what are found in a votary of the confessional,--he evinced none of the dogged surliness of the hardened sinner, if his general mildness and continued politeness were not remarkable. Indeed, as we have seen, these characteristics were always, when he was not intoxicated, the prevailing features of his demeanour, from which many inferred that he purposely roused himself by large draughts of whisky to the fury which he found necessary to the perpetration of his onslaughts. This would seem to receive confirmation from the statement of a witness, who said that on these occasions he did not drink out of an ordinary measure, but used a strong-ale gla.s.s, which he would fill almost to the brim. Were this true, it would be no abatement from the malignity and sternness of the sober purpose which a.s.suredly he must have entertained, while his external aspect was still as composed, if not as mild, as it was said to be. As a consequence of this placability, he gave way alternately to those solicitations with which he was daily pursued to utter a confession. He first made one and then another, but while these doc.u.ments exhibit many discrepancies, they shew, from their curtness and desultoriness, that they were the result of a mere carelessness, only brought up to the point by pestering solicitations. Ten lines are devoted to the whole story of the murder of a human being, and if it had not been that circ.u.mstances came out on all sides, often from unknown sources, no more would have ever been known, at least as regards many of the victims, than simply that they perished. Even for these the gaping mouth of curiosity, and not less the hopeful heart of piety, was sufficiently thankful, while the hardened sceptics still refused to see the sign of the new birth.

Nor, as the short days pa.s.sed to usher in the last morning, for which he said "he would not greatly weary," was there any other more signal appearance of a radical change. No doubt he received the visits of clergymen, not caring much whether of one denomination or another, and none of them were gratified with more than very ordinary manifestations of regret. There always haunted him a desire to have Hare brought to trial, yet he had art enough to place this, not to the account of revenge, but that of _humanity_. Even Burke became a philanthropist, or, what is often the same thing, could use the hackneyed words which are the fas.h.i.+onable tribute paid by vice to virtue. If he was not thus unable to forget the enormous debt due by his fearful a.s.sociate, he was, and continued to the end to be, not less mindful of his paramour. He sent his watch and what money he possessed to her--"Poor thing, it is all I have to give to her; it will be of some use to her, and I will not need it." Yet no moisture of the eyes--the pity was only the b.a.s.t.a.r.d offspring of animal love.

Withal, we are frank to admit that even the breaking down of the adamant, to the extent of confession and regret, in a man like Burke, was a triumph to religion. There is no natural way of accounting for that phenomenon of which every man is doomed to feel the experience, that while death a.s.serts his power over the body, he extorts a contribution from the soul. Turn the question in any way you please, your final cause is nowhere, unless it be that the experience of agonised death-beds is the opportunity of virtue--a poor back-handed way of making people better, and certainly bought at a terrible expense. But even taking the advantage in this limited form, it does not exhaust the conditions of the question; for while the dying sinner is altogether unconscious that his agonies will go forth to the world and be an example, his mind is in another direction. He looks forward, and the more keenly, that he cannot look backwards. Where is the final cause now? Try again, and we suspect you will find it only in heaven.

Vejove.

We are so apt to take signs for things, and so glibly too do the one pa.s.s into the other, that we find almost all descriptions of individuals previous to execution very much the same; and so they must needs be, for fate is the great man-tamer, and man only: the brutes merely feel the stroke when it falls--man sees it coming, knows its necessity, and therefore commits himself to resignation. Then, resignation is so grave an affair that it is often mistaken for genuine seriousness, if not for religious impression; but even here we have exceptions of men who could be merry under the gibbet or the axe--strange beings these, and more often of the virtuous than the vicious; for vice in the clutch is but a sorry affair. This doomed man, who was represented as having behaved so decently, could sing and dance the minute before he braced his cruel sinews to the work of death; and if he had been consistent, he would have acted Macpherson under the cross-beam; but the Highlander only stole cattle, while the Irishman immolated human beings, and so we find him grave and decorous because he was now to be throttled in his turn.

At four o'clock on the morning of Tuesday the 27th,--that previous to the day of execution,--he was taken off the _gad_ and removed to the Lock-up in Liberton's Wynd. The reason of the early hour is evident, for the excitement of the people was such that the authorities were not satisfied that he would not be claimed by a furious mob, and dealt with as he had dealt by so many others. Notwithstanding the long period he had been in jail, there was no great change in his appearance, except a slight paleness, which, with some weakness of body, was the result of a peculiar external malady with which he had for a considerable time been afflicted;[15] nor could the sharpest observation of Captain Rose, who accompanied him, detect any diminution of that composedness, or, if you please, insensibility, which had marked his demeanour all along. If there was a flutter at all, it was when he was presented with his new suit of black--either the pa.s.sing feeling of the ominous dress, or satisfaction of his wish to appear respectable. In the course of the day the Catholic priests, Messrs Reid and Stewart, as well as the Protestant ministers, Messrs Marshall and Porteous, paid him a visit, and were rewarded with the usual amount of earthly regret; but with how much of remorse or faith in the Redeemer, even they could not tell, immovable as he was, and apparently unconcerned. Indeed the sole animating feeling was a desire to have the business over. "Oh, that the hour were come that is to separate me from the world!" but not a word of faith, and far less of hope. In the morning, too, when the jailer took off his heavy fetters, and they fell with a clank upon the floor,--"So may all earthly chains fall from me."

