But, alas! such is the portentous and all-pervading chain of connection which links together the head and members of this great community, my scheme of lying perdu was defeated almost at the outset.  A countryman of mine, whom a foolish lawsuit had brought to town, by chance met me, and the secret was soon blazoned about.

In a short time I found myself deserted by most of those who had been my intimate friends.  Not that any guilt was supposed to attach to my character.  My officious countryman, to do him justice, had been candid enough to explain my perfect innocence.

But, somehow or other, there is a want of strong virtue in mankind.  We have plenty of the softer instincts, but the heroic character is gone.  How else can I account for it, that of all my numerous acquaintance, among whom I had the honor of ranking sundry persons of education, talents, and worth, scarcely here and there one or two could be found who had the courage to associate with a man that had been hanged.

Those few who did not desert me altogether were persons of strong but coarse minds; and from the absence of all delicacy in them I suffered almost as much as from the superabundance of a false species of it in the others.  Those who stuck by me were the jokers, who thought themselves entitled by the fidelity which they had shown towards me to use me with what familiarity they pleased.  Many and unfeeling are the jests that I have suffered from these rude (because faithful) Achateses.  As they passed me in the streets, one would nod significantly to his companion and say, pointing to me, Smoke his cravat, and ask me if I had got a wen, that I was so solicitous to cover my neck.  Another would inquire, What news from * * * Assizes? (which you may guess, Mr. Editor, was the scene of my shame,) and whether the sessions was like to prove a maiden one?  A third would offer to insure me from drowning.  A fourth would tease me with inquiries how I felt when I was swinging, whether I had not something like a blue flame dancing before my eyes?  A fifth took a fancy never to call me anything but Lazarus.  And an eminent bookseller and publisher,—­who, in his zeal to present the public with new facts, had he lived in those days, I am confident, would not have scrupled waiting upon the person himself last mentioned, at the most critical period of his existence, to solicit a few facts relative to resuscitation,—­had the modesty to offer me—­guineas per sheet, if I would write, in his magazine, a physiological account of my feelings upon coming to myself.

But these were evils which a moderate fortitude might have enabled me to struggle with.  Alas!  Mr. Editor, the women,—­whose good graces I had always most assiduously cultivated, from whose softer minds I had hoped a more delicate and generous sympathy than I found in the men,—­the women began to shun me—­this was the unkindest blow of all.

But is it to be wondered at?  How couldst thou imagine, wretchedest of beings, that that tender creature Seraphina would fling her pretty arms about that neck which previous circumstances had rendered infamous?  That she would put up with the refuse of the rope, the leavings of the cord?  Or that any analogy could subsist between the knot which binds true lovers, and the knot which ties malefactors?