s, which here follows in the original, was taken from
the newspapers of the day. Coming from such a source they
have, as may be imagined, no literary merit whatever. The
details of the crime are simply horrible, without one touch
of even that sort of romance which sometimes gives a little
dignity to murder. As such they precisely suited Mr.
Thackeray's purpose at the time--which was to show the real
manners and customs of the Sheppards and Turpins who were
then the popular heroes of fiction. But nowadays there is
no such purpose to serve, and therefore these too literal
details are omitted.

*****

Ring, ding, ding! the gloomy green curtain drops, the dramatis personae
are duly disposed of, the nimble candle snuffers put out the lights, and
the audience goeth pondering home. If the critic take the pains to ask
why the author, who hath been so diffuse in describing the early and
fabulous acts of Mrs. Catherine's existence, should so hurry off the
catastrophe where a deal of the very finest writing might have been
employed, Solomons replies that the "ordinary" narrative is far
more emphatic than any composition of his own could be, with all the
rhetorical graces which he might employ. Mr. Aram's trial, as taken by
the penny-a-liners of those days, had always interested him more than
the lengthened and poetical report which an eminent novelist has given
of the same. Mr. Turpin's adventures are more instructive and agreeable
to him in the account of the Newgate Plutarch, than in the learned
Ainsworth's Biographical Dictionary. And as he believes that the
professional gentlemen who are employed to invest such heroes with the
rewards that their great actions merit, will go through the ceremony of
the grand cordon with much more accuracy and despatch than can be shown
by the most distinguished amateur; in like manner he thinks that the
history of such investitures should be written by people directly
concerned, and not by admiring persons without, who must be ignorant of
many of the secrets of Ketchcraft. We very much doubt if Milton himself
could make a description of an execution half so horrible as the simple
lines in the Daily Post of a hundred and ten years since, that now lies
before us--"herrlich wie am ersten Tag,"--as bright and clean as on
the day of publication. Think of it! it has been read by Belinda at her
toilet, scanned at "Button's"