At seven, and after having experienced a sound and unbroken rest for at least five hours, Burke walked with a steady step into the keeper's room, followed by the confessor; nor yet was there any appearance of agitation or dismay. He took his seat in an arm-chair by the side of the fire, and twice or thrice arrived at that point of distress which is marked by two or three sighs. Then commenced the Catholic devotions, in which, as he had done before, he engaged with an appearance of fervour. The Protestant ministers followed up the Catholic service with some serious exhortations, in the course of which, Mr Porteous having dwelt on the words, "You must trust in the mercy of G.o.d," the doomed man exhibited symptoms of anguish; but as for anything like that "awe which is illumined by hope," he seemed to have a secret feeling that he was too deeply sunk in crime even to think of the infinite mercy of Heaven. After this portion of the exercises was gone through, he was on his way to an adjoining apartment when the executioner met and stood before him. Even this apparition, generally so fearful to a criminal when he first makes his appearance, did not dismay him. "I am not ready for you yet," was the brief salutation; and in a short time after, when he was pinioned, he bore the operation composedly, and without uttering a word. He was now asked to take a gla.s.s of wine, and having accepted the offer, he bowed to the company, and drank "Farewell to all present, and the rest of my friends." The magistrates having now gone out, returned in their robes, with their rods of office, and Burke, before going forth, expressed his grat.i.tude to the bailies and all the other officials for the kindness and attention he had received at their hands.

Meanwhile the crowd outside had attained its greatest density. At ten o'clock on the previous night, the ceremony of setting up the scaffold had commenced. This has always been a scene in Edinburgh, but now it was a festival. The din of the workmen, and the clang of the hammers, were mingled with the shouts of the a.s.sembled people to the amount of thousands. Whenever an important part of the erection was completed in the light of the torches, up rose the cheer, as if so much had been done towards the satisfaction of their vengeance. When all was finished, and the transverse beam looked so ready for its weight, the event was honoured by three of these cheers so loud and prolonged that they were heard in Princes Street. Even the services of the workmen, always averse as they are to gallows-work, were on this occasion, and certainly never before, volunteered with emulation. By this hour, two in the morning, the closes and stairs near the spot were blocked up by ma.s.ses of people, who had resolved, at the expense of so many hours' watch, to secure a good view.

The inclemency of the weather drove them to any shelter that could be obtained,--in very few cases homeward,--where the morning broke upon them in gray dawn, but with the inspiration of hope. In addition to all this confusion, a constant bustle was kept up by those who, either for favour or for money,--and high prices were paid for good stances,--had procured the envied windows. After this a solemn stillness pervaded the whole scene, broken only by the splas.h.i.+ng of the rain, which fell in torrents, accompanied with gusts of wind which whistled and moaned through the long closes.

As the morning advanced, the groups were seen hastening to their windows, and about five, the people generally began to pour in, taking their stations in front of the gallows, and upwards towards the Castlehill, while large parties of policemen and patrols successively arrived, to be posted in a strong line in front of the railing--the s.p.a.ce left free being much larger than ordinary. Nor were the crowd on this occasion in their ordinary humour of annoying or r.e.t.a.r.ding the constables in the execution of their duty, which they rather viewed as a common cause. From six to seven the concourse increased, thronging every avenue to the High Street, and hurrying in from every quarter, till the whole s.p.a.ce, from the Tron to the Bow, threatened to be too small to hold them. Nor were the ma.s.ses entirely composed of the cla.s.s that usually attend such scenes. There were included, especially about the windows, not only of the dingy houses of the Lawnmarket, but also of the County Buildings, great numbers of well-dressed ladies, imparting a variety, scarcely to have been expected, to the scene, already otherwise picturesque. After seven, and when the rain, which had been excessive some hours before, began to cease, the crowd became rapidly larger still, and at eight, the entire area between the two points we have mentioned presented the aspect of an immense and closely-wedged ma.s.s of human beings, all still and watchful, never before seen there, except, perhaps, on the occasion of the King's visit. All round the scaffold you saw the crowd was composed of men--gradually outwards giving place to women, many of whom, being pressed by the dense ma.s.s around them, sent forth screams of distress; and where the pressure got less, chiefly about the circ.u.mference, the numbers of that s.e.x were still considerable--the entire a.s.semblage, as is the case where density is great, being moved, as it seemed, all throughout by the same impulse, coming from whatever direction. The numbers at this time were computed at 20,000 or 30,000. But there was one feature of this crowd which was more extraordinary than its extent or composition. In ordinary cases, at least in Scotland, there is usually manifested sympathy for the sufferer, or at least a sedate and solemn manner, as if the occasion were melancholy and instructive. All this was changed now. There was on every face an expression of something approaching to joy, as if the heart felt it was to get quit of a painful feeling of revenge, and that the relief was near. It is now eight,--St Giles's rolls forth the sounds, and every noise is stilled.

