zles, whose solution is a pleasant irritant to the
idle brain. The misunderstanding of Poe has produced a vast polyglot
literature, for which one would not give in exchange a single chapter of
Captain Smith. Vautrin and Bill Sykes are already discredited, and it
is a false reflection of M. Dupin, which dazzles the eye of a moral and
unimaginative world. Yet the wise man sighs for those fearless days,
when the brilliant Macheath rode vizarded down Shooter's Hill, and
presently saw his exploits set forth, with the proper accompaniment of a
renowned and ancient woodcut, upon a penny broadside.

CAPTAIN HIND

JAMES HIND, the Master Thief of England, the fearless Captain of the
Highway, was born at Chipping Norton in 1618. His father, a simple
saddler, had so poor an appreciation of his son's magnanimity, that he
apprenticed him to a butcher; but Hind's destiny was to embrue his
hands in other than the blood of oxen, and he had not long endured the
restraint of this common craft when forty shillings, the gift of
his mother, purchased him an escape, and carried him triumphant and
ambitious to London.

Even in his negligent schooldays he had fastened upon a fitting
career. A born adventurer, he sought only enterprise and command: if a
commission in the army failed him, then he would risk his neck upon the
road, levying his own tax and imposing his own conditions. To one of his
dauntless resolution an opportunity need never have lacked; yet he owed
his first preferment to a happy accident. Surprised one evening in a
drunken brawl, he was hustled into the Poultry Counter, and there made
acquaintance over a fresh bottle with Robert Allen, one of the chief
rogues in the Park, and a ruffian, who had mastered every trick in the
game of plunder. A dexterous cly-faker, an intrepid blade, Allen had
also the keenest eye for untested talent, and he detected Hind's shining
qualities after the first glass. No sooner had they paid the price of
release, than Hind was admitted of his comrade's gang; he took the
oath of fealty, and by way of winning his spurs was bid to hold up
a traveller on Shooter's Hill. Granted his choice of a mount, he
straightway took the finest in the stable, with that keen perception of
horse-flesh which never deserted him, and he confronted his first victim
in the liveliest of humours. There was no falter in his voice, no hint
of inexperience in his manner, when he shouted the battle-cry: 'Stand
and delive