were, on whom he should first spring. Never did I long so ardently to hear the report of a gun. We looked at them taking aim,-and then at the lion. It was absolutely necessary to give him a mortal shot, or the consequences might be fatal to some of the party. Every second seemed a minute. At length Christian fired. The under jaw of the lion dropped, blood gushed from his mouth-and he turned round with a view to escape. Mr Rennie then shot him through the spine, and he fell. At this moment he looked grand beyond expression. Turning again towards us, he rose upon his fore feet-his mouth gushing blood-his eyes flashing vengeance. He attempted to spring at us, but his hind legs denied him aid. He dragged them a little space, when Stephanus put a final period to his existence,

by shooting him through the brain. He was a noble animal, measuring nearly ten feet, including the tail.

GOOD NEWS FOR THE READERS OF THE FAERIE QUEENE.

CHARACTER OF SPENSER.

(From Blackwood's Magazine.)

We have, we hope, many hundred things to say of all those bright bevies of dames and damosels-the denizens of the woods, and meres, and mountains of that enchanted Forest. The air often seems to sigh as if sick with love. Edmund was the most voluptuous of all pure poets; and in his daring dalliances with nature's supreme delights, his pictures do indeed dazzle our senses, "reeling and drunk with beauty." Beauty, as if overcome by his resistless strains, unveils, in the twilight of shaded air or water, all her hidden charms of limb, and waist, and bosom, to him who seems privileged to enjoy all that is loveliest in love's own world. Yet imagination etherealizes passion -glowing, but not gross-gazing, but not gloating -enjoying all mortal transport-but as a god a goddess.

Poetry is in the gleams of light that revealed temptations heaped up on the happy hills, where Innocence in heaven's own dews preserves for ever unfaded her whitest lilies. Desire, like that fire of scented cedar in Calypso's cave, is purified by what it feeds on. Pleasure is felt not to be sin-and nature's great law holy, which, on an earth where death would fain have sole dominion, sustains perpetual life, and balances bliss against all the weight of wo which else would overwhelm mortality. "Whatever hypocrites austerely hold," we hold, with Spenser and Milton, that such is the religion of nature.

Spenser's Fable, quoth Hughes, "though often wild, is always emblematical; and this may very much excuse that air of romance in which he has followed Ariosto."-" Very much excuse!" A bird of light and music excused for light and soaring, and shining and singing in the sky. "Often wild!" Would he have fables to be tame? "Air of romance!" And what air is purer? Not even empyrean. Hughes thinks stories of knights, giants, castles, and enchantments, and all legendary adventures, "in themselves trifling; that knights in armour, and ladies errant, are as antiquated figures to us as the court of that time would appear, if we could see them now in their ruffs and fardingales. Hurd knew better, and scorned the pseudo-philosophic criticism of the shallow school that spoke of all tales of Faery as unnatural and absurd, surpassing all bounds, not of truth only, but of probability, and more like the dreams of children than the manly inventions of poets. But those Tales of Faery, he reminded the scorners, are not the wild fancies of plebeian poets, but the golden dreams of Ariosto-the celestial visions of Tasso. True that a poet must follow nature. "But not," says the enlightened prelate, "only the known and experienced course of affairs in this world. The poet has a world of his own, where experience has less to do than consistent imagination. He has, besides, a supernatural world to range in. He has gods, and fairies, and witches at his command; and

O! who can tell

The hidden power of herbs, and might of magic spell!'

Thus, in the poet's world, all is marvellous and extraordinary; yet not unnatural in one sense, as it agrees to the conceptions that are readily entertained of the magical and wonder-working natures." It is pleasant to hear Hurd applying these just sentiments to the " Faery Queen," and showing that Spenser is the poet of the chivalrous, as Homer was of the heroic age. The days of chivalry are not yet gone from all men's imaginations; and we know far more about them than of the days of the older heroism. our own Spenser then be neglected by his own people, and the "Faery Queen "be unread, while in a year we have a second edition-for behoof of those who have no Greek-of Sotheby's Homer?

