plainly diftinguished an old woman of very frightful appearance. An itinerant dealer in fish, who travelled that country, was the only person that knew who now refided in the cottage: he carried fome provifions thither once a week; but the mystery he obferved, and the ftrange ftories he invented, as if with a purpofe to mislead curiofity, ferved only to irritate the violent defire which fome of the farmer's wives and other goffips had to find out who the perfon was whom they now chofe to call "the Witch of the Wold."

It happened about this time that an infectious dif temper broke out in that country among the cattle, and feveral of the farmers were entirely ruined.-Inftead of rationally confidering the cause of this, and of endeavouring to cure it by fuch remedies as common sense pointed out, they took it into their heads that the poor folitary being whom they called "the Witch of the Wold," had brought this calamity upon them; and without waiting for the interpofition of juftice, they affembled in a body with pitchforks and ftaves, and furrounded her houfe: the opened the door to them, and they rushed in.

They found in this hut, which merely confifted of two ground rooms, feveral things that confirmed their opinion there was a mariner's compass, a quadrant, and fome other mathematical inftruments ;-feveral books, in languages they could make nothing of, and which they therefore concluded treated of the black art. There were fome fhells and dried plants and infects, which they were fure were collected as materials for the forcerefs, and the only living animals were two cats; but every thing elfe was mere neceffary furniture, and not better than that which they themselves poffeffed. The appearance of the old woman, however, would have been enough to have convicted her: she was thin and pale, bent almost double, and her countenance, furrowed with wrinkles, expreffed a fort of wild melancholy, which her perfecutors believed an evidence

of

of guilt. The poor creature fubmitted almost without a remonftrance to their cruel ufage; and to their fierce interrogatories as to what was become of the man who once lived in the cottage? the answered, that after having kept his bed many months, he died; and the had, according to his own defire, buried him on the wold, near their hut.

She was then extremely ill-treated, and almoft tortured, because the refused to tell who he was. She faid that he had folemnly fworn never to reveal it; that they might kill her if they would, but that nothing fhe could fuffer fhould induce her to difclofe a fecret, which to know would be of no ufe to them, while it would be breaking a promise the held facred.

They accufed her of having occafioned all the miffortunes that had lately happened in their neighbourhood. One woman faid, that her poor little Jacky's fits had come upon him the very day after he had paffed over the wold, and that he had then received a stroke from an evil eye; another declared that her only cow had grazed one day upon the wold, and had fickened directly and died; and a third, a labourer, afferted, that at the time the lightning fired his after's hayftack, he had feen this very old woman ride through the air on a broomstick.

Numberless other charges were brought against her, and they were proceeding to tie her legs and arms and throw her into the river, it being decided that if the fwam in that fituation fhe was certainly a witch : fo that the poor creature undergoing fuch a difcipline had in no cafe a chance for her life; for, if the was thus convicted of witchcraft, the would be tortured to death; if the funk, he would inevitably be drowned.

But juft as this mifled multitude had dragged their unrefifting victim to the river's brink, a gentleman of the country, as eminent for his intelligence as his bumanity, paffed by; and enquiring what was the occafion of the riotous affemblage he faw, he interfered immediately,

mediately, and, being equally loved and refpected, refcued the poor old victim of popular folly from the hands of her barbarous perfecutors. His charitable interpofition, however, came too late: though he was carried immediately to his house, put to bed, and carefully attended, fhe had already fuffered too much from the rude inhumanity of the mob; and in about three days fhe died, giving into the hands of her generous protector the key of a drawer in the cottage, where the told him he would find a written account of her unfortunate companion, and of herself.—It was only the authority of this gentleman that prevented the villagers from plundering the hut; where, as he had been directed, he found the following paper :

"As this narrative will not be read till the hand that writes it, till the heart that agonizes over it, are mouldering in the duft; the wretched writer ventures to relate his crimes and his fufferings; trufting, that his deep and fincere repentance, as it may have made his peace with heaven, will mitigate against him the indignation of mankind; and that when he is fheltered in the grave his name may be repeated without abhorrence. Yet were he not actuated by a latent hope that his fad ftory may ferve as a warning against the indulgence of thofe fatal paffions which have overwhelmed him with fhame, difgrace, and remorfe, he should willingly let the name of the wretch, and the remembrance of the evils he has occafioned, perished in oblivion.

