article respecting _blue_, as
the appointed colour for the clothes of certain descriptions of persons,
it may, perhaps, not be wholly irrelevant to observe that Bentley, in
his "Dissertation on Phalaris," page 258, mentions blue as the costume
of his guards, and quotes Cicero's "Tusculan Questions," lib. 5, for his
authority. I cannot at present turn to the passage in Cicero, but
Bentley's quotation may surely be accepted as evidence of the existence
of the passage.

_Twickenham._ H. H.

* * * * *

EXTRAORDINARY CRIMINALS.

_(For the Mirror.)_

On the trial of _Henry Marshall_, Dec. 4, 1723, for murder and
deer-stealing, a very remarkable circumstance took place. Sentence of
death had no sooner been pronounced on this offender, than he was
immediately deprived of the use of his tongue; nor did he recover his
speech till a few hours preceding his execution.

G. W. N.

* * * * *

_July, 1736_--Reynolds, condemned upon the Black Act, for going armed in
disguise, in pulling down Lothbury turn-pike, with one Baylis,
(reprieved, and transported for 14 years,) was carried to Tyburn, where,
having prayed and sung psalms, he was turned off, and being thought
dead, was cut down by the hangman as usual, who had procured a hole to
be dug at some distance from the gallows, to bury him in; but just as
they had put him into his coffin, and were about to fasten him up, he
thrust back the lid, and to the astonishment of the spectators, placed
his hands on the sides of the coffin in order to raise himself up. Some
of the people, in their first surprise, were for knocking him on the
head; but the executioner insisted upon hanging him up again; when the
mob, thinking otherwise, cried, "Save his life," and fell upon the poor
executioner, (who stickled hard for fulfilling the law,) and beat him in
a miserable manner; they then carried the prisoner to a public-house at
Bayswater, where he was put to bed; he vomited about three pints of
blood, and it was thought he would recover; but he died soon after. The
sheriffs' officers, believing the prisoner dead, had retired from the
place of execution before he was cut down.

_Sept. 3, 1736._--Venham and Harding, two malefactors, were executed
this day at Bristol. After they were cut down, Venham was perceived to
have life in him, when put in the coffin; and some lightermen and
others, having carried him to a house, a sur