from the throne so recently, and put his daughter | called upon by clamorous creditors for payment of Mary, and son-in-law William in possession of debts contracted by the sickness of his wife. There his crown and sceptre. Amid these sights and sounds I bewailed my own forlorn condition, and hardly could participate in any of the holiday scenes of enjoyment, which seemed to bless the inhabitants of London, whose smiling faces were moving to and fro, through the groves and gravelled walks, over the carriage ways, and out and in the gate passages of the vast, and truly beautiful scenery of Hyde Park, and the Kensington Gardens. I did not regret my subsequent removal from the metropolis. My brother John and Laura became settled in a spacious mansion in a street adjoining the celebrated Bond street. Charles, my little sister Jane, and myself, were, very soon after we had left London, brought from the country once more, and added to my brother's family. An heir soon crowned their wishes, and the little infant cemented the strength of that passion, whose consummation did not abate its ardor. Another calamity, in a short time afterwards, fell heavily upon the little circle which had succeeded our former family. Two gentlemen, in whose integrity my brother had confided, betrayed their trust, and in mutual dealings between man and man, were guilty of all the iniquity which could be found in open robbery, or outlawed piracy. These two men inveigled themselves into the entire confidence of my brother. He believed them to be trustworthy; he acted by their advice, (and they were his relatives too) in the management of the family estate, and by their arts and management, lost the great bulk of that property which was essential to the maintenance of the orphans. were the physicians and apothecaries, the landlord and the nurse, and other persons who had provided delicacies, which he had purchased on credit, for his sick wife, knowing that he could not pay for them. He had been guilty of running into debt, and his love for her had betrayed him into the error. But human avarice knows no mercy nor forbearance. After the creditors had been put off several times with mere promises to pay, they let loose upon the agonized young widower the harpies of the law. Justice will not be baulked of its prey by any excuses advanced on the part of the culprit, as to his thoughtlessness, or good intentions. Love, friendship, human weakness, are but little considered by the stern rules of law. Poor John was hurried to the dungeon prepared for the wicked wretches who have been guilty of the awful crime of being unfortunate, and of suffering themselves to be carried away by their feelings. Charles and I visited our elder brother in prison. We stinted ourselves in our food and clothing, and were enabled, young as we were, and little as we received in our clerkships, to provide board and lodging for ourselves, our sister Jane, and the child of our brother. My brother remained in prison many years, and Jane at length went to reside with an aunt who adopted her. Charles was offered a birth on board of one of His Majesty's ships; for at this time of our lives, Queen Anne had died, and was succceded by George the First. Alas! fatal success for Charles. The frigate in which he sailed was lost off Cape Horn, in a tremendous gale of wind, with six hundred men on board. She went down in the wide ocean, far from the shore, and not a relic of the ship or crew was ever seen afterwards. My elder brother died My brother John was, in consequence obliged to in his gloomy prison, and poor little Jane, having resign his usual style of living. He took a couple the seeds of the same disorder which had destroyof apartments on a second floor, in a bye street, ed her elder brother's wife, survived him but a and reduced his expenditures to the most parsimo-short time. Thus I stood alone, except my more nious regulations. Charles and I were put into youthful companion, Thomas, the orphan of my retail dry goods stores as clerks, whereby we sup-brother. Thomas grew up, went into the army in ported ourselves, I at twelve, and he at fourteen India, and fell a victim to the pestilential climate. years age. John himself, sought for employ- I now pass over the interval, until I arrived at ment, but could not obtain any. From the wreck the age of thirty-two, and it was at this time of my of the estate, there had been saved a few jewels life that I became acquainted with the woman who and trinkets, some indispensable articles of house- afterwards was united to me in holy wedlock. My hold furniture, and a small quantity of cash. Upon salary as clerk was sufficient to enable me to unthis my brother supported his family for some dertake the care of a household. Lucy Walsingyears, scarcely being able, amid all the prosperity ham and I had met in a gay circle; we conversed, of London, and its celebrated benevolence and we loved. I was daily at her