Vale, vir doctissime. Valpyum nostrum meis verbis salutes rogo. Lutet. d. 5 Jul. '32.

E. Henr. Barkero viro doctissimo, Thetfordiam.

XLVII. Bentley-Walker-Pope.

"But BENTLEY had taken good care that this office should be filled by his zealous partisan, the associate of his literary labors, the obsequious RICHARD WALKER, immortalized in those well-known lines of POPE, where our hero is made to exclaim :

'WALKER, our hat!'-nor more he deign'd to say,

But, stern as AJAX' spectre, strode away.'

The Quarterly Review of Monk's life of BENTLEY, Vol. 46; 1832.p. 158.

XLVIII. Anecdotes of Eugene Aram.

1. "The remarkable name of Eugene Aram, belonging to a man of unusual talents and acquirements, is unhappily associated with a deed of blood as extraordinary in its details as any recorded in our calendar of crime. In the year 1745, being then an Usher, and deeply engaged in the study of Chaldee, Hebrew, Arabic, and the Celtic dialects for the formation of a Lexicon, he abruptly turned over a still darker page in human knowledge, and the brow, that learning might have made illustrious, was stamped ignominious for ever with the brand of CAIN. To obtain a trifling property, he concerted with an accomplice, and with his own hand effected, the violent death of one DANIEL CLARKE, shoemaker of KNARESBOROUGH, in Yorkshire. For fourteen years nearly the secret slept with the victim in the earth of ST. ROBERT's Cave, and the manner of its discovery would appear a striking example of the Divine justice, even among

those marvels narrated in that curious old volume, alluded to in the Fortunes of Nigel, under its quaint title of God's Revenge against Murther. The accidental digging up of a skeleton, and the unwary and emphatic declaration of ARAM's accomplice, that it could not be that of CLARKE, betraying a guilty knowledge of the true bones, he was wrought to a confession of their deposit. The learned homicide was seized and arraigned; and a trial of uncommon interest was wound up by a defence as memorable as the tragedy itself for eloquence and ingenuity; -too ingenious for innocence and eloquent enough to do credit even to that long premeditation, which the interval between the deed and its discovery had afforded. That this dreary period had not passed without paroxysms of remorse, may be inferred from a fact of affecting interest. The late ADMIRAL Burney was a scholar at the School at Lynn, in Norfolk, where ARAM was an Usher, subsequent to his crime. The ADMIRAL stated that ARAM was beloved by the boys, and that he used to discourse to them of murder, not occasionally, as I have written elsewhere, but constantly; and in somewhat of the spirit ascribed to him in the Poem. For the more imaginative part of the version I must refer back to one of those unaccountable visions, which come upon us like frightful monsters thrown up by storms from the great black deeps of slumber. A lifeless body, in love and relationship the nearest, and dearest, was imposed upon my back, with an overwhelming sense of obligation,not of filial piety merely, but some awful responsibility equally vague and intense, and involving, as it seemed, inexpiable sin, horrors unutterable, torments intolerable, to bury my dead, like ABRAHAM, out of my sight. In vain I attempted, again and again, to obey the mysterious mandate, — by some dreadful process the burden was replaced with a more stupendous weight of injunction, and an appalling conviction of the impossibility of its fulfilment. My mental anguish was indescribable ; the mighty agonies of souls tortured on the supernatural racks of sleep are not to be penned, and if in sketching those, that belong to bloodguiltiness, I have been at all successful, I owe

it mainly to the uninvoked inspiration of that terrible dream.” THOMAS HOOD's Preface to the Dream of EUGENE ARAM, Lond. 1831. 12mo.

2. SEPT. 4, 1832. I dined at Kilverstone, and met there Captain Davy, the Nephew of Dr Davy, who resides near Heacham. He says that he has heard much of Eugene Aram from Dr Weatherhead of Heacham. Aram was staying with Dr Wea. and working with him in the garden during the winter-vacation on a very cold morning, cheifly to keep themselves warm, when a horse-dealer from Yorkshire presented himself, and asked to look at a horse, which Dr W. wished to sell. The horse-dealer observed that he knew the gentleman, who was working in the garden over the hedge; surely his name is Aram; Dr W. replied, Yes, it is. The dealer said nothing more, but, when the dealer returned to Yorkshire, he reported the circumstance, and a warrant was sent for his apprehension. Dr W. said that he could not help observing that Mr. Aram, in turning up the soil, carefully put aside the worms, that he might not injure them, and he was astonished to find a man of so much humanity charged with murder. Captain Davy has heard Dr Parr speak of Aram's Defence in the highest terms of approbation for eloquence and reasoning.

3. When I was at Norwich, Mr Kidd observed that Kippis has in the Biographia Britannica assigned a long article to Aram: it is the fullest account, and when some one remarked to him that a murderer should not have had a place there, he said that Aram was entitled to it as a literary character.

4. The account in the Annual Register seems to be wholly made up from the printed account of the Trial without any fresh information.

