was getting into proper Trim, and fashioning his tools for the slaughter, these callous Clergymen would be smoking and drinking with the keepers in the Lodge, talking now of a Main at Cocks and now of him who was to suffer on the Morrow, fleering and jesting, with the Church Service in one sleeve of their cassock and a Bottle Screw or a Pack of Cards in the other. And the Condemned persons, too, did not take the matter in a much more serious light. They had their Brandy and Tobacco even in their Dismal Hold, and thought much less of Mercy and Forgiveness than of the ease they would have from their Irons being stricken off, or the comfort they would gain from a last bellyful of Meat. I have not come to be sixty-eight years of age without observing somewhat of the Things that have passed around me; and one of the best signs of the Times in which I live (and due in great part to the Humane and Benignant complexion of his Majesty) is the falling off in bloodthirsty and cruel Punishments. If a Dozen or so are hanged after each Gaol Delivery at the Old Baily, and a score or more whipped or burnt in the Hand, what are such workings of justice compared with the Waste of Life that was used to be practised under the two last monarchs? At home 'twas all pressing to death those who would not plead, hanging, drawing, and quartering (how often have I sickened to see the pitch-seethed members of my Fellow-creatures on the spikes of Temple Bar and London Bridge!), taking out the entrails of those convict of Treason (as witness Colonel Towneley, Mr. Dawson, and many more unfortunate gentlemen on Kennington Common), to say nothing of the burning alive of women for petty treason,--and to kill a husband or coin a groat were alike Treasonable,--the Scourging of the same wretched creatures in Public till the blood ran from their shoulders and soaked the knots of the Beadle's lash; the cartings, brandings, and dolorous Imprisonments which were then inflicted for the slightest of offences. Why, I have seen a man stand in the Pillory in the Seven Dials (to be certain, he was a secure scoundrel), and the Mob, not satisfied, must take him out, strip him to the buff, stone him, cast him down, root up the pillory, and trample him under foot, till, being Rescued by the constables, he has been taken back to Newgate, and has died in the Hackney Coach conveying him thither. Oh, 'tis woe to think of the Horrors that were then done in the name of the Law and Justice, not only in this country but in Foreign Parts,--with their Breakings on the Wheel, Questions Ordinary and Extraordinary, Bastinadoes, Carcans, Wooden horses, Burning alive too (for vending of Irreligious Books), and the like Barbarities. Let me tell you likewise, that, for all the evil name gotten by the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions,--for which I entertain, as a Protestant, due Detestation and Abhorrence,--the darkest deeds ever done by the so called Holy Office in their Torture Chambers were not half so