father's house, and liberality, to obtain a scanty subsistence. Many a as I stated in the first part of this narrative, in a meal he denied himself, that his wife might eat.few months after our first acquaintance, we were At length sickness overtook his beloved wife. She lingered long, in a hopeless consumption, and fell a victim to the dreadful disease. The unfor tunate young husband wept over the yawning grave, in which he saw deposited, amid the awful ceremonies of holy church, and sympathizing spectators, the mortal remains of a young, and late blooming and beloved wife. of Now, to the dreariness of poverty, which pervaded his apartment and his feelings, was added the loneliness of a widower's hours. Scarcely had he buried in the damp earth what he loved most in the world, and what he had lived for, when he was husband and wife. It seems as if this happy consummation of our hopes, was the signal for all evil spirits to pour out the vials of their wrath upon our devoted heads. We thought that our happiness had just commenced; but heaven knew that it was our sorrows which had begun. Yet we loved each other with sincere devotedness of soul. A week after our marriage, my employer failed in business, and his creditors closed his store. My father-in-law and mother-in-law talked with me about my future prospects, and being wealthy, they concluded to advance me a small capital, in order that I should commence trade in the same depart ment of mercantile life that my employer had fol- was near becoming the prey of the robber and the lowed. They did advance me capital, and I com- assassin. Mrs. Walsingham became affected by menced my new course of life. My concerns were her husband's dreadful afilictions, and several times flourishing, and continued so for two years, and we in consequence, experienced severe illness from had a smiling cherub of a boy, to bless our loves, the extreme agony of her mental sufferings. I had and crown our joys. One awful night, we were ❘ been gradually restored to health, and to my asaroused from our midnight slumbers by the dread-siduous ministering to her during her illness, she ful cry of fire. We had scarcely time to escape with our lives, and the life of our dear boy, from the surrounding smoke and flames. The contlagration had commenced near the door of our chamber, by some unknown means, and spread through the building. All our goods were destroyed, and the next morning found us beggars-no store, no customers, not a rag of the costly linen and lace which had been looked upon with so much pride the day before, not a single article of furniture-riage, I found myself prosperous and blessed with nought but the clothing upon our backs remained: we were then destitute indeed. We sought refuge in the mansion of my wife's father. This dreadful affliction was a serious detriment to my progress in life. From the blow I never wholly recovered. owes her recovery and her life. They were both very grateful to me for my help and timely interference, although I did not claim any other merit than that of having done my duty as a man, as a fellow creature, and as a member of the family. About a year afterwards I obtained employment in an attorney's office, as a copyist. My income enabled me to recommence the care of a household of my own, and in five years after my mar a second child, a daughter. Hope again lit up our domestic path, and we said to each other, my wife and I, "now we will bless God, and begin a life of quiet happiness and honorable independence." Alas! for the blindness of mortals to futurity and Shortly after this time my father-in-law met with their fate in after life. My employer was a pettia misfortune. Some villains conspired to rob him fogging attorney, whose principles were a mere of property, according to law. In the negociations matter of convenience to him. His conscience of his pecuniary concerns, he received a promis- sat losely upon the throne of his moral faculties, sory note from a woman, who was said to be an and he could trade in the commodities of honesty, unmarried one. But it was a trick of her and her honor, truth and religion. He was good or bad, husband, whose marriage had been kept secret, humane or cruel, according to the state of market, owing to her having retained a small property left and the rate of exchange upon those items. A her by her first husband, during her widowhood. widow's tears, an orphan's cry for protection, fell She would therefore have lost the estate to the law- upon his obdurate heart, like the dews of Heaven ful owner, if she had avowed her marriage. After upon the flinty rock; neither softening nor refreshthe note was due, which she gave to Mr. Walsing-ing with any genial influences, the barren subham, she refused to pay it. He commenced an stance. He could commit forgery, fraud, aye, action against her as if she was a single woman, murder, if necessary to the acquisition of filthy and she having gone out