As I have already exceeded the bounds which I at first intended should have restrained my Preface, so I forbear lengthening it in speaking of lesser crimes, few of which concern the persons whose lives are to be found in the following volume.  Therefore I shall conclude here, only putting my readers once more in mind that by this work the intent of the Law, in punishing malefactors, is more perfectly fulfilled, since the example of their deaths is transmitted in a proper light to posterity.

FOOTNOTES: 

    [1] Sir John Coventry, M. P. for Weymouth, in the course of a
        debate on a proposed levy on playhouses, asked “whether did the
        king’s pleasure lie among the men or the women that acted?” This
        open allusion to Charles’s relations with Nell Gwynn and Moll
        Davies enraged the Court party, and on Dec. 21, 1670, as Sir
        John was going to his house in Suffolk Street, he was waylaid by
        a brutal gang under Sir Thomas Sandys, dragged from his
        carriage, and his nose slit to the bone.  This outrage caused
        great indignation, and the Coventry Act mentioned in the text
        was passed, 22 & 23 Car.  II.  The perpetrators of the deed
        escaped.

The Life of JANE GRIFFIN, who was Executed for the Murder of her Maid, January 29, 1719-20

Passion, when it once gains an ascendant over our minds, is often more fatal to us than the most deliberate course of vice could be.  On every little start it throws us from the paths of reason, and hurries us in one moment into acts more wicked and more dangerous than we could at any other time suffer to enter our imagination.  As anger is justly said to be a short madness, so, while the frenzy is upon us, blood is shed as easily as water, and the mind is so filled with fury that there is no room left for compassion.  There cannot be a stronger proof of what I have been observing than in the unhappy end of the poor woman who is the subject of this chapter.

Jane Griffin was the daughter of honest and substantial parents, who educated her with very great tenderness and care, particularly with respect to religion, in which she was well and rationally instructed.  As she grew up her person grew agreeable, and she had a lively wit and a very tolerable share of understanding.  She lived with a very good reputation, and to general satisfaction, in several places, till she married Mr. Griffin, who kept the Three Pigeons in Smithfield[2].

She behaved herself so well and was so obliging in her house that she drew to it a very great trade, in which she managed so as to leave everyone well satisfied.  Yet she allowed her temper to fly out into sudden gusts of passion, and that folly alone sullied her character to those who were witnesses of it, and at last caused a shameful end to an honest and industrious life.