this news, and her contrivance what to do; and though with horrid apprehension he oft refused, yet her puling fondness (Eve’s enchantments) moved him to consent, and rise to be master of all, and both of them to murder the man, which instantly they did; covering the corpse under the clothes till opportunity to convey it out of the way.
“The early morning hastens the sister to her father’s house, where she, with signs of joy, enquires for a sailor that should lodge there the last night; the parents slightly denied to have seen any such, until she told them that he was her brother, her lost brother; by that assured scar upon his arm, cut with a sword in his youth she knew him; and were all resolved this morning to meet there and be merry.
“The father hastily runs up, finds the mark, and with horrid regret of this monstrous murther of his own son, with the same knife cuts his own throat.
“The wife went up to consult with him, where in a most strange manner beholding them both in blood, wild and aghast, with the instrument at hand, readily rips herself up, and perishes on the same spot.
“The daughter, doubting the delay of their absence, searches for them all, whom she found out too soon; with the sad sight of this scene, and being overcome with horror and amaze of this deluge of destruction, she sank down and died; the fatal end of that family.
“The truth of which was frequently known, and flew to court in this guise; but the imprinted relation conceals their names, in favour to some neighbour of repute and kin to that family. The same sense makes me therein silent also.”
These dreadful events have been wrought into a drama by Lillo, the author of George Barnwell; and if terror and pity form the essential bases of tragedy, the “Fatal Curiosity” is built on a most ample foundation; the sister, of course, changes her character to heighten the effect, but in other
respects the play scarcely differs from the actual course of events.
The celebrated Mr. Harris of Salisbury, has given the following account of this drama in his last work, entitled, “Philological Inquiries.”
“A long lost son, returning home unexpectedly, finds his parents alive, but perishing with indigence.