ill. I was locked up for fifteen hours, with only an old servant of the

family to attend me. I was not allowed a maid for the common decencies of my sex. I was sent to gaol, and was in hopes, there, at least, this usage would have ended, but was told it was reported I was frequently drunk--that I attempted to make my escape--that I never attended the chapel. A more abstemious woman, my lords, I believe, does not live.

“Upon the report of my making my escape, the gentleman who was High Sheriff last year (not the present) came and told me, by order of the higher powers, he must put an iron on me. I submitted, as I always do to the higher powers. Some time after, he came again, and said he must put a heavier upon me, which I have worn, my lords, till I came hither. I asked the Sheriff why I was so ironed? He said he did it by command of some noble peer, on his hearing that I intended to make my escape. I told them I never had such a thought, and I would bear it with the other cruel usage I had received on my character. The Rev. Mr. Swinton, the worthy clergyman who attended me in prison, can testify that I was very regular at the chapel when I was well. Sometimes I really was not able to come out, and then he attended me in my room. They likewise published papers and depositions which ought not to have been published, in order to represent me as the most abandoned of my sex, and to prejudice the world against me. I submit myself to your lordships, and to the worthy jury. I can assure your lordships, as I am to answer it before that Grand Tribunal where I must appear, I am as innocent as the child unborn of the death of my father. I would not endeavour to save my life at the expense of truth. I really thought the powder an innocent, inoffensive thing, and I gave it to procure his love. It was mentioned, I should say, I was ruined. My lords, when a young woman loses her character, is not that her ruin? Why, then, should this expression be construed in so wide a sense? Is it not ruining my character to have such a thing laid to my charge? And whatever may be the event of this trial, I am ruined most effectually.”

A strange apology--amazing in its effrontery!

Gentle Heneage Legge speaks long and tenderly, while the listeners shudder with horror as they hear the dismal history unfolded in all entirety for the first time. No innocent heart could have penned that last brief warning to her lover--none but an accomplice would have received his cryptic message. Every word in the testimony of the stern doctor seems to hail her parricide--every action of her stealthy career has been noted by the watchful eyes of her servants. And, as if in damning confirmation of her guilt, there is the black record of her flight from the scene of crime. Eight o’clock has sounded when the judge has finished. For a few moments the jury converse in hurried whispers. It is ominous that they make no attempt to leave the court, but merely draw closer together. Then, after the space of five minutes they turn, and the harsh tones of the clerk of arraigns sound through the chamber.

“Mary Blandy, hold up thy hand.... Gentlemen of the jury, look upon the prisoner. How say you: Is Mary Blandy guilty of the felony and murder whereof she stands indicted, or not guilty?”

“Guilty!” comes the low, reluctant answer.

Never has more piteous drama been played within the cold fair walls of the divinity school than that revealed by the guttering candles on this chill March night. Amidst the long black shadows, through which gleam countless rows of pallid faces, in the deep silence, broken at intervals by hushed sobs, the invincible woman stands with unruffled mien to receive her sentence. As the verdict is declared, a smile seems to play upon her lips. While the judge, with tearful eyes and broken voice, pronounces her doom, she listens without a sign of fear. There is a brief, breathless pause, while all wait with fierce-beating hearts for her reply. No trace of terror impedes her utterance. Thanking the judge for his candour and impartiality, she turns to her counsel, among whom only Richard Aston rose to eminence, and, with a touch of pretty forethought, wishes them better success in their other causes. Then, and her voice grows more solemn, she begs for a little time to settle her affairs and to make her peace with God. To which his lordship replies with great emotion:

“To be sure, you shall have proper time allowed you.”

When she is conducted from the court she steps into her coach with the air of a belle whose chair is to take her to a fashionable rout. The fatal news has reached the prison before her arrival. As she enters the keeper’s house, which for so long has been her home, she finds the family overcome with grief and the children all in tears.

“Don’t mind it,” she cries, cheerfully. “What does it matter? I am very hungry. Pray let me have something for supper as soon as possible.”

That sombre heart of hers is a brave one also.

All this time William Cranstoun, worthy brother in all respects of Simon Tappertit, had been in hiding--in Scotland perhaps, or, as some say, in Northumberland--watching with fearful quakings for the result of the trial. Shortly after the conviction of his accomplice he managed to take ship to the Continent, and luckily for his country he never polluted its soil again. There are several contemporary accounts of his adventures in France and in the Netherlands, to which the curious may refer. All agree that he confessed his share in the murder when he was safe from justice. With unaccustomed propriety, our Lady Fate soon hastened to snap the thread of his existence, and on the 3rd of December of this same year, at the little town of Furnes in Flanders, aged thirty-eight, he drew his last breath. A short time before, being seized with remorse for his sins, he had given the Catholic Church the honour of enrolling him a proselyte. Indeed the conversion of so great a ruffian was regarded as such a feather in their cap that the good monks and friars advertised the event by means of a sumptuous funeral.

Worthy Judge Legge fulfils his promise to the unhappy Miss Blandy, and she is given six weeks in which to prepare herself for death. Meek and more softened is the sombre woman, who, like a devoted penitent, submits herself day after day to the vulgar gaze of a hundred eyes, while she bows in all humility before the altar of her God. Yet her busy brain is aware that those to whom she looks for intercession are keeping a careful watch upon her demeanour. For she has begged her godmother Mrs Mountenay to ask one of the bishops to speak for her; she is said to entertain the hope that the recently-bereaved Princess will endeavour to obtain a reprieve. In the fierce war of pamphleteers, inevitable in those days, she takes her share, playing with incomparable tact to the folly of the credulous. Although the majority, perhaps, believe her guilty, she knows that a considerable party is in her favour. On the 20th of March is published “A Letter from a Clergyman to Miss Blandy, with her Answer,” in which she tells the story of her share in the tragedy. During the remainder of her imprisonment she extends this narrative into a long account of the whole case--assisted, it is believed, by her spiritual adviser, the Rev. John Swinton, who, afflicted possibly by one of his famous fits of woolgathering, seems convinced of her innocence. No human effort, however, is of any avail. Both the second and third George, knowing their duty as public entertainers, seldom cheated the gallows of a victim of distinction.

Originally the execution had been fixed for Saturday, the 4th of April, but is postponed until the following Monday, because the University authorities do not think it seemly that the sentence shall be carried out during Holy Week. A great crowd collects in the early morning outside the prison walls before the announcement of the short reprieve, and it speaks marvels for the discipline of the gaol that Miss Blandy is allowed to go up into rooms facing the Castle Green so that she can view the throng. Gazing upon the assembly without a tremor, she says merely that she will not balk their expectations much longer. On Sunday she takes sacrament for the last time, and signs a declaration in which she denies once more all knowledge that the powder was poisonous. In the evening, hearing that the Sheriff has arrived in the town, she sends a request that she may not be disturbed until eight o’clock the next morning.

It was half-past the hour she had named when the dismal procession reached the door of her chamber. The Under-Sheriff was accompanied by the Rev. John Swinton, and by her friend Mr Rives, the lawyer. Although her courage did not falter, she appeared meek and repentant, and spoke with anxiety of her future state, in doubt whether she would obtain pardon for her sins. This penitent mood encouraged the clergyman to beg her declare the whole truth, to which she replied that she must persist in asserting her innocence to the end. No entreaty would induce her to retract the solemn avowal.

At nine o’clock she was conducted from her room, dressed in the same black gown that she had worn at the trial, with her hands and arms tied by strong black silk ribbons. A crowd of five thousand persons, hushed and expectant, was waiting on the Castle Green to witness her sufferings. Thirty yards from the door of the gaol, whence she was led into the open air, stood the gallows--a beam placed across the arms of two trees. Against it lay a step-ladder covered with black cloth. The horror of her crime must have been forgotten by all who gazed upon the calm and brave woman. For truly she died like a queen. Serene and fearless she walked to the fatal spot, and joined most fervently with the clergyman in prayer. After this was ended they told her that if she wished she might speak to the spectators.

“Good people,” she cried, in a clear, audible voice, “give me leave to declare to you that I am perfectly innocent as to any intention to destroy or even hurt my dear father; that I did not know, or even suspect, that there was any poisonous quality in the fatal powder I gave him; though I can never be too much punished for being the innocent cause of his death. As to my mother’s and Mrs Pocock’s deaths, that have been unjustly laid to my charge, I am not even the innocent cause of them, nor did I in the least contribute to them. So help me, God, in these my last moments. And may I not meet with eternal salvation, nor be acquitted by Almighty God, in whose awful presence I am instantly to appear hereafter, if the whole of what is here asserted is not true. I from the bottom of my soul forgive all those concerned in my prosecution; and particularly the jury, notwithstanding their fatal verdict.”

Then, having ascended five steps of the ladder, she turned to the officials. “Gentlemen,” she requested, with a show of modesty, “do not hang me high.” The humanity of those whose task it was to put her to death, forced them to ask her to go a little higher. Climbing two steps more, she then looked round, and trembling, said, “I am afraid I shall fall.” Still, her invincible courage enabled her to address the crowd once again. “Good people,” she said, “take warning by me to be on your guard against the sallies of any irregular passion, and pray for me that I may be accepted at the Throne of Grace.” While the rope was being placed around her neck it touched her face, and she gave a deep sigh. Then with her own fingers she moved it to one side. A white handkerchief had been bound across her forehead, and she drew it over her features. As it did not come low enough, a woman, who had attended her and who had fixed the noose around her throat, stepped up and pulled it down. For a while she stood in prayer, and then gave the signal by thrusting out a little book which she held in her hand. The ladder was moved from under her feet, and in obedience to the laws of her country she was suspended in the air, swaying and convulsed, until the grip of the rope choked the breath from her body.

Horrible! Yet only in degree are our own methods different from those employed a hundred and fifty years ago.

During the whole of the sad tragedy, the crowd, unlike the howling mob at Tyburn, maintained an awestruck silence. There were few dry eyes, though the sufferer did not shed a tear, and hundreds of those who witnessed her death went away convinced of her innocence. An elegant young man named Edward Gibbon, with brain wrapped in the mists of theology, who for three days had been gentleman commoner at Magdalen, does not appear to have been attracted to the scene. Surely George Selwyn must be maligned, else he would have posted to Oxford to witness this spectacle. It would have been his only opportunity of seeing a gentlewoman in the hands of the executioner.

