What faults they find in me take care to shun,

And look at home: enough is to be done.

“June 26, 1774.Poor John the Glover.”

Mr. Brower, a print-cutter, near Aldersgate-street, was attacked on the road to Enfield by a single highwayman, whom he recollected to be a tradesman in the city, and called him by his name. The robber immediately shot himself through the head.

The case of a man is recorded in a French paper who burnt with one of the strongest passions of which we ever heard an account. His mistress having proved unfaithful to him, he called up his servant, informed him that it was his intention to kill himself, and requested that, after his death, he would make a candle of his fat, and carry it lighted to his mistress. He then wrote a letter, in which he told her that as he had long burnt for her, she might now see that his flames were real; for the candle by which she would read the note was composed of part of his miserable body. After this he committed suicide.

Lieutenant Colonel Mautren, of the Prussian Hussars, having been stripped, at the gaming table, of all his property, even to his watch and the rings he wore, returned home. Next day he disposed of his commission; and having offered marriage to a respectable female whom he had seduced, a clergyman was sent for, and the ceremony performed. He then retired to a private room, and while some friends were felicitating the bride on her good fortune, the report of a pistol announced the catastrophe that had taken place. The company hastened to the room; but the Colonel was no more. On the table was a letter to his wife, mentioning the cause of his death and inclosing the amount of the sale of his commission.

The particulars of the following case were read by M. Gerard de Gray, at the Société de Médecine. A young man, having spent in the capital all his finances, returned home to recruit his purse; but failing in his object, he resolved to put an end to himself. He made no secret of his determination. On the 16th of August he carried it into execution. His bed-room was about nine feet square, and a little more than six in height. On every aperture in it by which the air might possibly have admittance, he pasted paper, and about five in the afternoon lighted a brazier of coals, which he set on the floor close by his bed. He then left the apartment, carefully closing the door after him. At six, he said to an old lady, “My brazier is now ready—I go to die.” On the following morning, the family having become alarmed, the door of the chamber was forced open. An insupportable vapour issued from the place, and the body of the unfortunate youth was found stretched across the bed. On the floor, the brazier still occupied the place already mentioned; it was of considerable capacity, and seemed to have been lighted with paper. Near the body were placed two volumes of an old Encyclopædia; one of them at the foot of the bed, open at the article Ecstasy; the other near the right hand displayed the article Death. On the latter volume was a pencil and a bit of paper, with the words, Je meurs avec calme et bonheur, clearly written, with the date annexed; but beneath that there appeared, in characters very difficult to be read, the following words: Au moment de l’agonie j’aurais voulu m’être procuré une sensation agréable. It would appear that the deceased immediately on writing the scrawl, had fallen into the position in which he was found. The attitude did not betoken any struggle at the last moment; yet it seems probable, from the signs of sickness of the stomach, and the mention of agony in the last phrase, that life did not become extinct without some painful sensations.

Madame Augine having been personally attached to the late Queen of France, expected to suffer under the execrable tyranny of Robespierre. She often declared to her sister, Madame Campan, that she never would wait the execution of the order of arrest, and that she was determined to die rather than fall into the hands of the executioner. Madame Campan endeavoured, by the principles of morality and philosophy, to persuade her sister to abandon this desperate resolution; and in her last visit, as if she had foreseen the fate of this unfortunate woman, she added, “Wait the future with resignation; some fortunate occurrence may turn aside the fate you fear, even at the moment you may believe the danger to be greatest.” Soon afterwards the guards appeared before the house where Madame Augine resided, to take her to prison. Firm in her resolution to avoid the ignominy of execution, she ran to the top of the house, threw herself from the balcony, and was taken up dead. As they were carrying her corpse to the grave, the attendants were obliged to turn aside to let pass the cart which conveyed Robespierre to the scaffold!

In the year 1600, on the 10th of April, a person of the name of William Dorrington threw himself from the top of St. Sepulchre’s church, in London, having previously left on the leads or roof a paper of which the following is a copy:—

“Let no other man be troubled for that which is my own fault; John Bunkley and his fellows, by perjury and other bad means, have brought me to this end. God forgive it them, and I do. And, O Lord, forgive me this cruel deed upon my own body, which I utterly detest, and most humbly pray him to cast it behind him; and that of his most exceeding and infinite mercy he will forgive it me, with all my other sins. But surely, after they had slandered me, every day that I lived was to me a hundred deaths, which caused me rather to die with infamy than to live in infamy and torment.