her recovery to marry her guardian, which as soon as her health
was sufficiently restored, she performed in the presence of a maid
servant, her sister, and a gentleman who had married a relation. In a
word, she was married, possessed, and ruin'd.

The husband of our poetess brought her to London, fixed her in a
remote quarter of it, forbad her to stir out of doors, or to receive
the visits of her sister, or any other relations, friends, or
acquaintance. This usage, she thought exceeding barbarous, and it
grieved her the more excessively, since she married him only because
she imagined he loved and doated on her to distraction; for as
his person was but ordinary, and his age disproportioned, being
twenty-years older than she, it could not be imagined that she was in
love with him.--She was very uneasy at being kept a prisoner; but
her husband's fondness and jealousy was made the pretence. She always
loved reading, to which she was now more than ever obliged, as so
much time lay upon her hands: Soon after she proved with child, and
so perpetually ill, that she implored her husband to let her enjoy the
company of her sister and friends. When he could have no relief from
her importunity (being assured that in seeing her relations, she must
discover his barbarous deceit) he thought it was best to be himself
the relator of his villany; he fell upon his knees before her, with so
much seeming confusion, distress and anguish, that she was at a loss
to know what could mould his stubborn heart to such contrition. At
last, with a thousand well counterfeited tears, and sighs, he stabb'd
her with the wounding relation of his wife's being still alive; and
with a hypocrite's pangs conjured her to have some mercy on a lost
man as he was, in an obstinate, inveterate passion, that had no
alternative but death, or possession.