together." C. You are as fafe from me, as when I was alive. O. Then let us have a free conversation together, and give me some information about the affairs of the other world. C. What information do you want from me? O. Are you in a state of happiness or not? C. That is a question I will not answer? Ask something else. O. I ask then, what fort of a body is that you appear in? C. It is not the same body wherein I was witness to your marriage, nor that in which I died. That is rotting in the grave. But it is such a body as answers me in a moment. I can fly as fast in this body as without it. If I would go to London, to Jerufalem, or to the Moon, I can perform all these journies equally foon. For it costs me nothing but a thought. This body is just as fleet as your thought. In the same time you can turn your thoughts to Rome, I can go there in person. O. But tell me, Have you not yet appeared before God, and received sentence from him as a Judge ? C. Never yet. O. It is commonly believed, there is a particular judgment immediately after death, and a general one at the last day. C. No fuch thing, no such thing. There is no trial, no sentence till the last day. The heaven good men enjoy immediately after death, consists in the serenity of their minds, the fatisfaction of a good confcience, and the certain hope of glory everlafting.*

4. The hell which the wicked suffer immediately after death, consists in their wickedness, in the stings of an awakened conscience, the terrors of facing the great Judge, and of everlasting torments.t And their misery when dead bears a due proportion to the evil they did while living; but fome of these although not good, were far less wicked than others, and so are far less miferable. And on the other hand, fome were not wicked in this life, yet had but a small

degree of goodness. And their faces are not more various in life, then their circumstances are after death.

5. 0. To pass this, there is another question I want to ask: "How came you to know what I said to Mr. Paton?" Were you with us, though invisible? C. I was not. But you must know, that not only angels are continually fent from heaven, to guard and comfort good men, but also the spirits of holy men are employed on the same errand. O. But has every man his guardian angel? C. Not every man; but many particular men have. And there are few families but have one attending on them. From what you have heard of spirits, you may easily conceive, how one may be serviceable to each member of the family, even when far distant from each other. Yea, one powerful angel or departed spirit is sufficient for some villages: but to a great city many angels or departed spirits are affigned, who are superintended by one great angel.

6. Now Satan in the government of his kingdom, ape's the kingdom of Christ as much as possible. Accordingly he fends out miffionaries too : but because he has plenty of them, he frequently commissions two or three to attend one family, if it be of great power or influence. O. I cannot understand how the evil angels should be more numerous than the good ones. C. Whatever the number of devils be, it is certain the number of wicked spirits departed, who are employed on this errand, is abundantly greater than that of the good ones. And there is as great a difference between the good and bad spirits, as there is between the good and bad angels, both with regard to their knowledge, activity, strength and faculties. Yea, some departed fouls exceed fome of the original angels, in all these respects.

[To be concluded in our next.]

† I am afraid this glances upon Purgatory; intimating, that the former were not bad enough to go to Hell, nor the latter good enough to go to Heaven.

Some

Some Account of the Right Hon. Laurence, late Earl FERRERS.

L

AURENCE SHIRLEY, Earl Ferrers, Viscount Tamworth, was defcended from a family which held considerable rank, and large estates in Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, before the conquest. His lordship's uncle, from whom he derived his title, was put under confinement by the authority of a statue of lunacy that was obtained against him, and after a short return of reason, relapsed into incurable madness, in which state he continued till his death. Lady Barbary Shirley, was also a lunatic, and confined as fuch. His lordship had fo far a tincture of this family disorder, as to be subject to fudden, causelefs, and outrageous passion; he often walked hastily about the room, clenching his fists, grinning, biting his lips, and talking to himself, without having any thing to ruffle his temper, or being under the influence of liquor; he also sometimes talked to himself many hours after he was in bed, and he was observed to entertain causeless suspicions of those about him; to go about frequently armed; to be frequently absent when spoken to; to make mouths in the looking-glass, spitting upon it and using gestures, that by those who faw him were thought indications of madness.

In September, 1752, he married the youngest daughter of Sir William Meredith, whom he treated with great brutality, though she was of the most mild and amiable disposition; he was also almost constantly upon ill terms with all his relations. About four years before his death, his irregular fallies became more frequent than before, which was imputed to an unhappy quarrel with his lady; this quarrel was carried so far that she was separated from him by an act of parliament, and it was ordered by the fame act, that a person should be appointed

appointed to receive the income of his estates, and apply it as the act appointed.

When his rents were ordered to be paid to a receiver, the nomination of a receiver was left to himself, and he appointed Mr. John Johnson, a person who had been taken into the service of Lord F's family in his youth, and was then his lordship's steward, hoping probably, that he should have sufficient influence over him to have procured some deviation from his trust in his lordship's favour. But he foon found Mr. Johnson would not oblige him at the expence of his honesty, and from that time he seems to have conceived an implacable resentment against him; and it is easy to conceive that every opposition to the will of a man fo haughty, impetuous, and irafcible, would produce such an effect.

Mr. Johnson lived at the house belonging to the farm, which he held under his lordship, called the Lount, about half a mile distant from Stanton, his lordship's feat.

On Sunday the 13th of January, 1760, my Lord went to the Lount, and after some discourse with Mr. Johnson, ordered him to come to him at Stanton, on the Friday following, the 18th, at three o'clock in the afternoon. The men-fervants he contrived to send out of the way, so that there was no person in the house but himself and three maids.

In a short time after the house was thus cleared, Mr. Johnson came, and was let in by Elizabeth Burgeland, one of the maids. He asked if his lordship was within? when the girl replied yes, he is in his room: Mr. Johnson went, and knocked at the door, and my lord came to the door, and ordered him to wait in the still-house. When he had been there about ten minutes, his lordship came out, and calling him to his own room, went in with him, and immediately locked the door. When they were thus locked in together my Lord first ordered him to settle an account, and after a little time produced a paper, purporting, as he said, to be a VOL. VIII. confeflion

3 A

confeffion of his villainy, and required him to fign it; Johnson refused, and his lordship drawing a pistol from his pocket, prefented it, and bid him kneel down; the poor man then kneeled down upon one knee, but Lord F. cried out so loud as to be heard by one of the maids at the kitchen door, "Down on your other knee; declare what you have acted against Lord F. your time is come, you must die;" and then fired. The ball entered his body just below the last rib, yet he did not drop, but rose up and expressed the sensations of a dying man, both by his looks, and by broken sentences. My Lord then came out of the room, having been shut up with the unhappy victim about half an hour; and the report of the pistol having frighted the women into the wash-house, he called out, "Who is there?" One of them heard and answered him: he ordered her to fee for one of the men, to assist in getting Mr. Johnson into bed. At this time his lordship was perfectly fober, and having dispatched a messenger to Mr. Kirkland, a furgeon who lived at Ashby de la Zouch, he went back to the room where he had left Mr. Johnson with the maid, and asked how he found himself. Johnson replied, that he found himself like a dying man, and requested his lordship to fend for his children; his lordship consented, and a messenger was dispatched to the Lount, to tell Miss Johnson that she must come to the Hall, as her father was taken very ill; upon coming there, she soon learnt what had happened, and Lord F. fent one of the maids with her up to the room into which her father had been removed, and immediately followed himself. Mr. Johnson was in bed, but did not speak to her: Lord F. pulled down the clothes, and applied a pledget dipt in Arquebufade water to the wound, and foon after left him. From the time the fact was committed, Lord F. continued to drink porter till he became drunk. The messenger in the mean time having found the furgeon, he came about five o'clock. My Lord

told