After hanging for half an hour with the feet, in consequence of her request, almost touching the ground, the body was carried upon the shoulders of one of the sheriff’s men to a neighbouring house. At five o’clock in the afternoon the coffin containing her remains was taken in a hearse to Henley, where, in the dead of night, amidst a vast concourse, it was interred in the chancel of the parish church between the graves of her father and mother.

So died ‘the unfortunate Miss Blandy’ in the thirty-second year of her age--with a grace and valour which no scene on the scaffold has ever excelled. If, as the authors of _The Beggars Opera_ and _The History of Jonathan Wild_ have sought to show, in playful irony, the greatness of the criminal is comparable with the greatness of the statesman, then she must rank with Mary of Scotland and Catherine of Russia among the queens of crime. Hers was the soul of steel, theirs also the opportunity.

In every period the enormity of a sin can be estimated only by its relation to the spirit of the age; and in spite of cant and sophistry, the contemporaries of Miss Blandy made no legal distinction between the crimes of parricide and petty larceny. Nay, the same rope that strangled the brutal cut-throat in a few moments might prolong the agony of a poor thief for a quarter of an hour. Had the doctors succeeded in saving the life of the old attorney, the strange law which in later times put to death Elizabeth Fenning would have been powerless to demand the life of Mary Blandy for a similar offence. The protests of Johnson and Fielding against the iniquity of the criminal code fell on idle ears.

Thus we may not judge Mary Blandy from the standpoint of our own moral grandeur, for she is a being of another world--one of the vain, wilful, selfish children to whom an early Guelph was king--merely one of the blackest sheep in a flock for the most part ill-favoured. As we gaze upon her portrait there comes a feeling that we do not know this sombre woman after all, for though the artist has produced a faithful resemblance, we perceive there is something lacking. We look into part, not into her whole soul. None but one of the immortals--Rembrandt, or his peer--could have shown this queen among criminals as she was: an iron-hearted, remorseless, demon-woman, her fair, cruel visage raised mockingly amidst a chiaroscuro of crime and murkiness unspeakable.

“a narrow, foxy face, Heart-hiding smile, and gay persistent eye.”

In our own country the women of gentle birth who have been convicted of murder since the beginning of the eighteenth century may be counted on the fingers of one hand. Mary Blandy, Constance Kent, Florence Maybrick--for that unsavoury person, Elizabeth Jefferies, has no claim to be numbered in the roll, and the verdict against beautiful Madeleine Smith was ‘Not proven’--these names exhaust the list. And of them, the first alone paid the penalty at the gallows. The annals of crime contain the records of many parricides, some that have been premeditated with devilish art, but scarce one that a daughter has wrought by the most loathsome of coward’s weapons. In comparison with the murderess of Henley, even Frances Howard and Anne Turner were guilty of a venial crime. Mary Blandy stands alone and incomparable--pilloried to all ages among the basest of her sex.

Yet the world soon forgot her. “Since the two misses were hanged,” chats Horace Walpole on the 23rd of June, coupling irreverently the names of Blandy and Jefferies with the beautiful Gunnings--“since the two misses were hanged, and the two misses were married, there is nothing at all talked of.” Society, however, soon found a new thrill in the adventures of the young woman Elizabeth Canning.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE BLANDY CASE

I. CONTEMPORARY TRACTS

1. _An Authentic Narrative of that Most Horrid Parricide._ (Printed in the year 1751. Name of publisher in second edition, M. Cooper.)

2. _A Genuine and Full Account of the Parricide_ committed by Mary Blandy, Oxford; Printed for, and sold by C. Goddard in the High St, and sold by R. Walker in the little Old Bailey, and by all booksellers and pamphlet Shops. (Published November 9, 1751.)

3. _A Letter from a Clergyman to Miss Mary Blandy with her Answer thereto_.... As also Miss Blandy’s Own Narrative. London; Printed for M. Cooper at the Globe in Paternoster Row. 1752. Price four pence. Brit. Mus. (March 20, 1752.)

4. _An Answer to Miss Blandy’s Narrative._ London; Printed for W. Owen, near Temple Bar. 1752. Price 3d. Brit. Mus. (March 27, 1752.)

5. _The Case of Miss Blandy considered_ as a Daughter, as a Gentlewoman, and as a Christian. Oxford; Printed for R. Baldwin, at the Rose in Paternoster Row. Brit. Mus. (April 6, 1752.)

6. _Original Letters to and from Miss Blandy and C---- C----_, London. Printed for S. Johnson, near the Haymarket, Charing Cross. 1752. Brit. Mus. (April 8, 1752.)

7. _A Genuine and Impartial Account of the Life of Miss M. Blandy._ W. Jackson and R. Walker. (April 9, 1752.)

8. _Miss Mary Blandy’s Own Account._ London; Printed for A. Millar in the Strand. 1752 (price one shilling and sixpence). N.B. The Original Account authenticated by Miss Blandy in a proper manner may be seen at the above A. Millar’s. Brit. Mus. (April 10, 1752. The most famous apologia in criminal literature.)

9. _A Candid Appeal to the Public, by a Gentleman of Oxford._ London. Printed for J. Clifford in the Old Bailey, and sold at the Pamphleteer Shops. 1752. Price 6d. Brit. Mus. (April 15, 1752.)

10. _The Tryal of Mary Blandy._ Published by Permission of the Judges. London. Printed for John and James Rivington at the Bible and Crown and in St Paul’s Churchyard. 1752. In folio price two shillings. 8vo. one shilling. Brit. Mus. (April 24, 1752.)

11. _The Genuine Histories_ of the Life and Transactions of John Swan and Eliz. Jeffries, ... and Miss Mary Blandy, London. Printed and sold by T. Bailey opposite the Pewter-Pot-Inn in Leadenhall Street. (Published after April 10, 1752.)

12. _An Authentic and full History of all the Circumstances of the Cruel Poisoning of Mr. Francis Blandy_, printed only for Mr. Wm. Owen, Bookseller at Temple Bar, London, and R. Goadby in Sherborne. Brit. Mus. (Without date. From pp. 113-132 the pamphlet resembles the “Answer to Miss Blandy’s Narrative,” published also by Wm. Owen.)

13. _The Authentic Tryals of John Swan and Elizabeth Jeffryes_.... With the Tryal of Miss Mary Blandy, London. Printed by R. Walker for W. Richards, near the East Gate, Oxford. 1752. Brit. Mus. (Published later than the “Candid Appeal.”)

14. _The Fair Parricide._ A Tragedy in three acts. Founded on a late melancholy event. London. Printed for T. Waller, opp. Fetter Lane. Fleet Street (price 1/). Brit. Mus. (May 5, 1752.)

15. _The Genuine Speech of the Hon. Mr ----_, at the late Trial of Miss Blandy, London; Printed for J. Roberts in Warwick Lane. 1752. (Price sixpence.) Brit. Mus. (May 15, 1752.)

16. _The x x x x Packet Broke Open_, or a letter from Miss Blandy in the Shades below to Capt. Cranstoun in his exile above. London. Printed for M. Cooper at the Globe in Paternoster Row. 1752. Price 6d. Brit. Mus. (May 16, 1752.)

17. _The Secret History of Miss Blandy._ London. Printed for Henry Williams, and sold by the booksellers at the Exchange, in Ludgate St, at Charing Cross, and St. James. Price 1s. 6d. Brit. Mus. (June 11, 1752. A sane and well-written account of the whole story.)

18. _Memoires of the Life of Wm. Henry Cranstoun Esqre._ London. Printed for J. Bouquet, at the White Hart, in Paternoster Row; 1752. Price one shilling. Brit. Mus. (June 18, 1752.)

19. _The Genuine Lives of Capt. Cranstoun and Miss Mary Blandy._ London. Printed for M. Cooper, Paternoster Row, and C. Sympson at the Bible Warehouse, Chancery Lane. 1753. Price one shilling. Brit. Mus.

20. _Capt. Cranstoun’s Account of the poisoning of the Late Mr. Francis Blandy._ London. Printed for R. Richards, the Corner of Bernard’s-Inn, near the Black Swan, Holborn. Brit. Mus. (March 1-3, 1753.)

21. _Memories of the life and most remarkable transactions of Capt. William Henry Cranstoun._ Containing an account of his conduct in his younger years. His letter to his wife to persuade her to disown him as her husband. His trial in Scotland, and the Court’s decree thereto. His courtship of Miss Blandy; his success therein, and the tragical issue of that affair. His voluntary exile abroad with the several accidents that befel him from his flight to his death. His reconciliation to the Church of Rome, with the Conversation he had with a Rev. Father of the Church at the time of his conversion. His miserable death, and pompous funeral. Printed for M. Cooper in Paternoster Row; W. Reeve in Fleet Street; and C. Sympson in Chancery Lane. Price 6d. With a curious print of Capt. Cranstoun. Brit. Mus. (March 10-13, 1753. As the title-page of this pamphlet is torn out of the copy in the Brit. Mus., it is given in full. From pp. 3-21 the tract is identical with “The Genuine Lives,” also published by M. Cooper.)

22. _Parricides!_ The trial of Philip Stansfield, Gt, for the murder of his father in Scotland, 1688. Also the trial of Miss Mary Blandy, for the murder of her Father, at Oxford 1752. London (1810). Printed by J. Dean, 57 Wardour St, Soho for T. Brown, 154 Drury Lane and W. Evans, 14 Market St, St James’s. Brit. Mus.

23. _The Female Parricide_, or the History of Mary-Margaret d’Aubray, Marchioness of Brinvillier.... In which a parallel is drawn between the Marchioness and Miss Blandy. C. Micklewright, Reading. Sold by J. Newbery. Price 1/. (March 5, 1752.)

Lowndes mentions also:--

24. _An Impartial Inquiry into the Case of Miss Blandy._ With reflections on her Trial, Defence, Repentance, Denial, Death. 1753. 8vo.

25. _The Female Parricide._ A Tragedy, by Edward Crane, of Manchester. 1761. 8vo.

26. _A Letter from a Gentleman to Miss Blandy_ with her answer thereto. 1752. 8vo. (Possibly the same as “A Letter from a Clergyman.”)