5.Eugene Aram.

Paley, as Mr Kidd told to me Aug. 7., was 17, when he

went to hear the trial of Aram; his father lent him his mare: he had to ride 60 miles, and had 30 tumbles on his way. The younger Paley, in the Memoir of his father, has told a curious story about Paley's riding to the University. Dr Davy's brother, the Rev. Wm Davy, was on the play-ground when Aram was arrested. Dr Davy can give much information. Mr Kidd thinks that there is a 4to of Eugene's trial. He was certainly found in Knox's bed-room at 2 in the morning. Knox's room was divided from Aram's by a staircase, and was on the opposite side; they were about 10 yards apart. After this occurrence Knox had very strong fastenings put to the door of the chamber, which are still there. There was a considerable sum of money in Knox's hands at the time.

6 Ms. Notes on EUGENE ARAM, taken from a copy of T. HOOD's Dream of EUGENE ARAM, Lond. 1831. 12mo, lent to me by the REV. F. Howes of Norwich.-"For an account of EUGENE ARAM See the Annual Register for 1759, pp. 351-65. and Kippis's Biogr. Brit. art. Aram, which latter refers, not only to the Annual Register above-mentioned, but also to an original Letter written by ARAM, while he was a prisoner at York, and addressed to a clergyman, inserted in the 3d vol. of the Grand Magazine of Magazines. Also, The Genuine Account of the Trial of EUGENE ARAM for the Murder of DANIEL CLARKE, late of Knaresborough in the County of York, who was convicted at York-Assizes Aug. 3, 1759 before the HON. Wм NOEL ESQ. one of his Majesty's justices of the Court of Common Pleas, etc. York,1759.

"Richard Beatniffe, a bookseller of Norwich, lent me this last publication, in the fly-leaf of which he had prefixed the following additional illustrations and remarks.—

Considering the obscurity of Aram's origin, the humble station in which he had moved during 40 years, and the little instruction he had received, his literary acquirements, (if what he relates of himself, be true,) were astonishing, and had not the depravity of his heart obliterated all sense of moral

obligation, he might have been an ornamental member of society, instead of disgracing it by the horrid crime, for which he justly suffered a premature and dishonorable death. The defence, which he was permitted to read at his Trial,* was drawn up with much art, and so considerable a share of sound argument, that it has been said the law was rather stretched beyond its due bounds in condemning him. But, as there was not the least doubt of his guilt, though there might be of its being fully proved according to law, if ever such severity can be justified, it was in his condemnation. EUGENE ARAM, being a man of letters, scraped an acquaintance with my Uncle, † who was a clergyman at Gaywood near Lynn, where he had been 50 years, and myself being then Apprentice to a Bookseller ‡ at Lynn, it was in my Sunday-visits that I met with this extraordinary and wicked man. CLARKE was murdered, Febr. 8, 1744-5; ARAM was tried at York-Assizes, Aug. 3, 1759. He was taken

"Not, as Mr Hood supposes in the little remark prefixed to the DEFENCE, delivered as if EXTEMPORE." F.H.

[The words referred to are these:- "For the convenience of those, who cannot readily refer to the BIOGRAPHIA BRITANNICA, or the NEWGATE CALENDAR, the Defence of EUGENE ARAM is appended. It was apparently delivered, like the more recent one of THURTELL, as if EXTEMPORE, but was, no doubt, got as much by head, and certainly more by heart, than the set oration of the gravel-hearted BARNADINE of Gill's Hill." T. Hood's DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM, Lond. 1831. p. 11. E. H. B.]

'Gaywood is a village adjoining and within a mile of the Borough of Lynn Regis to the east. It is a Rectory, and the tithes amount to £ 256 PER ANN. The REV. SAMUEL BEATNIFFE was Curate and Rector of this Parish 55 years, and lies buried in the chancel, with the following inscription on his tomb-stone :

IN MEMORY OF

THE REV. SAMUEL BEATNIFFE, M. A.
WHO DIED AT LYNN, AUGUST 10, 1781.

IN THE 79TH YEAR OF HIS AGE,

HAVING BEEN CURATE AND RECTOR OF THIS PARISH
AND BAWSEY, 55 YEARS.

HE WAS BENEVOLENT AND CHARITABLE:

HIS MIND WAS CHEERFUL, EASY, AND UNSUSPICIOUS:
TO ALL MANKIND HE WAS JUST AND FRIENDLY

AND TO HIS RELATIONS GENEROUS.

HE LIVED RESPECTED, AND DIED LAMENTED.

If fastidious criticism should discover that too much is here said of an obscure village and an obscure man, let gratitude be permitted to make the following reply: The compiler of this humble performance here spent a great part of his early years, and being the adopted son of this worthy man, pays this small tribute to his memory.' BEATNIFFE'S NORFOLK-TOUR, 1795, P. 273.

¶ "Named HOLLINGSWORTH, remarkable for being a superior Book-binder." F. H.