of London, he advertised lucre, and capable of being done in secrecy and her as an absconding debtor. She then gave up security from detection. He even dared to dictate the small property which she had held as a widow, my participation with him in such unhallowed doand commenced a libel suit against Mr. Walsing-ings. I answered with a burst of honest indignaham. The prosecuting lawyer visited our house tion. I execrated his creed-I denounced his vilon one occasion, to make a proposition to Mr. lany, and asked him what he had ever perceived Walsingham, and the latter was grossly insulted of laxity of rectitude in my deportment, to induce by the lawyer. Mr. Walsingham being a man of him to insult me with his nefarious propositions. high passions, struck the other, when the lawyer I thought of my dreadful situation: I had a lovely drew a pistol; this so exasperated the furious Mr. wife, a little son and daughter. I was poor in Walsingham that he rushed upon his antagonist, purse, although rich in integrity, principles of moand one or the other would have fallen, if I had rals, religion and honor. But of what avail to my not rushed between them, and seized the deadly subsistence were honesty and moral worth, when weapon; but the 'instrument was unluckily dis- my bread was dependant upon my subservience to charged in the struggle, and pierced my side. The a wretch, whose trade was legalized robbery. blood instantly gushed in torrents from the wound, and I fell, through mere weakness. The family endeavored to stay the bleeding, by tying bandages over the orifice, and their efforts partially succeeded. I lingered for six months before I could even walk; at length I recovered, and the perplexing law-suit was also settled with considerable difficulty and sacrifice of money. The fit of passion into which my father had been betrayed, affected his health and strength of mind. He ever afterwards was subject to occasional aberrations of intellect, and sudden prostrations of body. Often did I watch his steps, and frequently I have saved his life, when he was about to die in the street, or when, in his mad freaks, he rushed into the haunts of infamy, and Why does Providence put the human heart to such trials? Here I had to choose between starvation and a wicked, but prosperous course of life. My employer had amassed immense wealth from the distresses of families whom he had involved in law-suits, in order to plunder them, in the shape of a kind advocate, and redresser of their wrongs." He wanted a tool, and would pay me well for my compliance in that capacity. If I did not sell my body and soul to this human devil, he would dismiss me from his employ-I should be destitute of any means of support for my wife and children-I should perish. Indeed, I knew my father-in-law to be wealthy, but I also knew that he and his family had been brought up in the lap of luxurythat they could not exist from day to day, without the expenditure of their full income. There was wife: "Again," cried I, "again, dear Lucy, we Mr. Walsingham, his wife, a daughter unmarried, are beggars." I related the whole transaction to and two sons one, William, yet single, and the her: she approved my course of conduct, and we other, John, having a wife, and a large family of threw ourselves into each other's arms, and wept little children. Mr. Walsingham entirely sup-in trembling and bitter emotions of mingled fear ported William, previous to his marriage with a and faith. lady of great wealth, and considerably contributed to the maintenance of John's family, he only possessing a trifling income, settled upon him by an uncle, and not having been placed in any profitable occupation, for procuring for himself and family a livelihood. Mr. Walsingham lived in London in one of his own tenements. His illness of body and mind had compelled him to withdraw from trade, and he had resigned all his stock and customers to a clerk whom he had brought up from childhood. We told our troubles to Mrs. Walsingham. She prepared us private apartments in her house, and we concluded that it was best to enter them at night, secretly, and remain concealed from the censorious world. We sold at a sacrifice, our furniture and little property, and the fashionable guests of the mansion did not know that we were secluded in a remote part of the same building. mainly owed his life. We linked hands and vowed perpetual friendship, whose new strength was cemented by the seal of that dreadful distemper under which he had suffered, and from which my warm devotion to him had rescued his youth and manhood. It was not long after the recovery of William, that I was offered a situation under the Government. I accepted it, and thus my faith in the protection of Heaven was confirmed. Again I was placed in prosperous circumstances. I purchased the lease of a snug residence, and once more had a fireside of my own. I had now been married eight years, and was blessed with