legal formalities, may be interesting not only to the reader of this year, but to the reader of twenty years hence!-if at that extremely distant period readers should exist-and the Roxburghe Boys should then, as now, save old books from the cheesemonger and the worm!

It is my intention, good my master, to give you the statements only of those persons from whose mouth you will best get the particulars of the murder, and of the circumstances preceding and following it; for, judging by myself, I am sure you and your readers would be fairly tired out, if you were compelled to undergo Mr. Hunt's confession, first poured from his own polluted lips, and then filtered through Mr. Upson, Mr. Beeston, Mr. Symonds, and a host of those worthy Dogberrys of Hertfordshire, who had an opportunity of "wasting all their tediousness upon his Lordship." It is well for the prisoner that Inquiry goes about her business so tiresomely and thoroughly, but to the hearer and the reader her love of "a twice-told tale" is enough to make a man forswear a court of justice for the rest of his life! I do believe that no man of any occupation would become a thief, if he were fully aware of the punishment of listening to the "damnable iteration" of his own trial. In the present case, we had generally three or four witnesses to the same fact. It is strange that, solitary as the place was, and desperate as was the murder,the actors, the witnesses,-all,-but the poor helpless devoted thing that perished, were in clusters! The murderers were a cluster! The farmer that heard the pistol had his wife and child, and nurse with him; there were two labourers at work in the lane on the morning after the dreadful butcher-work: there was a merry party at the cottage on the very night, singing and supping, while Weare's mangled carcass was lying darkening in its gore, in the neighbouring field; there were hosts of publicans and ostlers, witnesses of the gang's progress on their blood-journey; and the gigs, the pistols, even the very knives ran in pairs! This is curious at least; and it seems as though it were fated that William Weare should be the only solitary object on that desperate night, when he clung to life in agony and blood, and was, at last, struck out of existence as a thing single, valueless, and vile!

I shall, as I have promised, avoid repetition; and when you have read Mr. Gurney's statement for the prosecution, which very perspicuously details the case, as afterwards supported by evidence,-Probert's heartless narration, and his wife's hard wrung words; I shall call no other witnesses for none other will be necessary to satisfy the reader. After these I shall but speak of what I saw: I shall but turn my eye to that green table, which is now and will ever be before me, and say what thereon I beheld! I shall but, in the good impressive words of the crier to the jury, "look upon the prisoners;" and describe that one strong desperate man playing the hero of the tragic trial, as at a play; and show his wavering weak comrade. a baby's Turpin! visibly wasting by his side, in the short space of eight-and-forty hours! You want to see the trial, you say, not to read of it: Oh! that I could draw from the life with the pen (your pen and ink drawings are the only thing to make old masters of you!) Then would I trace such lines as should make the readers breath

less while they read, and render a Newgate-Calendarian immortal! It was, in spite of what a great authority has said, an unimprovable horror! You remember how we parted when I left your hospitable table, to take my place in the Hertford coach, on the cold evening of the 5th of December; and how you enjoined me to bear a wary eye on the morrow's trial. I promised you fair. Well. I had strange companions in the coach with me, a good-looking middle-aged baronet, who was going to Hertford upon speculation; a young foolish talkative reporter who was travelling with all the importance of a Sunday newspaper encircling him, and who had a dirty shirt on his back, and a clean memorandum book tied up in his pocket handkerchief;-all his luggage! And a gentleman of about thirty who was going to his house in Hoddesdon, never having heard of the trial! "not but what he had read something in the news about a baddish murder." We exchanged coach-conversation sparingly, and by fits, as usual. The Sunday press was on my side (the only time in my life,) and the baronet sat pumping it slily of all its watery gossip; while the Hoddesdon body, at the same time, occasionally kept craftily hitting at the character of a person whom he declared to have known abroad, and who bears the evil repute of lending his aid to our fellow traveller's paper. We dropped our fourth at Hoddesdon, and pretty well played dummy the rest of the journey.

