honour to King William the Third; but his mother writing to him, and intimating, in the vulgar phrase, 'that a gentleman's service was no inheritance,' he quitted his place, and, going to Gloucester, engaged in the business of a butcher, it being the profession of several of his ancestors. He followed his trade for some time, and served master of the company of butchers in his native city; after which he abandoned that business, and took an inn; but it does not appear that he was successful in it, as he soon afterwards turned grazier.

Restless, however, in every station of life, he repaired to London, where he commenced prize-fighter at May-fair. At this time Mayfair was a place greatly frequented by prize-fighters, thieves, and women of bad character. Here puppet-shows were exhibited, and it was the favorite resort of all the profligate and abandoned. At length the nuisance increased to such a degree that Queen Anne issued her proclamation for the suppression of vice and immorality, with a partizular view to this fair; in consequence of which the justices of peace issued their warrant to the high constable, who summoned all the inferior constables to his assistance. When they came to suppress the fair, Cook, with a mob of about thirty soldiers and other persons, stood in defiance of the peace-offi. cers, at whom they threw brickbats, by which some of the latter were wounded.

Cooper, the constable, being the most active, Cook drew his sword and stabbed him in the belly, and he died of the wound at the expiration of four days. Hereupon Cook fled to Ireland, and, as it was deposed upon his trial, while he was in a public house, he swore in a profane manner, for which the land

lord censured him, and told him there were persons in the house who would take him in custody for it: to which he answered, 66 Are there any of the informing dogs in Ireland? we in London drive them; for at a fair called May-fair, there was a noise which I went out to see-six soldiers and myself-the constables played their parts with their staves, and I played mine; and, when the man dropped, I wiped my sword, put it up, and went away."

Cook, having repeatedly talked in this boasting and insolent manner, was at length taken into custody, and sent to Chester, from whence he was removed, by writ of habeas corpus, to London, and, being tried at the Old Bailey, was convicted, and received sentence of death. After conviction he solemnly denied the crime for which he had been condemned, declaring that he had no sword in his hand on the day the constable was killed, and was not in company with those who killed him. ilaving received the sacrament on the 21st of July, 1703, he was taken from Newgate to be carried to Tyburn; but, when he had got to High Holborn, opposite Bloomsbury, a reprieve arrived for him till the following Friday. On his return to Newgate he was visited by numbers of his acquaintance, who rejoiced on his narrow escape. On Friday he received another respite till the 11th of August, on which day he was executed.

The royal prerogative allows the king to reprieve the criminal, and, at his pleasure, afterwards to give the fiat of execution. In the case of Thomas Cook we have an example of this ill-timed lenity. When once the mind of the criminal is fortified by repentance and resignation to death, and then permitted to enjoy the anticipation of the remainder

TRIS unfortunate man was the son of Protestant parents, born at Saverdun, in the county of Foix, and province of Languedoc, in France. He received a religious education; and, when he arrived at years of maturity, left his own country, on account of the persecution then prevailing there, and went to Geneva. From thence he travelled into Germany, and served as a horse-grenadier under the Elector of Brandenburgh, who was after wards King of Prussia. When he had been in this life about a year he came over to England, and en

VOL. I.

tered into the service of Lord Haversham, with whom he remained about twelve months, and then enlisted as a soldier in the regiment of Colonel de la Melonière. Having made two campaigns in Flanders, the regiment was ordered into Ireland, where it was dismissed from farther service; in consequence of which Dramatti obtained his liberty.

He now became acquainted with a widow, between fifty and sixty years of age, who pretending she had a great fortune, and was allied to the royal family of France, he soon married her, not only on ac

3

count of her supposed wealth and rank, but also of her understanding English and Irish, thinking it prudent to have a wife who could speak the language of the country in which he proposed to spend the remainder of his life.

As soon as he discovered that his wife had no fortune, he took a small house and a piece of ground, about ten miles from Cork, intending to turn farmer; but, being altogether ignorant of husbandry, he found it impossible to subsist by that profession, on which he went to Cork, and worked as a skinner, being the trade to which he was brought up. At the expiration of a twelvemonth from his coming to that city, he went to London, and offered his service again to Lord Haversham, and was admitted as one of his domestics. His wife, unhappy on account of their separate residence, wished to live with him at Lord Haversham's, which he would not consent to, saying that his lordship did not know he was married. Here upon she entreated him to quit his service, which he likewise refused, saying that he could not provide for himself so well in any other situation, and that it would be ungenerous to leave so indulgent a master.

The wife now began to evince the jealousy of her disposition, and intimated that Dramatti had fixed his affections on some other woman; and the following circumstance aggravated the malignant disorder that preyed upon her mind: Dramatti being attacked with a violent fever, about the Christmas preceding the time the murder was committed, his noble master gave orders that all possible care should be taken of him at his lordship's expense. At this period Mrs. Dramatti paid a visit to her husband, and again urged him to quit his service, which he positively refused. A servant girl came into the room, bringing him

some water-gruel; and the wife, suspecting that this was her rival in her husband's affections, once more entreated him to leave his place; in answer to which he said he must be out of his senses to abandon a situ-. ation in which he was so well provided for, and treated with such humanity.

Dramatti, being recovered from his illness, visited his wife at her lodgings as often as was consistent with the duties of his station; but this not being so frequently as she wished him to come, she grew more uneasy than before. Lord Haver. sham having taken lodgings at Kensington, Dramatti was so busy in packing up some articles on the occasion, that he had no opportunity of acquainting his wife with their removal. At length she learnt this circumstance from another quarter; on which, inflamed to the highest degree of rage, she went to Kensington to reproach her husband with his unkindness to her, though he declared he always maintained her as well as he was able; and, as a proof of it, had given her three guineas but a little time before the murder was committed.

