[195] I have adhered to Hogarth's orthography.
[196] She was suspected to have been concerned in the murder of Mr. Nesbit in 1729, near Drury Lane, for which one Kelly, alias Owen, suffered death. The only ground of his conviction was a bloodied razor, that was known to be his property, being found under the murdered man's head. Kelly died protesting his innocence, and solemnly asserted that he had lent the razor to a woman whose name and habitation he did not know.
[197] It appeared on the trial that Mrs. Duncombe had only fifty-four pounds in her box; and fifty-three pounds eleven shillings and sixpence were found upon Malcolm.
[198] One part of her defence was, it must be acknowledged, rather weak: she declared that seventeen pounds of the money found in her hair was sent to her by her father; but on inquiry, it was proved that he lived in a state of extreme and pitiable poverty in the city of Dublin, where she was born.
[199] The crowd was so great, that a Mrs. Strangeways, who lived in Fleet Street, near Serjeants' Inn, crossed the street from her own house to Mrs. Coulthurst's, on the opposite side of the way, over the heads and shoulders of the populace.
[200] This paper he sold for twenty pounds; and the substance of it was printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1733. Peddington died September 18, 1734.
[201] The late Mr. Barry, whose works are an honour to his age and country, and would alone give celebrity and immortality to the English school, in his picture of "Elysium," or the state of final retribution, has introduced Sir Isaac Newton looking at the solar system, which an angel is to him uncovering. This is one of the most sublime and poetical thoughts I ever saw expressed upon canvas.
[202] That his conquests have in their consequences rendered the people he subdued unhappy, must be admitted, and is to be lamented. Though I am inclined to suspect that the narrations of Bartholomew de las Casas, and some other writers, are greatly exaggerated, we have indisputable evidence of such oppression, murder, and massacre, as must make every reader shudder. If the same system is still pursued,—and I fear it has been but little softened,—the evil will correct itself; and who will not rejoice at the total extirpation of these merciless tyrants, and emancipation of that unhappy race whom they have so long enslaved? Let us not, from this, censure the extension of commerce, or civilisation of the savage; for both these great objects ultimately tend to make men wiser, better, and happier. To the beardless philosopher, who adopts the fascinating visions of Rousseau, is an advocate for the blessings of barbarism, and contends for the superiority of the savage to the civilised animal, I earnestly recommend the perusal of Mickle's Introduction to the Lusiad. If the arguments adduced by that excellent writer—and, from intimate personal knowledge, I venture to add, excellent man—will not convince him, and he still languishes for pathless wilds, let him retreat from civilised society to the frozen rocks of Kamtschatka, or join the Aborigines of New Holland.
[203] "When he promised a new hemisphere, it was insisted upon that no such hemisphere could exist; and when he had discovered it, asserted that it had been known long before. The honour was given to the Carthaginians; and, to prove they deserved it, a book of Aristotle's was quoted, which Aristole never wrote. It was further said, that one Martin Behem went from Nuremburg to the Straits of Magellan, in 1460, with a patent from the Duchess of Burgundy, who, as she was not alive at that time, could not issue patents."—Voltaire.
[204] Some authors have said from the port of Gomera, and dated his departure on the 6th of September. This momentous point must be decided by those who study minute chronology; and we are so fortunate as to live in the same age with a writer who can determine the day of the month and day of the week when Adam was created: