and grievously unhappy, consequences unavoidably entailed on these destructive pleasures, so contrary to the nature of man’s soul, and so derogatory from that excellence to the attainment of which he was created.  Although one would imagine these observations must naturally occur at some time or other to the minds of persons who ever think at all concerning the design of their own being yet experience convinces us that they very seldom do, and if they do, they make but very little impression.

William Marple, the first of these criminals, was descended from parents of very tolerable fortune, as well as unblemished reputation.  Their care had not only gone so far in providing him with useful and common learning, but had also been careful in bestowing on him an excellent education in schools both in town and country.  The use he made of them you will quickly hear, which cannot however be mentioned as a reflection on his unhappy parents, who were as industrious to have him taught good, as he was in pursuing evil.

When he grew to years capable of being put out to business, the unsettled giddiness of his temper sufficiently appeared, for being put out to three several trades at his own request, he could not bring himself to any of them, but went at last to a fourth which was that of a joiner, with whom he stayed a considerable space.  But before the expiration of his time he fell in love with a young woman and married her, which coming with other stories to his master’s ears, occasioned such difference that they parted.

Marple was prodigiously fond of his new married wife, and what is a pretty rare circumstance in this age, his fondness proved the greatest advantage possible to him, for the young woman being in herself both virtuous and industrious, her temper (as it is natural for us to imitate what we love) made so great an impression upon Marple that from a wild, loose and extravagant young man, he became a sober, diligent and honest workman, labouring hard to get his bread, and living at home with his wife in the greatest tranquility and with the utmost satisfaction.  But the agreeable beauty of this scene was soon darkened, or rather totally destroyed, by the death of his wife; for no sooner were the transports of his melancholy over than he returned to his old course of life.  And in order to efface effectually that grief which still hung over him, he removed out of town to an adjacent village, where he quickly contracted an intimate acquaintance with a young woman, and thereby almost at once put all thoughts of sorrow and honesty quite out of his head.  This creature was of a very different disposition from Marple’s late wife.  She had no regard for the man, farther than she was able to get money out of him; and provided she had wherewith to buy her fine clothes and keep her in handsome lodgings, she gave herself no trouble how he came by it, and this carriage of hers in a short time put him upon illegal methods of obtaining money.