The moment I arrived, I called upon the friend who was to give me a bed for the night; a gift which, on these occasions, innkeepers and housekeepers are by no means in the habit of indulging in; and I found him with a warm fire, and a kettle singing, aye,-more humanely than Hunt. I soon despatched the timely refreshment of tea; for during it, I learnt the then strange news of Probert having been admitted evidence for the crown, and of his being at that very moment before the grand jury undergoing his examination. I hastened to the Town Hall (a poor pinched-up building, scarcely big enough to try a well-grown pettylarceny in) and found there the usual assize scene; a huddled cold crowd on a dim stone staircase,-a few men of authority, with their staves and long coats, thence called javelin men; patient oglers of hard-hearted doors, red cloaks, plush breeches, and velveteen jackets-and with all these, the low hum of country curiosity! On approaching the door of the grand jury room, wherein stood that bad but not bold man, Probert, I met with a legal friend, under whose wing I was to be conducted into the court. He was in some way concerned in the trial; and the first words he accosted me with were, "Well!-Probert is in that room!" The dimness of the place helped his sudden words, and I looked at the door that parted me from this wretch, as though it were a glass through which I could see Probert himself darkly. I waited, the door opened for the eighth of an inch-then arose the murmur and cry, "Probert is coming out!" No! It was only to tell some inveterate tapster that he could not be admitted. Another pause-and in the middle of an indifferent conversation, my friend exclaimed-" There-there goes Probert!" And I saw an unwieldy bulk of a man sauntering fearlessly along (he was now safe!) and sullenly proceeding to descend the stairs. I rushed to the

balustrade and saw this man, who had seen all! go step by step quietly down, having just sealed the fate of his vicious associates (but his associates still) and returning, with his miserable life inflicted upon him, to clanking irons and a prison bed. He was dressed in black, and had gloves on:-but through all these, I saw the creature of Gill's-hill-lane-I saw the miscreant that had held the lantern to the rifled pocket, and the gashed throat-and I shuddered as I turned away from the staircase vision!

On this night the lovers of sleep were sadly crossed in their love,for there was a hum of men throughout the streets all the dead-long night, broken only by the harsher grating of arriving chaises and carriages, which ceased not grinding the gravelled road and vexing the jaded ear till morning. The inn-keepers and their servants were up all night, looking out for their prey;-and very late into the night, servantmaids with their arms in their aprons, and sauntering lads, kept awake beyond nine by other men's guilt, were at doors and corners, talking of Thurtell and his awful pair! Gaping witnesses too were idling about Hertford town, dispersing with potent beers and evil spirits, as well as they were able, the scanty wits and frail memories which Providence had allotted to them.-The buzz of conversation, amidst all and in all places, was a low murmur, but of "Thurtell"—" Miss Noyes”-“ Probert”-"Mrs. Probert" and "Hunt." You heard one of these names from a window-or it came from under a gateway,-or over a wall,—or from a post, or it met you at a corner! these vice-creatures were on all lips and in no hour betwixt the evening and the morning was their infamy neglected to be tolled upon the night! The jail, to which I went for a few minutes, looked solemn in the silence and the gloom; and I could not but pierce with my mind those massive walls, and see the ironed men restless within;-Thurtell rehearsing his part for the morning's drama, with the love of infamous fame stimulating him to correctness;(for I was told that evening that he was to make a great display;) and Hunt cowering in his cell, timorous of fate,-while Probert, methought, was steeping his hideous senses in the forgetfulness of sleep-for when such men are safe, they can sleep as though their hearts were as white as innocence or virtue!

We were up early in the morning, and breakfasted by candlelight;with a sandwich in my pocket I sallied forth to join my legal friend, who had long been dressed, and was sitting at his papers and tea, in all the restlessness of a man whose mind defies and spurns at repose while any thing remains to be accomplished.-We were in court a little after eight o'clock-but as you know that on this day the trial was postponed, I shall not here describe the scene, but shall reserve my description of the prisoners for the actual day of trial, to which I shall immediately proceed. I should tell you that I saw Mrs. Probert for a few minutes on this day, and was surprised at her mode of conducting herself, having heard, as I knew she had, of her husband's safety.

Immediately that the trial was adjourned, I secured a place in the coach, and returned to London. The celebrated Mr. Noel was on the roof,MAY, 1824.-No. 265.

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and my companions inside were an intelligent artist and craniologist, who had been sketching and examining the heads of the prisoners, and a tradesman from Oxford-street, who had been frightened out of his wits and Hertford, by hearing that pictures of Gill's-hill-cottage were actionable, for he had brought some very good likenesses of the Pond to sell," and been obliged to take them out of the window of the Seven Compasses, almost the very moment they were placed there! From this December day to the 5th of January-all the agitation of the public press ceased-and murder had no tongue until the day on which it was privileged to speak.

