May ne’er good sense again become your slave,
Nor your false charms allure and cheat the brave.”
A man whose name and connexions were unknown, was found dead in his chamber at an inn, in Kent, with the following paper lying beside him:—
Lost to the world, and by the world forsaken,
A wretched creature,
Who groaned under a weary life
Upwards of thirty years, without knowing
One happy hour.
And all
In consequence of one single error,
Committed in early days,
Though highly venial
As being the mere effects of juvenile folly,
And soon repented of.
But, alas!
The poor prodigal
Had no kind father that would take him home,
And welcome back his sad repentant virtue
With fond forgiveness and the fatted calf.
Here
He sinks beneath his mighty load of ills,
And with
His miserable being lays them down,
Heart-broken,
At the age of fifty.
Tender reader, give him a little earth
For charity.
A middle aged Frenchman, decently dressed, hanged himself in a public-house in Old Street Road. A letter written in French was found in his pocket, setting forth that some years ago, he dreamt he was to die that day, if not, he was to be damned; and therefore, for the salvation of his soul, he had thought it necessary to put an end to his life.
A young gentleman, living in London, had paid his addresses to an agreeable young lady, won her heart, and obtained the consent of her father, to whom she was an only child. The old gentleman had a fancy to have them married at the same parish church where he himself had been, at a village in Westmoreland; and they accordingly set out alone, the father being at the time indisposed with the gout, in London.
The bridegroom took only his man, and the bride her maid; and when they arrived at the place appointed, the bridegroom wrote the following letter to his wife’s father:—
“Sir,—After a very pleasant journey hither, we are preparing for the happy hour in which I am to be your son. I assure you the bride carries it, in the eyes of the vicar who married you, much beyond her mother; though he says, your open sleeves, pantaloons, and shoulder-knot, made a much better shew than the finical dress I am in. However, I am contented to be the second fine man this village ever saw, and shall make it very merry before night, because I shall write from thence, Your most dutiful son,
“T. D.”
“P. S. The bride gives her duty, and is as handsome as an angel. I am the happiest man breathing.”