Shall

["No, no, no!" cry we of the London Journal, echoing the cry of our wise, enthusiastic brother. Nature, knowledge, imagination, cry No. Spenser

will no more perish than the woods and waters, and the golden light and shades that haunt them. "Nature is vindicated by her children." We have sometimes half thought that the errors and violences of the age of chivalry were well redeemed by the fables they have left us, and might even have been permitted by providence for that purpose, as well as for the greater amenity of manners that they produce, and the brave deference to women! For there must have been some reasons for the thing, and what better than these? The ugliness of it has gone by. Its beauty remains in that amenity and in these books. The storm has burst from the castled hills, and the castles are gone with it; but from out of it there has run, and will run for ever, in the most sequestered places of thought, these brooks of gentleness and beauty, haunted by fair forms that purify the air of passion, and helping to supply half the mind of man with a world fit for it, till the world itself grow fitter.]

THREE OGRESSES v. GIBBON. [THE alleged mistake, mentioned by our correspondent, is Gibbon's own. Indeed, we quoted from his Autobiography at the time. We must add, however, that we partook of it with him. It is new to us, that "Ogresses" are any thing but the lovely creatures we had hitherto supposed them. But, after all, does not the term imply, that Ogresses' heads (as such, and in the popular meaning of the word) are still to be understood as included in the heraldic figure? May not the knights of chivalry have brought them, as they did fictions of ogres, from the East, during the time of the crusades? And might not Gibbon's ancestor, who was a herald, have intended to be at once scientific and jocose?]

16th Sept. 1834.

DEAR BENEFICENT,-Your candour will easily pardon the freedom I take in pointing out an odd mistake that you have either made, or copied (as I have not the book, I cannot say which), in your last Supplement. At page 12, you state that an ancestor of Gibbon " changed the three escallop shells in his arms into as many Ogresses, or female cannibals, to spite three ladies, &c." Now, Sir, without noticing the absurdity or insufficiency of such means to such end, I have only to observe, that an OGRESS is not the "fearful wild fowl" you take it to be. Guillim, Edmonson, or any other learned pundit of the "Divine Art of Blazon," will inform you, that OGRESSES are neither more nor less than balls of pitch. For your edification (pardon the assumption) I subjoin the passage as it appears in the " Rudiments of HoBy the way, what a vast idea does it not give us of the circulating medium of those early ages of "barbaric pearl and gold!" Verily the office of pursebearer to a rich traveller (before banks or papermoney were invented) could be no sinecure-while the difficulty of "getting change" must at times have been almost insurmountable; on the other hand, a man might very well be reduced to his last piece without any serious apprehension as to the needs of

nour.

to-morrow.

"When in any coat of arms, one or more of these round pieces shall be found of the colour of ore, then in blazon they are always termed bezants, and are taken for pieces of gold, which were anciently the coin of Bizantium, and were in weight one hundred and four pounds and two ounces troy; being equal in value to 31507. sterling; but, when any of these figures are found of the colour of red, they must always be called torteauxes; if blue, hurts; if green, pomes; if black, pellets, or ogresses; if purple, golpes, &c."

That your endeavours to put a spirit of youth in everything, may be crowned by complete success, is the sincere wish of your poor disciple,

I. A. L.

TABLE TALK.

Annibale Caracci's Christ Appearing to St Peter.This fine picture is not scriptural, as some have imagined: it embodies a tradition of the Romish church. The New Testament tells us that Christ after his resurrection appeared to St Peter; but it was more consistent with the aim and practice of the church, when losing its simplicity, to give currency to obscure or doubtful legends, rather than draw attention to the true and accredited narrative of the gospel. Peter, says the tradition, not finding at the Rome, and was hurrying along the Appian way, time any liking for martyrdom, made his escape from when he met Jesus bearing the cross, "Lord, where goest thou?" inquired the astonished saint. "I am going to Rome to be crucified a second time," was the answer, "for I find that my disciples are afraid of attesting the truth of my cause with their blood." The rebuked saint returned and suffered martyrdom. The legend is a very beautiful one; it is in keeping with the timid character of Peter; and serviceable, too, to the Church of Rome, which claimed supre macy over all Christian churches. Those who imagined the legend, found an admirable interpreter in Caracci: it is admitted by very fastidious critics that this picture (in the National Gallery) is one of the best studied and effective of all his performances in this country. Major's Cabinet Gallery. [The picture is a most beautiful one, and worthy of the legend.]