The two following are advertised in the newspapers of the day:--

27. _Case of Miss Blandy and Miss Jeffreys_ fairly stated, and compared.... R. Robinson, Golden Lion, Ludgate Street. (March 26, 1752.)

28. _Genuine Letters between Miss Blandy and Miss Jeffries_ before and after their Conviction. J. Scott Exchange Alley; W. Owen, Temple Bar; G. Woodfall, Charing Cross. (April 21, 1752.)

29. Broadside. _Execution of Miss Blandy._ Pitts, Printer, Toy and Marble Warehouse, 6 Great St. Andrew’s St. Seven Dials. Brit. Mus.

30. _The Addl. MSS._, 15930. Manuscript Department in the Brit. Mus.

II. CONTEMPORARY NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES

1. _Read’s Weekly Journal_, March and April (1752), February 3 (1753).

2. _The General Advertiser_, August-November (1751), March and April (1752).

3. _The London Evening Post_, March and April (1752).

4. _The Covent Garden Journal_ (Sir Alexander Drawcansir), February, March, and April (1752).

5. _The London Morning Penny Post_, August and September (1751).

6. _Gentleman’s Magazine_, pp. 376, 486-88 (1751), pp. 108-17, 152, 188, 195 (1752), pp. 47, 151 (1753), p. 803, pt. II. (1783).

7. _Universal Magazine_, pp. 114-124, 187, 281 (1752).

8. _London Magazine_, pp. 379, 475, 512(1751), pp. 127, 180, 189(1752), p. 89 (1753).

NOTES

NOTE I.--In recent years the guilt of Cranstoun has been questioned. Yet a supposition that does not explain two damning circumstances must be baseless:

(_a_) In the first place, one of his letters to Miss Blandy, dated July 18, 1751, was read by Bathurst in his opening speech. Although the reports of the trial do not tell us that the note was produced in court, or that the handwriting was verified, it cannot be presumed that the Crown lawyers were guilty of wilful fabrication. However strange it may appear that this letter alone escaped destruction, it is improbable that Miss Blandy invented it. Had she done so its contents would have been more consistent with her defence. As it stands it is most unfavourable to her. Therefore, in the absence of further evidence, we must conclude that the letter is genuine, and if genuine Cranstoun was an accomplice.

(_b_) In the second place, the paper containing the poison which was rescued from the fire, is said by the prosecution to have borne the inscription in Cranstoun’s handwriting, ‘Powder to clean the pebbles’ If this had been counterfeit, Miss Blandy would have had no object in destroying it, but would have kept it for her purpose.

At any cost Lord Cranstoun must have been anxious to remove the black stain from his scutcheon. That this was impossible the fact that it was not done seems to prove. Indeed, if Captain Cranstoun had been ignorant of the crime, he could have proved his innocence as soon as Miss Blandy was arrested by producing her letters, which, granting this hypothesis, would have contained no reference that would have incriminated him. That she had written a great deal to him was shown in evidence at the trial by the clerk Lyttleton.

For these reasons it is impossible to accept the conclusion of the writer of Cranstoun’s life in the _Dic. Nat. Biog._ (who has adopted the assertion in Anderson’s _Scottish Nation_, vol. i. p. 698), that “apart from Miss Blandy’s statement there is nothing to convict him of the murder.”

NOTE II.--Anderson’s statement that “there does not appear to be any grounds for supposing that Captain Cranstoun was in any way accessory to the murder,” shows that he had not a complete knowledge of the facts at his disposal, or that he did not weigh them with precision. Miss Blandy’s intercepted letter to her lover affords a strong presumption of his connivance, and her destruction of his correspondence suggests that it contained incriminating details. That these two actions were subtle devices to cast suspicion upon Cranstoun cannot be maintained with any show of plausibility, for in this case Miss Blandy, if dexterous enough to weave such a crafty plot, must have foreseen its exposure, and with such exposure her own inevitable ruin, when to prove that he was not an accomplice her lover had produced the letters she had written to him. Thus to support such an assumption it must be shown that Cranstoun had previously destroyed every particle of her handwriting, and that she was aware of the fact. Of such an improbable circumstance there is, of course, no evidence.

NOTE III.--“Old Benchers of the Middle Temple,” _Essays of Elia_. The relative of Miss Blandy, with whom Mr Samuel Salt was dining when he made the unfortunate remark which Lamb repeats, may have been Mr Serjeant Henry Stephens of Doctors’ Commons, who was her maternal uncle.

NOTE IV.--The date of Miss Blandy’s birth is not given in the _Dic. Nat. Biog._ From the register of Henley Parish Church it appears that she was baptized on July 15, 1720.

THE UNFORTUNATE BROTHERS

THE CASE OF ROBERT AND DANIEL PERREAU AND MRS MARGARET CAROLINE RUDD, 1775-6

“What’s this dull town to me? Robin’s not near; He whom I wish to see, Wish for to hear. Where’s all the joy and mirth, Made life a heaven on earth? Oh! they’re all fled with thee, Robin Adair.”

When tenor Braham sent his plaintive air ringing through the town, few were alive who could recall the two previous occasions on which also the name of Adair was upon every lip. One day in February 1758 all London had been stirred by the elopement of Lady Caroline Keppel, daughter of second Earl Albemarle, with a rollicking Irish physician who may have been the Robert of the ballad; while during the summer of 1775 the whole world was wondering whether a man or a most beautiful woman must go to Tyburn for using the signature of Mr William Adair, the rich army agent, cousin to Dr Robin of wedding and song. In the first romance the hero received the just title of ‘the fortunate Irishman’: in the latter the chief personages were ‘the unfortunate brothers’ Messrs Robert and Daniel Perreau. Their disaster happened thus:--

On a Tuesday morning, the 7th of March 1775, a slender, middle-aged gentleman walked into the counting-house of Messrs Drummond, the great bankers of Charing Cross. Garbed in a trim snuff-coloured suit, and betraying none of the macaroni eccentricities with the exception of a gold-laced hat, his dress suited the rôle that he played in life--a sleek and prosperous apothecary. This Mr Robert Perreau of Golden Square was welcomed cordially by Henry Drummond, one of the partners in the firm, for an apothecary was almost as eminent as a doctor, and the men had met and known each other at such houses as my Lord Egmont’s or that of my Lady Lyttelton. Producing as security a bond for £7500, bearing a signature that should have been honoured by any house in London, the visitor requested a loan of £5000. However, strange to say, banker Henry, who had been joined by his brother Robert, seemed dissatisfied.

“This bond is made payable to you,” he remarked. “Was you present when it was executed?”

“No, I was not present,” was Mr Perreau’s reply.

“It is not the signature of William Adair, the late army agent of Pall Mall,” was the startling comment of Robert Drummond. “I have seen his drafts many a time!”

The prim countenance of the apothecary remained unperturbed.

“There is no doubt but it is his hand,” he answered, with perfect composure, “for it is witnessed by Mr Arthur Jones, his solicitor, and by Thomas Stark, his servant.”

“It is very odd,” replied the incredulous Robert Drummond. “I have seen his hand formerly, and this does not appear to be the least like it.”

Brother Henry Drummond echoed the same sentiment, whereupon Mr Robert Perreau waxed mysterious and emphatic.

“Mr Adair is my particular friend,” he declared. “There are family connections between us.... Mr Adair has money of mine in his hands, and allows me interest.”

“Come to-morrow, Mr Perreau,” said Henry Drummond, “and we will give you an answer.”

Having received this promise the apothecary departed, but after the lapse of two hours he returned, and was seen by banker Henry once more. Without the least reserve he confessed that he had been much concerned by what the Messrs Drummond had told him.

“I could not be easy in my mind till I had called on Mr Adair,” he explained. “Luckily I catched him in his boots before he went to take his ride.”

Naturally, the good banker listened with interest, noting the words, for it seemed odd that Mr William Adair, the rich squire of Flixton Hall in Suffolk, whose son was carrying on the army agency, should raise money in such a style.

“I produced the bond to Mr Adair,” Robert Perreau continued. “It was his signature, he said, but he might possibly have altered his hand from the time you had seen him write.... You might let me have the £5000, Mr Adair said, and he would pay the bond in May, though it is not payable till June.”

The astute banker, who had talked the matter over with his brother in the interim, did not express his doubts so strongly.

“Leave the bond with me,” he suggested to his visitor, “in order that we may get an assignment of it.”

Which proposal Mr Robert Perreau assented to readily, believing, no doubt, that it was a preface to the payment of his money. In the course of the day the document was shown to a friend of Mr Adair, and finally exhibited to the agent himself. Attentive to the hour of his appointment, Mr Perreau left his gallipots in Golden Square, and reached the Charing Cross bank at eleven o’clock on the following morning. Both partners were ready for him, and suggested that to clear up all doubts it would be wise to call upon Mr William Adair without delay. To this the apothecary assented very readily--indeed, in any case a refusal would have aroused the worst suspicions. As it was a wet morning, he had come in his elegant town coach, and he drove off immediately with one of the bankers to the house of the late agent in Pall Mall. Upon their entrance the squire of Flixton took Mr Henry Drummond by the hand, but, to the surprise of the worthy banker, made a bow merely to the man who had boasted him as his ‘particular friend’ Then, the bond being produced, Mr Adair at once repudiated the signature. For the first time Robert Perreau betrayed astonishment.

“Surely, sir,” cried he, “you are jocular!”

A haughty glance was the sole response of the wealthy agent.

“It is no time to be jocular when a man’s life is at stake,” retorted the indignant Henry Drummond. “What can all this mean? The person you pretend to be intimate with does not know you.”

“Why, ’tis evident this is not Mr Adair’s hand,” added his brother, who had just arrived, with similar warmth, pointing to the forged name.

“I know nothing at all of it,” protested the confused apothecary.

“You are either the greatest fool or the greatest knave I ever saw,” the angry banker continued. “I do not know what to make of you.... You must account for this.... How came you by the bond?”

Then there was a hint that a constable had been summoned, and it would be best to name his accomplices.

“How came you by the bond?” repeated Mr Drummond.

At last the bewildered Mr Perreau seemed to realise the gravity of his position.

“That will appear,” he replied, in answer to the last remark, “if you will send for my sister.”

“Who may she be?”

