Mother D––s had not many extraordinary adventures after that which we have related in the last chapter. But as the reader may form a perfect idea of her character from those which we have already laid before him, we shall now proceed to the concluding scene of her life, and faithfully relate all the circumstances which attended the death of this substitute of Satan.

            She was a long time afflicted with the dropsy, and many other disorders, which are the natural consequences of such an irregular life as she led.

            She suffered great pain and misery for some time before she made her exit; and these were considerably aggravated by uneasy reflections upon her past guilt.

            She had recourse to the reverend Mr W––d,* being persuaded that he alone could save her from the rocks of perdition, and conduct her into the harbour of salvation.

            *Note: But Mr F––te, in the Minor, made her a Methodist, before her time. He coming into her house one day, and hearing her cursing at her old rate, cried,–"Why, Old Jenny, you'll never repent"––"No! replied she, for by G-d, I SCORN repentance as much as YOU do."

            This worthy divine attended her every day, and exhorted her in the most pathetic terms, to think seriously of regeneration, and the new birth.

            Old Jane, who perceived that she was no longer a woman for this work, turned her thoughts to an hereafter, and found great consolation in the conversation of this holy man.

            Jane sometimes finding herself a little better, went out in a coach to the tabernacle.

            The pious preacher was very assiduous in his visits to this poor sinner, who constlantly struggled with God (for she had no mind to die) and the charitable Mr W––d prayed for her every day at the tabernacle.

            However, the fatal hour at last arrived, and the illustrious Mother D––s paid the debt to nature on the second of June 1761.

            She was the same night carried privately out of her dwelling-house to an undertaker's. This measure was very prudent, as there was reason to apprehend, that the mob might rise, and some mischief ensue on the occasion. So she was buried privately in the night-time on the eighth of the month in Paddington churchyard.

            She died a true penitent, in the seventy-fourth year of her age, but very little lamented.

            It were to be wished, that eloquence of Mr W––d, or that of the elegant writer, the ordinary of Newgate, had done justice to the memory of Jane D––s. But we shall not vainly attempt to give a charater of her. As we know our abilities are very unequal to such a task.

            Having thus concluded the life of this illustrious personage we shall take our leave of the reader, with the following lines of the Latin poet,

Credo pudicatiam, Saturno Rege, moratam
In terris visamque diu.<140>

FINIS

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