ral degrees,
though it is contrary often to public government; for here a man shall
be valued purely for his merit, and rise by it too, though it be but to
a halter, in which there is a great deal of glory in dying like a hero,
and making a decent figure in the cart to the last two staves of the
fifty-first psalm."[28]

This, we repeat, is the plain statement of a practical man, and again we
throw out the hint for adoption. All we regret is, that we are now
degenerated from the grand tobyman to the cracksman and the sneak, about
whom there are no redeeming features. How much lower the next generation
of thieves will dive it boots not to conjecture:

AEtas parentum pejor avis tulit,
Nos nequiores; mox daturos,
Progeniem vitiosiorem.

"Cervantes laughed Spain's chivalry away," sang Byron; and if Gay did
not extinguish the failing flame of our _night_ errantry--unlike the
"Robbers" of Schiller, which is said to have inflamed the Saxon youth
with an irrepressible mania for brigandage--, the "Beggar's Opera"
helped not to fan the dying fire. That laugh was fatal, as laughs
generally are. Macheath gave the highwayman his _coup de grace_.

The last of this race--for we must persist in maintaining that he _was_
the last--, Turpin, like the setting sun, threw up some parting rays of
glory, and tinged the far highways with a luster that may yet be traced
like a cloud of dust raised by his horse's retreating heels. Unequalled
in the command of his steed, the most singular feat that the whole race
of the annals of horsemanship has to record, and of which we may have
more to say hereafter, was achieved by him. So perfect was his
jockeyship, so clever his management of the animal he mounted, so
intimately acquainted was he with every cross-road in the neighborhood
of the metropolis--a book of which he constructed, and carried
constantly about his person--, as well as with many other parts of
England, particularly the counties of Chester, York, and Lancaster, that
he outstripped every pursuer, and baffled all attempts at capture. His
reckless daring, his restless rapidity--for so suddenly did he change
his ground, and renew his attacks in other quarters, that he seemed to
be endowed with ubiquity,--his bravery, his resolution, and, above all,
his generosity, won for him a high reputation amongst his compatriots,
and even elicited applauses from those upon whom he levied his
contributions.

Beyond dispute, he ruled a