three children. Amid our misfortunes we had not yet been called upon to mourn over the death of any of our beloved children. At this new dawn of hope, I was disposed to repeat my former exclamation, which my similar change once before called forth. But I dared not: sad experience had subdued my hopes to resignation, and I was willing to enjoy without enthusiasm or boasting. And well I did so; for the past was bright to the darkness which soon shrouded my fate. Shortly after this, William was taken sick with the small pox. His parasitical flatterers avoided his apartment as a place of infection. His mother Mr. Walsingham's residence was a splendid and I watched over him and nursed him. Even mansion, four stories in height, and built of dark the physician used great precaution before coming colored stone. He had costly furniture and plate, to the bedside, and stayed only a few minutes. a glittering train of liveried menials-a dashing William's life was despaired of, but through my equipage of chariots and of horses-entertained assiduous devotion, and unwearied vigilance over large crowds of guests at his hospitable and prince- his couch of sickness, he was saved from death. ly table-and he and his family shone in personal | His disorder took a turn, and he felt that to me he attire of the finest fabrics that the weaver's skill could produce. Diamonds and pearls shed their lustre and corruscations from the neck and bosom, and all the paraphernalia of opulence and grandeur were in the little world of Mr. Walsingham's domestic arrangements. Of course, the owner of such an establishment had constant demand for every sum, however small, which swelled his income. If a small portion were at any time abstracted, a deficiency would exist in some part of the style and splendor of the ostentatious display. Where there is such a court circle, money is all in all. The little court itself, monarch, throne, train of parasites, equipage, feast and revel, music and merry throngs, all hang, for their existence, upon the regular supplies from every source of revenue. If I, my wife, and my two children, had been added to the household, there would have been required a greatly added income to provide our separate equipages, our separate servants, liveries and appointments. The children's education alone, which must be in a proud consistency with the family splendor, would cost much. Therefore, I knew that Mr. Walsingham was entirely unable to add my family to his present household. I was accustomed to wander away on a summer As guests, if we were opulent, we could only in- evening, into the rural part of the suburbs, to mecrease the extent of his guest circle, and bring ad- ditate occasionally after the excitement and bustle ditional gayety to the gay throng. But as a part of an unusually fatiguing day. One dark night, of the family he was unhappily forbid, by consi- while passing thus along a secluded bye-path, derations of rank and its appendages, from daring which skirted a forest, I stumbled over an obstacle to undertake the charities of a father to his daugh-in my path, and fell at full length upon the ground. ter, of bringing me and my children into his house. I arose and perceived that my hands and clothes Knowing all this, I looked at the attorney, when were wet. Directly I heard the busy hum of voices. he frowned upon me for non-compliance with his wishes, and began to stammer out excuses. It was with me a question of life or death, for myself and my much-cherished family." If you do not comply, and assist me in that operation, be it good or bad in your view, you and I must part at once. But if you render me the service which you can, your share of the profits shall be two thousand pounds." I could not be a villain. I believed there was a God to protect the honest man, and I spurned the glittering bribe. We parted. I went home to my I saw lights gleaming through the foliage of the trees. In the next instant a dozen men sprang forward from the thicket, surrounded by a crowd of persons holding lanterns, and several rough hands seized hold of my collar, and many of the spectators cried out, "That's the murderer! that's him: look at his bloody hands and clothes." I cast my eyes down upon my limbs, and behold, it was so indeed. The wet on my hands and garments, which I supposed to be water, was the red blood of some unhappy victim of assassination. "Where's the body?" inquired one in a stern | peace with my family. I wished to communicate manner: "where have you hid your victim, you with my wife, and her parents, and some one of monster of inhumanity? you ruthless murderer ?" my most intimate friends, but was unable to get "It is false," I replied, "I am ignorant of what sympathy or assistance to do so. At length, by you mean." "Tear him to pieces," shouted a promises of a high reward, the turnkey caused his hundred stentorian lungs. And furious eyes flash-son to go to my friend, who lived near