Noble Occupation for the Leisurely.—Whenever you have nothing else to do,-in other words, whenever you have no particular object in view, of pleasure or profit, of immediate or remote good,-set yourself to do good in some shape or other;-to men, to sensitive beings, rational or irrational; to one or to many; to some individual, or to the whole race.Bentham.

-

Taste of the Gypsies. The upper part of the wood (in a picture of Gainsborough's) is tenanted by a horde of gypsies; their asses are grazing among the glades; the party-coloured coverings of their wandering camp are visible among the shafts of the trees, and a thin and scarcely distinguished smoke curls slowly away amid the boughs of the forest. This is one of the painter's marks to indicate great natural beauty of scene; he knew that the taste of that roving people was, as far as regarded a feeling for the charms of external nature, essentially poetic. a lovely spot lies within seven miles of their line of march, there will they fix their tents and make their abode for the night; were landscape painters to follow their footsteps, and paint the scenes in which they establish themselves, they could not fail to produce a series of fine poetic compositions.Major's Cabinet Gallery.

If

Morland's Rural Taste.-To Londoners, and one so dissipated as Morland, it is next to a wonder that images of country simplicity and rustic modesty should have presented themselves: he was, when very young, made intimate with much of the folly and vice of the town; he assumed the dress of the fop, and copied the manners of the man of pleasure, and in all, save his paintings, was artificial and affected. The moment he took up the pencil, folly resigned her rule and nature reigned in her stead: his mind wandered from the wine vaults and the gin shops to homely cottages, barn-yards, calf-cribs, and piggeries; he forgot the hungry creditor, the griping pawnbroker, and the drouthy companion, and saw but a horde of gypsies bivouacked with their motley tents, tawny children, and tethered asses. —, -Major's Cabinet Gallery.-[ But this was the reason. He wanted a contrast to his feverish existence. The people of a metropolis are apt to be fonder of the country, than country-people themselves. It is rarer to them they have been taught more of its beauties from books; and their state of health gives them. more need of it.]

66

BELIEF IN SPIRITS, &c. To the Editor of the London Journal. Dalston, 27th Sept. 1834. MANY thanks, worthy Sir, for the entertainment your London Journal affords me, and still more for the religion of love and hope which it breathes. Amidst the ravings of those who please to revile poor human nature, and who bid us believe this beautiful earth is but our prison-house and scene of our sufferings and trials, and the majority of our fellow-creatures the victims of a mysterious and awful destiny, it is truly refreshing to turn to your pages and find there one, at least, who does not consider man quite so depraved, or the world quite so uninviting as is represented. Dr Watts says, Religion never was designed to make our pleasures less;" but it seems strange that, among all nations and in all creeds, the service of the Deity should be considered to involve a denial, in a greater or less degree, of the pleasures of this world; as if he who placed us here and gave us reason to use, and senses to enjoy his gifts, delighted in witnessing the perpetual conflict of our inclinations and our duty. It is our ignorance of the character of the Supreme which makes us undervalue his works. If our hearts were duly impressed with the conviction that He was the fountain of love, and not the tyrant of the universe, we should view the world more as an Elysium than a place of sorrow, and our fellow-men as beings susceptible of indefinite improvement, and bound to our hearts by the ties of sympathy and philanthropy.

