ve
looked complacently upon the officers of the law, but he saw in
the glorification of the bayliff another chance of castigating the
Roundheads, and thus he set an honorific crown upon the brow of man's
natural enemy. 'These unsanctified rascals,' wrote he, 'would run into
any man's debt without paying him, and if their creditors were Cavaliers
they thought they had as much right to cheat 'em, as the Israelites had
to spoil the Egyptians of their ear-rings and jewels.' Alas! the boot
was ever on the other leg; and yet you cannot but admire the Captain's
valiant determination to sacrifice probability to his legitimate hate.

Of his declining years and death there is no record. One likes to think
of him released from care, and surrounded by books, flowers, and the
good things of this earth. Now and again, maybe, he would muse on the
stirring deeds of his youth, and more often he would put away the memory
of action to delight in the masterpiece which made him immortal. He
would recall with pleasure, no doubt, the ready praise of Richard
Steele, his most appreciative critic, and smile contemptuously at the
baseness of his friend and successor, Captain Charles Johnson. Now, this
ingenious writer was wont to boast, when the ale of Fleet Street had
empurpled his nose, that he was the most intrepid highwayman of them
all. 'Once upon a time,' he would shout, with an arrogant gesture, 'I
was known from Blackheath to Hounslow, from Ware to Shooter's Hill.'
And the truth is, the only 'crime' he ever committed was plagiarism.
The self-assumed title of Captain should have deceived nobody, for the
braggart never stole anything more difficult of acquisition than another
man's words. He picked brains, not pockets; he committed the greater
sin and ran no risk. He helped himself to the admirable inventions
of Captain Smith without apology or acknowledgment, and, as though to
lighten the dead-weight of his sin, he never skipped an opportunity of
maligning his victim. Again and again in the very act to steal he will
declare vaingloriously that Captain Smith's stories are 'barefaced
inventions.' But doubt was no check to the habit of plunder, and you
knew that at every reproach, expressed (so to say) in self-defence, he
plied the scissors with the greater energy. The most cunning theft is
the tag which adorns the title-page of his book:

Little villains oft submit to fate
That great ones may enjoy the world in state.

Thus he q