Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/220

208 of Junius Brutus putting his sons to death; in another, Zaleucus; the Locrian king, tearing out an eye to preserve one for his son, who by his father's law was condemned to lose both for the crime of adultery; and in a third, the judgment of Solomon. The head of Bellona beneath the Roman story is of sculpture that would do honour to a Grecian chissel. I must not omit to mention a figure of silence, represented as a woman seated on the ground; with a finger on her mouth, and two children weeping over a death's head. This chamber contains also allegorical figures of punishment, and axes, fasces, and chains, the instruments of tyranny or justice. When sentence of death is to be pronounced on a criminal, he is brought guarded into this hall, the magistrates of the city appear in a gallery above, dressed in their robes of ceremony, and nothing is neglected which can contribute to the solemnity of the aweful scene. I am satisfied of the inexpediency of the punishment of death, if I may use the term, of its unlawfulness; when, however, nothing but the death of a criminal