statement was published, and did not doubt that when the plot was discovered, he would embrace the earliest opportunity of undeceiving those upon whose minds his publication had had a powerful effect. But these reasonable expectations were sorely disappointed. "Instead of this, he allowed a whole month to elapse, though he had been no less than fifteen times to the premises, and suffered the poison of his superstition to settle in the minds of ignorant country people and young children, without the slightest effort towards an honest exposition of the adopted knavery. So far indeed from making such attempt, he strove all in his power to suppress this discovery." He published an appendix to his narrative, and the affidavit of Chave, the servant girl and the two other male conspirators, reaffirming the supernatural character of the noises, closed this extraordinary appendix.

It will be recollected also that Mr. C. promised, under oath, to give a considerable sum of money to the poor of his parish, whenever these noises were proved to be the work of human agency. This sum was, at one time, fixed at £100, but he afterwards very considerably lowered the amount, and not a penny was ever paid to the poor. Colton is said, however, to have realized a considerable amount from the sale of his pamphlet. Before concluding our remarks upon these circumstances, it is but justice to add, that Colton, when at Tiverton, 66 was known to be so full of fears in regard to the

supernatural, that he would not cross the churchyard at night without an attendant, generally a girl of about twelve years old, with a lantern and candle to light him over the fearful precinct."

At Tiverton, Colton had many enemies, and when, in 1812, he published a poem, entitled "Hypocrisy, a Satirical Poem," many of his parishioners remarked, that it was a subject with which he ought to be very well acquainted. Others said that "the parson had two faces, one for Sundays and one for working days." There were many, however, who were disposed to judge Colton more leniently. His kind, agreeable, and social manners. won the admiration of all who were intimate with him, and none, who were capable of forming a judgment upon such matters, could deny him to be a fine scholar. A native of Tiverton, who has published his "Recollections of Colton," makes these remarks: "He was not really a hypocrite in the true sense of the word, if indeed, as may be questioned, he deserved the imputation at all. He was rather the subject of ever varying impulses, under the instigation of which, were they good or bad, he would instinctively proceed to act, without consideration and without restraint. He would be eloquent as Demosthenes in the pulpit in praise of the Christian virtues, and would work himself into a passion of tears on behalf of some benevolent or charitable purpose, the claims of which he would enforce with the most irresistible appeals to the

conscience; and the next day he would gallop after the fox with a pack of hounds, fish, shoot, or fight amain, in company with sporting blacklegs, bruisers, dicers, et hoc genus omne. But he never made any personal pretensions to religious sentiment, that I am aware of, except on one occasion."

The circumstance alluded to in the above extract was very extraordinary, and it is well worthy of being related here. Among Colton's sporting companions was a very abandoned Devonshire squire, who had squandered a fine fortune and beggared his family by his extravagance and dissipation. Becoming sick, and his physicians having assured him that a speedy death was inevitable, he despatched a messenger for Colton, and demanded of him an acknowledgment of a fact, which he said all parsons' lives declared, "that their religion, and all religion, was a lie." This Colton positively refused to do, whereupon the dying wretch, in a paroxysm of rage, called down curse after curse upon the head of the conscience-smitten parson, and immediately expired. Language cannot describe Colton's horror. He returned home and shut himself up in his chamber; on the following Sunday he preached upon the uncertainty of life, and in a most impressive manner discoursed upon the dreadful realities of death, judgment, and eternity, closing his sermon with a solemn declaration that he had seen the error of his ways, and was resolved to lead a new life. His reformation, though of

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longer continuance than the morning cloud, was not lasting. Three, four, five months of exemplary conduct, and then came the first symptom of declension, in the shape of the parson's gray horse harnessed to a dog-cart, with his gun and brace of pointers, in charge of a groom, the whole turnout' ready for starting, and waiting at the entrance of the churchyard on Sunday evening, the last night of August, to carry the parson, so soon as service was over, to a celebrated shooting-ground, five and twenty miles off, that he might be on the spot, ready by dawn for the irresistible first of September."

In 1812, Colton published a second poem, entitled "Napoleon; a Poem; in which that ArchApostate from the cause of Liberty is held up to the just indignation of an injured people," &c. This poem, of thirty-two pages 8vo, is enriched with copious notes, and many interesting and valuable anecdotes in regard to Bonaparte and the French, which he doubtless received from the French officers who during the war were prisoners at Tiverton, and with whom Colton was on most intimate terms. One of these anecdotes is worthy of being repeated. "I have conversed," says Colton, “ with more than one or two French officers who were in Egypt, and have admitted the fact of this horrid massacre (at Jaffa) to its full extent. They attempted to palliate the deed, by affirming that Turkish prisoners constantly broke their parole, and were re

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peatedly retaken in arms. It is strange that this massacre is still denied by many in this country. With respect to the administration of poison to the wounded, during the retreat of the French army, these same officers made this observation: 'If it were done, it was in order to prevent the horrid cruelties which we knew from experience would be exercised by the Turks upon the wounded, by way of retaliation for the massacre of their whole garrison at Jaffa.' I know, from their own confession, that in St. Domingo many of the French officers carried poison in their pockets, in case of being taken by the blacks. I have seen the cakes; and one French officer, during my residence at Tiverton, destroyed himself by their means. He had scraped off with his knife about half as much as would cover a sixpence. The cakes were all alike; they were small, of a hard, reddish substance. They were considered to be, on inspection, an inspissation of the laurel-juice, and produced death in about twelve minutes."

In 1818, Colton was presented by his college to the vicarage of Kew and Petersham, and here his eccentricities and irregularities were greater than at Tiverton. Upon one occasion he mounted the pulpit and preached in gray trowsers, when no less a personage than the king of Hanover was present. A few days after, he was invited to dine with the King, who had publicly expressed himself as shocked at Colton's disregard of clerical propriety. A