3. For love of heaven, her lawless love despise, 4. Keep but thy modesty, in vain she loves; Keep virtue's last and stronger barrier, shame; But never hear what the false charmer moves, Each word will fan the spark to a raging flame. 5. If her you love, it must be more than life; 'Tis sin, 'tis shame, 'tis death, 'tis hell to love her:, Fly far, O fly the syren of a wife, And at safe distance, if at all, reprove her. 6. How happy were we, could our humble verse REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF SUICIDE. Mr. George Goringe, a gentleman of Staffordshire, excited dreadful alarm at Newport Pagnel in March 1696, by the determined manner with which he repelled every effort to save him from self self-destruction. The last scene of his life will serve for the present purpose; and may the following narrative (should it meet the eyes of despondency) rouse the party to a sense of the atrocity exhibited by Mr. G.! He arrived at the town already mentioned in a stage-coach, and remained at the Saracen's-head Inn: informing the attendants, after he had dined, that he was indisposed, they sent for Dr. Waller, who bled him; at the conclusion of the operation, several persons entered the room, upon which the pretended patient drew a pistol from his pocket, and presenting it at them alternately, commanded their instant departure; he then ordered a bed, and almost undressing himself, waited till the chambermaid withdrew, when he fired at his head, and severely wounded some part not immediately mortal. The people of the house rushed into the apartment, and found Mr. G. sitting upright in the bed with a second pistol in his hand, which he declared he would discharge at the first person who should approach him. Mr. G. having a servant with him, the poor fellow entreated that he might be an exception; but his obdurate master refused, and added, he was ready to hear any thing that the people present wished to say, A Mr. Duncomb resolved to make an effort to save the maniac, and had his name announced as that of a physician. This stratagem so far succeeded as to enable him to seize the hand which held held the pistol; at the very instant when the worthy gentleman would have wrested it from him, the two maids of the house who attended with a candle fled, and left the parties to contend in total darkness: thus circumstanced, Mr. D. very properly resolved on a speedy retreat, which he effected in safety; and his antagonist, now on the alert, would not suffer a man to enter the room, but lay on the bed occasionally conversing with the female servants, whom he informed that he had determined to die by the means he had adopted, which was preferable to a lingering death. Several persons who felt deeply interested were at one time led to suppose that Mr. G. had fallen asleep, and sent his servant to ascertain the fact; the wary domestic approached with caution, and perceived the unhappy man extended, with the muzzle of the pistol close to his head: Mr. G. started, and aiming at the intruder, bade him instantly depart: on his perceiving that he was promptly obeyed, he resumed his first position, and for the last time. The feelings of every person acquainted with this most extraordinary case, were excited to the highest degree of irritation, and holding a council of what was best to be done, they resolved to assemble at the door, and rush thence to the bed, hoping to secure the suicide ere he could recover his faculties from the surprise consequent to their method of proceeding: the fatal moment arrived, arrived, they darted forward, the pistol was instantaneously discharged, and in the same dreadful moment Mr. Goringe breathed his last. Such was the fortitude or resolution evinced by the miserable self-destroyer, that though he was often heard in prayer, neither complaint nor expression of agony escaped him, although hist torture from the wound must have been excessively acute, the following sentences were found in his pocket-book: My reason for killing myself is, first, because I would not be rendered a reproach unto, and derision of all mankind, and only become the sport of my fellow-creatures, and thereby be uncapable of serving any of them; but rather than live in perpetual misery, I resolve wholly to trust in God's mercy and forgiveness, his pardon of all my sins, but especially this, through the merits and mercy of Jesus Christ, not thinking it more sin to kill myself than to kill a man, which might have been my fate if ever I had been in the army; and in killing myself, I kill but a man already full of grief and misery, which to do, is but a piece of mercy, to deliver myself from the evils to come upon me, and my incapacity to be serviceable to mankind; and upon these considerations, Juras ire per altum semel quam semper. 66 Envy and prosperity have been my ruin; and though the devil has put them into possession of my temporals, they will meet with a reward. I was was an entire and constant lover of my wife, though at some times I may have expressed the contrary, to try her; a true friend to whomever I pretended, and all my designs just, where they have not been perverted by evil men. Let the sense of this judge of my being compos mentis. I desire my executors and trustees to give 40s. instead of 10, to the purchase of rings, mentioned in my will, and to raise £1000 out of the estate for my daughter." CAPTAIN ST. JOHN, OF THE FOREST OF GRESIGNE. This person had been quarter-master to a troop of horse, and through some cause, unexplained, became the leader of a ferocious set of banditti, whose principle of action seemed a compound of policy and cowardice. The title of Captain originated from his brethren in arms; and their residence was the forest of Gresigne, situated between Montauban and Alby, in the province of Upper Languedoc. St. John kept an elderly and very homely Bohemian woman constantly with him, bearing the honourable title of his wife, which the lady wished to confirm by exhibiting her person in the richest apparel the Captain and his men collected through their peculiar mode of thinking and acting. The policy and cowardice alluded to in the conduct of these desperadoes, was demonstrated by their permitting the inhabitants of the neighbourhood |