The power of meeting an inevitable death with firmness and composure, is so far from being uncommon, that our interest in examples of it might be supposed to be deadened by their frequent occurrence. It is to be found, the outward show of it at least, in all stations, from the martyr for religion or patriotism, down to the humble and profligate sufferer who forfeits his life as a convicted felon. The fancied gaiety of Captain Macheath is as true to nature as the cheerfulness of Sir Thomas More; and the iron resolution of the murderer Thurtell enabled him to face death as composedly as Charles I. or Algernon Sidney. Still we do read with eagerness and admiration of More’s cheerful jocularity on the scaffold, of the holy resignation of Latimer, and the high–souled, yet tender and womanly deportment of Lady Jane Grey. The subject seems to possess an interest not easily exhausted. Historians therefore have seldom thought the last hours of great men unworthy of notice: and the constancy and dying professions of those who have laid down their lives for their political or religious opinions, have always been eagerly treasured up by friends and followers, as evidences both of the sincerity and truth of their belief. Yet such evidence is doubtful even in respect of the former, and null in respect of the latter; for there never perhaps was a cause important enough to challenge persecution, which did not find persons ready to suffer martyrdom for its sake. In selecting the examples which occupy the rest of this chapter, it has been endeavoured to take such as, relating to important and spirit–stirring seasons, are yet likely not to be familiar in their details to all our readers. We do not profess that they will bear a close comparison with the prosecution of Socrates; on the contrary, we may here again express our belief that nothing can be found analogous either to the character or the history of that extraordinary man. Nor shall we attempt to make out a resemblance where no real one exists. The design of this work will be sufficiently fulfilled, if the following passages of history shall appear interesting: the lessons which they convey cannot be otherwise than profitable. The first and third refer to persecutions purely religious in their character; the second refers to what, under the appearance of a religious persecution, was in fact quite as much a plot against civil liberty.