Go on then, Mr Editor, in your labour of love, and prosper. Render men more in humour with themselves and each other, and assist in that "consummation devoutly to be wished"-the full and perfect emancipation of the mind. So far has my heart responded to all you have said, till I come this week to your remarks on Spirits, there I candidly own I stop. However pleasing the ideas such a belief may awaken, I feel convinced it is delusive, and tends to countenance the darkest superstition, and gives the imagination too large a field for its range. Any vagary of the brain would be received with attention, and no doctrine would be unsubstantiated, if this was admitted, for if such creatures as Spirits exist, it does not seem probable they would not affect us, and if they did so, where would our free will be? Or, supposing them to be passive, for what purpose then were they sent into a material visible world to mix with humanity unseen, and witness actions and feelings in which they could have no participation. I regret you did not offer more evidence for their existence, as I should like to be possessed of the reasons which have led your mind to this conclusion; till then I must venture to express my dissent, and still continue to believe that this world has no other inhabitants but those I see, or is fitted for the abode of any but material beings. I am glad, however, to part with your paper in unison of sentiment respecting the existence of a Devil. Those who think that such a being exists, must have very confused and imperfect ideas of the omnipotence and love of the Deity. A more rational creed whispers, "Man alone is the author of all the evil he endures, and that happiness is within his reach, and easily attained by the disciplined and virtuous mind.”

Washington Irvine has an exquisite passage on Spirits in his Bracebridge Hall,' which, along with your own remarks, would almost seduce me to become a proselyte to your theory. I have written it out, as I feel assured you will approve of it.

We

Who yet has been able to comprehend and describe the nature of the soul in connexion with the body, or in what part of the frame it is situated? know merely that it does exist, but whence it came, and when it entered into us, and how it is sustained, and where it is seated, and how it operates, are all matters of mere speculation and contradictory theories. If then we are thus ignorant of this spiritual existence, even while it forms a part of ourselves, and is continually present to our consciousness, how can we pretend to ascertain or to deny its powers and operations, when released from its fleshy prison-house? It is more the manner, therefore, in which this superstition has been degraded, than its intrinsic absurdity, that has brought it into contempt. Raise it above the frivolous purposes to which it has

been applied; strip it of the gloom and horror with which it has been surrounded, and there is none of the whole circle of visionary creeds that could more delightfully elevate the imagination, or more tenderly affect the heart. It would become a sovereign comfort at the bed of death, soothing the bitter tear wrung from us by the agony of our mortal separation. What could be more consoling than the idea that the souls of those whom we once loved were

permitted to return and watch over our welfare? That affectionate and guardian Spirits sat by our pillows when we slept, keeping a vigil over our most helpless hours? That beauty and innocence which had languished into the tomb yet smiled unseen around us, revealing themselves in those blest visions wherein we live over again the hours of past endearments?

A belief of this kind would, I should think, be a new incentive to virtue, rendering us circumspect, even in our most secret moments, from the idea that those we once loved and honoured, were invisible witnesses of all our actions. It would take away too from that loneliness and destitution, which we are apt to feel more and more, as we get on in our pilgrimage through the wilderness of this world, and find that those who set forward with us lovingly and cheerily on the journey, have one by one dropped from our side. Place the superstition in this light, and I confess I should like to be a believer in it. I see nothing in it incompatible with the tender and merciful nature of our religion, nor revolting to the wishes or affections of the heart. There are departed beings that I have loved as I shall never again love in this world,-that have loved me as I never again shall be loved. If such beings do ever retain in their blessed spheres the attachments they have felt on earth, if they take an interest in the poor concerns of transient mortality, and are permitted to hold communion with those whom they have loved on earth, I feel as if now, at this deep hour of night, in this silence and solitude, I could receive their visitation with the most solemn but unalloyed delight.

J. W. A.

[We thank our correspondent for this beautiful extract from Mr Washington Irvine, with whose

writings it makes us desirous to be better acquainted. We have often had the feelings described in its concluding sentence. As to Spirits, it surely does not follow, from their existence, that they are to affect

the human beings around them, any more than other creatures affect us, the birds in the trees, for instance. We hold, that out of all faiths and all possibilities, it is the business of a cultivated human mind to extract whatsoever enlivens and enlarges its sense of existence, provided it be consistent with analogy and God's goodness; and we see all visible nature crammed so full of life, that it appears to us equally due to the modesty of man's ignorance, and the comprehensiveness of his wisdom, to suppose that invisible nature is equally so.]