the prison. ed determination of vengeance, around me. " Drag It was four days after my arrest that this privilege him to justice," said others; and they concluded to was granted. The boy returned with information take me before a magistrate. While thus hur- that my friend was not at home, but that he had left ried forward, a man came running up to the crowd the message with the servant, to be communicated and said they had found the murdered man. I was as soon as his master returned home. I dared not instantly forced by the greatest violence and rough- abruptly send news to my wife, and I could not ness, to the spot, where I had stumbled and fell, get any one to take a note from me, which should and then the mystery was revealed to me. I had gently break the unwelcome tidings to her. But stumbled over a dead body, which lay weltering in I would nevertheless, at least, have risked the blood, and had fallen into the gore, by which my danger of her hearing it in any way, could I have hands and clothes had been stained with the fatal possibly sent her the information. But it was enmarks, which might now be the awful means of tirely prohibited to me to do so. My anxiety, it causing me to be suspected of murder. My being may naturally be supposed, was extreme, and truly found thus, under such suspicious circumstances, agonizing. might eventuate in my conviction and execution upon an ignominious scaffold, for a crime of which I was not guilty. I thought of my affectionate children at homeof the partner of my bosom, awaiting the sound of my returning footsteps, ascending the stairs to The spectators dragged me before the magis-her apartment-her patience-her passing the trate. The body was washed in a neighboring hours of midnight, still without hearing of me or stream, and also brought to the justice. I had not seeing me-the whole night gliding on, and no been able to get a glimpse of the deceased per- husband come to cheer up his mate, with his smile son, through the intervening crowd, who throng- and his protecting presence. The children sleeped around the mangled corpse. When under ex-ing in unconscious security, while their wearied amination in the judge's office, while I was an- and agitated mother was keeping her ceaseless viswering by monosyllables to haughty interrogato- gils over their slumbers;-a whole sad night to be ries, I attempted several times to explain the cause passed by her-the next day-another dreary night of my suspicious appearance-of my walking a second gloomy day, and another more dreadful alone, as usual-my falling over the dead body-season of darkness and mental agony; then her finding my garments and limbs wet, and not know- searching the city-her distraction and her despair ing, until a light shone upon my person, that I was at my four days absence. All these poignant restained with blood. But the judge and spectators flexions rushed through my brain, and I was almost did not doubt my guilt, and I was only suffered to driven to madness by the harrassing nature of answer, without hesitation, the questions which my thoughts, with regard to the situation of my were put by the justice, for the purpose of entrap-family. The next day after I had sent a message ping me into a tacit confession, by contradictions to my friend, he arrived at the prison ingreat haste, in my statement. As my eyes wandered around the room, my gaze met the pale face of the corpse, when, oh, horror!-those features betrayed the well known and hated lineaments of my former employer, the villainous attorney. Involuntarily, I exclaimed, "Good God of Heavens! this is the violent end of that bad man!” “Ah, ha!" instantly came from the lips of the wise justice. "You begin to feel remorse, do you? Then confess all, and pray Heaven to have mercy upon your soul. Your guilt is unquestionable-you was found beside the murdered body, your hands and clothes bloodyyou do not attempt any explanation, (such is the insolence of ignorance,) and now your conscience compels you to proclaim yourself as the murderer. You acknowledge you know the person killed, and that he came to a violent end." I again attempted to explain, but the justice thought every thing I did was a subterfuge to screen myself from merited punishment. I was hurried to prison, and the remains of the probable victim of his own wicked cruelties to the vengeance of an exasperated sufferer, were committed to the silent grave. No person would believe my story, or credit my assertions that I was of a respectable situation under government, and that I lived in domestic having but just received the message. I explained to him all the unpleasant circumstances which had happened, and besought him to hasten to communicate, in as cautious a manner as possible, all the facts to my wife. He left me, after having condoled with me in the most affectionate and consoling terms of sympathy, and tenders of assistance, both pecuniary and otherwise. He promised