Precisely at the hour Burke was on his feet, eager to be dead, and the procession moved. He was supported by the two Catholic priests, more from the difficulty he experienced in walking with his arms so closely pinioned, than from any weakness or faltering of step. In the progress towards and up Liberton's Wynd he shewed even increased coolness and self-possession, turning from side to side in conversation, and at one part, where the ground was wet, carefully picking his steps; but at the head of the entry, where he was to get a view of the crowd, he winced, and half-closing his eyes, hurried on, as if more eager still to be out of the roar of that terrible a.s.semblage. Nor was that roar long delayed. Upon Bailies Crichton and Small issuing from the wynd, the shout was raised in one long-continued yell, and when Burke himself was seen ascending the stair, the roar was repeated with double intensity, mixed with articulated execrations,--"Burke him!" "Choke him!" "No mercy, hangie!" Yet amidst all, Burke walked with steady step, and stood coolly below the apparatus of death. If he was much moved at all, it was to cast a look at the crowd of fierce and desperate defiance, as if he could have felt it in his heart to repeat upon every one of them his old experiment, and we suspect that he would have done it if he had had the liberty and the power.

Having taken his station in front of the drop, he kneeled with his back towards the spectators, his confessor on his right hand, and the other Catholic clergyman on the left, and repeated a form of prayer dictated by one of these reverend gentlemen. Mr Marshall, meanwhile, offered up a supplication on his behalf, the bailies and other officials joining in the devotions, with the exception of the executioner (Williams) and his a.s.sistant, who stood at the back of the drop. During all this time there was silence. On rising from his kneeling posture, Burke was observed to lift a silk handkerchief, on which his knees had rested, and put it into his pocket. There was now some hesitation in his manner, as if loath to mount; and one of the persons who a.s.sisted him to ascend, having, perhaps inadvertently, pushed him somewhat roughly to a side, that he might be placed exactly on the spot, he looked round with a withering scowl. He then _ran_ up the steps, as if he hurried to death, to get beyond the reach of these terrible howls. Some further delay took place, from the circ.u.mstance of Williams, who stood behind him, endeavouring to loose his handkerchief, in which he found some difficulty. "The knot is behind,"

said Burke,--the only words not devotional uttered by him on the scaffold.

When Williams succeeded in removing the neckcloth, he proceeded to fasten the rope round his neck, pulling it tightly, and, after adjusting and fixing it, he put upon his head a white cotton night-cap, but without pulling it over his face. While this was going on, the yells became fiercer and fiercer, mixed with the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, "Where's Hare? Hang him, too." "Don't waste rope on him." "You ----, you will see Daft Jamie in a minute." The Rev. Mr Reid then advanced, and conversed with him shortly, but earnestly, and directed him to say the Creed, which he did. As he muttered the words, his face was pale and livid, but he was still composed, unflinching, and motionless. The next act was the advance of Williams to draw the cap over his face. He manifested a repugnance to this, as if he would brave the yelling crowd even to the last extremity, and it was with some difficulty this was accomplished. Everything is now ready. He utters an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n to his Maker, imploring mercy, and throws away the handkerchief with a jerk of impatience, the bolt is drawn, and Burke swings in the air amidst the deafening roar of thirty thousand people.[16] But Burke was not yet dead. He must be dead before that crowd is satisfied. From the limited length of the fall, there had been no dislocation; and for five minutes the body hung motionless, except from the impetus given by the fall, when a convulsive motion of the feet, and a general heaving, indicated a still lingering vitality. Upon observing this, the crowd raised another cheer. Twice these motions were renewed, and twice again rose the shout.

Generally, the scene of an execution is soon deserted; people give a shudder, and run away, like one who has been obliged to obey a feeling which is not pleasant, and yet is inevitable, and who enjoys a relief from the emotion. This did not occur on this occasion. The people shewed no disposition to disperse. They seemed desirous of prolonging their gratification by gloating on the ghastly spectacle, as, driven by the wind, it swung to and fro. At five minutes to nine, the bailies again came up Liberton's Wynd, still in their robes, and with their rods, and stood round the scaffold. Williams then mounted and lowered the body, and this, the last act, was celebrated by the finis.h.i.+ng yell. The crowd then separated.