“Why, my brother Mr Daniel Perreau’s wife.”

Calling his servant, the apothecary bade him take the coach for his sister-in-law, who, he said, might be at her home in Harley Street, but most likely with his wife at his own house in Golden Square. It was evident that the carriage did not go farther than the latter direction, for in a short time it brought back the lady, who was ushered into the room. Then indeed the hearts of those three hard-pated men of finance must have been softened, for their eyes could have rested upon no more dazzling vision of feminine loveliness within the British Isles. Of medium height, her figure was shaped in the robust lines of graceful womanhood, but the face, which beamed with an expression of childish innocence, seemed the daintiest of miniatures, with tiny, shell-like features, and the clearest and fairest skin. In the fashion of the time her hair was combed upward, revealing a high forehead, and the ample curls which fell on either side towards her neck nestled beneath the smallest of ears. Without a tinge of colour, her complexion was relieved only by her red lips, but the healthy pallor served to heighten her radiant beauty. A thin tight ribbon encircled her slender neck. Below the elbow the close sleeves of her polonese terminated in little tufts of lace, while long gloves concealed her round, plump arms. Dress, under the influence of art, was beginning to cast off its squalor.

Grasping the situation in a moment, this lovely Mrs Daniel Perreau asked if she might speak with her brother-in-law alone, but the request was refused. Then the beauty, making full use of her shining blue eyes, besought Mr Adair to grant her a private interview. But the old man--not such a gay dog as kinsman Robin--was proof against these blandishments.

“You are quite a stranger to me,” he answered, “and you can have no conversation that does not pass before these gentlemen.”

For a short time the beautiful woman appeared incapable of reason. At last she seemed to make a sudden decision.

“My brother Mr Perreau is innocent,” she cried, in an agony of distress. “I gave him the bond.... I forged it!... For God’s sake, have mercy on an innocent man. Consider his wife and children.... Nobody was meant to be injured. All will be repaid.”

“It is a man’s signature,” objected one of the bankers. “How could you forge it?”

Seizing a pen and sheet of paper, she imitated the name on the bond with such amazing fidelity that all were convinced. Then, according to promise, Robert Drummond destroyed the writing, for he, at least, was determined that no advantage should be taken of her confidence.

Little information was gained from Daniel Perreau--twin brother of the apothecary--who had been summoned from his spacious home in Harley Street, save shrugs of shoulders and words of surprise. Between him and Robert there was a striking likeness. Both were handsome and well-proportioned men, but a full flavour of macaroni distinguished the newcomer--a ‘fine puss gentleman’ of the adventurous type. To him dress was as sacred as to his great predecessor, Mr John Rann of the Sixteen Strings, who only a few months previously had met with a fatal accident near the Tyburn turnpike. Indeed, the macaroni was as great an autocrat as the dandy of later days, and princes, parsons, and highwaymen alike became members of his cult. So the gentleman from Harley Street, flourishing his big stick, and shaking the curled chignon at the back of his neck, tried with success to look a great fool.

Quite appropriately, it was the woman who determined the result. Less dour than the squire of Flixton, the two bankers had no objection to accompany her into an adjacent room, where they listened with sympathy to her prayers. Being younger men than Mr Adair, they were full of respect for her brave deed of self-accusation, moved by the piteous spectacle of beauty in tears. In the end, confident that she spoke the truth, they began to regard Robert Perreau as her innocent dupe. So the constable was sent away, for macaroni Daniel seemed too great an idiot to arrest, and it was preposterous to dream of locking up his lovely wife. Thus the three grave financiers promised that the adventure should be forgotten, and the Messrs Perreau drove away from the house in Pall Mall in Robert’s coach, assured that they had escaped from a position which might have cost them their lives. Almost as clever as she was beautiful was this charming Mrs Daniel Perreau.

Surely, all but a fool would have tried to blot the incident from his mind, content that the gentlemen concerned believed his honour to be unsullied, too humane to betray a pretty sister into the bloody hands of justice--all but a fool, or a _criminal_ seeking to escape by sacrificing an accomplice! Yet Mr Robert Perreau, although anything but a fool, would not rest. Without delay he sought advice from a barrister friend, one Henry Dagge, with the amazing result that on the following Saturday forenoon, the 11th of March, he appeared before Messrs Wright and Addington at the office in Bow Street to lay information against ‘the female forger’ Luckily, the magistrates took the measure of the treacherous apothecary, and committed him as well as the lady to the Bridewell at Tothill Fields. On the next day, fop Daniel--a base fellow, who had acted as decoy while his brother was effecting the betrayal--was sent to keep them company. It was a rueful hour for the two Perreaus when they tried to pit their wits against a woman.

On Wednesday morning, the 15th of March, in expectation that the three distinguished prisoners would appear before Sir John Fielding, the Bow Street court was besieged by so large a crowd that it was deemed prudent to adjourn to more commodious quarters in the Guildhall, Westminster. Surprising revelations were forthcoming. It was found that the forgery discovered seven days ago was only one of many. Two other persons--Dr Brooke and Admiral Sir Thomas Frankland--less cautious than the Drummonds, came forward to declare that they had obliged their friend Mr Perreau by discounting similar bonds, all of which bore the signature of William Adair! Plain indeed was the motive of Robert’s betrayal. It was not enough that the bankers should forgive him--it was needful that the woman must answer as scapegoat for much more.

Never had a fairer prisoner stood before the blind magistrate than the intended victim. Above a striped silk gown she wore a pink cloak trimmed with ermine, and a small black bonnet--as usual, daintiest of the dainty, in spite of her tears and shame. Hitherto, she had given splendid proofs of courage and loyalty, but treachery had changed her heart to stone, and she lent herself to a cunning revenge. A youthful barrister named Bailey, who was hovering around Bow Street soon after her arrest, had been lucky enough to be accepted as her counsel. Clever almost as his client--in spite of contemporary libels from Grub Street, that repute him more intimate with Ovid’s _Art of Love_ than Glanvill or Bracton--he came forward with the naïve suggestion that she should be admitted as evidence for the Crown! And a witness she was made there and then, two days later being let loose on bail, which created a very pretty legal causerie in a little while. On the other hand, the unhappy brothers were committed to the New Prison, Clerkenwell, on the capital charge of forgery. All this was very welcome entertainment for the fashionable mob that crushed into the Westminster Guildhall.

The repartee of one of Sir John’s myrmidons, often quoted by wags of the time as an excellent joke, is not without its moral. One of the doorkeepers refused entrance to a certain person on the ground that he had been told to admit only gentlemen.

“That is Mr ----, the great apothecary,” quoth a bystander.

“Oh!” returns the doorkeeper, “if that’s the case, he must on no account go in, for my orders extend only to gentlemen, and the whole room is filled with apothecaries already.”

It would have been well for Robert Perreau had he held no more exalted opinion of his station in life than the Bow Street officer.

To the delight of all the _bon ton_, the scent of scandal rose hot into the air. The charming lady who had passed as the wife of Daniel Perreau proved to be his mistress. Although she had lived with him for five years, bearing him no less than three children, her real name was Margaret Caroline Rudd, whose lawful husband was still alive. Being the daughter of an apothecary in the North of Ireland, by his marriage with the love-child of a major of dragoons, who was a member of the Scottish house of Galloway, her boast that the blood of Bruce ran in her veins was strictly true, in spite of the scoffs and jeers with which it was hailed by her enemies. Early in the year 1762, when only seventeen, she had married a dissolute lieutenant of foot, named Valentine Rudd, the son of a grocer at St Albans. Soon his society proved distasteful, and the fair Margaret Caroline eloped with a more congenial partner. During the next few years she lived the life of a Kitty Fisher or a Fanny Murray--a gilt-edged Cyprian--selling her favours, like Danae, for no less than a shower of gold. Of all her patrons, the most faithful and generous by far was a rich Jew moneylender named Salvadore, whose name remains still as a landmark in the purlieus of the metropolis. Good Lord Granby is said to have visited her out of mere affection. Among others, it was whispered that Henry Frederick, a gentleman of easy virtue, like all Dukes of Cumberland, became one of her intimate friends. Possibly she may have listened to couplets from the _Essay on Women_, for patriot Wilkes, the member of Parliament for the county of Middlesex, is believed to have cultivated her society, going to the extent of finding her a home at Lambeth. Peers flocked to Hollen Street or Meard’s Court to pay her homage. A favourite device of hers was to impersonate a boarding-school miss or a lady of quality. Few women of pleasure have possessed the fertile imagination of Mrs Margaret Caroline Rudd.

In May 1770 she met the foolish Daniel Perreau--not stupid from the woman’s point of view, since he was a dashing dog with a taste for all the pleasant things in life--and in an unlucky moment she accepted him as her protector. However, in other respects, although he had travelled far over the world, his intellect was no mate for hers. In business he had been a failure both at home and abroad. Three times, it is recorded, he was obliged to make composition with his creditors. Only a fortnight before his alliance with the bewitching Irishwoman his certificate of bankruptcy had been signed. Still, he was a man suited to the fair Margaret’s taste, handsome, gay, and genteel, with a complacency that paid no regard to her methods of raising money--a partner, in short, who gave her back the status in society that she had forfeited.

Naturally, Daniel was more than satisfied with his beautiful companion, allowing her to pass as his lawful wife, forming an establishment for her in Pall Mall Court--the cost of which, since Salvadore and others were as lavish as ever, she appears to have provided. Golden dreams had captured his silly brain, and he believed that Exchange Alley would bring a more propitious fortune than vulgar trade. Funds could be obtained from his dear Mrs Rudd. Secret news from the French Embassy was furnished by his confederate, one Colonel Kinder--an Irish soldier. It would be easy to cut a brilliant figure at Jonathan’s, and restore his shattered credit. Thus, relying upon certain information, he insured the chances of war with Spain; but the Falkland Island convention happened to bring peace, and Daniel Perreau suffered his first big loss in the Alley.

