impressed with a belief that the prisoner was guilty and it is but fair to state, that this experienced and sagacious lawyer ever afterwards remained of the same opinion, that Donellan committed the crime.

The principal features of the summing up were as í!lows: his lordship stated that there were two questions for the decision of the jury. 1st. Whether the deceased died of poison? 2ndly. Whether that poison was administer-1 by the defendant? As to the first question, whether the deceased died of poison, they had the evidence of four or five gentlemen of the faculty, that the deceased did de of poison; on the other side, they had but the doubt of another. As to the second question, whether that poison was administered by the defendant, a great deal of evidence had been laid before them, naturally of a cr cumstantial nature, as no man would be weak enough t commit the act in the presence of other persons, or to suffer them to see what he did at the time; and there fore it could only be made out by circumstances, either before the committing of the act,-at the time when n was committed, or subsequent to it. And a presumi tion, which necessarily arose from circumstances, was very often more convincing and more satisfactory than any other kind of evidence, because it was not within the reach and compass of human abilities to invent a trus of circumstances which should be so connected together as to amount to a proof of guilt, without affording off-r tunities of contradicting a great part, if not all of th. se circumstances. The circumstantial evidence in the present case which tended to prove the guilt of the d fendant, was, 1st, the prisoner's doubts, for some weeks prior to Sir Theodosius's death, that he would not at tain his majority, as sworn to by Lady Boughton; ani 2ndly, the prisoner's falsehood, on the night prior to the baronet's death, when he stated to Lady Boughton a

his wife, that he had advised Sir Theodosius not to continue fishing, lest he should catch cold, as sworn to by a servant, who stated that the Captain had not been. near Sir Theodosius, and therefore could not have given him that advice; 3rd, his washing the bottles, and sending them out of the room, in direct opposition to the wishes of Lady Boughton; 4th, his extraordinary conduct towards the gentlemen of the faculty; 5th, his frequent assertions as to the bad health of the deceased, an assertion which had been frequently contradicted by Mr. Powell, the family surgeon, and others, during the investigation of the case; 6th, his making use of a still, for a long time before the death of the baronet, and, immediately after the baronet's death, it being found wet, and filled with lime; 7th, the prisoner's conduct before the coroner.

The jury withdrew after the charge was finished, and having retired for about six minutes, found the prisoner guilty, whereupon he received judgment of death.

In passing sentence, the learned judge observed, that the offence of which the prisoner stood convicted, next to those which immediately affected the state, the government, and the constitution of the country, was of the blackest dye that man could commit. For of all felonies, murder was the most horrible; and of all murders, poisoning was the most detestable. Poisoning was a secret act against which there were no means of preserving or defending a man's life, and in the case of the defendant, it was more, if possible, aggravated. The manner and the place in which the dark deed had been transacted, and the person on whom it had been committed, enhanced greatly the guilt. It had been committed in a place where suspicion, at the instant, must have slept; where the murderer had access as a bosom friend and brother; where he saw the rising representa

tive of an ancient family reside in affluence; but wire ambition led him proudly but vainly to imagine that he might live in splendour and in happiness if his vict were removed. That the greatness of the offence hai been caused by the greatness of the fortune, was his, the Judge's, full and firm conviction. So that avarice was the motive, and hypocrisy at once the instrument and the veil. That a doubt as to the prisoner's guilt e not for a moment exist even in the minds of the mos scrupulous, or of those of the meanest capacity. T traces of murder were ever pointed out by the hands of Providence, therefore all the care and the foresight i the most cunning and the coolest offenders could n guard against some token, some unthought of circum stance, which should open a door to discovery, that the assassin had conceived to have been effectually barred In the case of the prisoner, his misrepresentations to br William Wheler, his endeavours to prevent a full inquiry and discovery of the truth of the case; the strange conversations which he had held at different times; and, above all, the circumstance of rinsing eat the bottle, left his guilt beyond the shadow of a debt This crime, which in the lowliest serf would be truly b rible, was in the prisoner's case, in his situation :: society, and from the education he had received. resdered of a much deeper cast, and was one that caïd for deep contrition-sound, unfeigned, and substantial repentance. After invoking the Almighty Being t grant him that contrition and repentance of mind, th learned Judge concluded, by sentencing the prisoner t undergo the extreme penalty of the law.

Donellan suffered, pursuant to his doom, on the 1 of April, 1781, at Warwick; and he died with perte: resignation.

By the decease of Sir Theodosius, the baronetcy re

verted to his cousin and male heir, Edward Boughton, Esq., who pulled down the mansion of Lawford Hall, the scene of the fearful event to which the trial refers, and sold the estates in the counties of Warwick and Leicester. He never married, and was succeeded in the title by his brother, Sir Charles William Boughton-Rouse, of Rouse Lench, co. Worcester, whose son and heir is the present Sir William Edward Rouse Boughton, Bart., of Downton Hall, co. Salop.

Mrs. Donellan, who inherited a portion of her brother, Sir Theodosius's property, married for her second husband, Sir Egerton Leigh, Bart., and by him was mother of an only daughter, Theodosia de Malmsburgh, married in 1811 to John Ward, Esq., who in consequence assumed the additional surnames of Boughton and Leigh. Lady Leigh's third husband was the celebrated Barry O'Meara, author of a "Voice from St. Helena."

THE APPARITION OF SIR GEORGE VILLIERS.

THE death of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingi.am. is stated to have been announced to a dependent cf the family, by the apparition of Sir George Villiers, his Grace's father. The story runs as follows:

"There was an officer in the king's wardrobe z Windsor Castle, of a good reputation for honesty and discretion, and then about the age of fifty years or cre

"This man had in his youth been bred in a school in the parish where Sir George Villiers, the father of the Duke, lived, and had been much cherished and old in that season of his age by the said Sir George, w. afterwards he never saw.

"About six months before the miserable end of the Duke of Buckingham, about midnight, this man beg in his bed at Windsor, where his office was, and in very good health, there appeared to him on the side of s bed, a man of a very venerable aspect, who drew the curtains of his bed, and fixing his eyes upon him, asked him if he knew him.

"The poor man, half dead with fear and apprehension, being asked a second time, whether he rILIES bered him, and having in that time called to his men.. y the presence of Sir George Villiers, and the very clothes he used to wear, in which at that time he seemed