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JEMMY DAWSON.

SHENSTONE's pathetic and affecting ballad of Jemmy Dawson has drawn tears from every person of sensibility, or possessing the feelings of humanity; and it will continue to be admired as long as the English language shall exist. This ballad, which is founded in truth, was taken from a narrative first published in the Parrot of the 2d of August, 1746, three days after the transaction it records. It is given in the form of a letter, and is as follows:

"A young lady of a good family and handsome fortune had for some time extremely loved, and was equally beloved by Mr. James Dawson, one of those unhappy gentlemen who suffered on Wednesday last, at Kennington Common, for high treason; and had he either been acquitted, or have found the royal mercy after condemnation, the day of his enlargement was to have been that of their marriage.

"I will not prolong the narrative by any repetition of what she suffered on sentence being passed on him; none, excepting those utterly incapable of feeling any soft or generous emotions, but may easily conceive her agonies; beside, the sad catastrophe will be sufficient to convince you of their sincerity.

"Not all the persuasions of her kindred could prevent her from going to the place of execution: she was determined to see the last of a person so dear to her, and accordingly followed the sledges in a hackney-coach, accompanied by a gentleman nearly related to her, and one female friend. She got near enough to see the fire kindled which was to consume that heart she knew was so much devoted to her, and all the other dreadful preparations for his fate, without betraying any of those emotions her friends apprehended; but when all was over, and that she found he was no more, she threw her head back into the coach, and ejaculating, "My dear, I follow thee! I follow thee! Lord Jesus! receive both our souls together," fell on the neck of her companion, and expired the very moment she had done speaking.

"That excessive grief which the force of her resolution. had kept smothered within her breast, is thought to have put a stop to the vital motion, and suffocated at once all the animal spirits."

In the Whitehall Evening Post, August 7th, this narrative is copied with the remark, that "upon enquiry every circumstance was literally true."

A ballad was cried about the streets at the time, founded on this melancholy narrative, but it can scarcely be said to have aided Shenstone in his beautiful production.

EXTRAORDINARY INSTANCE OF TOUCHING THE BODY.

THE following account of an extraordinary case of murder, in Hertfordshire, was found amongst the papers of that eminent lawyer, Sir John Maynard, one of the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal of England.

"The case, or rather history of a case, that happened in the county of Hertford, I thought good to report here, though it happened in the fourth year of king Charles I. that the memory of it may not be lost by miscarriage of my papers or otherwise. I wrote the evidence which was given, which I and many others did hear, and I wrote it exactly according to what was deposed at the trial at the bar of the King's Bench, viz.

"Johan Norkett, wife of Arthur Norkett, being murdered, the question was, how she came by her death? The coroner's inquest on view of the body, and depositions of Mary Norkett, John Okerman, and Agnes his wife, inclined to find Johan Norkett felo de se; for they informed the coroner and jury that she was found dead in her bed, the knife sticking in the floor, and her throat cut; that the night before she went to bed with her child, the plaintiff in this appeal, (her husband being absent,) and that no other person, after such time as she was gone to bed, came into her house, the examinants lying in the outer room, and they must needs have seen or known if any stranger had come in, whereupon the jury gave up to the coroner their verdict, that she was felo de se. But afterwards, upon rumour among the neighbourhood, and their observance of divers circumstances which manifested that she did not, nor, according to those circumstances, could never possibly murder herself, whereupon the jury, whose verdict was not yet drawn into form by the coroner, desired the coroner, that the body, which was buried, might be taken out of the grave, which the coroner assented to; and thirty days after her death, she was taken up in the presence of the jury, and a great number of the people, whereupon the jury changed their verdict. The persons being tried at Hertford assizes were acquitted; but so much against the evidence, that judge Hervey let fall his opinion that better an appeal were brought than so foul a murder escape unpunished; and Pascha, 4th Car. they were tried on the appeal, which was brought by the young child against his father, grandmother, and aunt, and her husband, Ŏkerman; and because the evidence was so strange, I took exact and particular notice, and it was as follows, viz.

"After the matters above related, an ancient and grave person, minister to the parish where the murder was com

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mitted (being sworn to give evidence, according to custom), deposed, That the body being taken out of the grave thirty days after the party's death, and lying on the grass, and the four defendants present, they were required each of them to touch the dead body. Okerman's wife fell upon her knees, and prayed God to show tokens of her innocence, or to some such purpose-her very words I have forgot. The appellees did touch the dead body, whereupon the brow of the dead, which was before a livid and carrion colour (that was the verbal expression in terminis of the witness), began to have a dew or gentle sweat arise upon it, which increased by degrees till the sweat ran down in drops upon the face, the brow turned and changed to a lively and fresh colour, and the dead opened one of her eyes and shut it again, and this opening the eye was done three several times; she likewise thrust out the ring or marriage finger three several times, and pulled it in again, and the finger dropped blood on the grass.' Sir Nicholas Hyde, chief magistrate, seeming to doubt the evidence, asked the witness, Who saw this besides you?'Witness. I cannot swear what others saw; but, my lord,' said he, I believe the whole company saw it; and if it had been thought a doubt, proof would have been made of it, and many would have attested with me.'