CHORDS TOUCHED.

Aн, how that plaintive strain recalls
The happy hour I heard it last;
And seems, while on my ear it falls,
A dream-like whisper from the past!
What mingled thoughts of joy and pain
From the same source unbidden flow,
To hear those well known tones again,

And, oh, to hear them thus-and now !
A voice in every cadence dwells-
In every mournful note a sigh-
Of other, happier days it tells,

Unvalued as they glided by !

Of those I've loved, o'er whom the pall
Of funeral darkness seems to be,
And, oh! of worse than these, than all,
Of buried hope it speaks to me!

MEMOR.

Progress of Good. The historian of Anson's Voyages, speaking of scurvy, says, "the cure seems impossible by any remedy or by any management that can be employed." In the present day, instead of the remedy being unknown, it is, happily, the disease: a fact which suggests the most important subject for contemplation, and justifies the reflections and language of Sir Gilbert Blane: "Does it not afford a cheering and consolatory prospect, amidst the thousand shocks that flesh is heir to, that there may be still in store for us, in the boundless progression and endless combination of knowledge, other hidden means of advancing human happiness, of mitigating human misery, and of making accessions to the dominion of man over nature which have not yet. been dreamed of in our philosophy ?"-Penny Cyclopædia.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We have again to thank the Greenock Advertiser for its very kind and zealous commendations of our Journal. Such praises, too, are always the more valuable, of course, in proportion to the talents of the praiser.

Our feelings are particularly touched also by what is said of the Journal in the Windsor and Eton Express.

J. C. is informed that there will be eight Supplements in the course of twelve months, and that those upon the subject of London will have an index.

The Fourth Number of the Supplement was published with our last week's number, and should have been served by all the venders.

We shall be glad to hear again from our friend JEAN ANDRE-SON; and meanwhile will make use of what he has sent us.

ARNOLD next week.

We have handed Mr G. F.'s letter to a quarter, in which we hope it may do him service.

The pamphlet sent us by Mr W. G. shall be attended to.

We should be happy to oblige Solomon Gundy, but fear it is out of our power. Also our friend C. D. M.; but doubt whether the readers would think the re-publication of the verses consistent towards their demand for newer matter.

Some of J. D.'s verses in our next. Those of os have been unavoidably delayed to the same time.

The observations of J. D. OBSERVATOR were very welcome.

Mr G. B. is informed in the negative. We are under no need of acting upon that plan. Mr J. M. C. will understand to what part of his letter the same answer applies.

Mr J. W. B. will probably think that the spirit of his remarks has been anticipated.

Attention will be paid to the book sent us by Mr J. B., who is thanked for the other book that accompanied it, and for his letter.

B'ees throng upon us,-and all as dulcet as industrious.

Mr J. B.'s letter from Suffolk was highly welcome.

LONDON: Published by H. HOOPER, 13, Pall Mall East. From the Steam-Press of C. & W. REYNELL, Le Pulteney-strecta

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 15, 1834.

We re

ROMANCE OF COMMON-PLACE. EVERY sentiment, or want of sentiment, pushed to excess, bears, from that excess, a character of ro. mance; even dullness may be romantic. member our friend C. L., many years ago, giving us, with his exquisite tact, an account of a deceased acquaintance of his who carried "common-place" itself to a pitch of the "romantic," and who would way-lay you for half an hour with a history of his having cut his finger, or mislaid a pair of shoes. This gentleman did not draw infinite somethings out of nothing, like the wits of the Lutrin, or the Rape of the Lock, or the Italian expatiators upon a Cough or a Christian-name. He got hold of nothing, and out of it, with a congeniality of emptiness, drew nothing whatever. But it was he that drew the nothing, and you that listened to him; and thus he got a sense of himself somehow. If you ran against him in the street, it was an event in his life, and enabled him to stand breathing, and smiling, and saying how much it did not signify, for the next intense five minutes. He once met a lady, an acquaintance of his, who was going to have a tooth drawn.

No. 29.

down the court, is astonished to find the gentleman waiting at the corner, to congratulate her! )*

Well, Madam (bowing and smiling), the tooth is drawn, I presume?

