Note 72 — Chapter XI
Reading edition
The Fatal Effects of Gambling Exemplified in the Murder of Wm. Weare and the Trial and Fate of John Thurtell, the Murderer, and his Accomplices. London: Thomas Kelly, Paternoster Row. 1824. I have a very considerable number of Weare pamphlets in my possession, one of them being a record of the trial by Pierce Egan, the author of Life in London and Boxiana. Walter Scott writes in his diary of being absorbed in an account of the trial, while he deprecates John Bull's maudlin sentiment over 'the pitiless assassin.' That was in 1826, but in 1828 Scott went out of his way when travelling from London to Edinburgh, to visit Gill's Hill, and describes the scene of the tragedy very vividly. Lockhart's Life, ch. lxxvi.