The public prints got immediately into a discussion as to the propriety of these demonstrations of feeling among a civilised people. It was by one party represented as barbarous and shocking, opposed to Christian forgiveness, and indicative of a fierce and relentless nature. The crowd was described as if made up of the _diables_, _diablesses_, and _diabletons_ of the old dramas, and their cries got the name of h.e.l.l-yells. There are people who, their throats being safe and their bellies well filled, look upon sin, even in its most devilish form of cruelty, as something to be dandled and conciliated into virtue like their own by sugar-plums. Those who feel no natural detestation of cruelty are not far from those that could be cruel. But supposing that these good people were as great haters of cruel men as those who shouted in the crowd, but that they felt their feeling satisfied by the arm of the law, they could only say that these people felt more satisfied than they, and that, in place of concealing their satisfaction, they expressed it openly, if you like, noisefully; and if this satisfaction must be held to be in the ratio of detestation, they were better haters of sin than those who impeached them with barbarity. So the good people get into a metaphysical net, out of which it is not very easy to get. But the question was very well settled by the _Times_, who took and shook the simperers, telling them that virtue has two sides, like everything else--one, a love for the good, and another, a hatred of what is evil, neither of which can exist without the other, and that the roused hearts of those who made the welkin ring with their roar, were just the hearts from which one might expect indications of pity for the miserable victims of that man's cruelty. It may be well for us to remember, amidst all the affected refinement of our times, that the churlishness of the honest man is the impatience of shuffling deceit and hypocrisy. When we get behind the frieze veil of the sanctuary of his affections, we often find kindness sanctified by trust,--a generosity which does not see itself, and is too often cheated by its object, and a pity, which is the more beautiful, that it wells from the stern rock of honesty and justice.

The Exhibition.

The earthly destiny of this marvellous man was not yet finished--the celebration of justice did not terminate by the dispersion of the thirty thousand who had a.s.sembled in the hall of the G.o.ddess Nature's own arena.

They had more to do. They knew that the G.o.ddess had other forms than that in which she sends down her fiery-eyed priestess Nemesis, even that in which she despatches her moral retributions, and works them through her votaries, and that, too, wherein she is called poetical Justice, and wherein she relaxes the stern brow, and smiles with a little satire upon her beautiful lips. It is in this last form she is best loved by the imaginative; yea, and even those who, cultivating the muses, have yet a spice of humour, not inconsistent with the gravity of virtue. Had not this man sent a score of human beings to the dissecting-room? Let it be that they served the purpose of a physical science, might not he serve also the purpose of a moral cult?

During the whole of Wednesday the College was surrounded by hundreds, whose curiosity prompted them to see once more him who had immolated so many of their kind; but Dr Monro did not choose to run the risk of losing his subject, and the authorities were still afraid of a seizure, and so it was not till Thursday morning that the body was removed from the Lock-up to the dissecting-rooms of the College. At an early hour, several men dedicated to science, and among the rest Mr Liston, Mr George Combe, and his opponent Sir Wm. Hamilton, and Mr Joseph, the eminent sculptor, went to have the advantage of an examination, before the rush of the students should put that out of their power. Mr Joseph took a cast for a bust, and several amateur students gratified their curiosity by sketches. The body was that of a thick-set muscular man, with a bull-neck, great development about the upper parts, with immense thighs and calves, so full as to have the appearance of globular ma.s.ses. The countenance, as we saw it, was very far from being placid, as was commonly represented, if you could not have perceived easily that there remained upon it the bitter expression of the very scorn with which he had looked upon that world which pushed him out of it, as having in his person defaced the image of his Maker.[17] Laid upon the table, the body became the subject of a lecture by the professor, and, in order to implement the sentence of the court, without so much mutilation as would interfere with the object of future inspection, the investigation was limited to the brain, laid open by removing the upper part of the cranium; the part sawed off to be subsequently replaced, so that the division could scarcely be noticed.

