HKB
depraved, that it carries us often into wishes of knowing, what when known we would be glad to unknow again, and then our memory will not let us be untaught.
Mrs. Irwin was at that time in a pretty commodious way of business, everything in plenty round about her, and lived more like a person of distinction, that kept such a cellar of wine, open house, and a free table, than like one who kept a tavern. She brought in her pretty children, that were then almost babies, the youngest having not long been out of the nurse's arms, or trusted to the use of its own legs. These children she loved as a mother should love children; they were the delight of her eyes all day, and the dream of her imagination all night. All the passions of her soul were confined to them; she was never pleased but when they were so, and always angry if they were crossed; her whole pride was centered in them, and they were clothed and went attended more like the infants of a princess, than of a vintner's relict. The fortune of these was what she had near at heart, and of which she was so eager of being immediately apprised. Her impatience was proportionable to the love she had for them, and which made her wish to foreknow all the happiness that was like to attend them. She sat cheerfully down, presented one to him, and smiling, wrote the question in general terms, viz., is this boy to be happy or unhappy. A melancholy look once more spread itself all over the face of the predictor, when he read the too inquisitive words, and he seemed mightily to regret being asked a question, to which he was by his talent of foreseeing compelled to give so unwelcome an answer. The colour of the poor woman flushed and vanished alternately, and very quick, and she looked not quite like the picture of despair, but a disconsolate woman, with little hopes on one hand, and great doubts and dismal fears on the other. She professed she read great evil in the troubles of his face, thanked him for his good nature, told him that they all knew that though he could foretell he could not alter the acts and decretals of fate, and therefore desired him to tell her the worst; for that the misfortunes, were they never so great, would be less dreadful to her than remaining in the state of fear and suspension. He at last wrote down to her that great and unexpected and even unavoidable accidents would involve the whole family in new calamities, that the son she asked him about would have the bitterest task of hardship to go through withal, while he lived, and that to finish all more unhappily, he would be basely and maliciously brought to an untimely end, by some mortal enemy or other, but that she should not trouble herself so much on that head, she would never see it, for it would happen some years after she was departed from the world. This melancholy account closed up the book of predictions for that day, and put a sad stop to all the projected mirth and curiosity. Now I must tell the reader how and when the event answered the prediction. And in a few words, it was thus; poor Mrs. Irwin, by strange accidents, decayed in the world, and dying poor, her sons were forced to be put out apprentices to small trades, and the son, whom the above-mentioned prediction concerned, was, for stealing one cheese from a man in the Haymarket, severely prosecuted at the Old Bailey, and on Wednesday, the 23rd of December, 1713, hanged at Tyburn, with several other criminals.