Miss Harris taken into custody, and said, if she was his sister, he would deliver her to justice. He added besides, that it was impossible to screen her, and carry on the prosecution, or, indeed, recover the estate. Amelia at last begged the delay of one day only, in which time she wrote a letter to her sister, informing her of the discovery, and the danger in which she stood, and begged her earnestly to make her escape, with many assurances that she would never suffer her to know any distress. This letter she sent away express, and it had the desired effect: for Miss Harris having received sufficient information from the attorney to the same purpose, immediately set out for Poole, and from thence to France, carrying with her all her money, most of her clothes, and some few jewels. She had, indeed, packed up plate and jewels to the value of two thousand pound and upwards; but Booth, to whom Amelia communicated the letter, prevented her, by ordering the man that went with the express, (who had been a serjeant of the foot-guards, recommended to him by Atkinson,) to suffer the lady to go whither she pleased, but not to take any thing with her except her clothes, which he was carefully to search. These orders were obeyed punctually, and with these she was obliged to comply. Two days after the bird was flown, a warrant from the Lord Chief Justice arrived to take her up, the messenger of which returned with the news of her flight, highly to the satisfaction of Amelia, and consequently of Booth, and indeed not greatly to the grief of the Doctor. About a week afterwards Booth and Amelia, with their children, and Captain Atkinson and his lady, all set forwards together for Amelia's house, where they arrived amidst the acclamations of all the neighbours, and every public demonstration of joy. They found the house ready prepared to receive them by Atkinson's friend, the old serjeant, and a good dinner prepared for them by Amelia's old nurse, who was addressed with the utmost duty by her son and daughter, most affectionately caressed by Booth and his wife, and, by Amelia's absolute command, seated next to herself at the table; at which, perhaps, were assembled some of the best and happiest people then in the world. CHAP. IX. In which the History is concluded. HAVING brought our history to a conclusion, as to those points in which we presume our reader was chiefly interested, in the foregoing chapter, we shall in this, by way of epilogue, endeavour to satisfy his curiosity as to what hath since happened to the principal personages of whom we have treated in the foregoing pages. 717 Colonel James and his lady, after living in a polite manner for many years together, at last agreed to live in as polite a manner asunder. The Colonel hath kept Miss Matthews ever since, and is at length. grown to doat on her (though now very disagrecable in her person, and immensely fat) to such a degree, that he submits to be treated by her in the most tyrannical manner. He allows his lady eight hundred pounds ayear, with which she divides her time between Tunbridge, Bath, and London, and passes about nine hours in the twenty-four at cards. Her income is lately increased by three thousand pounds left her by her brother Colonel Bath, who was killed in a duel about six years ago, by a gentleman who told the Colonel he differed from him in opinion. The noble peer and Mrs Ellison have been both dead several years, and both of the consequences of their favourite vices; Mrs Ellison having fallen a martyr to her liquor, and the other to his amours, by which he was at last become so rotten, that he stunk above ground. trial at the Old Bailey; where, after much quibThe attorney, Murphy, was brought to his bling about the meaning of a very plain act of parliament, he was at length convicted of forgery, and was soon afterwards hanged at Tyburn. The witness for some time seemed to reform his life, and received a small pension from Booth; after which he returned to vicious courses, took and followed the last steps of his old master. So a purse on the highway, was detected and taken, apt are men, whose manners have been once thoroughly corrupted, to return, from of amendment, into the dark paths of vice. any dawn As to Miss Harris, she lived three years with a broken heart at Boulogne, where she received annually fifty pounds from her sister, who was hardly prevailed on by Dr Harrison not to send her a hundred, and then died in a most miserable manner. Mr Atkinson, upon the whole, hath led a very happy life with his wife, though he hath been sometimes obliged to pay proper homage to her superior understanding and knowledge. This, however, he cheerfully submits to, and she makes him proper returns of fondness. They have two fine boys, of whom they are equally fond. He is lately advanced to the rank of a captain, and last summer both he and his wife paid a visit of three months to Booth and his wife. Dr Harrison is grown old in years and in honour; beloved and respected by all his parishioners, and by all his neighbours. He divides his time between his parish, his old town, and Booth's; at which last place he had, two years ago, a gentle fit of the gout, being the first attack of that distemper. During this fit, Amelia was his nurse, and her two eldest daughters sat up alternately with him for a whole week. The eldest of those girls, whose name is Amelia, is his favourite; she is the picture of her mother, and it is thought the Doctor hath distinguished her in his will; for he hath declared, that he will leave his whole fortune, except some few charities, among Amelia's children. As to Booth and Amelia, Fortune seems to have made them large amends for the tricks she played them in their youth. They have, ever since the above period of this history, enjoyed