So far, all had proceeded in peace and with decorum; but the College was, by and by, to be the scene of a renewed excitement. About half-past two, a body of young men, consisting chiefly of students, a.s.sembled in the area, and becoming clamorous for admission, it was found necessary to send for the police,--a cla.s.s of men of whose interference within the walls of the College these a.s.sertors of scholastic liberty have always shewn themselves impatient. Indignant at the opposition they had met with in the rooms, and still more angry at the conduct of the police, they made several sorties, in which they nearly succeeded in overpowering the opposition arrayed against them, at the same time that they smashed the windows at either side of the entry to the anatomical theatre. The police, finding themselves hard pressed, retreated, merely brandis.h.i.+ng their batons; but blows received by several of them raised, in its turn, their anger, and the official weapon was used with more vigour than the magistrates, and especially the Lord Provost, who was present, seemed to relish. That dignitary accordingly got up to harangue the inflamed youths,--a liberty which could be brooked still less than the use of the batons, and amidst the cries of most opprobrious epithets, he, and along with him Bailie Small, were obliged to fly. Attempts were now made by the police to cross the square and seize prisoners; and so far they succeeded, but it was only to be left to witness the captured _eleves_ reclaimed, and carried off amidst shouts of triumph. Even some, whom the police got conveyed to Dr Monro's rooms, were searched for, and pulled out into liberty, adding, in their turn, to the shouts of the liberators. It was then attempted to make a dash, and clear the area of the a.s.sembled collegians by a promiscuous pell-mell, but the police again found themselves overmatched, and could not even retain their own ground in the open area. The contest was renewed more than once with varying success, and no man could tell how long the battle would last, as time, in place of moderating the pa.s.sion of the students, served only to increase it, and every sortie and shout threatened some issue involving life. One or two of the police were carried off wounded, amidst cries of victory, and the battle, which had now lasted from half-past two to four, threatened even worse consequences than had yet resulted, when the professors got alarmed. Dr Christison at length made his appearance with the olive, and intimated to the youths that he had made arrangements whereby they would be admitted to see the body of Burke in fifties, giving his personal guarantee for their good conduct.

This intimation, which was in fact a victory,--achieved, too, with a compliment to their honour,--was received with loud cheers of "Hurrah for Christison!" and "Burke's our own!" and presently all their fury subsided amidst the returning hilarity of loud laughter. But matters were not at all satisfactory outside in the street. The people had been restless all day. The sight of the hanging, in place of allaying their pa.s.sion against Burke, seemed to have inflamed them into a desire to gloat their eyes on his remains; and many intimated their design, in the event of being defeated, of forcing an entry into the anatomical theatre, and dragging the body out, to tear it in pieces. To this, the news of the success of the students inflamed them the more, but as it was now getting dark, and several scouts sent among them by the authorities having circulated the report that the magistrates and Dr Monro would make arrangements for general admission to the anatomical theatre next day, the crowd began to separate, but each carrying away the determination, which they growled out as they went, that unless the terms were adhered to, their purpose would be executed on the morrow.

On Friday the arrangements were made for a grand public exhibition. The body of the hanged man was placed on the black marble table of the theatre, so as to be seen by the visitors as they pa.s.sed from one door to another, from which they could get exit in another direction. The news meanwhile had spread through both the Old and New Towns that the body of Burke was to be seen by all and sundry, and the commotion throughout all ranks, high and low, was only equalled by that of the day of execution.

The Old Town presented the appearance of a holiday. Thousands took their way to the College, where they found the doors open and the exhibition begun, but as the stream of entrants was necessarily narrow, and of slow movement, the street and the area inside soon presented an appearance scarcely less crowded than on the day previous. The programme was very soon understood, and was indeed so simple and easily wrought, however tedious as regards time, that the people had only to try to get into the moving stream when they were pushed forward quietly and orderly enough to the envied scene. There on the table lay the victim naked, with the part of the scull which had been sawed off so artistically restored that the mark of the junction could scarcely be observed. The spectacle was sufficiently ghastly to gratify the most epicurean appet.i.te for horrors.

There was as yet no sign of corruption, so that the death pallor, as it contrasted with the black marble table, shewed strongly to the inquiring and often revolting eye; but the face had become more blue, and the shaved head, with marks of blood not entirely wiped off, rather gave effect to the grin into which the features had settled at the moment of death.

However inviting to lovers of this kind of the picturesque the broad chest that had lain with deadly pressure on so many victims--the large thighs and round calves, indicating so much power--it was the face, embodying a petrified scowl, and the wide-staring eyes, so fixed and spectre-like, to which the attention was chiefly directed.

