way robbery, diversified
by an occasional murder, that, with the finisher of the law's assistance,
he had ended his exploits in what the slang of his class called "a
breakfast of hartichoke with caper sauce." How hateful the phrase! But
it was one of many such popularly current in those days.

The author of my "Thieves' Anthology" was described in my paper as a
well-born man of good education, who, having ruined himself by his bad
habits, had fallen into the criminal ranks, but had not forgotten the
_literae humaniores_ which he had learned at the Heidelberg University.
Of the purpose with which he had written he spoke thus in what I
described as the fragments of a preface to his Miscellany:--

"To rescue from oblivion the martyrs of independence, to throw around
the mighty names that flash upon us from the squalor of the
Chronicles of Newgate the radiance of a storied imagination, to
clothe the gibbet and the hulks 'in golden exhalations of the dawn,'
and secure for the boozing-ken and the gin-palace that hold upon the
general sympathies which has too long been monopolised by the cottage
and the drawing-room, has been the aim and the achievement of many
recent authors of distinction. How they have succeeded, let the
populous state of the public jails attest. The office of 'dubsman'
[hangman] has ceased to be a sinecure, and the public and Mr Joseph
Hume have the satisfaction of knowing that these useful functionaries
have now got something to do for their salaries. The number of their
pupils has increased, is increasing, and is not likely to be
diminished. But much remains to be done. Many an untenanted cell
still echoes only to the sighs of its own loneliness. New jails are
rising around us, which require to be filled. The Penitentiary
presently erecting at Perth is of the most commodious description.

"In this state of things I have bethought myself of throwing, in the
words of Goethe, 'my corn into the great seed-field of time,' in the
hope that it may blossom to purposes of great public utility. The
aid of poetry has hitherto been but partially employed in the spread
of a taste for Conveyancing, especially in its higher branches. Or
where the Muse has shown herself, it has been but in the evanescent
glimpses of a song. She has plumed her wings for no sustained
flight. . . .

"The power of poetry ov