“I am sick to death; oh, when shall I get loose From this vain world, the abode of guilt and sorrow! And yet methinks a beam of light breaks in On my departing soul. Alas, I fear I have been too hasty! O ye powers that search The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts, If I have done amiss, impute it not: The best may err, but you are good, and—(_dies._)” Two celebrated instances amongst the Grecians of men who voluntarily sacrificed their lives in order to maintain the dignity and importance of their own institutions, are exhibited in the cases of Charondas and Lycurgus. The former, in order to encourage a proper freedom of debate, had made it death to come armed into the assembly of the states. One day, coming himself in haste to a convention without having first laid aside his sword, he was rebuked by some one present, as a transgressor of his own laws. Stung with the justice of the imputation, he instantly plunged the sword into his own heart, both as a sacrifice to the violated majesty of the law, and a tremendous example of disinterested justice; trusting, moreover, thus to seal with his own blood a strict observance in others of his wholesome institutions. When Lycurgus had accomplished his great work of legislation in Sparta, he took the following method of rendering his system unchangeable and immortal. He stated that it was necessary that he should consult the Delphian oracle relative to his new laws. He then made all the Spartan magistrates and people take a solemn oath that they would observe and keep his laws inviolate “till his return.” He accordingly went to consult the oracle, and having sent back the answer in writing to Sparta, “That the laws were excellent, and would render the people great and happy who should observe them,” he resolved never to return himself, in order that the people might never be absolved from their oath. He accordingly starved himself to death. Plutarch considers that Lycurgus reasoned himself into the act, under the belief that a good statesman and patriot should seek to make his death itself in some way useful to his country. The same authority considers that he intended the mode of his death to be a practical illustration of the great principle which pervaded the whole code of his laws, which was—_temperance_. Alike honourable, in a worldly point of view, was the death of Codrus, King of Athens. The oracle was consulted with reference to the condition of the country. That nation was predicted to be prosperous whose king should be first slain by the enemy. Codrus disguised himself as a private soldier, and entered the enemy’s camp, where he contrived to pick a quarrel with the first man he met, whom he permitted to slay him; thus, for the good of his country, courting his own death. Themistocles is said to have poisoned himself rather than lead on the Persian army against his own countrymen, although fame, wealth, and honour were within his grasp.