As the stream moved on with recurring pauses, when some, more intent than others, held back to have a moment or two's more time, it was curious to view the ever-varying emotions of the spectators. Many were there who could not in any other circ.u.mstances have looked upon a corpse at all, and you might have seen some half-irresolute adventurers who, as they neared, feared the sight, and would have backed out but that they were compelled to proceed, when the unsteady eye, anxious to avert itself, was caught by the horrible charm and fixed. No one, so far as we could see, however nervous, either shut the eyes or turned them away altogether; nor could you detect a single trace of pity--the prevailing expression, a malign satisfaction, strangely and staringly returned, as it were, by the grin of the corpse, which had the advantage of eternal persistency. Extraordinary as all this moving scene was,--and certainly nothing of the kind had ever been witnessed in Edinburgh before,--it was rendered more so by the occurrence among the close stream of a few women, amounting in all, we understood, to seven or eight, who, having made their way up-stairs, not perhaps with the intention of going altogether forward, were moved on and could not escape. The caught virgins, true to their nature, struggled so well in the net of their curiosity, that you would have said they were really anxious to get back, and yet somehow their struggles seemed unaccountably rather to help them on; but at any rate it was certain they were modest, and shrank at the thought of the coming sight, for they held down their heads to avoid the stare of the men, and when they arrived at the point, only looked with a squint, sufficient at once for entire gratification as well as for immunity from the charge of not being feminine and delicate. It is doubtful, notwithstanding, however influenced by the sense of the _nil dulcius quam omnia scire_, whether they would venture again upon such another Junonian venture; for the males, who reserve to themselves the exclusive right of witnessing such spectacles, bestowed on them such and so many tokens of indignation as might have cured them for ever of their original sin.

The numbers who supplied this continued stream may be judged of when it is mentioned that by actual enumeration it was found that upwards of sixty per minute pa.s.sed the corpse. This continued from ten in the morning till darkening, and as the crowd, when we saw it at three o'clock, was still increasing, as one told another of what he had seen, we cannot compute the numbers at less than twenty-five thousand persons; add to this those who had a private interview, and we arrive again at the number present at the execution, thirty thousand--a greater number than ever visited royalty lying in state, at least within the kingdom of Scotland. Nor did the entire day suffice for the satisfaction of this curiosity. As many were ready for the following day; but, to the disappointment of these, it was announced that all further ingress would be denied. Next day, Sat.u.r.day, the front of the College again presented a scene of confusion. Another crowd had collected--growling at the conduct of the officials--crying for the opening of the anatomical theatre; and long after they had ascertained that no further exhibition would be permitted, the people stood and continued to gaze at the College walls, till, exhausted of their patience, they reluctantly departed, leaving fresh arrivals, which continued during the entire day to occupy their places.[18]

One might have thought that the excitement, at least in so far as regarded Burke--for the other culprits were a precious reserve, whose fortunes might fill a volume of great interest--would have thus ended; but at that time the science of phrenology was in its zenith, the Combe-and-Hamilton controversy in full vigour; and so, next came the battle of the phrenologists and the old Scotch school of mental philosophers. Burke's head, so ingenious in devising a new species of murder, which should bear his immortal name, as well as in discovering a new estimate of the value of the human body, was measured and mapped into philoprogenitiveness, veneration, destructiveness, and all the rest, so as to be in all time coming the example and test of the character possessed by the genuine _a priori_ and _a posteriori_ murderer. And it was a solemn occasion. The measurements were recorded and published. The accuracy of the mere figures was not denied, but the inferences were disputed with such acrimony that the scientific battle commenced. Everywhere there was a measuring of craniums, and even wise people, who never had any doubt of the smallness of their destructiveness, were startled into the conviction that they required not only to take care of themselves, but to be taken care of by others. Mr Combe bade fair to be the only man who was to be benefited by the labours of Burke. A considerable number of people, who were not sure of their harmlessness, notwithstanding they were very timid, and to others and themselves very innocent, waited upon him to ascertain what they in reality were; and if you had stood at his door, you might have judged by the faces of his consultors how much they were above or below the fatal 6125--the most marvellous b.u.mp that had ever been seen on the head of man since the days of that great man-killer Hercules. It was in vain that the Hamiltonians brought forward the measurements of men scarcely less famous in their philanthropic way than Howard. The great development of destructiveness had in their cases been accompanied by _inactivity_, and the examples went for nought; and so, in like manner, the examples of other murderers who could not boast of more than 54, were satisfactorily set aside for the reason of _activity_. The Hamiltonians pushed their advantage, and demanded a return to the old doctrines and common sense; but the Combeans would not admit the demand. The frying-pan sued for could not be returned or paid for--1st, Because it was an old one with holes in it; 2dly, Because it was returned long before; and, 3dly, Because it was never borrowed. If one thing won't do, another will: if you drive us out of size, we fall back upon activity; if from activity, we flee to size.

Burke, in addition to all his other achievements, thus killed a science.

Having wrought so a.s.siduously for anatomy, he ended by burking phrenology.

The Prosecution against Hare.

The public had got only an instalment; and the fingering of the money produced only desire for more, to make up the debt to justice. Whatever might become of the women, Hare must be hanged, dissected, and exhibited in the same way as Burke, otherwise the peace of the city would be again in jeopardy. He was the greater criminal of the two, and the people had no moral vision to comprehend how the Lord Advocate could bargain with, and feel himself bound to keep honour with, one who, having lost the form and features of the sacred "image," was beyond the pale of humanity. You don't think of the moral obligation to refrain from killing a tiger merely because he left in your way another cruel animal, which, for want of a lamb eaten by the more rapacious, you found it convenient to dine off.