Still, this did not deter him, for the finances of Mrs Rudd seemed inexhaustible, and sometimes he made a lucky stroke himself. In addition to her pretended fortune, which Daniel knew was not bequeathed by any relative, she declared to her friends that a windfall had come to her in the shape of an annuity of £800 a year from Mr James Adair, the wealthy linen-factor of Soho Square. This kinsman of the Pall Mall agent chanced to be acquainted with the maternal uncle of Margaret Caroline Youngson--a tenant farmer of Balimoran, County Down, John Stewart by name, another unlawful offspring, possibly, of the amorous major of the house of Galloway--and, after the custom of a man of the world, as he is described, he became even more interested than the royal duke in the fortunes of the pretty niece. It is doubtful whether his generosity reached the sum named, but with so many sources of income strict accuracy in detail may have been difficult to Mrs Rudd. Indeed, the despicable Daniel Perreau did not require them. It was a great thing to boast at Jonathan’s that his wife was a connection of one of the great Adairs. With such a surety funds might be borrowed easily.

Apparently, being much attached to her protector, Margaret Rudd was quite content to live with him in their humble quarters in Pall Mall Court, and to present him at appropriate intervals with pledges of their mutual ardour. Probably she shared his golden visions, hoping for future affluence. At all events, she gained no monetary advantage from the connection. Moreover, it was not until the beginning of the fatal year that she was mistress even of a house of her own, for the elegant residence on the west side of Harley Street was purchased on the 31st of December 1774.

Brother Robert watched with amazement the progress of the fortunes of his twin, for it was wonderful that bankrupt Daniel should be able to live in decent lodgings with a stylish lady, to pursue fashion in all its vagaries, and to throw about money in the Alley. A different man this Robert--solemn, laborious, and intelligent, making a hard-earned income of a thousand pounds a year. Nevertheless, his soul soared above his gallipots. It was his ambition to make a figure in the world, so that his wife could woo society with drums, routs, hurricanes. When he looked around he saw that fortunes were being won on every side. A wave of prosperity was bearing the empire on its crest. The Great Commoner had wrenched America and India from the hereditary enemy. To these vast markets British seamen were carrying the exports of their country. At home, the clever inventors of the North, Watt and Arkwright, Hargreaves and Brindley, had increased the powers of production a thousandfold. England was setting up shop on a scale undreamt of hitherto in the world’s philosophy. Why spend one’s life in dispensing pukes and boluses, thought apothecary Robert, when the Alley is open to all who dare take advantage of this golden age?

Since this was his character, brother Daniel and his pretty _chère amie_ soon tempted the misguided man to share their fortunes, glad to seek the cover of his reputable name to fashion new and more desperate schemes. For earls and bishops were clients of the apothecary, and ‘honest Perreau’ was one of his appellations. Yet to preserve the co-operation of such respectability a pleasant little piece of fiction had to be maintained. Brother Robert, not a fool by any means, was willing to assist their plans, but only in the character of an ingenuous agent; a method--as, no doubt, he pointed out--that must disarm all suspicion. Thus, when he canvassed his friends to advance money on bonds in pursuance of the new policy, he would be able to pose as the emissary of his sister-in-law Mrs Daniel Perreau and her doting relatives Messrs James and William Adair. Indeed, there was a letter in his pocket, authorising some such scheme, which, not being penned by the Pall Mall agent, probably was the work of the clever woman who could give imitations of other people’s handwriting. Such a letter would be useful in case his possession of an Adair bond was questioned, but most useful of all--and this most certainly Mr Robert Perreau would not point out to his confederates--in making him appear a guileless dupe in the hands of an artful woman. Very cleverly had he arranged the saving of his own skin, this sly, precise apothecary.

For no game could be more hazardous than the one which the guilty trio continued to pursue. Forgery was needful to cover forgery. As one bond became payable another had to be discounted to provide the money. A couple of bonds to the value of nearly £8000 were cashed by banker Mills in the City. On two others the large sums of £4000 and £5000 had been advanced by Sir Thomas Frankland. In this way more than a dozen were negotiated during the twelve months that preceded the discovery. All were signed with the name of the army agent--the pretended benefactor of Daniel’s wife--and their total value reached the huge sum of £70,000. Thus the Perreaus had been able to continue their speculations in Exchange Alley. Their sole chance of coming out of the mischief scot free was a lucky stroke at Jonathan’s, or the death of one of their victims.

Public interest in the case was aroused no less by the personality of the prisoners than by the mystery surrounding the actual criminal. For the brothers on one side, and Mrs Rudd on the other, told two wonderful and contradictory stories. This most artful of women, whined the Messrs Perreau, using consummate guile, had revealed to them gradually a dazzling and enticing prospect. First Mr James and then Mr William Adair was represented as the lavish benefactor of their beautiful relative. Yet such was the modesty of these capitalists, that although they declared their intention of procuring a baronetcy for Daniel, and an estate in the country for Robert, besides setting up the twins as West-End bankers, they would communicate with Mrs Rudd alone! Moreover, such was the impecuniosity of these wealthy men that they were able to carry out their benevolent intentions only by the aid of notes of hand! However, the brothers protested that these assurances had been given to them by the lady, and that all the forged bonds had been received from the fair Margaret Caroline by innocent Daniel or ingenuous Robert, in the belief that the Messrs Adair, who had signed them, intended a gratuitous present. A most happy stroke of luck, coinciding fortunately with the period of their bold speculations at Jonathan’s! Yet what was Mrs Rudd’s motive in running these risks to provide funds from which she received little benefit, was not made clear.

Even more wondrous was the other story. Although her conduct at the house in Pall Mall--whether we deem her guilty or innocent--showed something of nobility, she had no mercy for her confederates after they had played her false. While confessing once more that she had forged the bond which the Drummonds had rejected, she declared that her keeper Daniel had forced her to do so by standing over her with an open knife, threatening to cut her throat unless she obeyed. An incredible story, but no more improbable than the other! With the exception of this compulsory forgery, Mrs Rudd avowed that she was innocent. Amidst all this publicity it is likely that poor Mr James Adair, who had been very much the lady’s friend in former days, would have an unpleasant time with Mrs James Adair, and with his son, young Mr Serjeant James, M.P., the rising barrister!

Such an entertainment was a novel and delightful experience for the British public. Since the wonderful time (fourteen summers ago) when mad Earl Ferrers had made his exit at Tyburn in a gorgeous wedding dress, and amidst funereal pomp, the triple tree seldom had been graced by the appearance of gentlefolk. Broker Rice, whose shady tricks at the Alley made him the victim of Jack Ketch three years after his lordship, was almost the only respectable criminal who had been hanged for more than a decade. Indeed, except Mother Brownrigg and Jack of the Sixteen Strings, no criminal of note had dangled from a London scaffold since the days of Theodore Gardelle. Yet a glorious era was dawning for the metropolitan mob, when, in quick succession, Dodd, Hackman, and Ryland were to journey down the Oxford Road--the golden age of the gallows, when George III. was king!

On Friday, the Ist of June, Robert Perreau was put to the bar at the Old Bailey. Owing to ill-health he had been allowed to remain in the Clerkenwell prison, and was not taken to Newgate until the morning of his trial--a privilege shared also by his brother. The President of the Court was Sir Richard Aston, who, as a junior of the Oxford circuit, had helped to defend the unfortunate Miss Blandy. By his side sat the Right Honourable John Wilkes, Lord Mayor of London, a quite tame City patriot now almost ready for the royal embraces, very different from the Wilkes winged by pistol-practising Martin, M.P., and hounded by renegade Jemmy Twitcher. This same City patriot--if we may credit one of Dame Rumour’s quite credible stories--whispered into the ear of the judge the most important words spoken during the trial:--“My lord, you can convict these men without the woman’s evidence.... It is a shocking thing that she should escape unpunished, as she must if you call her as a witness!” Which advice--if the lady had been as kind to ‘squinting Jacky’ as the world believed--shows that he was rising on stepping stones of Medmenham Abbey to higher things. At all events, instead of summoning Mrs Rudd into the box, the judge startled the world by ordering her to be detained in Newgate.

In spite of the efforts of his counsel and his friends, the Court did not put the least faith in the wily apothecary, refusing to believe that he had been ignorant of his brother’s relationship to his mistress, or, if this were true, that an innocent man would obtain cash for a succession of huge bonds, drawn on the well-known house of Adair, at the bidding of a woman without making inquiries. Even granting that he was so credulous as to remain silent when he saw that suspicion was aroused, it was clear that no man of honour would strive to stifle mistrust by telling lies. Then there were other compromising circumstances. It was apparent that the Perreaus needed money to repay certain bonds that were falling due. Robert had antedated the latest forgery to make it agree with one of his falsehoods to the Messrs Drummond, for in the previous January he had endeavoured to obtain money from them by a fictitious story. Not only did the employment of a scrivener have no weight in his favour, but pointed to premeditation. In the face of these facts his guilt seemed clear. Notwithstanding an eloquent defence written for him by Hugh M’Auley Boyd, in which he protested that he had received the bonds from Mrs Rudd in good faith, the jury required no more than five minutes to return a hostile verdict.

At nine o’clock on the following morning there were similar dealings with brother Daniel. Seeing that his case was hopeless, he did not deliver the elaborate address that had been prepared, choosing to print it, like Pope’s playwright. Naturally, his expectations were fulfilled, and he was found guilty of forging one of the bonds in the name of William Adair, on which his friend Dr Brooke had lent him £1500. On the 6th of June, at the close of the Old Bailey sessions, he was sentenced to death along with Robert by Recorder Glynn, while on the same day Mrs Rudd was told that as bail could not be granted, she must remain in prison. In spite of their dishonesty, and still baser treachery, it is impossible to think of the cruel sentence of the unfortunate Perreaus without a thrill of horror. Yet no qualms disturbed the tranquil conscience of King George, who believed he was doing the Lord’s work in hanging men and women for a paltry theft.

The charming Mrs Rudd was not disposed of so easily as her unlucky confederates. From April onwards she had attracted more attention than the skirmishes with our rebellious colonists at Bunker’s Hill and Lexington. While she was at large and the brothers were under lock and key, public sympathy had remained on their side. Moreover, her tactics were not too reputable, and until it was evident that she was struggling in her prison with the valour of desperation against overwhelming odds, popular compassion did not condone her shifty methods. Still, whatever her guilt, she waged her long battle with surpassing dexterity.