an uninterrupted course of health and happiness. In about six weeks after Booth's first coming into the country, he went to London, and paid all his debts of honour; after which, and a stay of two days only, he returned into the country, and hath never since been thirty miles from home. He hath two boys and four girls; the eldest of the boys, he who hath made his appearance in this history, is just come from the university, and is one of the finest gentlemen and best scholars of his age. The second is just going from school, and is intended for the church, that being his own choice. His eldest daughter is a woman grown, but we must not mention her age. A marriage was proposed to her the other day with a young fellow of a good estate, but she never would see him more than once; "for Dr Harrison," says she, " told me he was illiterate, and I am sure he is ill-natured." The second girl is three years younger than her sister, and the others are yet children. Amelia is still the finest woman in England of her age. Booth himself often avers she is as handsome as ever. Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives. Amelia declared to me the other day, that she did not remember to have seen her husband out of humour these ten years; and upon my insinuating to her, that he had the best of wives, she answered with a smile, that she ought to be so, for that he had made her the happiest of women. ADVERTISEMENT FROM THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER. THE following pages are the corrected edition of a book which was first published in the year 1743. That any personal application could have ever been possibly drawn from them, will surprise all who are not deeply versed in the black art (for so it seems most properly to be called) of decyphering men's meaning when couched in obscure, ambiguous, or allegorical expressions: this art hath been exercised more than once on the author of our little book, who hath contracted a considerable degree of odium from having had the scurrility of others imputed to him. The truth is, as a very corrupt state of morals is here represented, the scene seems very properly to have been laid in Newgate: nor do I see any reason for introducing any allegory at all; unless we will agree that there are, without those walls, some other bodies of men of worse morals than those within; and who have, consequently, a right to change places with its present inhabitants. To such persons, if any such there be, I would particularly recommend the perusal of the Third Chapter of the Fourth Book of the following History; and more particularly still, the speech of the grave man near the conclusion of the Second Chapter of the same Book. THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF THE LATE MR JONATHAN WILD THE GREAT. CHAP. I. BOOK I. Shewing the wholesome uses drawn from recording the achievements of those wonderful productions of nature, called GREAT MEN. As it is necessary that all great and surprising events, the designs of which are laid, conducted, and brought to perfection by the utmost force of human invention and art, should be produced by great and eminent men, so the lives of such may be justly and properly styled the quintes sence of history. In these, when delivered to us by sensible writers, we are not only most agreeably entertained, but most usefully instructed; for besides the attaining hence a consummate knowledge of human nature in general, of its secret springs, various windings, and perplexed mazes; we have here before our eyes lively examples of whatever is amiable or detestable, worthy of admiration or abhorrence, and are consequently taught, in a manner infinitely more effectual than by precept, what we are eagerly to imitate or carefully to avoid. But besides the two obvious advantages of surveying, as it were in a picture, the true beauty of virtue, and deformity of vice, we may more over learn from Plutarch, Nepos, Suetonius, and other biographers, this useful lesson, not too hastily, nor in the gross, to bestow either our praise or censure; since we shall often find such a mixture of good and evil in the same character, that it may require a very accurate judgment VOL. I. and a very elaborate inquiry to determine on which side the balance turns; for though we sometimes meet with an Aristides or a Brutus, a Lysander or a Nero, yet far the greater number are of the mixed kind, neither totally good nor bad; their greatest virtues being obscured and allayed by their vices, and those again softened and coloured over by their virtues. Of this kind was the illustrious person whose history we now undertake; to whom, though nature had given the greatest and most shining endowments, she had not given them absolutely pure and without alloy. Though he had much of the admirable in his character, as much, perhaps, as is usually to be found in a hero, I will not yet venture to affirm that he was entirely free from all defects; or that the sharp eyes of censure could not spy out some little blemishes lurking among his many great perfections. We would not, therefore, be understood to affect giving the reader a perfect or consummate pattern of human excellence; but rather, by faithfully recording some little imperfections, which shadowed over the lustre of those great qualities which we shall here record, to teach the lesson we have above mentioned; to induce our reader with us to lament the frailty of human nature, and to convince him that no mortal, after a thorough scrutiny, can be a proper object of our adoration. But before we enter on this great work, we must endeavour to remove some errors of opinion which mankind have, by the disingenuity of writers, contracted; for these, from their fear of contradicting the obsolete and absurd doc, 2 Z |