After his examination, and when the officers were removing Hare from the court-house to the Calton Jail, they were struck with dismay to find that he had been seized with a fit of glee, which, for want of an epithet derived from humanity, we may term diabolical; but the officers were simple, and so was he: they should have known the man, and he knew himself--a creature in whom there being no good to produce the variety which const.i.tutes character, there could be nothing but pure and unmixed evil. If the devil is not a simpleton,--father of lies and master of devices as he is,--it is just because having once known the good he could hate it. Hare never knew even that, and could not be said to hate what he could not understand. Yet he laughed, not heartily, that would be a misnomer, but hepatically, from the liver, because he fancied that he had escaped from justice at the expense of the life of his accomplice. The public, much as they cried for his blood, were simple too, in so far as they believed that while in jail he shunned the public gaze, and m.u.f.fled himself up in the bed-clothes when visited by the authorities; whereas the man, instead of thinking he had done anything shameful or even wrong, was rather proud of his ingenuity, not only amusing himself in the public ground attached to the ward, but exhibiting rather satisfaction at being looked at.[19] Nor, while in the very height of his effrontery, did he construe the marked dislike of the prisoners, every one of whom shrank from his touch or even approach, into anything short of spite because he was now free--being only there as under the protection of the authorities--and his companions poor bond devils. So far we may believe; but there might have been a small tax on the credulity of the time, when it was believed that he construed in the same way the conduct of those companions when, upon the occasion of there being more onlookers from without than the shame of the jail-birds relished, they were in the habit of hitching him forward as a great spectacle, by the attraction of whom their merely comparative merits might be overlooked.

By and by, as the vengeful feeling of the public against the man increased, and nothing for a time was heard but the stifled groans for the second victim, it came out that the public prosecutor, having procured Hare's co-operation as a _socius criminis_ to convict Burke, and all the information which was necessary to bring home to the latter the three charges in the indictment, the Crown was pledged in honour not to proceed against him on any one of these counts. This was, in effect, to say that he was free whenever he could get out of the hands of the infuriated people; because, in so far as regarded the other cases, there was no evidence independently of his, and he would take precious care to withhold every word to criminate himself. It is needless to say that the most sensible of the editors, and all the thinking and honourable of the people, considered this statement of the authorities as reasonable and proper. They would stand upon the honour of the Crown and the dignity of human nature, even at the expense of giving liberation to a man who, by his own confession, was a murderer. They would therefore leave the vulgar to the _charum lumen_ of their prejudices, and so they were left. But, while thus taking this high and dignified ground against those whom a natural hatred of atrocity was said to make low, some ingenious one of their ranks struck out the idea that, though the Crown was shut up to let Hare off, some relative of one of the murdered persons might prosecute for a.s.sythment, or a compensation for the loss of life; and immediately it was found that Daft Jamie's mother, Mrs Wilson, with his sister, Janet Wilson, would be willing, if not anxious, to take the post of prosecutor--a piece of intelligence which pleased the public wondrously.

This proposition was brought to bear by an application presented to the Sheriff on the part of the Wilsons, praying for liberty to precognosce witnesses with a view to the prosecution of Hare; on the deliverance upon which progress was being rapidly made in the examination of several persons, when immediately there was presented to his lords.h.i.+p a pet.i.tion for Hare, craving to be set at liberty. On the 21st of January, the Sheriff p.r.o.nounced an interlocutor refusing the prayer of Hare's pet.i.tion, on the ground that there was no decision finding that the right of the private party to prosecute is barred by any guarantee or promise of indemnity given by the public prosecutor; but, in consequence of the novelty of the case, he superseded further progress with the precognitions, in order that Hare might have an opportunity of applying to the Court of Justiciary.

This judgment was accordingly brought under review of the High Court by what is technically called a bill of advocation, suspension, and liberation--the meaning of which is simply that Hare tried another chance for freedom by applying to the highest tribunal. The Lord Justice-Clerk, who saw at once that the question was so far new, and of the first importance, not only in its merits, but viewed in relation to the state of the public mind, wished to have it judged of by all the Lords, and he therefore called upon the public prosecutor to answer the request of Hare.

