INTRODUCTION.

- Et virgo cde madentes Ultima clestum terras Astra reliouit. Ovid. Metam. Lib. I.

From blood-stain'd Earth, untainted justice slies, Last of the Gods, and claims her native Skies.

The heinous crime of murder carries so many high aggravations in the name and idea of it, that it can scarce admit of any heightening. So strong and deep is the native colour of this guilt, that no tongue, no pencil, no instrument of human imagination can strike it deeper; it mocks all description; it can only be felt; and may none who read this, ever feel it! So keen, so intolerably pungent is the sense of it, to those who are not past feeling.

An immortal spirit driven sudden from his earthly house, unprovided, unprepared for, unsecured of, that better, that heavenly mansion, for which it is formed by the Father of Spirits; and out of which celestial abode it can never find true and permanent felicity: his lot cast for all eternity, in the midst of a thousand follies, frailties, and faults, which cannot dwell with celestial happiness; but must depress the spirit, and, if not supported by the consolation, and raised with the hope of healing peace and heavenly pardon, from the supreme judge, must sink it (as sure as bodies gravitate to their center) to that abyss of misery prepared for the destroyer of his angels. What lot more terrible? what thought more amazing and alarming than this?

The poet from whom the motto is borrowed, is justly thought by the best critics, to have derived his notions and description of the creation, the deluge, the gradual degeneracy of mankind, and decay of piety, (which provoked that deluge, and which are well represented in his four ages of the world) from a higher source than heathen mythology, even from the writings of Moses, to which his poetical rhapsodies are in many instances so conformable. In proof of this, consider the sentiments delivered by Moses in the sacred oracles. Gen. iv. 10, 11. The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground, and now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her Mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy band, &c. And again, Gen. vi. 11. The earth also was corrupt before God; and the earth was filled with violence, &c. v. 12, 13. And behold I will destroy them with the earth.

After the flood, the fame crying sin is forbidden, and guarded against with the wisest cautions, and the surest and severest sanctions of Divine vengeance, Gen. ix. v. 3 - 6. At the same time that the royal grant of animal food is given from heaven, without which charter man has no right to the life of the meanest living creature, blood and murder are warned against and warded off. But flesh which is the life thereof, which is the blood thereof shall you not eat. And surety your blood of your lives will I require, &c. Whoso sheddeth man?s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. The like precepts and sanctions are conveyed by the law and the prophets; and with greater authority by him who came not to destroy but to save life.

On this supposition, 'tis no wonder if the goddess of justice be represented in the stile of heathen poetry, as flying from earth to heaven, detesting the horrors of a world drenched in blood; strongly conveying, and beautifully insinuating, this great truth, that murder is against every rule of natural right, most offensive to the deity and his