f Mr. Blandy, was prosecuted to outlawry, the learned judge
observing with reference to the form adopted on that occasion, "It
was natural to suppose groat care had been taken in settling it,
because some of the most eminent gentlemen in the profession were
employed in it."

"Alas! the record of her page will tell
That one thus madden'd, lov'd, and guilty fell.
Who hath not heard of Blandy's fatal fame,
Deplor'd her fate, and sorrow'd o'er her shame?"

Thus the author of _Henley_: A Poem (Hickman & Stapledon, 1827);
and, indeed, the frequent references to the case in the "literary
remains" of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries bear witness to
the justice of that poetic observation.

The inimitable _Letters_ of Horace Walpole contain, as might be
expected, more than one mention of this _cause celebre_. Writing on
23rd March, 1752, to Horace Mann, he says, "There are two wretched
women that just now are as much talked of [as the two Miss
Gunnings], a Miss Jefferies and a Miss Blandy; the one condemned for
murdering her uncle, the other her father. Both their stories have
horrid circumstances; the first having been debauched by her uncle;
the other had so tender a parent, that his whole concern while he
was expiring, and knew her for his murderess, was to save her life.
It is shocking to think what shambles this country is grown!
Seventeen were executed this morning, after having murdered the
turnkey on Friday night, and almost forced open Newgate. One is
forced to travel, even at noon, as if one was going to battle." And
again, on 13th May, "Miss Blandy died with a coolness of courage
that is astonishing, and denying the fact, which has made a kind of
party in her favour; as if a woman who would not stick at parricide
would scruple a lie! We have made a law for immediate execution on
conviction of murder: it will appear extraordinary to me if it has
any effect; for I can't help believing that the terrible part of
death must be the preparation for it." The "law" regarding summary
executions to which Walpole refers is the Act already mentioned. To
Henry Seymour Conway, on 23rd June, he writes, "Since the two Misses
[Blandy and Jefferies] were hanged, and the two Misses [the
beautiful Gunnings] were married, there is nothing at all talked
of." On 28th August he writes to George Montague, "I have since been
with Mr. Conway at Park Place, where I saw the individual Mr.
Cooper, a banker, and lord of the manor