Was he hung then?
GRANDMOTHER.
Hung and anatomized. Poor wretched man,
Your uncles went to see him on his trial,
He was so pale, so thin, so hollow-eyed,
And such a horror in his meagre face,
They said he look'd like one who never slept.
He begg'd the prayers of all who saw his end
And met his death with fears that well might warn
From guilt, tho' not without a hope in Christ.
[Footnote 1: I know not whether this cruel and stupid custom is common
in other parts of England. It is supposed to prevent the dogs from doing
any mischief should they afterwards become mad.]
[Footnote 2: There must be many persons living who remember these
circumstances. They happened two or three and twenty years ago, in the
neighbourhood of Bristol. The woman's name was Bees. The stratagem by
which she preserved her husband from the press-gang, is also true.]
ECLOGUE III.
THE FUNERAL.
The coffin [1] as I past across the lane
Came sudden on my view. It was not here,
A sight of every day, as in the streets
Of the great city, and we paus'd and ask'd
Who to the grave was going. It was one,
A village girl, they told us, who had borne
An eighteen months strange illness, and had pined
With such slow wasting that the hour of death
Came welcome to her.
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