had our breeches and shoes and stockings on; and I drank so much Burgundy in that time, that the sweat ran of a red colour down my body; and my senses were so disordered, that when we agreed to ride out for a couple of hours to take a little air, I leaped my horse into a dreadful quarry, and in the descent was thrown into a large deep water that was in a part of the frightful bottom, and by that means saved my life. When I came above water I swam very easily out of the pit, and walked up the low side of the quarry as sober as if I had not drank a glass. This is a fact, whatever the critics may say of the thing. All I can say to it is my hour was not come.

Having dined, and shot a bustard that weighed forty pounds, I went on again, the course north

On a tract of land called Tarah, that was taken from the province of Leinster, and added to the county of Meath, stood the largest of the four vast palaces of the kings of Ireland, and at that grand fabric there was a triennial meeting of the states of the kingdom, called the royal assembly of Tarah. There they enacted laws, examined the ancient chronicles and records, and purged them from all false and spurious relations, settled genealogies, and considered noble exploits. All the things that received the assembly's approbation were registered, and transcribed into the royal records, and they called this journal the Psalter of Tarah.

west for half a mile, and then to my astonishment, it trended to the south for more than an hour; which was going back again: but at last it turned about, and for half an hour, we went to the north-west again, and then due east for a long time, till we come to hills upon hills that were very difficult to pass. We were obliged to alight at many of them, and walk up and down them, which was a delay of many hours but we did it at last, and came into a large sandy opening, that had a number of rapid streams breaking over it, that fell from the mountains, and with the forest on the surrounding hills, formed a very wild and pleasing scene. Over this we went for half a mile, and then came to a long glen, so very deep and narrow, that it was quite night when we got to the bottom of it, though the sun was not yet down; and it brought to my remembrance Anchises's son, the wandering prince of Troy, when he descended to the shades below. It had the appearance indeed of some such pass, and was a frightful way, as hills, like Caucasus and Atlas, were close on either hand of us, and a river roared through the bottom of the steep descent; which we were obliged to walk down on foot. This could not be the right road I was certain. AZORA and ANTONIA Could never pass this deep and rapid

flood. It was too much for any man to venture into, without knowing where the torrent went, or how the channel of the river was formed.

Up then I came again to the day, and resolved to pass the night at the foot of one of the woody hills, on the margin of the streams that sounded sweetly over the shores: but how to proceed the next morning I knew not. As my paper of directions did not mention the dark steep descent we had been down, but a little valley that lay due east, through which we were to go: no such vale could we see, and of consequence, in some turning of the road, we had gone wrong.

When I came among the trees, on the side of one of the mountains, I began to look for some convenient resting place, while my two boys were picking the bustard, and preparing a fire to roast it for supper, and wandered a good way till I saw a pretty hermitage in an open plain like a ring, and going up to it, found the skeleton of a man. He lay on a couch in an inward room without any covering, and the bones were as clean and white as if they had come from the surgeon's hands. The pismires to be sure had eaten off the flesh. Who the man was, a paper lying on the table in a strong box informed me. It was called

THE CASE OF JOHN ORTON.

I was twenty years old when Charles II. was restored, in 1660; and being master of large fortunes, and educated in an aversion to puritans and republican principles, went into all the licentiousness and impieties, which overspread and corrupted this nation, when that profligate prince ascended the throne. I drank up to the excess of the times: I debauched every woman I could get within my power, by gold, treachery, or force; maid, wife, and widow I murdered several men in duels; and blasphemed the God of heaven continually. The devil was my first and last toast; and, in a club. I belonged to, I proceeded to such scarce credible wickedness, as to perform the part of the priest in our infernal sodality, and after using the words of consecration over the elements, gave the prophane bread and wine in the most horrible manner. the most abominable of mortals. Contrary to all the dictates and principles of wisdom, virtue, and honour I acted; bound myself in bondage to Satan; and lived the most execrable slave to the vilest inclinations, and most henious habits. Scratch was the name I had for the evil one, and upon all occasions I invoked him. The last words I said every night, after lying down, were Scratch, tuck me in.'

I was

In this diabolical manner did I pass my life away till I was forty, and in twenty years time committed every evil that can dishonour human manners, and infest society. I was a disgrace to my species, and unworthy of the name of man.

But as I went on in this manner, and gloried only in outdoing the greatest scelerates in impiety and debauchery, in being the chief instrument of Satan, and striving to bring every soul I got acquainted with, in subjection to the flesh and the devil; maliciously committing all manner of sin; and with greediness executing the suggestions of a defiled imagination, and the purposes of the most corrupt heart; I was struck one night with the most excruciating torments of body; and had, at the same time, such unspeakable horrors upon my mind, that I believe my condition resembled the state of the damned. The tortures all over my frame, were beyond the pains any rack could cause; but were less afflicting than the panic fear that harrowed my soul under a lively sense of eternal vengeance, for the crying enormities and impurities of my life. All my crimson crimes were held as in a mirror before me; the most diabolical impieties against heaven, and the most shocking cruelties to men; the numbers I had drank to death, and secured in the service of hell; the men I had sent to the other world by com