One of the foremost of her foes, and not the least dangerous, was George Kinder, the Irish colonel--Daniel’s emissary in the unlucky touting at the back stairs of the French Embassy--a gentleman who had sought vainly to win the good graces of Miss Polly Wilkes. There was no false delicacy about this warrior, as the letters in the _Morning Post_ under pseudonyms ‘Jack Spry’ and ‘No Puffer’ bear ample testimony, and soon he had made the whole world familiar with the amatory history of Margaret Youngson. Yet Colonel Kinder was too reckless in the delivery of his attacks, and, like many another dashing soldier, he found himself often outflanked. For Mrs Rudd wielded her pen brilliantly, and her replies to critics of the press were not unworthy--both in style and context--of a novelist of later days. At all events, the vulgar diatribes of Colonel Kinder helped to bring popular sympathy to the side of his fair antagonist, and this is precisely what the clever lady must have foreseen.

Another enemy, as inveterate as the Irishman himself, appeared in the person of a rough-and-ready sea-dog, ex-Admiral Sir Thomas Frankland--whom the Perreaus had swindled out of thousands of pounds--a lineal descendant of Protector Cromwell. More truculent even than his great ancestor--for surely Oliver never confiscated ruff or farthingale belonging to Henrietta Maria--he pounced upon Mrs Rudd’s clothes, and indeed upon all property that might help to repay his loans. Remaining loyal to his old friend the Golden Square apothecary--for the choleric gentleman was convinced that he was an innocent instrument in the hands of the woman--he seized anything that Daniel and his mistress happened to possess. In consequence of this brigandage there was a pitched battle between the employees of the admiral and the sheriff’s officers for the possession of the house in Harley Street, in which the former got the worst of the tussle. Running amuck at all who took the other side--Barrister Bailey, Uncle Stewart, the Keeper of the Lyon Records--each in turn received a broadside from the fiery old salt. Shiver-me-timbers Frankland--this Paul Pry of a lady’s wardrobe--wrought more good out of evil to the cause of Margaret Rudd than any other man, and his fair enemy was nothing loth to let him run to the top of his bent.

Nowhere was the diplomacy of Daniel Perreau’s mistress more remarkable than in the negotiations with her old servant, Mrs Christian Hart. Early in July there was an interview between the pair in Newgate: the handmaid compassionate and pliable; the prisoner full of subtle schemes against her enemies. Barrister Bailey was present, and a lengthy document was drawn up--a paper of instructions in the form of a narrative for the guidance of the faithful ‘Christy’--wherein was set forth the details of a wicked conspiracy, which the servant was to pretend that she had overheard, between old sea-dog Frankland and Mrs Robert Perreau to swear away Mrs Rudd’s life. Promising to learn her story and stick to the text, Mrs Hart went away with her manuscript; but, frightened by her husband or bribed by the admiral, in a little while she deserted to the other side. In no wise dismayed, Margaret Rudd retorted that ‘Christy’ had volunteered the story, and that the instructive document was a faithful copy of the woman’s narrative as dictated by herself, another copy of which she produced, attested by the faithful Bailey. Moreover, she alleged that the whole business was a thing devised by the Perreaus for the purpose of compromising their enemy, a most dexterous plot to make it appear that Mrs Rudd was endeavouring to create false evidence! Thus, even when the first scheme failed, she gained the effect desired by its very failure. Poor, persecuted woman, thought the big-hearted British public, and what a shocking old admiral!

A little later, the fair captive in Newgate triumphed over another enemy, one Hannah Dalboux, a second domestic. This Hannah had been nurse to the youngest of Daniel Perreau’s children since the mother had been put in prison. One morning in August the newspapers announced that the woman had refused to surrender the child, and that the woman’s husband had tried to thrash the inevitable Mr Bailey when he paid a visit with his client’s request. “The baby shall be given up when I am paid for its board and lodging,” was the sum and substance of Hannah’s ultimatum. All the same the child had to be delivered to its rightful owner, and husband Dalboux was locked up for the assault. A great opportunity, indeed, which Mrs Rudd did not neglect. All the journals were full of hints concerning the horrid old admiral, who had employed people to steal the lady’s baby as well as her petticoats--about the last two things in the world a swell mobsman would choose, unless they were accompanied by the proprietress. Yet the salient fact, remembered by the British public in a little while, was that this inveterate sea-dog was the prosecutor at Mrs Rudd’s trial.

The well-known anecdote told of her by Horace Walpole, must, if true, have reference to an incident that occurred during her imprisonment in Newgate.

“Preparatory to her trial, she sent for some brocaded silks to a mercer. She pitched on a rich one, and ordered him to cut off the proper quantity, but the mercer, reflecting that if she was hanged, as was probable, he should never be paid, pretended he had no scissors. She saw his apprehensions, pulled out her pocket-book, and giving him a bank-note for £20, said, ‘There is a pair of scissors.’ Such quickness is worth a hundred screams. We have no Joans of Arc nor Catherines de Medici, but this age has heroines after its own fashion.”

Whenever a Gordian knot presented itself the undaunted Mrs Rudd was always ready with a pair of scissors!

Like all other popular entertainers, the fair Margaret Caroline had rivals in the public favour. On the nineteenth of August, “one of the prettiest young women in England,” Jane Butterfield by name, was tried for her life at Croydon on a charge of poisoning a foully-diseased old man for whom she kept house. Paramour also to this rotten William Scawen was Miss Jane, debauched by him when a child. Although the poor girl was acquitted amidst tears and huzzas, she lost the fortune that should have come to her, for her protector, who had listened to the accusations of his Dr Sanxy--the instigator of all the proceedings against the innocent Jane--lived long enough, unhappily, to cross her out of his will. For a while all England forgot Margaret Rudd in its generous sympathy for the beautiful heroine of Croydon. Soon also the ubiquitous Elizabeth Chudleigh monopolised public attention, to the exclusion of everyone else, under her new rôle as Her Grace of Kingston; while the sex of the mysterious Chevalier D’Eon continued to be the subject of many wagers.

For six months Mrs Rudd remained a prisoner in Newgate--from the day of Robert Perreau’s condemnation on the 1st of June until the morning of her own trial on the 8th of December--using every endeavour so that she should not be brought to the judgment-seat. A few weeks after the close of the summer sessions--on the fourth day of July--she was summoned to Westminster Hall to listen to the ruling of Chief-Justice Mansfield, an unrivalled exponent of amazing decisions, with regard to her status as king’s evidence. Superfine, indeed, was the quality of Mansfield’s red tape:--“The woman did not confess that she was an accomplice, but an assistant by compulsion, therefore she may be presumed to be innocent, consequently there is no reason why she should not be tried! Only a _guilty_ person can be admitted as a witness for the Crown!” Yet the great Chief-Justice had a more cogent reason still--one that is irrefutable: “Since the lady did not disclose _all_ she knew, she has forfeited indulgence!” Quite proper, no doubt, in a legal sense, but foreign to the eternal ethics of British equity, that has permitted ‘burker’ Hare to escape the halter, believing that it is monstrous to ask a jury to try a prisoner from whom a confession has been extorted under promise of pardon. There was no false delicacy about the learned Mansfield’s interpretation of the law.

However, his lordship was the autocrat of all bigwigs, and none but the most stout-hearted ventured to challenge his decisions. When the case was argued by her counsel before three judges, sitting as a Court of Gaol Delivery in the middle of September, one Henry Gould, who feared a Chief-Justice as little as a Gordon riot, appears to have realised that the law must keep its faith. So he gave a flat contradiction to the ruling of the King’s Bench. “How can we know that the woman was cognisant of any other forgery than the one to which she has confessed unless we bring her to trial?” demanded this judge Gould. “And if we bring her to trial we break our word!” Nevertheless his two colleagues, remembering possibly the Mansfield temper and the Mansfield tongue, maintained the arguments of the Chief-Justice, and thus it was decreed that Mrs Rudd must go before a jury. Early in November twelve judges assented to this decision.

Confident that her long struggle had not been futile, since this breach of faith must shock the public mind, the beautiful prisoner prepared to face her terrible ordeal. In a letter from Strawberry Hill we catch a glimpse of her on the eve of her trial. “... She sent her lawyer a brief of which he could not make head nor tail. He went to her for one more clear. ‘And do you imagine’ said she, ‘that I will trust you or any attorney in England with the truth of my story? Take your brief: meet me in the Old Bailey, and I will ask you the necessary questions.’ ...” And when the time came she kept her promise to help him through.

On Friday, the 8th of December, she was placed in the dock at the Old Bailey. During her long imprisonment the popular sympathy had come over to her side, and a friendly crowd filled the galleries before daybreak. With much tenderness Judge Aston explained to her the reason that she was put to the bar, his chief argument being the elusive one that she had not spoken the _whole_ truth before the magistrates. No woman could have been more dignified or composed. An air of melancholy rested on her beautiful face, which appeared more pale in contrast to her garb of mourning. A silk polonese cloak, lined with white persian, was thrown round her shoulders. Beneath, her gown was black satin, _appliquée_ with wreaths of broad silken ribbons, her skirt draped upon the small hoop worn with an evening toilet. Above the tall head-dress demanded by fashion, a white gauze cap, dotted with small knots of black, rested lightly upon her powdered curls. It was almost the same costume that she had worn before the three judges.

Only for a short time were the spectators in doubt as to the result of the trial. None of the evidence was convincing; each witness seemed more feeble than his predecessor. Serjeant Davy, rough and ready, tore their statements to tatters. To the jury Mrs Robert Perreau seemed eager to swear aught that might save the life of her unhappy husband. Admiral Frankland, in the face of his petticoat theft, appeared to have pressed the prosecution out of greed and for the sake of revenge. John Moody, a footman discharged by the prisoner, must have been regarded, very properly, as a barefaced liar. The famous Christian Hart, another old servant with a grudge, who was answered on all points by the evidence of the indefatigable Bailey, could prove nothing concerning the forgery cited in the indictment.

All the while Mrs Rudd kept on passing notes to her counsel--more than fifty in number--suggesting questions to baffle the hostile witnesses. The trial lasted for nearly twelve hours. When the jury returned into court, after an absence of thirty minutes, Henry Angelo, the fencing-master, saw the gay auctioneer who was the foreman throw a meaning smile towards the beautiful prisoner. “Not guilty according to the evidence before us!” declared the jury, while the court thundered with applause. At last her bitter ordeal was over, and Margaret Rudd, smiling through her tears, stepped gaily into a coach that was waiting at the door of Old Bailey. Then she was driven, post haste, to her new home with the wicked Lord Lyttelton. Certainly this charming and clever woman was far from being too good to live.