Frequent were the disputes between this unhappy man and his wife, till, on the 9th of June, 1703, Dramatti being sent to London, and his business lying near Soho, he called on his wife, who lodged in that neighbourhood; and, having been with her some time, he was about to take his leave, but she laid hold of him, and wanted to detain him. Having got away from her, he went towards Charing Cross, to which place she followed him; but at length seemed to yield to his persuasions that she would go home, as he told her he was going to his lordship in Spring Gardens. Instead, however, of going home, she went and waited for him at or near Hyde Park Gate; and in the evening

he found her there, as he was going to Kensington. At the Park-gate she stopped him, and insisted that he should go no farther unless he took her with him. He left her abruptly, and went towards Chelsea, but she followed him till they near Bloody-bridge, where the quarrel being vehemently renewed, she seized his neck cloth, and would have strangled him, had he not beat her with his cane and sword, which latter she broke with her hands, as she was remarkable for her strength; and, if he had been unarmed, could have easily overpowered him.

Having wounded her in so many places as to conclude that he had killed her, his passion immediately began to subside, and, falling on his knees, he devoutly implored the pardon of God for the horrid sin of which he had been guilty. He then went on to Kensington, where his fellow-servants observing that his clothes were bloody, he said he had been attacked by two men in Hyde Park, who would have robbed him of his clothes, but that he defended himself, and broke the head of one of them.

This story was credited for a short time; and on the following day Dramatti went to London, where he heard a paper read in the streets respecting the murder that had been committed. Though he dreaded being taken into custody every moment, yet he did not seek to make his escape, but dispatched his business in London, and returned to Kensington.

On the following day the servants heard an account of the murder that had been committed near Bloodybridge; they immediately hinted to his lordship that they suspected Dramatti had murdered his wife, as they had been known to quarrel before, and as he came home the

preceding evening with his sword broke, the hilt of it bruised, his cane shattered, and some blood on his clothes.

Upon this Lord Haversham, with a view to employ him, that he might not think himself suspected, bid him get the coach ready, and, in the interim, sent for a constable, who, on searching him, found a woman's cap in his pocket, which afterwards proved to have belonged to his wife. When he was examined before a justice of peace he confessed he had committed the crime; but, in extcnuation of it, said that his wife was a worthless woman, who had entrapped him into marriage by pretending to be the blood-royal of France, and a woman of fortune.

On his trial it appeared that he went to Lord Haversham's chamber, late on the night on which the murder was committed, after that nobleman was in bed; and it was supposed he had an intention of robbing his lordship, who called out to know what he wanted; but, in a solemn declaration Dramatti made after his conviction, he steadfastly denied all intention of robbing his master, declaring he only went into the room to fetch a silver tumbler, which he had forgot, that he might have it in readiness to take in some asses' milk in the morning for his lordship.

The body of Mrs. Dramatti was found in a ditch between Hyde Park and Chelsea, and a track of blood was seen to the distance of twenty yards, at the end of which a piece of a sword was found sticking in a bank, which fitted the other part of the sword in the prisoner's possession. The circumstances attending the murder being proved to the satisfaction of the jury, the culprit was found guilty, condemned, and, on the 21st of July, 1703, was executed at Tyburn.

From this melancholy narrative the reader is taught to shun the vice of lying, and to dread jealousy as the most baneful of all the disorders of the mind. The two causes that contributed to the untimely death of this unhappy couple were those above mentioned: by a lie the woman seduced Dramatti to marry, and by her ill-founded jealousy, and ungovernable passion consequent thereon, provoked him to murder.

Though nothing can be urged in extenuation of a crime of so black a die as murder, yet one can hardly help pitying a man who has been instigated to the commission of it by a vile deception in the first instance, and ungovernable passions in the second. Our young readers

will do well to recollect the follow-
ing lines of the pious Dr. Watts:
"O'tis a lovely thing for youth

To walk betimes in wisdom's way;
To fear a lie, to speak the truth,

That we may trust to all they say.' Those in the married state who peruse this story will be particularly struck with the following words of the immortal Shakspeare:

The jealous are the damn'd ;' for surely nothing can approach so nearly to the torments we suppose unhappy spirits to endure in a future state as the pangs of jealousy, perpetually corroding the mind, and rendering the unhappy subjects of it constantly uneasy with themselves, and objects at once of the pity and derision of others.

WAS born in the borough of Southwark, in the year 1676. His father was a currier, and instructed him in his own business; but the boy showed a very early attachment to pleasures and gratifications above his age, and incompatible with his situation.

When the time of his apprenticeship was expired, he was of too unsettled a disposition to follow his business, and therefore engaged in the service of a gentleman of fortune at Hackney; but he had not been long in this new place before his master was robbed of plate, and other valuable effects, to the amount of above eighty pounds.

The fact was, that Estrick had stolen these effects; but, such was the ascendency that he had obtained over his master, and such the baseness of his own disposition, that he had art enough to impute the crime to one of the servant maids, who was turned out of the house with

every circumstance of unmerited disgrace.

Estrick, having quitted this service, took a shop in Cock Alley, near Cripplegate Church, where he carried on the business to which he was bred; and, while in this station, he courted a girl of reputation, to whom he was soon afterwards married. It should be remarked that he had been instigated to rob his master at Hackney by some young fellows of a profligate disposition; and he had not been married more than half a year when these dissolute companions threatened to give him up to justice, if he refused to bribe them to keep the secret.

Estrick, terrified at the thoughts of a prosecution, gave them his note of hand for the sum they demanded; but, when the note became due, he was unable to pay it: on which he was arrested, and lay some time in prison, but at length obtained his