Suppose Queen Elizabeth had died of an indigestion on the eve of the execution of Mary Stuart, then Mary Stuart would have been seated on the throne of England, Ireland, and Scotland, instead of dying by the hand of an executioner in a chamber hung with black. If Cromwell had only fallen sick, care would have been taken how Charles I.'s head was cut off. These two assassinations--disguised, I know not how, in the garb of the laws--scarcely entered into the list of ordinary injustice. Figure to yourself some highwaymen who, having bound and robbed two passengers, amuse themselves with naming in the troop an attorney-general, a president, an advocate and counsellors, and who, having signed a sentence, cause the two victims to be hanged in ceremony; it was thus that the Queen of Scotland and her grandson were judged. But of common judgments, pronounced by competent judges against princes or men in place, is there a single one which would have been either executed, or even passed, if another time had been chosen? Is there a single one of the condemned, immolated under Cardinal Richelieu, who would not have been in favor if their suits had been prolonged until the regency of Anne of Austria? The Prince of Condé was arrested under Francis II., he was condemned to death by commissaries; Francis II. died, and the Prince of Condé again became powerful. These instances are innumerable; we should above all consider the spirit of the times. Vanini was burned on a vague suspicion of atheism. At present, if any one was foolish and pedantic enough to write such books as Vanini, they would not be read, and that is all which could happen to them. A Spaniard passed through Geneva in the middle of the sixteenth century; the Picard, John Calvin, learned that this Spaniard was lodged at an inn; he remembered that this Spaniard had disputed with him on a subject which neither of them understood. Behold! my theologian, John Calvin, arrested the passenger, contrary to all laws, human or divine, contrary to the right possessed by people among all nations; immured him in a dungeon, and burned him at a slow fire with green faggots, that the pain might last the longer. Certainly this infernal manœuvre would never enter the head of any one in the present day; and if the fool Servetus had lived in good times, he would have had nothing to fear; what is called justice is therefore as arbitrary as fashion. There are times of horrors and follies among men, as there are times of pestilence, and this contagion has made the tour of the world. SERPENTS. "I certify that I have many times killed serpents by moistening in a slight degree, with my spittle, a stick or a stone, and giving them a slight blow on the middle of the body, scarcely sufficient to produce a small contusion. January 19, 1757. Figuier, Surgeon."