The Lord Advocate, who, no doubt, felt himself placed in a delicate position, but still determined to stand by the law and the dignity of the Crown, accordingly presented his answer; and long pleadings, called informations, having been lodged, the case came to be tried before the Court on the 2d February. The celebrated Jeffrey appeared for Mrs Wilson, and Duncan M'Neill for Hare. It was maintained on the part of Hare, said Mr Jeffrey, that the public prosecutor was ent.i.tled to make a compact, to which compact their Lords.h.i.+ps were bound to give effect; that their Lords.h.i.+ps had no discretion, but that it rested entirely with the Lord Advocate to enter into such compact, and to extend immunity to any number of cases, without the control of the judge; in short, that the Lord Advocate possessed the uncontrolled power of exercising the royal prerogative. And this he might do, not merely in respect of the particular crime as to which a _socius criminis_ was to be used as a witness, but might, if he chose, extend it to all other crimes of which he might have been guilty. Whenever the Lord Advocate stipulated an immunity, it seemed to be maintained, on the other side, that a sufferer by housebreaking, fire-raising, and other crimes, was to be deprived of his right, as a private party, to prosecute the guilty perpetrator of the wrong, and that the Lord Advocate had a power to enter into a compact by which he could grant immunity for offences, past or future, known or unknown. Such a prerogative would be to invest the public prosecutor with a power of pardon which only belonged to the Crown, and this, too, without a t.i.ttle of authority, amounting to an a.s.sumption of the authority of Parliament; and so forth. But all the eloquence of Jeffrey would not do. The judges had, long before this day of judgment, been down in the deep wells of authority, and, as one of the enraged people said, came up drunk with law, and kicked sober justice out of court. Certainly, if such a profane expression could be used, these learned men might have been in that state, for seldom had they appeared so surcharged with authorities. They seem to have rummaged every corner of the Advocates' Library and the Register-Office to find out the origin of the law of king's evidence, and to have hunted out every decision bearing upon the case, so that, it would seem, Hare should be rendered as famous for settling a great and hitherto doubtful point of law, as Burke was destined to be for putting an end to a science. After all, the judges who decided for Hare were found to be right; and, indeed, any one looking at the subject, could not fail to see that, as the Lord Advocate represented the king, and the king, as the great public protector of his subjects and prosecutor of their wrongs, represented his people, and Mrs Janet Wilson and her daughter among the rest, the immunity promised by his lords.h.i.+p to Hare really included an immunity implied as given by Mrs Wilson and her daughter.

While the case was going on, and Hare anxious to get out, he founded his hope on an extraordinary delusion, which could have occurred to n.o.body but himself. He understood well enough the meaning of the long word a.s.sythment, and asked his agent, with one of his leers, what was the value of Daft Jamie. The price given by the doctors, he said, was too much, because, if he had been offered alive to any one, he would not have been bought at any price, so that his mother had no claim, and the judges were just trifling away both their time and their brains about a thing of no value. Incredible as this may seem,--and doubtless many reports pa.s.sed that were not true,--it is not unlike the man; for it never was a.s.serted, by those who had access to him, that he had the slightest notion of having done anything that was wrong. He was, indeed, one of those men, not so uncommon as the optimists may think, or so impossible as the Christian philosophers maintain, whose consciences are entirely turned round about, and who, when they come to think seriously, find the worm gnawing on the wrong side. Their pain is for any good they may have been tempted to do, their relief for any evil they have been fortunate enough to perpetrate, so true is it that nature is jealous of man's having it in his power to say that any proposition is absolutely true, and without an exception. But such phenomena, which, after all, are so uncommon as to deserve the name of monstrosities, need not flutter the faith of such men as Chalmers, who found upon the universality of the law of conscience as proving the goodness, if not also the existence, of G.o.d. It is only a matter of curiosity that, while such advocates recognise and explain alone the exceptional cases, where there is simply a _want_ of the faculty, they do not seem to think that there can occur, or ever could have occurred, a case where its decrees are absolutely reversed. But, after all, we have to keep in view that the whole conditions, even of Hare's nature, were not exhausted. For aught we know, if he had been condemned to die, Providence would have vindicated her rule even as to him, and the faculty been observed to right itself. Hare was, at any rate, declared at liberty.

The Hunt Out.

We take up the end of the thread of our last chapter, and say, that as the potential developments of a man's heart cannot be exhausted except by death, we cannot p.r.o.nounce, until that issue arrives, of G.o.d's purpose with him. We have known many men who, by a redundancy of the oil of self-satisfaction, have kept the lamp of jovial humour, or light recklessness, or flippant egotism, burning for a long period of years, and indulging all the while in the boast of an indomitable persistiveness.

There are many such, but we suspect they are generally mere actors; and we are the more satisfied of the hollowness of their pretensions when we learn the account of them from those who have access to their privacy, and are apt to verify the saying that, as no man is a hero to his valet, so no jolly fellow, _pococurante_, or devil-darer is always such to his wife, children, servants, or friends. Even were it so, we would still say that the conditions have not been exhausted by some calamity which _may_ come, or by death, who _must_ come; and as there are worse evils than even death, the power of holding out is only an inverse mode of expressing the power of what is held out against. These remarks occur to us as we are now to follow the fortunes of the remaining three of the quaternity.