1829.) a Legend of London. 289 
the stairs. As they were close upon the bed-room door, Alice tock her 
hands from her face, and with a hollow voice said—“ Martyn Lessomour, 
before the ever living God, I am glad this hath so happened.” Before 
he could reply, his neighbours and the watch were im the room, and, 
upon his charge, seized his wife. 
The next day the coffins of her former husbands were all opened, and 
in the skulls of each was found a quantity of lead, which had plainly 
been poured in through one of the ears. Mrs. Alice was soon after 
tried upon the evidence of her living husband, and that of her dead 
ones, which though mute was no less strong. She would say nothing 
in her defence; indeed, after the words she spoke to her husband 
in their bed-room on the night of her apprehension, she never uttered 
another: only, in the court, during her trial, when Lessomour was 
bearing witness that he had pretended drunkenness to try what effect it 
would have upon. her—when he swore to this, Alice, whose back had 
hitherto been towards him, turned rgpidly round, fixed her glazing eye 
upon his, and uttering a shriek of piercing anguish, would have fallen, 
but that her jailer caught her in his arms: and that look and that sound 
Martyn Lessomour never forgot to his dying day. His wife was found 
guilty of petit treason, and was burnt to death in Smithfield, according 
to the law of the land. 
And so great a noise did this story make, that in the course of that 
year a statute was passed, more determinately to settle the office of 
Coroner, and the powers and duties of him and the jury he should sum- 
mon to the Inquest. : 
Martyn Lessomour lived to be a very old, and, as had been foretold of 
him, a very rich man—but he never was a happy one. 
NOTES OF THE MONTH ON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL. 
We cannot begin these sketches of the prevalent features of the time, 
better than by adverting to that great topic which now most engrosses 
every loyal and honourable mind of the community. The Oxford elec- 
tion will have begun as these sheets are going to press ; but we will fear- 
lessly anticipate that the Protestant University will do itself honour on 
this public trial of its principles. Mr. Peel is a paltry turn-coat: that is 
the only description by which he will ever be known, should he live to 
the age of Methuselah. He has done a poor and disgraceful thing, which 
which will leave him open to the taunt of every man while one fragment 
of him clings to another. Fox’s reputation, with all men of honour, was 
utterly ruined by the Coalition. The act was infamous ; and even Fox’s 
talents could not save him from being called infamous to the end of his 
career. But what protection can Mr. Peel’s intellect give to his tworals— 
his contemptible powers of mind to his contemptible conduct? The pre- 
sent question with Oxford is not so much whether Papists should or 
should not be suffered to pollute Parliament, as whether Oxford should 
involve her character, in the presence of the world, with that of a slave 
of office—a wretched mendicant for salary—in one word, a durn-coat, 
who has the effrontery to talk of “ retaining his principles while he 
changes his conduct,” and the folly to suppose that any human being 
will now care which he retains or changes. The trial is not of Mr. Peel, 
but of Oxford. 
M.M. Nem Series.—Vou. VII, No.39. 2P 
