But when a person is said to have died “not without suspicion of venom,” it is very rarely that steps are taken, juridically to examine that suspicion with a view to proving it to be founded on fact or falsehood. The world deliberately prefers to believe the worst of man, deliberately prefers suspicion. The expression in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries was as randomly and as inconsequently used as the cry for a General Council, by every one who found occasion to go “against the government”; and it certainly does not command respect by reason of its absurdly frequent repetition. It was the fashion for their enemies to accuse the Borgia of compassing the death of some by venom. It was also the fashion for the Borgia to retort upon their enemies in the same formula. There can be no human doubt that the Borgia and their enemies would have envenomed each the other, had they known how to do so with security and certainty. It was a habit of the Latin Races to see no distinction between venom and steel when the idea was to get rid of a foe. Cold northern nations, the English in particular, always have had a horror of venom, preferring boots, fists, bullet, or blade; indeed one of the most hideous penances ordained by English and Post-Reformation law was awarded to criminals who had envenomed the lieges. They were boiled alive. “This year, the XVII March, was boyled in Smithfield one Margaret Davis, a maiden which had poisoned three households that she dwelled in.” (Wriothesley’s Chronicle, 1542.) Perhaps to this habit, of regarding the use of venom as so horrible a crime, is due the fascination which those, who are supposed to have attained high eminence in its practice, have for Englishmen. Undoubtedly, Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna are regarded as having been artists in venom, possessing knowledge far surpassing that of modern alchymists. They are believed to have envenomed their foes, named and unnamed, by the score; and, at last, to have fallen into the pit that they have digged for others.