half way up the chimney, while the remainder sallied out into the lane, praying, most fervently, to be released from the visitation of the D-1, for a human being none could suppose Cooke, who, left alone with the shrivelled remains of the old peasant, taking her parchment-coloured hand, pathetically 66 my love! my wife! Death that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, Beauty!—no, hang me, if it is though; "But stop," said Cooke, for his eye at that instant rested on a jug of whiskey punch, smoking in the chimney corner;-he eagerly grasped the handle and cried, "Here's to my love!" The affrighted company took by degrees a little courage, ventured, one by one, to peep through the key-hole, and then observing Cooke had thrown away his sword, returned into the apartment, when he, in order to encourage them, exclaimed-" Don't fear me; 'tis only George Frederick Cooke; come, sit down, I'll smoke with you, drink with you, aye, and pray with you, my jolly lads and lasses." Thus re-assured, George Frederick became a great fa vourite with them, and revelled in the delights of tobacco and whiskey, "until his eye-lids could no longer wag." He was then quietly placed on the bed with his imaginary Juliet, until the next morning, when he was discovered in his retreat, and conveyed home to his lodgings in a sedan chair. Heshuffled off this mortal coil" in New York, September 26, 1811, which, when stated in the American newspapers, produced, from some poetic correspondent, the following, proposed EPITAPH. Ye sons of Bacchus, cast one look ; Here lies your friend, George Frederick Cooke, Still he'd have wheel'd the lush about, 22d-1823. The following delectable display of true conjugal felicity, this morning obtruded itself on the notice of the "potent, grave, and reverend" ministering sons of Justice, who grace the elbow-chairs of Bowstreet-Mrs. Mary Scarsfield made her début in this quarter, attended by a constable, who deposed that he found her bestriding her prostrate husband, trying, with all her might to choak him by twisting his neckcloth. Mrs. Scarsfield had something so very termagantish in her appearance, that it was evident to every body, she would consider the choaking of half a dozen husbands a mere trifle. Her age might be about forty-five; her person was tall, and very thin; her skin like wet parchment; her mouth wide; her lips blue, and shrivelled; her nose flat; her eyes blood-shot, and almost as prominent as a lobster's; and there she stood, with folded arms and scowling brows, in full-proof scorn of the event "A combination and a form, indeed! Where every fury seem'd to set her seal, Her husband, Mr. Scarsfield, was quite as meagre in person as herself, but he seemed a very harmless sort of fellow; and, poor man, he seemed sadly Imoiled with his matrimonial miseries. He had been wedded to Mrs. Scarsfield twenty-six years, he said, and it was God's mercy she had not destroyed him long ago; instead of loving him, honouring him, and obeying, as in duty bound, she ruled him with a rod of iron, drank him out of house and home, kept him always poor, and made his life so miserable, that, at one time, he went into the army as a common soldier, in the hope that "some friendly ball" would put an end to his troubles and his life together. The Magistrate desired him to confine himself to the affray. "Your Worship," said he, "last Saturday night I was sitting by the fire with my wife, talking tolerably quiet, and, at last, about ten o'clock, Mary, said I, I think I'll go to bed. She made no reply, and I went to bed; and whatever possessed her I know not, more than the child unborn; but I hadn't been in bed many minutes before she rushed into the room, and pulled me, bed, bedstead, and all, slap into the middle of the room. Lord bless you, Sir! chairs, tables, fenders, pokers, fire-shovels, nothing came amiss to her, she heaped them upon me like fury, and as soon as I could disentangle myself from amongst them, she flew at me, tore my shirt off my back, and there was I scampering about stark naked, (saving your Worship's presence!) and she smacking me round and round the room, with the fire-shovel. Only think, your Worship! of being smacked with a fireshovel;-would any good wife do that, I should like to know? I cried murder, and the neighbours coming tumbling in, she was stopped in her career, and I got some of them to sit up with me all night." The poor man was so oppressed with his recollections of that horrible night, that he could get no farther. He continued to hold up the tattered remains of his shirt, reduced to a mere shred, and to dwell upon the shocking detail of the fire-shovel operation, so that, after all, it was left to other witnesses to describe the immediate affair which brought them before the Magistrate. By the testimony of these persons it appeared, that she had spent the whole of Monday in what she called looking-up her husband, but which was, in fact, raising a riot about the house of his employer, Mr. Weiss, the cutler, in Durham-street; and that upon his requesting her to go home, she seized him by his neck-cloth, threw him on the floor, and would have strangled him, had he not been extricated by three or four men. Mrs. Scarsfield had nothing to say in her defence, except that her husband was an idle fellow who wanted "looking-up," and that he beat her as often as she beat him; the Magistrate ordered that she should find bail to keep the peace, and, in default, she was committed to prison. As the officers were taking her away, her husband offered her some silver. "Here, Mary, love," said he, "put this money in your pocket, may be you'll want it." "You be d-d, and your money too," replied "Mary, love;" and snapping her fingers in his face, she, with becoming grace and dignity of mien, quitted the presence of the Magistracy. Mr. and Mrs. Scarsfield seem to have been not the only couple whose Matrimonial Harmony was interspersed with a few discords. A contemporary wit has put on record the desagrémens of " Mr. and Mrs. John Prevost," adapting it, at the same time, to a popular air. The pen to which we are indebted for the "Rejected Addresses," furnished |