Naturally, the acquittal of Mrs Rudd determined the fate of the unfortunate twins, who had been kept alive all this time pending the result of her trial. Only in one way could Robert, deemed the less guilty, have been spared. Had Daniel confessed that he was the forger, exonerating his brother, probably a pardon would have been granted. Not being built, however, after the fashion of martyrs, he continued to make frantic protests of innocence, thereby sealing the doom of both. For arguments that were incredible merely in the case of the apothecary became preposterous when applied to Daniel. Yet the loyalty of Robert was admirable, as although he knew that his one hope was to be dissociated from his brother, he would not pretend that he had been his dupe. Desperate efforts were made to save the unhappy men. A petition, signed by more than seventy bankers and influential men of business, was presented to the King. Mrs Robert Perreau with her three children, all in deep mourning, flung herself at the feet of the Queen. But good King George III. was a stranger to mercy, and Justice Mansfield was not the sort of person to make the introduction.

On Wednesday, the 17th of January 1776--a bitter morning, with keen frost in the air and deep snow on the ground--the two poor brothers were led out to die. When they were brought from the chapel into the day-room within the Press Yard, to await the coming of the hangmen, they found only a few faithful friends who wished to say farewell. For, to prevent an unseemly crowd, good Keeper Akerman stood himself at the gate of the fatal quadrangle, denying entrance even to his own acquaintances. Daniel Perreau, apparently unmoved, gave a bow to his friends, and then sought the warmth of the fire. Robert, less resolute than his brother, was unmanned for an instant by the sight of the cords and halters upon the table. In a few moments their steps were ringing across the flags of the courtyard, as with bound arms they followed the Sheriffs towards the gate. Those who gazed upon these poor victims of a merciless law testify that their tread was firm and their faces hopeful and serene. For, save in that first base betrayal of a woman, no one can accuse Daniel and Robert Perreau of cowardice. Five others bore them company to the grave.

Shortly after nine o’clock the City Marshals, attended by the full panoply of sheriffdom, started the procession. Next came an open cart, covered with black baize, where sat three of the convicts, and then a hurdle, dragged by four horses, on which rested a pair of wretches condemned for coining. And last, there followed the sombre mourning-coach--a special privilege--with the unhappy brothers. All around lay a winding sheet of snow, crusted thick on the housetops, piled in deep billows against the walls. A piercing east wind shot down the Old Bailey, while the prison gleamed in the frosty mist like a monument of hard black ice.

Beyond Newgate Street the bell in St Sepulchre’s high steeple rang fiercely over the frozen roofs, as though pealing forth a pæan of exultation upon the procession of death. Here there came a halt in the march, while from the steps of the church, in time-honoured fashion, the sexton delivered his solemn exhortation to the condemned prisoners:--

“All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll....

“Lord have mercy upon you, Christ have mercy upon you.”

Backwards and forwards around the mourning-coach surged the mob, clamouring with ribald fury for a glimpse of the celebrated forgers. Robert Perreau, sitting with his back to the horses beside one of the sheriff’s officers, pulled down the glass meekly, and gazed out with calm, unruffled features. Then the long journey was resumed. Over the heavy road the wheels and hoofs slipped and crunched down the slopes of Snow Hill, and toiled up the steep ascent into Holbourn. Standing erect in the cart, George Lee, a handsome boy highwayman, gorgeous in a crimson coat and ruffled shirt, doffed his gold-laced hat with a parade of gallantry to a young woman in a hackney coach. Then, while a hundred eyes and a hundred loathsome jests were turned upon her, the poor girl burst into a flood of tears. In another moment her lover had passed away for ever. Huddled in the same tumbril with the swaggering youth, a couple of Jews, condemned for housebreaking, shook and chattered with dread, their yellow faces livid as death, a strange contrast to their florid, bombastic companion. Shivering with cold, the two tortured coiners were jolted over the snow, bound fast to their hurdle, their limbs turned to ice by the frost. Within the black coach, the brothers listened calmly and reverently to the prayers with which Ordinary Villette, who sat by the side of Daniel, supplicated the Almighty to pardon these victims unworthy of human mercy. And all the while, the mob--forty thousand strong--shrieked, danced and hurled snowballs, maddened like fierce animals by the scent of blood.

It was only half-past ten o’clock when the cortege reached the triple tree. Two separate gallows had been prepared, for it was not meet that Hebrew and Christian should hang from the same branch. So the tumbril was drawn under the smaller crossbar, and, their halters being fixed, the two Jews were left to their rabbi; while highwayman Lee, and the coiners Baker and Ratcliffe, were placed in a second cart. Seated in their coach a little distance away, the two brothers watched these ghastly preparations with unruffled mien. When all was ready Sheriff Newnham gave them a signal, and they descended to the ground. A moment later they were standing beside their three wretched compatriots. Then the Rev. Villette came forward to play his usual part. Holding the same prayer-book, Daniel and Robert Perreau followed the services with pious attention, their reverence forming a marked contrast to the swagger of the boy highwayman. For some time they were allowed to converse with the Ordinary, and each gave him a paper containing a last solemn declaration of their innocence. It was noticed that Daniel raised his eyes to the sky, and boldly asserted that he was guiltless.

At half-past eleven all was ready for the final scene. Ordinary Villette offered a last shake of the hand; Sheriffs Haley and Newnham bowed in solemn farewell. Having been fee’d by his distinguished clients, Jack Ketch gave a moment’s grace while the brothers embraced tenderly. Faithful unto death, the brave fellows exhibited more nobility in their last few hours than during the whole of their lives. As the cart drew away and their foothold slipped beneath them, their hands were still clasped together. For a full half minute their fingers remained linked as they dangled in the air, and then fell apart as they passed into oblivion beside their five dying companions. Four days later, on Sunday, the 21st of January, they were buried together in a vault within St Martin’s Church, Ludgate Hill.

No mob could have behaved with more indecency than the howling, laughing throng that gazed upon this scene of death, increasing by their wanton rioting the agony of the poor sufferers a thousandfold. With great difficulty an army of constables--three hundred in number--kept a clear space around the scaffold. After the spectacle was over it was found that there had been numerous accidents. A woman was beaten down and pressed to death; a youth was killed by a fall from a coach. One of the stands near the gallows collapsed during the execution, and three or four persons lost their lives.

In the history of crime the case of the unfortunate brothers forms an important landmark. Although many a forger had gone to the gallows before, they were the first ‘distinguished victims’ of the merciless code. Thus their fate served as a precedent. “If Dr Dodd is pardoned, then the Perreaus have been murdered!” quoth the crazy king, when he was asked to forgive ‘the macaroni parson’ Henceforth, it was as safe to blow out a man’s brains as to counterfeit his handwriting. At last, when the first humane monarch for more than a hundred years set his face against such butchery the lawgivers were unable to preserve the bloody statutes that had slaughtered thousands during the half century which separated the deaths of Robert Perreau and Henry Fauntleroy. By the side of Mackintosh, Romilly, and Ewart, the fourth George is entitled to an honourable place.

Public opinion changed once more with wonted inconsistency after the acquittal of Mrs Rudd, and the apothecary in particular, as the bankers’ petition indicates, received the widest sympathy. Still, it seems strange that his guilt could have been doubted by reasonable persons. No other defence was open to him save the one he used, old as human sin--it was the woman!--and even this apology involved the most absurd pretences. Clearly, the fable had been prearranged between the conspirators. Treachery brought its own reward, and Robert Perreau, forgetting that there should be honour among thieves, was ruined because he did not trust his fair accomplice to the full extent. No doubt she would have soothed sea-dog Frankland just as she pacified the bankers Drummond.

In all the sordid history the one bright spot is the loyalty of charming, wicked Mrs Rudd to her grimy confederates, for the scene in old William Adair’s parlour on that stormy March morning might well have cost her life. Had the bankers proved to be curmudgeons, the Perreaus would not have raised a hand to save her from the shambles. Since she must have known the men who were her associates, she must have realised also her own risk. Yet still she kept her faith, while perceiving that safety lay in betrayal. Truly a noble act of heroism, though based upon a mud-heap. Thus when we bear in mind how the two brothers repaid her trust, and reflect upon the breach of law-honour sanctioned by James Mansfield, there comes the obvious suspicion that, whatever her iniquity, the woman was more than repaid in her own coin.

Little is remembered of her subsequent history. A few days after her trial it is recorded that she visited the play in Lord Lyttelton’s chariot. During the following spring she was honoured by the polite attentions of James Boswell. On the 15th of May of this year, great Johnson himself declared that he would have visited her at the same time as his _fidus Achates_ were it not that they had a trick of putting everything in the newspapers! Possibly other references occur in ‘Bon Ton Magazines’ or similar _chroniques scandaleuses_, now treasured in tree calf or crushed morocco, and vended at so many guineas per ounce. There is a hint somewhere that her charms had begun to wane, although she was only thirty at the time of her trial, for a life and experiences such as hers trace lines upon the face and dim the lustre of the eye. Still, whatever the cause, we may conjecture that her friendship with Lord Lyttelton did not last much longer than a couple of years, as, while he succumbed to the famous bad dreams on the 27th of November, she died before June 1779 in very distressed circumstances. Possibly she was supplanted by the famous Mrs Dawson.

In the testimony of her contemporaries there is unanimity with regard to the beauty and wit of Margaret Rudd--the sole grudge, even of the women, being that she was clever enough to cheat the gallows. To pretend sympathy with those who were saddened because she received no punishment is superlative cant, for the penalty would have been out of all proportion to the offence. Thus the cheers that rang through the Old Bailey on that December evening long ago find an echo in our hearts to-day. Moreover, since it was needful to offer up a propitiatory sacrifice to Mammon, it was a shrewd common-sense that selected the brothers as the more deserving of the awful atonement.

