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.

One Elizabeth Osborn, coming to live with her as a servant, she proved
of a disposition as Mrs. Griffin could by no means agree with. They were
continually differing and having high words, in which, as is usual on
such occasions, Mrs. Gri