it Ranelagh with the
most distinguished, and turn a while from epigram and jest to empty the
pocket of a rich acquaintance. And ever with so tactful a certainty,
with so fine a restraint of the emotions, that suspicion was
preposterous. To catalogue his exploits is superfluous, yet let it be
recorded that once he went to Court, habited as a clergyman, and came
home the richer for a diamond order, Lord C--'s proudest decoration.
Even the assault upon Prince Orloff was nobly planned. Barrington had
precise intelligence of the marvellous snuff-box--the Empress's own gift
to her lover; he knew also how he might meet the Prince at Drury Lane;
he had even discovered that the Prince for safety hid the jewel in his
vest. But the Prince felt the Prig's hand upon the treasure, and gave an
instant alarm. Over-confidence, maybe, or a too liberal dinner was the
cause of failure, and Barrington, surrounded in a moment, was speedily
in the lock-up. It was the first rebuff that the hero had received, and
straightway his tact and ingenuity left him. The evidence was faulty,
the prosecution declined, and naught was necessary for escape save
presence of mind. Even friends were staunch, and had Barrington told his
customary lie, his character had gone unsullied. Yet having posed for
his friends as a student of the law, at Bow Street he must needs declare
himself a doctor, and the needless discrepancy ruined him. Though he
escaped the gallows, there was an end to the diversions of intellect and
fashion; as he discovered when he visited the House of Lords to hear an
appeal, and Black Rod ejected him at the persuasion of Mr. G--. As yet
unused to insult, he threatened violence against the aggressor, and
finding no bail he was sent on his first imprisonment to the Bridewell
in Tothill Fields. Rapid, indeed, was the descent. At the first grip of
adversity, he forgot his cherished principles, and two years later the
loftiest and most elegant gentlemen that ever picked a pocket was at the
Hulks--for robbing a harlot at Drury Lane! Henceforth, his insolence
and artistry declined, and, though to the last there were intervals of
grandeur, he spent the better part of fifteen years in the commission of
crimes, whose very littleness condemned them. At last an exile from St.
James's and Ranelagh, he was forced into a society which still further
degraded him. Hitherto he had shunned the society of professed thieves;
in his golden youth he had scorned to sh