(Lady acquiesces.}

Dear me! ah!-Hm!-very painful, I fear—a long while drawing?

Lady. 'Tis out, at last. (Aside. I wonder when the man will have done with his absurdity.) A skilful dentist, Mr Parkinson, Madam? (Lady acquiesces.)

I have not been to a dentist myself these let me see-ah, yes, it must be-now-these twenty years. I had one bad tooth, and caught a cold sitting in the draught of a coach—very dangerous thing—and chaises are worse - very dangerous things, chaises — h`m— very. You are suffering still I see, Madam? from the ghost of the tooth, I presume?-(laughing)—but, dear me! I am keeping you in the draught of this court, and you go the other way. Good morning, Madam-Good morning-I wish you a very GOOD morning-Don't speak, I beg-GOOD morning. And so, thus heaping emphasis upon emphasis upon this very new valediction, and retaining a double smile amidst his good wishes, from his very new Dear me, Madam, and so you are going to have joke about the ghost of a tooth, our Hero of Comyour tooth drawn? mon-place takes his leave.

Yes, Sir.

By Mr Parkinson, I presume?
Yes.

Dear me! I fear you have suffered a good deal, Madam?

Not a little, indeed.

God bless me! I am very sorry to hear it,-very sorry. How long pray may you have suffered this tooth-ach?

I should think a week.

God bless me! A week! That is a long time! And by night as well as by day, I presume?

I have hardly had any sleep for these two nights. Dear me! That is sad. God bless me! No very sleep for these two nights! Want of sleep is a very sad thing,-highly distressing. I could not do without my regular sleep. No, no; none of us can. It is highly undermining to the constitution. Produces such fatigue-such lassitude-such weariness. H'm! h'm! (Humming with a sort of sympathy and gentlemanly groan, as if his own face were bound up.) I see you are suffering now, Madam?

It will be soon over now.

H'm! You are very bold, Madam,-very resolute; but that is extremely sensible. H'm! Dear me! And you have tried clove, I presume, and all that?

Why, I am not young, and do not like to part with my teeth.

Ah-oh-h'm just so-very natural-ah-yes-dear me! hm! A double tooth, I suppose?

(The lady nods.)

Ah-afraid of the cold air-you are right not to open your mouth, Madam. Cold gets in. Ah I'm-yes-just so. (Nodding, bowing, and groaning.) (Lady turns to go up a court, and makes a gesture of bidding him good morning.)

Oh-ah-dear me ! ay, this is the place-so it isI wish you a happy release, Madam-I hope the process will be easy-h'm! ha-a-ah! (Takes furewell between a sort of breath and a groan. Lady goes into the dentist's, has her tooth drawn, and on returning [From the Steam-Press of C. & W. REYNELL, Little Pulteney-street.]

We have been led to write more of this dialogue than we intended; so we put it at the head of our paper, in order to avoid beginning three successive weeks with the same subject, which, our printer tells us, has a look of dangerous experiment with the reader in these variety-loving times. All that we meant to say was, that there is a romance in the least things as well as the greatest, even in shabbiness itself, if of a very excessive kind; and this remark we intended as an introduction to our present week's

ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE, which is romantic if only for the excess of meanness exhibited by the wretched subject of it, in his application to Mr Fox to save his life, at the moment he was defending himself elsewhere at the expense of that gentleman's character. The Mr Fox in question, afterwards first Lord Holland, was father of the celebrated Fox, and grandfather of the present accomplished nobleman. We take the narrative from the third volume of Mr Britton's History of Wiltshire,in the preface of which, by the way, we were much interested by the author's candid account of his rise from humble life. Some of the engravings also much interested us, especially that of Mr Bowles's residence, Bremhill Parsonage, a proper nest for a clerical poet.

XL. CASE OF JOHN AYLIFFE.

Tockenham in the last century was the birth-place of an individual who was executed for forgery, under peculiar circumstance; and whose fate attracted much of the public attention, from his previous connexion with Henry Fox, the first Lord Holland. The following account of this transaction is taken principally from the statements published in the Register' for 1759.