"Then the witness, observing some admiration in the auditors, he spake farther:

"My lord, I am minister of the parish, and have known all the parties, but never had any occasion of displeasure against any of them, nor had to do with them, nor they with me; but as I was minister, the thing was wonderful to me; I have no interest in the matter, but as called upon to testify the truth, and that I have done.'

"This witness was a reverend person; as I guessed, was about seventy years of age; his testimony was delivered gravely and temperately, but to the great admiration of the auditory; whereupon, applying himself to the chief justice, he said, "My lord, my brother, here present, is minister of the parish adjacent, and, I am assured, saw all done that I have affirmed." Therefore that person was sworn to give evidence, and deposed in every point, viz. the sweating of the brow, changing of its colour, opening of the eye, and the thrice motion of the finger, and drawing it in again; only the first witness added, that he himself dipped his finger in the blood which came from the dead body, to examine it, and he swore he believed it was blood. I conferred afterwards with Sir Edmund Powell, barrister at law, and others, who all concurred in the observation; and for myself, if I were upon oath,

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I can depose, that these depositions, especially the first witness, are truly reported in substance.

"The other evidence was given against the prisoners, viz. the grandmother of the plaintiff, and against Okerman and his wife, that they confessed they lay in the next room to the dead person that night, and that none came into the house till they found her dead the next morning. Therefore, if she did not murder herself, they must be the murderers; to that end further proof was made:

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1st. That she lay in a composed manner in bed, the bed-clothes nothing at all disturbed, and her child by her in bed.

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2dly. Her throat cut from ear to ear, and her neck broken; and if she first cut her throat, she could not break her neck in the bed, nor contra.

"3dly. There was no blood in the bed, saving there was a tincture of blood on the bolster where her head lay, but no substance of blood at all.

4thly. From the bed's-head there was a stream of blood on the floor, which ran along till it ponded in the bendings on the floor to a very great quantity; and there was also another stream of blood on the floor, at the bed's-feet, which ponded also in the floor to a very great quantity, but no continuance or communication of either of these two places from one to the other, neither upon the bed, so that she bled in two places severally; and it was deposed, turning up the mats of the bed, there were clots of congealed blood in the straw of the mats

underneath.

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5thly. The bloody knife was found in the morning, sticking in the floor, a good distance from the bed, but the point of the knife, as it stuck, was to the bed, and the haft from the bed.

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6thly. There was a print of a thumb and fore-finger of a left hand.

"Sir Nicholas Hyde, chief justice, said to the witness, 'How can you know the print of a left hand from the print of a right hand, in such a case?'-Witness. It is hard to describe; but if it please that honourable judge to put his left hand upon your left hand, you cannot possibly put your right hand in the same posture. Which being done, and appearing so, the defendants had time to make their defence, but gave no evidence to any purpose. The jury departing from the bar, and returning, acquitted Okerman, and found the other three guilty, who being severally demanded what they could say, why judgement should not be pronounced, said no more than I did not do it!' I did not do it!'

"Judgement was given, and the grandmother and the husband executed, but the aunt had the privilege to be spared execution, being with child.

"I enquired if they confessed any thing at their execution, but they did not, as I am told."

JACOBITE FANATICISM.

WHEN Israel first provok'd the living Lord,
He punish'd them with famine, plague, and sword;
Still they sinn'd on;-he, in his wrath, did fling
No thunderbolt amongst them, but a king
A George-like king was heav'n's severest rod,-
The utmost vengeance of an angry God:
God, in his wrath, sent Saul to punish Jewry,
And George, to England, in a greater fury;
For George, in sin, as far exceeded Saul,
As ever Bishop Burnet did St. Paul.

Lansdown MSS. 852.

SONG.

BY SAMUEL DANIEL,-1590.

LOVE is a sickness full of woes,
All remedies refusing;

A plant that most with cutting grows,
Most barren with best using.
Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries
Heigh ho!

Love is a torment of the mind,
A tempest everlasting;
And Jove hath made it of a kind
Not well, nor full, nor fasting.
Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries
Heigh ho!

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