To the day of trial therefore I come;-for I compelled my curiosity to slumber the ordered sleep of the newspapers.--I arrived at Hertford about the same hour as on the former occasion. I drank tea over again,sat again by the fire. The former day seemed but a rehearsal of thisand I as anxiously looked for the morning.-Throughout the night Hertford was as sleepless as before.-The window at the Plough was as luminous as usual;-the Half Moon swarmed with post-chaises and drab coats; and the Seven Stars-the Six Compasses the Three Tunsand the Horse and Magpie, abounded with tippling witnesses, all dressed in their Sunday clothes, and contriving to cut a holiday out of the remnant of the murder. "Pipes," as Lord Byron says, were everywhere," in the liberal air."

With great and laborious difficulty I made my way into court about half past seven in the morning. The doors were sadly ordered, for instead of the wholesome guardianship of Ruthven, Upson, and Bishop, men who know how to temper a crowd with kind severity, we had great countryconstable-bumpkins with long staves, which they handsomely exercised upon those excrescences in which they themselves were deficient, the heads of the curious!-Such bumping of skulls I never before witnessed. Gall would have loved them. One or two sensible officers might have kept the entrances free and quiet:-but Tumult had it all her own way. The court was crowded to excess. It appeared to be more closely and inconveniently packed than on the first day,-and even at this early hour the window panes, from the great heat, were streamed and streaming with wet. The reporters were closely hedged in, and as a person observed to me, had scarcely room to write even short hand.

Before the entrance of the judge, the clerk of the arraigns beckoned Mr. Wilson, the humane jailor of Hertford prison, to the table, and inquired of him whether the fetters were removed from the prisoners: Mr. Wilson replied that they were not, as he did not consider it advisable to free them without orders. The clerk recommended the removal, and Mr. Wilson, apparently against his own will, consented,-declaring that he thought it "dangerous." Mr. Andrews, Thurtell's counsel, said impressively there was no danger-and the jailer retired to take the chains from his charge. I had heard that Thurtell meditated and even threatened violence against Hunt,-and indeed Hunt himself apprehended some attack from his tremendous companion;-but the former had evidently

been counselled as to the effect of such vengeance being wreaked, and doubtless he had himself come to the conviction that revenge was a profitless passion,-and particularly so at such a time!

At eight o'clock the trumpets of the javelin men brayed the arrival of Mr. Justice Park, who shortly afterwards entered the court and took bis seat:-as usual the court was colloquial respecting the heat-and the crowd, and the sitting down of tall men-to the loss of much of that imposing dignity with which the ermine and trumpets invariably surround a judge. Sir Allan is a kind but a warm tempered man: and few things distract him so much as the disorder occasioned by full-grown persons standing up, or by unwieldy men in any position. I really think he would not be able to endure even a standing order!

The pressure was great at this early time. Only one space seemed left, and who, to be ever so comfortably accommodated, would have filled it? The dock was empty! Some short time was lost in the removing of the irons from the prisoners-and although the order to "place the prisoners at the bar" had long been given-the anxious stretch of the crowd to behold them was not relieved by their presence.

The situation in which I stood commanded the entrance to the dock, which was from the back part of it: it was lost in gloom, and seemed like the dark portal to a condemned cell. At length, the approach of the prisoners could be discerned. Hunt entered first, and took his place at the bar; and Thurtell immediately followed. They slightly bowed to the court. Every motion of Thurtell seemed watched and guarded at first; but when from his attention to his papers, it was clear that he had no idea of violence, his actions were less observed by his keepers.

Hunt was dressed in black, with a white cravat and a white handkerchief, carefully disposed, so as to give the appearance of a white under waistcoat. There was a foppery in the adjustment of this part of his dress, which was well seconded by the affected carriage of his head and shoulders, and by the carefully disposed disorder of his hair. It was combed forward over his ears from the back part of his head, and divided nicely on his forehead, so as to allow one lock to lie half-curled upon it. His forehead itself was white, feminine, and unmeaning; indeed his complexion was extremely delicate, and looked more so from the raven blackness of his hair. Nothing could be weaker than his features, which were small and regular, but destitute of the least manly expression. His eye was diminutive and unmeaning, indeed coldly black and poor. gazed around at the crowded court, with the look and the attitude of a person on the stage just about to sing. Indeed the whole bearing of Hunt was such as to convince any person that even his baseness was not to be relied upon, that his self-regard was too deep to make him bear danger for his companions, or to contemplate death while safety could be purchased at any price!

He

Beside him stood the murderer-complete in frame, face, eye, and daring! The contrast was singularly striking,-fatal indeed, to the opinion which it created of Thurtell. He was dressed in a plum-coloured frock coat, with a drab waistcoat and gilt buttons, and white corded