excuſe for any criminal miſbehaviour. A drunkard, ſays ſir Edward Coke[1], who is voluntarius daemon, hath no privilege thereby; but what hurt or ill ſoever he doth, his drunkenneſs doth aggravate it: nam, omne crimen ebrietas, et incendit, et detegit. It hath been obſerved, that the real uſe of ſtrong liquors, and the abuſe of them by drinking to exceſs, depend much upon the temperature of the climate in which we live. The ſame indulgence, which may be neceſſary to make the blood move in Norway, would make an Italian mad. A German therefore, ſays the preſident Monteſquieu[2], drinks through cuſtom, founded upon conſtitutional neceſſity; a Spaniard drinks through choice, or out of the mere wantonneſs of luxury: and drunkenneſs, he adds, ought to be more ſeverely puniſhed, where it makes men miſchievous and mad, as in Spain and Italy, than where it only renders them ſtupid and heavy, as in Germany and more northern countries. And accordingly, in the warmer climate of Greece, a law of Pittacus enacted, "that he who committed a crime, when drunk, ſhould receive a double puniſhment;" one for the crime itſelf, and the other for the ebriety which prompted him to commit it[3]. The Roman law indeed made great allowances for this vice: "per vmum delapjis capitalis poena remittitur"[4]. But the law of England, conſidering how eaſy it is to counterfeit this excuſe, and how weak an excuſe it is, (though real) will not ſuffer any man thus to privilege one crime by another[5].
IV. A fourth deficiency of will, is where a man commits an unlawful act by misfortune or chance, and not by deſign. Here the will obſerves a total neutrality, and does not co-operate with the deed; which therefore wants one main ingredient of a crime. Of this, when it affects the life of another, we ſhall find more occaſion to ſpeak hereafter; at preſent only obſerving, that if any accidental miſchief happens to follow from the per