to undertake to get me acquitted, and went away assuring me that he should first inform my wife and her parents of my situation, and then hurry to the abode of an eminent counsellor, whom he should employ at once, and ensure his ready attendance to my affairs, and his skillful management of them, by advancing to him a generous fee, happen to me what would. I embraced my friend, and bade him fly to my family and the counsel, and we parted, amid the greatest excitement, and filled with lively hopes. In two hours the door opened, my beloved wife entered, and I sprang forward to catch her sinking form. She fainted in my arms, and my friend, who was behind her, mingled his tears with my bitter ones, which burst from my eyes in profusion, and bathed the bright ringlets of the sweet woman whom I held and strained to my bosom, who had loved me through so many years of weal and wo, and from whom, soon, perhaps, I was to be torn forever, by the unjust decree of a mistaken jury and a misled judge. into that of gloomy abstraction, and an aversion to scenes of hilarity and pleasure. Who can read this story without lamenting the My wife revived in a few moments, and we often too precipitate decision of judicial tribunals, calmly talked over my story. My fears with re- which frequently eventuates in bringing remorse gard to her sufferings, had been but too true. Du- upon the jurors, whose minds were honestly dering the night of my arrest, she had been waiting ceived by strong corroborating circumstances, and until two o'clock in the morning for my return. bringing sad reflections to the judge, whose interShe then sent servants to different places, in vain. vening legal acumen and experience might have She could get no tidings of me. She did not go to saved an innocent man's death by lawful violence, bed, but sent information of my absence, at day- so great a stain upon the escutcheon of the adminlight, to her father. He caused the whole metro-istration of justice, and have preserved to society polis to be scoured in pursuit of me, but owing to the vast extent of the town, he was unable to trace me. The four days were passed by my wife in feelings of anguish which baffle description. The first news was obtained by means of my friend. I entreated my beloved to hope for the best, and she repaired to her home somewhat relieved in her mind. She and her brother William called every day to see me in my dungeon, and to cheer me up. When my counsel was told by the counsel for the prosecution, that I had parted from the deceased in anger, on a former occasion, when I had been in his employ that I had publicly spoken of him as a base wretch—that people had heard my former employer, the murdered man, frequently declare his intentions to punish me for having brought false accusations against him—that no doubt I had met the deceased, and we had quarrelled, and had come to blows-that in the course of the affray a deadly weapon had been used-and in fact, a penknife had been found upon the spot-that probably it was a knife which I previously possessed, or else that I had made myself subsequently master of it, and had, during the struggle, plunged it into his throat, in which part of the deceased's person, the only wound was:-my antagonist had then, as it was most likely, bled to death, and I was arrested just as I was escaping, with the bloody and betraying marks and trophies of the fatal conflict upon my hands and clothing. All these connecting incidents, this plausible reasoning, the almost irresistible conclusion, had some influence upon the mind of my counsel. He even suggested to me not to hide any fact from him, and I saw with feelings of horror, the thoughts that were passing through his mind. Even my relatives seemed to be staggered in their faith, for I could not help but acknowledge that appearances were against me. The above is the account of Mr. Dormer's sorrows, and his reflections, contained in the manuscript. About a year after the time that the above was written, the following addition was made by an acquaintance of Dormer. Poor Dormer, he was executed. Circumstantial evidence determined the judge and jury; and scarcely two months had elapsed after his death, when a criminal was arrested for a highway robbery, who confessed to the murder and robbery of the attorney. The widow of Dormer fell a victim to a short lived grief, and his children grew up to maturity, with minds saddened by their melancholy history, and never recovered from the overwhelming blow, which, for generations after, seemed to have changed the very nature of the family a worthy member-to the wife a fond husband, and to the children a protecting parent. Why don't the Men Propose. "Why don't the men propose," indeed? Such benefits accrue ; I wonder most that women boast To see them flirt, with jewels girt The youthful reveller knows; And bills (of course) abound; All steadier thoughts confound. Cry out against that silly cry |