he music, 'I
have ever cherished an honest pride: never have I stooped to friendship
with Jonathan Wild, or with any of his detestable thief-takers; and,
though an undutiful son, I never damned my mother's eyes.'

Thus died Jack Sheppard; intrepid burglar and incomparable artist, who,
in his own separate ambition of prison-breaking, remains, and will ever
remain, unrivalled. His most brilliant efforts were the result neither
of strength nor of cunning; for so slight was he of build, so deficient
in muscle, that both Edgworth Bess and Mistress Maggot were wont to
bang him to their own mind and purpose. And an escape so magnificently
planned, so bravely executed as was his from the Strong Room, is far
greater than a mere effect of cunning. Those mysterious gifts which
enable mankind to batter the stone walls of a prison, or to bend the
iron bars of a cage, were pre-eminently his. It is also certain that he
could not have employed his gifts in a more reputable profession.

II--LOUIS-DOMINIQUE CARTOUCHE

Of all the heroes who have waged a private and undeclared war upon their
neighbours, Louis-Dominique Cartouche was the most generously endowed.
It was but his resolute contempt for politics, his unswerving love of
plunder for its own sake, that prevented him from seizing a throne or
questing after the empire of the world. The modesty of his ambition sets
him below Caesar, or Napoleon, but he yields to neither in the genius
of success: whatever he would attain was his on the instant, nor did
failure interrupt his career, until treachery, of which he went in
perpetual terror, involved himself and his comrades in ruin. His talent
of generalship was unrivalled. None of the gang was permitted the
liberty of a free-lance. By Cartouche was the order given, and so long
as the chief was in repose, Paris might enjoy her sleep. When it pleased
him to join battle a whistle was enough.

Now, it was revealed to his intelligence that the professional thief,
who devoted all his days and such of his nights as were spared from
depredation to wine and women, was more readily detected than the
valet-de-chambre, who did but crack a crib or cry 'Stand and deliver!'
on a proper occasion. Wherefore, he bade his soldiers take service in
the great houses of Paris, that, secure of suspicion, they might
still be ready to obey the call of duty. Thus, also, they formed a
reconnoitring force, whose vigilance no prize might elude; and nowhere