lie in prison.

course of life had wronged his brother, abused his wife, and undone his children. Then was presented before the eyes of his imagination the wealth his father had left him, and the misery he should leave his children in. Then he saw what an unnatural part it was, his brother to for his debt, and he not able to deliver him. Then he saw that his wife being nobly descended (unless her own friends took pity upon her) should with his children be driven to beg remorse of the world, which is composed of flint. Then saw he the extirpation of his family, the ruin of his ancient house, which hundreds of years together had been gentlemen of the best reputation in Yorkshire; and every one of these out of their several objects did create a several distraction in him: sometimes he would tear his hair, by and by tears would flush into his eyes, straight brake out into this exclamation, "O! I am the most wretched man that ever mother received the seed of! O! would I had been slain in my womb, and that my mother had been my sepulchre. I have begot children to eat their bread in bitterness, made a wife to be nothing but lamentation, and a brother to die in care.” And as he was thus tormented in the remembrance of his own folly, his eldest son, being a child of four years old, came into the gallery to scourge his top, and seeing his father to stand in a study, looked prettily up to him, saying, "How do you, father?" which lovely look and gentle question of the child raised again the remembrance of the distress that he should leave him in. And as the sea, being hurled into hideous billows by the fury of the wind, hideth both heaven and earth from the eye of man, so he, being overwhelmed by the violence of his passion, all natural love was forgot in his remem

brance, caught his child up by the neck, and striking him with his dagger, the childe lent him such a look would have driven a hand, seven years 'prentice unto murder, to an ague yet he, O! would it had never been done, it might never have been told! though his arm seemed twice to remember him of the monstrousness of the fact, he struck the lovely infant into the head, and holding the bleeding child at his arm's length, that the blood might not sprinkle his cloaths which had stained his heart and honour, he so carried it into a near chamber, where his wife lay asleep on a bed, and the maid was dressing another child by the fire (here is to be noted, his third was at nurse abroad), but the woman seeing him come in that cruel sort, his child in one hand, his reeking dagger in the other, the child bleeding, he staring, started from the fire and with the child in her arms, cried out; but he, letting go the boy he had wounded, caught violently the other out of her arms, and this chamber-door being at the top of a high pair of stairs, carried her forth by main strength and threw the poor woman down to the bottom, who, in tender pity. by precedent of the one would have preserved the other.

The child that was wounded was all this while crying in the chamber, and with his woeful noise waked as woeful a mother, who, seeing one child bleeding, the other lie on the ground (for he had laid the younger down while he strove to throw the maid down stairs) she caught up the youngest, and going to take the elder, which was going toward the door, her husband coming back met her, and came to struggle with her for the child, which she sought to preserve with words, tears, and all what a mother could do, from so tragical an end and when he saw he could not get it from her, he

most remorseless stabbed at it some three or four times, all which she saved the child from by taking it on herself: and having a pair of whalebone bodies on, it pleased God his dagger so glanced on them that she had yet but one wound in the shoulder. But he, more cruel by this resistance, caught fast hold upon the child, and in the mother's arms stabbed it to the heart; and, after giving his wife two or three mortal wounds she fell backward, and the child dead at her feet.

The maid that was thrown down stairs by him, with the greatness of the fall, the stairs being high, lay for dead at the bottom: the noise of this had brought the servants, not knowing of that which was more tyrannous, to help the maid, thinking she had fell by mischance, and did their best to comfort her beneath, while the father and the mother were striving, one to preserve the infant, the other to kill it. The child which was first wounded sought to get to the door, and having recovered the top of the stairs (by expense of blood and the greatness of the wound) having nobody to comfort it, fell also down stairs, that the arms of the servants helping the maid at the stair-foot, were fain to let her go to receive him. Some caught up the dead infant, some helped the maid, all, amazed at this tragic alteration, knew not what to think: yet one of the men more hardy than the rest, ran up and met his master in the chamber, when he saw his mistress lie on the ground, and her dead child at her feet, and saying to him, "O! sir, what have you done?"-"That which I repent not, knave", answered he; and having still the dagger in his hand came to stab at him; but the fellow, seeking to save himself, as also to attach his master, they both fell to struggling. Mr.

Caverley, which was known before a man of weak constitution, was in the strife too hard for the fellow, who was reported of a very able body, and, in the wrestling together, did so tear him with the rowels of his spurs, both on the face and legs, that there he left him, not being able to follow him.

Mr. Caverley went down stairs, and presently took towards the stable: by the way he met the gentleman who before was walking to view his grounds, who, wondering to see him in such a heate, asked, "What ails you, sir?" He answered: "No great matter; but, sir, I will resolve you within, where I have taken order for my brother's business." So the gentleman walked in, and Mr. Caverley hasted to the stable, where, finding a gelding ready saddled, backed him and fled away presently. The gentleman coming in was entertained with the outcries and shrieks of the mother for the children (for by this time she was almost recovered), the men - servants at this doleful mischance, and all lamenting a father should be so unnatural. The gentleman doubting that, which was, of Mr. Caverley's escape, left all the house making elegies of sorrow, and betooke himself to his pursuit; and having forthwith raised the town, and heard which way he rode, followed him with the swiftest haste. Mr. Caverley again, being well horsed, spurred as fast as they, not earnest to escape, but thirsty after more blood; for, having an infant of half a year old at nurse some twelve mile off, he, pricked by his preposterous fate, had a desire to roote all his own generation, and only intending to murder it, was careless what became of himself: he rode hard for an act of sin, and they pursued for the execution of justice.

But God, that ordereth the life of a wren, hath then a care of his reasonable creatures; and though Cain was suffered to kill his brother Abel, God bound him not to destroy himself. So for Mr. Caverley; though God permitted the sun to blush at his unnatural acts, yet he suffered him not to escape without his revenge; for when he was at the town's end, within a bow-shot where his child sucked that he came to murder, and his heart had made sharp the knife to cut his own infant's throat, (O God how just thou art!) his horse that flew from his former tragedies, as appointed by God to tie him from any more guilt, and to preserve the infant's life; in a plain ground, where there was scarce a pebble to resist his haste, the horse fell down and Mr. Caverley under him. The horse got up, and breaking from the hold his master had to stay him, ran violently toward the town, leaving Mr. Caverley not able to stir from thence; where he was soon overtaken by the pursuit, and indeed seized on by those did both lament his fall and pity his folly. From thence he was carried to a worshipful gentleman, one Sir John Savill, who having heard the tempest of this evil, and knowing from what ancestors he was descended, did bewaile his fate; yet being in the place of justice he was enforced to ask him the cause that had made him so monstrous. He, being like a strumpet made impudent by her continuance in sin, made this answer: "I have done that, sir, I rejoice at; and repent this, that I had not killed the other. I had brought them to beggary, and am resolved I could not have pleased God better than by freeing them from it." "O, sir", answered that worshipful knight, "you have done so much that when you shall yourself but think upon the terror of death, the remembrance