We now proceed to detail the particulars which we have carefully collected, with respect to the lives and characters of the several individuals who have been concerned in these nefarious transactions. Of these, the first we shall notice is, WILLIAM BURKE. We can pledge ourselves that every circumstance that is here narrated, has been obtained from such sources as to leave no doubt of its authenticity; it will be seen that while this memoir is a great deal fuller than any one that has appeared, it is also dissimilar, in many particulars, to the disjointed fragments that have been from time to time published; how these have been obtained, we cannot say, but we can aver that this account has been received from sources which may be relied on, and much of it from the unhappy man himself, indeed so much as to entitle us to say that it is almost his own account. WILLIAM BURKE, whose crimes have condemned him to an ignominious death on the scaffold, describes himself, in his judicial declaration, emitted before the Sheriff-substitute of Edinburghshire, in relation to the cause for which he was tried, as being thirty-six years of age. He was born in the parish of Orrey, near Strabane, county of Tyrone, in Ireland, about the year 1792. His parents were poor, but industrious and respectable in their station, which was that of cottiers, occupying, like the most of the peasantry of Ireland, a small piece of ground. The Irish are remarkable for the avidity with which they seek education for their children, under circumstances in which it is not easily attainable. The parents of Burke seem to have been actuated by this laudable desire, as both William and his brother Constantine, must have received the elements of what, in their condition, may be called a good education, and superior to what usually falls to the lot of children in their rank in Ireland. He was educated in the Roman Catholic faith, which he has ever since nominally adhered to, though with little observance of its doctrines or ceremonies. He is by no means, however, a person of the brutal ignorance or stupid indifference that his callously continuing in a course of unparalleled wickedness, apparently without compunction, would betoken. He has sinned deeply, but it has not been altogether against knowledge, as he could at times put on a semblance of devotion; and during the fits of hypocrisy, or it may be, starts of better feeling, before he became so miserably depraved, his conversation was that of a man by no means ignorant of the truths of Christianity, and such even as to lead some to imagine him seriously concerned about his eternal salvation. During one of these temporary ebullitions about five years ago, he became an attendant on a prayer-meeting held on the Sabbath evenings in the Grassmarket. He was, for some time, remarked as one of its most regular and intelligent members. He never omitted one of its meetings,