a lifelong loyalty, it was Peg Cunningham
who wreaked her vengeance in the betrayal of Gilderoy. He remained true
to his character, when he ripped up the belly of his betrayer. This was
the closing act of his life.

Rann, also, was consistent, even to the gallows. The night before his
death he entertained seven women at supper, and outlaughed them all. The
contrast is not so violent as it appears. The one act is melodrama, the
other farce. And what is farce, but melodrama in a happier shape?

THOMAS PURENEY

THOMAS PURENEY, Archbishop among Ordinaries, lived and preached in
the heyday of Newgate. His was the good fortune to witness Sheppard's
encounter with the topsman, and to shrive the battered soul of Jonathan
Wild. Nor did he fall one inch below his opportunity. Designed by
Providence to administer a final consolation to the evil-doer, he
permitted no false ambition to distract his talent. As some men are born
for the gallows, so he was born to thump the cushion of a prison pulpit;
and his peculiar aptitude was revealed to him before he had time to
spend his strength in mistaken endeavour.

For thirty years his squat, stout figure was amiably familiar to all
such as enjoyed the Liberties of the Jug. For thirty years his mottled
nose and the rubicundity of his cheeks were the ineffaceable ensigns of
his intemperance. Yet there was a grimy humour in his forbidding aspect.
The fusty black coat, which sat ill upon his shambling frame, was all
besmirched with spilled snuff, and the lees of a thousand quart pots.
The bands of his profession were ever awry upon a tattered shirt. His
ancient wig scattered dust and powder as he went, while a single buckle
of some tawdry metal gave a look of oddity to his clumsy, slipshod
feet. A caricature of a man, he ambled and chuckled and seized the easy
pleasures within his reach. There was never a summer's day but he caught
upon his brow the few faint gleams of sunlight that penetrated the
gloomy yard. Hour after hour he would sit, his short fingers hardly
linked across his belly, drinking his cup of ale, and puffing at a
half-extinguished tobacco-pipe. Meanwhile he would reflect upon those
triumphs of oratory which were his supreme delight. If it fell on a
Monday that he took the air, a smile of satisfaction lit up his
fat, loose features, for still he pondered the effect of yesterday's
masterpiece. On Saturday the glad expectancy of to-morrow lent him
a certain joyous dig