instantly gushed forth--I fell senseless at her feet. When I came to myself, I found Miss Boydell sitting by my side." And _his_ Miss Boydell was Miss Boydell still--innocent of wedlock. Imogene being proved true, and Alonzo having come to life, the youthful couple renewed the engagement entered into more than twelve years before. The wedding-day was fixed, the wedding-clothes were provided, when uncle (the alderman), distrustful that his niece's scranny lover would make a good husband, induced her at the last moment to jilt him, and marry Mr. Nicols, an opulent bookseller. The farce was now to wear an aspect of tragedy. Infuriated at being, after all, _really_ deceived, Dr. Elliot bought two brace of pistols, and bound them together in pairs. One pair he loaded only with powder; into the other he put the proper quantum of lead, as well as the pernicious dust. Armed with these weapons, he lay in wait for the destroyer of his peace. After some days of watching he saw her in Prince's Street, walking with the triumphant Nicols. Rushing up, he fired at her the two pistols (not loaded with ball), and then snatching the other brace from his pocket, was proceeding to commit suicide, when he was seized by the bystanders and disarmed. The next scene in the drama was the principal court of the Old Bailey, with Dr. Elliot in the dock, charged with an attempt to murder Miss Boydell. The jury, being satisfied that the pistols were not loaded with ball, and that the prisoner only intended to create a startling impression on Miss Boydell's mind, acquitted him of that charge, and he was remanded to prison to take his trial for a common assault. Before this second inquiry, however, could come off, the poor man died in Newgate, July 22, 1787, of a broken heart--or jail fever. Ere his death, he took a cruel revenge of the lady, by writing an autobiographic account of his love experiences, in which appeared the following passage:--"Fascinated as I was by the charms of this faithless woman, I had long ceased to be sensible to these defects, or rather my impassioned imagination had converted them into perfections. But those who did not labour under the power of this magic were struck by her ungraceful exterior, and mine ears have not unfrequently been shocked to hear the tongue of indifference pronounce that the object of my passion was _ugly and deformed_. Add to this, that Miss Boydell has long since ceased to boast the bloom of youth, and then let any person, impartial and unprejudiced, decide whether a passion for her, so violent as that I have manifested, could be the produce of a slight and recent acquaintance, or whether it must not rather be the consequence of a long habit and inveterate intimacy." Such was the absurd sad story of John Elliot, author of "The Medical Almanack," "Elements of the Branches of Natural Philosophy," and "Experiments and Observations on Light and Colours."