SUICIDE 19 



if ever this meets his eye, he will recognize the cir- 

 cumstance I am relating, as well as identify the narrator, 

 and probably recall some happy reminiscences of this 

 period of his life. 



The most melancholy part of the tale remains to be 

 told. I did not see the subject of it but once or twice 

 after my visit, but I heard from my friend that, two 

 or three months after, the whole contents of the house 

 were in the hands of the sheriff's officer, and that the 

 tenant had left that neighbourhood, never to return. A 

 very few years after I read in the pajDers that — (as I 

 suppose driven by necessity and pride) — he had con- 

 descended to practices by which on his detection, in 

 accordance with the sanguinary laws then in operation, 

 his life had become forfeited, and rather than expiate 

 his crime upon the scaffold, that he, it was supposed 

 by means of prussic acid, had terminated his existence 

 in the condemned cell in Newgate, on the night preceding 

 his intended execution in the front of that j^rison. 

 The incident caused great excitement at the time. 



I will now relate a reminiscence on the road of a 

 totally different complexion. 



One winter's morninnf, before it was lio:ht, I was 

 hailed to pull up at the " Cross Keys," in St. John 

 Street, Avhere the Leicester coach usually stopped, and 

 was asked by a gentleman if I could overtake the 

 Leicester coach, which had been gone five or ten minutes. 



I replied, " Yes, as its passengers always stopped to 

 breakfast at St. Albans." 



There being no one on the box, he directly occupied 

 that seat, and soon entered into conversation. Finding 



