Kelly was born at Worcester, and had been an apothecary.  He had a sister who lived there for some time after his death, and who used to exhibit some gold made by her brother’s projection.  “It was vulgarly reported that he had a compact with the devil, which he outlived, and was seized at midnight by infernal spirits, who carried him off in sight of his family, at the instant he was meditating a mischievous design against the minister of the parish, with whom he was greatly at enmity.”

It would have been easy to select a more historical statement of facts respecting Kelly; but the following tale, the events of one day only, will, we hope, be more interesting to the generality of readers.  It exhibits a curious display of the intrigues and devices by which these impostors acquired an almost unlimited power over the minds of their fellow-men.  Human credulity once within their grasp, they could wield this tremendous engine at their will, directing it either to good or bad intents, but more often to purposes of fraud and self-aggrandisement.

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In the ancient and well-thriven town of Manchester formerly dwelt a merchant of good repute, Cornelius Ethelstoun by name.  Plain dealing and an honest countenance withal, had won for him a character of no ordinary renown.  His friezes were the handsomest; his stuffs and camlets were not to be sampled in the market, or even throughout the world; insomuch that the courtly dames of Venice, and the cumbrous vrows of Amsterdam and the Hague, might be seen flaunting in goodly attire gathered from the store-houses of Master Cornelius.

His coffers glittered with broad ducats, and his cabinets with the rarest productions of the East.  His warehouses were crammed, even to satiety, and his trestles groaned under heaps of rich velvets, costly brocades, and other profitable returns to his foreign adventures.  But, alas!—­and whose heart holdeth not communion with that word!—­Cornelius was unhappy.  He had one daughter, whom “he loved passing well;” yet, as common report did acknowledge, the veriest shrew that ever went unbridled.  In vain did his riches and his revenues increase; in vain was plenty poured into his lap, and all that wealth could compass accumulate in lavish profusion.  Of what avail was this outward and goodly show against the cruel and wayward temper of his daughter?

Kate—­by this name we would distinguish her, as veritable historians are silent on her sponsorial appellation—­Kate was unhappily fair and well-favoured.  Her hair was dark as the raven-plume; but her skin, white as the purest statuary marble, grew fairer beneath the black and glossy wreaths twining gracefully about her neck.  Her cheek was bright as the first blush of the morning, and ever and anon, as a deeper hue was thrown upon its rich but softened radiance, she looked like a vision from Mahomet’s paradise—­a being nurtured by a warmer sky and fiercer suns than our cold climate can sustain.  She had lovers, but all approach was denied, and, one by one, they stood afar off and gazed.  Her pretty mouth, lovely even in the proudest glance of petulance and scorn, was so oftentimes moulded into the same aspect that it grew puckered and contemptuous, rendering her disposition but too manifest; and yet—­wouldest thou believe it, gentle reader?—­she was in love!