• Annual

The parents of John Ayliffe were upper servants to Gerard Smith, Esq. He was early in life placed at Harrow school, and qualified to become a teacher at the free-school of Lyneham, with a salary of ten pounds a year. While in that situation he married the daughter of a clergyman of Tockenhama, with a fortune of five hundred pounds, against the consent of her relatives..

• A fact.

PRICE THREE HALFPENCE.

This money he spent extravagantly, and about two years after his marriage, he was taken into the family of Mrs Horner, mother of Lady Ilchester, as housesteward; and subsequently he was employed as an agent for the management of her estates. This lady probably recommended him to Mr Fox, who procured for him the post of commissary of the musters. He then built himself a house at Blandford Forum, in Dorsetshire, and filled it with pictures and costly furniture. By this extravagance, and by his abortive projects to gain money, he dissipated his income, though it was very considerable, and involved himself deeply in debt. Thus pressed for money, he had recourse to several fraudulent contrivances to relieve himself. He forged a promise of presentation to the rectory of Brinkworth, in the hand-writing of Mr Fox, adding the names of two persons as subscribing witnesses. By means of this paper, he prevailed on a clergyman to become his security in borrowing money, and also to engage to marry a certain young woman. It happened that the marriage had not taken place when Ayliffe's affairs became desperate; but his failure ruined the unfortunate clergyman, who died broken-hearted. After his death the following paper was found in his pocket.

July 29, 1759,-wrote the following letter to John Ayliffe Satan, Esq.

"SIR,-I am surprised you can write to me, after you have robbed and most barbarously murdered me. Oh! Brinkworth!- Yours, T. Ed."

In April 1759, Ayliffe committed the forgery for which he suffered. Mrs Horner, to whom he had been steward, at her death, left her property chiefly to Mr Fox, and requested that gentleman to make some provision for Ayliffe. Accordingly Mr Fox executed the lease of an estate in Wiltshire to him for life, and for those of his wife and son, reserving a rent of only thirty-five pounds, which was much below the real annual value of the property. Ayliffe, some time after, borrowed money on the security of this lease; and, to make it appear more valuable, he copied it on a fresh skin of parchment, altering the reserved rent from thirty-five to five pounds. To this copy he forged the name of Mr Fox, and of those witnesses who had subscribed the real lease. To conceal this transaction from the knowledge of Mr Fox, he proposed to the persons from whom he borrowed the money an oath of secrecy. This was not agreed to, and he was obliged to be satisfied with a promise that Mr Fox should not be told of the mortgage. But the interest of the money not being regularly paid, the mortgagee felt himself no longer bound to keep the secret; and he accordingly applied to Mr Fox to pay off the mortgage. This Mr Fox declined doing; and in the course of the affair, the amount of the reserved rent was mentioned, the deed was produced, and the fraud became manifest. In the meantime, about a month after Ayliffe had forged the lease, he was arrested for sums amounting to one thousand one hundred pounds, and thrown into the Fleet Prison. During his confinement there, he produced a deed of gift from Mrs Horner to himself of four hundred and twenty pounds per annum, and three thousand pounds in money. Mrs Horner had died towards the close of the year 1757; and Ayliffe alleged that she, being unwilling to let Lady Itchester and her relations know how she had disposed of this property, directed him not to mention the donation till after her death. He said he had since concealed the circumstance from Mr Fox, lest it should hurt his interest with that gentleman.

Soon after this claim was set up. the forgery of the lease was found out, and a prosecution instituted against Ayliffe for the crime. In the meantime, he affected to represent Mr Fox's proceedings as being instituted with no other view than to extort from him a renunciation of the deed of gift which he professed to have received from Mrs Horner. So far did be persist in this diabolical accusation, that at the very time he was supplicating Mr Fox for mercy, he wrote thus to the Secretary of State :

"Mr Fox is now pleased to disown the signing or setting his hand to the lease, alleging it not to be original, though he acknowledged his having signed the same lease, so mortgaged as aforesaid, to several