"I was the eldest of the two fons of a gentleman of ancient family, and of very confiderable property, whofe ancestors had for fome centuries inhabited the large manor houfe of Eddenham, on the borders of Durthwaite wold, and our family name was taken from that antique refidence.

"My father, who had loft all his children by his first wife, and who was far advanced in life before my brother and myself were born of a fecond marriage, doated upon us with the moft extravagant fondness, and denied

us

us nothing to this fatal and ill-judged indulgence I owed my ruin, a ruin which involved in it that of all my family.

Though I expended, even during my being at college, more than half the income of my father's ef tates, he could not determine to check me in my wild career, confoling himself under the greatest inconveniences with thinking, that I was a young man of spirit, to whom fome extraordinary indulgences were neceffary, and that when the hey-day of youth was over, when I had fown my wild oats, I fhould become more regulated in my conduct, and that all would be well. My mother, who, though a good woman, was yet vain and weak, encouraged rather than checked thefe boundless indulgences. It was her pride, poor woman! to fee her fon, when he was at Eddenham, make as great a figure as the noblemen in the neighbourhood; and the delighted to tell of the exploits I performed in London, and the fashionable company I kept.

He

My brother, though almoft as much indulged as I was, happened to be of a different difpofition. He was fond of books and of retirement, and, at his own defire, took orders at the proper age, my father, having purchafed for him a very confiderable living not far from London. When I was three-and-twenty, I prevailed on my father to let me make the tour of Europe. confented with reluctance, fearing he should not live to fee me again. However, at the end of two years, which I paffed on the continent, I returned, and found him but little changed. My mother too was living, and in good health, and they were both made very happy by the birth of a grandfon, my brother having married about eighteen months before; and he was with his wife and child now on a vifit at Eddenham.

“I had been in habits of seeing the most beautiful women in Europe, but fo lovely a creature as my fifter in-law, it never was my chance before to behold. I becáme diftractedly in love with her, and was not ashamed

of

of meditating how I fhould fteal her from her husband, though that hufband was my brother.

"At first, the magnificent prefents I made her, and my lavish flattery, were confidered only as the effect of my general admiration of beauty, and my affection for my brother; but my behaviour was fuch as foon occafioned that excellent brother great uneafinefs. He remonftrated gently with his wife, who treated him with contempt and difdain, refented his jealoufy, and profeffed a determination to act as fhe pleafed. My father and mother at last began to notice fomething ftrange among us. But I had now obtained fuch an afcendency over the mind of my fifter-in-law, that I cared very little for the murmurs or fears of the rest of my family; and unrestrained by any fenfe of honour, religion, or humanity, and in defiance of all the laws both of God and man, I prevailed upon her to elope, and we arrived unpurfued at Naples.

"There I foon found that a beautiful outfide had concealed from me a difpofition to every folly that degrades one fex, and a ftrong propensity to indulge in every vice that debafes the other: but it ill became me to reproach her, of whofe greateft fault I had been the occafion. No man, however, who commits a crime like that I had been guilty of, is long free from the admonitions of confcience; I endeavoured to drown the remonftrances of mine in wine, and by gaming and every other diffipation--but I was still unhappy. Judge then, oh! reader, what was my fituation, what a milerable, a defervedly miferable wretch I became, when I heard (the very recollection of my fenfations stili makes my hand tremble) when I heard-that my unhappy brother, unable to bear the lofs of his wife, had perifhed by his own hand! that the infant boy, forfaken by both his parents, lingered a little while, and then followed his father to the grave and that my poor old parents, reproaching themfelves for having given birth to a monster like me, had both died within

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