“It has given me infinite pleasure,” says Mr. Thorkelin, in a letter dated the 10th June, 1823, and written by him in English, “to hear that you have lately published your ‘Additional Observations on Penal Jurisprudence.’ Heaven grant that your perseverance shall be able to open the eyes of British legislators—of the whole civilised world, and make the rulers confess that their penal laws are in many instances an abominable prostitution of common sense; and that such laws require a speedy reform, raised on the basis of humanity, and efficient plan of obviating crimes; inflicting adequate punishment on criminals; reducing them by penitence to social duties and industry of useful labour; and, finally, enabling them to obtain their own support with honesty, after they are discharged from their imprisonment.
“Your former treatise on penal laws I have read over twenty times, with increased pleasure. I never found, in my opinion, in any other work of that kind, so many good sayings or more good sense.
“It will give you, I hope, no small joy to hear that his
Danish Majesty, the best of kings,
has of late made many salutary alterations of the penal laws of Danemark,
conform with your ideas. His Majesty is, indeed, no less sanguine and in-
| LIFE OF WILLIAM ROSCOE. | 219 |
“My feebleness makes me throw away my pen; my strength forsakes me; but I trust to recover so far in the course of this summer as to be able more fully to satisfy my duty, and prove to you that I am, and will ever continue, with the most sincere respect,” &c. &c.
