Feb. 5. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



139 



he got up to go to bed ; he then kissed her (a thing 

 he had never done in his life before), and then 

 went upstairs, stamping on every stair as he went 

 slowly up, as if he would break it. Witness stated 

 that he did not come down next morning, but she 

 was not alarmed, as he had lain longer than usual on 

 the day before ; but at eleven o'clock, Mrs. Wolfe, 

 a neighbour's wife, coming in, they went and lis- 

 tened at the door, and tried to open it, but it was 

 locked. At last, they got a man who was near to 

 break it open ; and they found him lying on the 

 bed with his legs hanging over, quite dead : the 

 bed had not been lain on. The floor was covered 

 all over with little bits of paper ; and on one piece 

 the man read, in deceased's handwriting, ' I leave 

 my soul to its Maker, my body to my mother and 

 sister, and my curse to Bristol. If Mr. Ca . . .' 

 The rest was torn oflf. The man then said he must 

 have killed himself, which we did not think till 

 then, not having seen the poison till an hour after. 

 Deceased was very proud, but never unkind to 

 any one. I do not think he was quite right in his 

 mind lately. The man took away the paper, and 

 I have not been able to find him out. 



"Frederick Angell deposed to the fact of 

 deceased lodging at their house ; was from home 

 when deceased was found. Always considered him 

 something wonderful, and was sometimes afraid 

 he would go out of his mind. Deceased often came 

 home very melancholy : and, on his once asking 

 him the reason, he said, ' Hamilton has deceived 

 me ;' but could get no more from him. Deceased 

 was always writing to his mother or sister, of whom 

 he appeared to be very fond. I never knew him 

 in liquor, and never saw him drink anything but 

 water. 



" Ei>wiN Cross, apothecary. Brook Street, 

 Holborn. Knew the deceased well, from the time 

 he came to live with Mrs. Angell in the same 

 street. Deceased used generally to call on him 

 every time he went by his door, which was usually 

 two or three times in a day. Deceased used to 

 talk a great deal about physic, and was very in- 

 quisitive about the nature of different poisons. I 

 often asked him to take a meal with us, but he 

 was so proud that I could never but once prevail 

 on him, though I knew he was half-starving. One 

 evening he did stay, when I unusually pressed him. 

 He talked a great deal, but all at once became 

 silent, and looked quite vacant. He used to go 

 very often to Falcon Court, Fleet Street, to a Mr. 

 Hamilton, who printed a magazine ; but who, he 

 said, was using him very badly. I once recom- 

 mended him to return to Bristol, but he only 

 heaved a deep sigh ; and begged me, with tears in 

 his eyes, never to mention the hated name again. 

 He called on me on the 24th August about half- 

 past eleven in the morning, and bought some 

 arsenic, which he said was for an experiment. 

 About the same time next day, Mrs. Wolfe ran in 



for me, saying deceased had killed himself. I 

 went to his room, and found him quite dead. On 

 his window was a bottle containing arsenic and 

 water ; some of the little bits of arsenic were be- 

 tween his teeth. I believe if he had not killed 

 himself, he would soon have died of starvation ; 

 for he was too proud to ask of any one. Witness 

 always considered deceased as an astonishing 

 genius. 



" Anne Wolfe, of Brook Street. Witness lived 

 three doors from Mrs. Angell's ; knew the de- 

 ceased well ; always thought him very proud and 

 haughty. She sometimes thought him crazed. She 

 saw him one night walking up and down the street 

 at twelve o'clock, talking loud, and occasionally 

 stopping, as if to think on something. One day 

 he came in to buy some curls, which he said he 

 wanted to send to his sister ; but he could not pay 

 the price, and went away seemingly much morti- 

 fied. On the 25th August, Mrs. Angell asked her 

 to go upstairs with her to Thomas's room : they 

 could make no one hear. And, at last, being 

 frightened, they got a man who was going by to 

 break open the door, when they found him dead 

 on the bed. The floor was covered with little bits 

 of paper, and the man who was with them picked 

 up several and took away with him. 



" Verdict. — Felo de se." 



J. M. G. 



Worcester. 



LITERARY FRAUDS OF MODERN TIMES. 



(Vol.vil., p. 86.) 



It is not for P. C. S. S. to explain the grounds 

 on which Cardinal Wiseman considers the History 

 of Formosa, and the Sicilian Code of Vella, as the 

 most celebrated literary frauds of modern times. 

 But he thinks that before he penned the Querj', 

 Mr. Breen might have recollected the well-known 

 name of George Psalmanazar, and the extraordi- 

 nary imposture so successfully practised in 1704 

 by that good and learned person ; a fraud scarcely 

 redeemed by the virtue and merits of a man of 

 whom Dr. Johnson said, that " he had never seen 

 the close of the life of any one that he so much 

 wished his own to resemble, as that of Psalma- 

 nazar, for its purity and devotion." 



With respect to the Sicilian Code of Vella, Mr. 

 Breen will find, on a very little inquiry, that the 

 work to which the Cardinal adverts (entitled 

 Libro del Consiglio di Egitto, tradotio da Giuseppe 

 Vella) was printed at Palermo in 1793 ; that the 

 book, from beginning to end, is an entire fiction 

 of the learned canon ; that the forgery was de- 

 tected before the publication of the second part — 

 which, consequently, never saw the light ; that 

 the detection was due to the celebrated orientalist 

 Hager, whose account thereof (a masterpiece of 



