“Some time after this I went to Hays, in the capacity of writing-master, and served a gentlewoman there, since dead; and stayed, after that, with a worthy and reverend gentleman. I continued here between three and four years. To several other places I then succeeded, and all that while used every occasion for improvement. I then transcribed acts of parliament to be registered in chancery; and after went down to the free-school at Lynn. “From my leaving Knaresborough to this time is a long interval, which I had filled up with the farther study of history and antiquities, heraldry and botany; in the last of which I was very agreeably entertained, there being in that study so extensive a display of nature. I well knew Tournefort, Ray, Miller, Linnæus, &c. I made frequent visits to the botanic garden at Chelsea; and traced pleasure through a thousand fields: at last, few plants, domestic or exotic, were unknown to me. Amidst all this I ventured upon the Chaldee and Arabic; and, with a design to understand them, supplied myself with Erpenius, Chappelow, and others: but I had not time to obtain any great knowledge of the Arabic; the Chaldee I found easy enough, because of its connection with the Hebrew. “I then investigated the Celtic, as far as possible, in all its dialects; began collections, and made comparisons between that, the English, the Latin, the Greek, and even the Hebrew. I had made notes, and compared above three thousand of these together, and found such a surprising affinity, even beyond any expectation or conception, that I was determined to proceed through the whole of these languages, and form a comparative lexicon, which I hoped would account for numberless vocables in use with us, the Latins, and Greeks, before concealed and unobserved: this, or something like it, was the design of a clergyman of great erudition in Scotland; but it must prove abortive, for he died before he executed it, and most of my books and papers are now scattered and lost.” Such is the account Eugene Aram has given of himself, until the commission of the fatal act that brought down upon him the execration of the world and the last vengeance of the law. Of all the crimes man is capable of committing, there is none so offensive to Omnipotence as murder; and the Almighty, therefore, seems to be more intent to expose that heinous and accursed offence to mankind; to warn and admonish them, to show them that rocks cannot hide, nor distance secure them from the inevitable consequences of the violation of that law which nature dictates and man confirms. The extraordinary means by which this murder was brought to light, is one of the many instances of this divine interposition.