230 СНАР. Х. ULTIMATUM OF DEPRAVITY, AND POWER OF 'Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crime, Gradations of Depravity and Atrocity-Williams, the Murderer of Marr and Williamson, and their Families, thrown into Coldbath Fields' Prison, and murders himself—Judas his own Executioner-Thompson's Poem on Williams's Atrocities-Standley murders Dale, in December, 1821, and becomes his own Executioner in Southwell Prison-Infidelity grand Cause of Suicide-Power of Religion in staying the uplifted Dagger-Poetical and historical Illustrations from Dale-The Caliph of Egypt, from the ‹ Adventurer.' DEPRAVITY has its gradations: the heart once tender and impressible may, by a course of sinning, become callous to all remorse, till it commits all iniquity with greediness, and rushes onward into the most detestable excesses. It may be seared as with a red-hot iron till it perpetrates the most savage atrocities. Oh! how will sin Engender sin! Throw guilt upon the soul, COLMAN. We should never believe the capabilities of evil existing in the heart of man, were they not exhibited to us by atrocities which astonish the mind and shock all the feelings of the soul. 'The heart of man is desperately wicked! who can know it?' The suicide of Williams in Coldbath Fields' prison does not surprise us, after the tale of bloody deeds with which his name has stained the page of historic facts. Through a vile thirst of gold, as the means of sensual gratification without labour, this sanguinary wretch murdered four persons one evening-one an infant in the cradle! On the 17th December, 1811, about twelve o'clock at night, Mr. Marr, a respectable tradesman in Ratcliffe Highway, sent out his female servant for some oysters. On her return she was unable to obtain admission. A neighbour, whom she alarmed, entering the back way, beheld the dreadful spectacle of the whole family, consisting of Mr. Marr, his wife, a shop-boy, and an infant of four months old, weltering in their blood, and mangled in a manner almost too shock ing for description. On the night of the 19th of the same month, before the horror occasioned by this murder had subsided, and while the utmost exertions were making by the police to discover its perpetrators, another murder, almost similar, was committed in New Gravel Lane, Wapping. Mr. Williamson, of the King's Head public house, his wife, and servant, were all savagely butchered, a little before midnight, as they were about to retire to rest. The alarm was given in this case sooner than in the other, by means of a lodger, who overheard the work of death, but who appears to have been too much under the influence of terror to prevent it. The vigilance of the police traced both these murders to the same hand. One Williams, an Irishman, was so circumstantially aud clearly proved to have been implicated in them as to leave little doubt of his guilt on the minds of any Whatever doubt remained, the wretch himself removed it by an act of suicide in prison. one. It seems as though he had no remorse for his first crime; for, while every tongue around him was dwelling on its atrocity, and such active exertions making on all sides for its discovery, he boldly ventured almost within hearing of the scene of the first murder, to assassinate in cold blood three more of his fellow-creatures. But the particular providence of God, by a variety of minute circumstances, too many to detail, pointed out the murderer. 'Blood will have blood!' He that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' His conscience, however hardened before, now seems to have stung him beyond bearing: remorse, perhaps, pierced his hardened soul, as it did the avaricious disciple Judas, who, when he beheld his Master taken through his treachery and crucified, threw down the wages of iniquity, exclaiming I have betrayed the innocent blood!' and went and hanged himself. Perhaps Williams, who feared no crime, and possibly felt no remorse, shuddered to meet the eyes and tongues of an execrating community; and insupportable shame and fear might have driven the wretch to fly at once to all the apprehended horrors of an unknown world to come. He at last imbrued his guilty hands, tinged with the blood of seven innocents, in his own blood. This wretch, so prodigal of crime, sunk into eternity under the last and worst of crimessuicide; and rushed unsummoned into the presence of an offended Deity. The following strongly expressive stanzas were composed immediately subsequent to this desperate suicide; and are highly descriptive not only of the detestation which such accumulated depravity must naturally excite in the heart of man, but (what is of far more importance) of its atrociousness, also, in the sight of an offended God: THE SUICIDE. 'What vengeance must await The wretch that, with his crimes all fresh about him, Into his Maker's presence!'-PORTEUS. 'O'er the suicide's grave shall no death-prayer be said, No blessings be heard o'er the murderer's tomb, Who struck when the demon of homicides bade: Whose guilt, unforgiven, by conscience dismayed, Dared the vengeance of Heaven, and rushed to his doom? O'er his relics is whispered no requiem farewell; No friend o'er his ashes in sympathy weeps; No wafting to peace with a death-boding knell— No dirge to the criminal's memory shall swell, Nor hallow the dust where the suicide sleeps. His sins unrepented, with fear on his soul, He broke the Eternal's unchanging decree : Existence a burden, he spurned its control, And the Angel of Judgment his fate shall enrol Who rush'd from his Maker's restraint to be free. No ear caught the echo of life's parting groan When, unsummon'd, he dared Heav'n's tribunal to brave; The hand bathed in nature's red blood was his own! To Eternity's gulf he fled forward alone, And shrouded his crimes in the gloom of the grave. |