In the scarlet pages of the chronicles of crime there is not another dazzling figure such as the mistress of poor Daniel Perreau. Yet she walks across the dim stage in the guise of no tragedy queen as Miss Blandy. If at all, she compels our tears amidst our smiles, and such tears are the most gentle and spontaneous. Light, sparkling, joyous, she chases pleasure with reckless laughter, meeting the fate of all who pursue the glittering wisp, heedless of the deepening mire through which they tread. It is wrong to watch her dainty person with delight, but we cannot avert our eyes. Alas, _transit gloria mundi_! One of the most excellent of modern critics speaks truly of this immortal lady as a forgotten heroine of the _Newgate Calendar_, and she--the idol of princes and lord mayors--has not received a niche among the national biographies!

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE PERREAU CASE

I. CONTEMPORARY TRACTS

1. _The Female Forgery_, Or Fatal Effects of Unlawful Love. J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. Price 1/6. “With a beautiful whole-length portrait of Mrs Rudd resolving whether to sign the Bond or forfeit her life. From the capital drawing of an eminent master.” (Published April 22, 1775.)

2. _Forgery Unmasked_, or Genuine Memoirs of the Two Unfortunate Brothers, Rob. and Daniel Perreau, and Mrs Rudd. A. Grant, Bridges Street, Covent Garden. Price 1/. “Illustrated with a New and Beautiful Engraving of Mr Dan. Perreau in the act of threatening to Murder Mrs. Rudd, unless she would sign the Fatal Bond.” (April 25, 1775. A pro-Rudd Tract, containing the case of Mrs Rudd, as related by herself, which appeared originally as a series of letters in the _Morning Post_ from March 27 to April 10.)

3. _Genuine Memoirs of Messieurs Perreau_; (Now under Confinement.) With many Curious Anecdotes relative to Mrs Rudd; G. Allen, No. 59 Paternoster Row. Price 1/6. Brit. Mus. (April 26, 1775.)

4. _The Genuine Memoirs of the Messers Perreau._ G. Kearsley, 46 Fleet Street. Price 1/6. (Published May 11, 1775. Second edition June 8, 1775.)

5. _The Trials of Robert and Daniel Perreau._ T. Bell, at (No. 26) the Top of Bell-Yard, near Temple Bar. Taken down in shorthand by Joseph Gurney. (June 6, 1775.)

6. _Mr. Daniel Perreau’s Narrative of His Unhappy Case._ T. Evans, No. 50 in the Strand, near York Buildings. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (June 9, 1775.)

7. _A Letter to the Right Hon. Earl of Suffolk...._ In which the Innocence of Robert Perreau is demonstrated. T. Hookham, at his Circulating Library, the Corner of Hanover Street, Hanover Square. Price 1/. Brit. Mus. (July 13, 1775.)

8. _Facts_, or a Plain and Explicit Narrative of the Case of Mrs. Rudd. T. Bell, 26 Bell-Yard, Temple Bar. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (July 1775. This tract contains the “Case of Mrs. Rudd as related by herself,” with the addition of her “Narrative,” which appeared originally in the _Morning Post_. July 1, 3, 4, 7, 10, and 14.)

9. _Observations on the Trial of Mr. Robert Perreau._ With Mr. Perreau’s Defence, as spoken on His Trial. S. Bladon, No. 16 Paternoster Row. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (July 17, 1775.)

10. _The True Genuine Lives and Trials, etc. of the Two Unfortunate Brothers._ Illustrated with Two New and Beautiful Engravings, 1st. Daniel Perreau threatening to Murder Mrs Rudd .... 2nd. The two Perreaus lamenting their unhappy fate. J. Miller, White Lion Street, Goodman’s Fields. Brit. Mus. (1775.)

11. _An Account of the Arguments of Counsel...._ On Sat., Sept. 16. 1775, whether Mrs. Rudd ought to be tried, etc. By Joseph Gurney. Sold by Martha Gurney, No. 34 Bell-Yard, Temple Bar. 1775. price 1/6. Brit. Mus.

12. _The Case of Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd_, from her first Commitment to Newgate on Thursday, the 1st of June, last to her final acquittal at the Old Bailey, Friday, December 8, 1775. J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. (December 15, 1775.)

13. The Whole Proceedings on the King’s Commission of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery for the City of London; and also the Gaol Delivery for the County of Middlesex; Held at Justice Hall in the Old Bailey, on Wednesday, the 6th of December, 1775, and the following Days. Revised and published by John Glynn, Serjeant at Law and Recorder of London. No. 1. Part I. Printed by William Richardson for Edward and Charles Dilby, price 9d. (December 19, 1775.)

14. _The Trial at Large of Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd._ Elucidated by such Matter as never before transpired. By Mr. Bailey, Barrister-at-Law. Sold at No. 26 Bell-Yard near Temple Bar. (1775.) _London Library._

15. _A Solemn Declaration of Mr. Daniel Perreau...._ Written by himself and Delivered to a Friend in the Cells of Newgate on Sunday, January 14. 1776. T. Evans, near York Buildings in the Strand, price 1/. Brit. Mus. (January 22, 1776.)

16. _A Genuine Account of the Behaviour and Dying Words of Daniel and Robert Perreau._ By the Reverend John Villette, Ordinary of Newgate. Printed for the Author and sold at his house, No. 1 Newgate St. 1776. Brit. Mus. (1776.)

17. _An Explicit Account of the Lives, Trials, Dying Words, and Burial of the Twin Brothers._ Brit. Mus. (1776. Without the publisher’s name.)

18. _Mrs. Marg. Car. Rudd’s Case Considered, Respecting Robert Perreau._ In an Address to Henry Drummond Esquire, J. Wilkie, No. 71, In St Paul’s Churchyard. Price 1/. (January 26, 1776.)

19. _Mrs. M. C. Rudd’s Genuine Letter to Lord Weymouth...._ Together with An Explanation of the Conduct of a certain Great City Patriot. G. Kearsly in Fleet St. Price 1/. Brit. Mus. (March 5, 1776. The original letter appeared in the _Morning Post_, January 16, 1776.)

20. _A Letter from Mrs. Christian Hart to Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd._ J. Williams. No. 46, opposite Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, price 1/. Brit. Mus. (Published March 23, 1776.)

21. _She is, and She is Not_; A Fragment of the True History of Miss Caroline De Grosberg, alias Mrs. Potter, etc. J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. Price 1/6 Brit. Mus. (Published April 24, 1776.)

22. _Authentic Anecdotes of the Life and Transactions of Mrs. Margaret Rudd_ ... in a series of letters to ... Miss Mary Lovell. “In two neat pocket volumes, price 4/ sewed, or 5/ bound, embellished with a striking likeness taken from the life and engraved by G. Bartolozzi.” J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. Brit. Mus. (Published June 16, 1776.)

23. _Prudence Triumphing over Vanity and Dissipation_; or the History of the Life, Character, and Conduct of Mr. Robert, and Mr. Daniel Perreau, and Mrs. Rudd. J. Maling, Bookseller, the corner of Fleet Market, Ludgate-hill; J. Bradshaw, No. 40, St John Street, Clerkenwell; and J. Naples, Greenwich. Brit. Mus.

24. _A Particular Account of the Dreadful and Shocking Apparitions_ of the two unfortunate Perreaus. Brit. Mus. (Broadside. Published later than February 30, 1776.)

Lowndes mentions also:--

25. _An Authentic Account of the Particulars which appeared on the Trials of Robert and Daniel Perreau._ Nassau, pt. ii. 746.

26. _The History of the Life, Character, and Conduct of Mr. Daniel and Robert Perreau and Mrs. Rudd._ London 8. vo.

27. _Law Observations on the Case of Mrs. Rudd._ By a Gentleman of the Inner Temple. 8. vo. 1/6.

II. CONTEMPORARY NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES

1. _The Public Advertiser_, March 15-December 1775. January 1776. 2. _The Daily Advertiser_, do. 15 do. do. 3. _The Morning Chronicle_, do. 13 do. do. 4. _The London Chronicle_, do. 16 do. do. 5. _The Morning Post_, do. 16 do. do. 6. _The Gazetteer_, do. 15 do. do. 7. _Lloyd’s Evening Post_, do. 17 do. do. 8. _The Evening Post_, do. 17 do. do. 9. _The Craftsman_, June 1775.

The _Morning Post_ of Thursday, January 18, 1776, contains a long account of the execution of the Perreaus. There are full descriptions in the other newspapers.

10. _Gentleman’s Magazine._

1775.

“The Perreau Frauds,” pp. 148-150, 205. “Trials of the Perreaus,” pp. 278-284, 300. “The Case of Mrs. Rudd,” pp. 347, 349, 452, 603-5. “Poems on Mrs. Rudd,” pp. 443, 492.

1776.

“Petitions on behalf of the Perreaus,” 22, 23, 44. “Execution of the Perreaus,” 44, 45, 46. “Pamphlets on the Case,” 176, 278.

1779.

“Reported death of Mrs Rudd,” p. 327.

1800.

“Reported death of Mrs Rudd,” pp. 188, 483.

1809.

1834.

Reference to the Perreau Case, _vide_ obituary notice of Alex. Adair, part ii. p. 318.

The report of the celebrated Mrs Rudd’s death in vol. lxx. is inaccurate, as reference to the parish register of Hardingstone, Northampton, shows that a Mrs William Rudd was buried on February 7, 1800. There is evidence that she died in 1779.

11. _The London Magazine._ Published by R. Baldwin at the Rose, Paternoster Row.

(1775), pp. 300-307, 356-7, 376, 429, 488, 602, 657. (1775), pp. 53-54, 161, 327.

12. _The Town and Country Magazine._ Published by A. Hamilton Junior near St. John’s Gate.

(1775), pp. 300, 482, 629. (1776), p. 39.

13. _The Westminster Magazine._ Published by Richardson and Urquhart at the Royal Exchange, and T. Wright, Essex St., Strand.

(1775), pp. 119, 297, 304, 390, 475, 655. (1776), pp. 41-43.

14. _The Convivial Magazine._ Published by T. Bell. Bell-Yard near Temple Bar.

(1775), pp. 33, 98. (1776), pp. 171, 223, 247, 291.

15. _The Annual Register_, xviii. 229.

THE SONG “ROBIN ADAIR”

V. _Notes and Queries._

Third Series, v. 404, 442, 500; vi. 35, 96, 176, 254. Fourth Series, viii. 548; ix. 99, 130, 197. Fifth Series, v. 20. Eighth Series, vii. 267; x. 196, 242, 426; xi. 32.

Although both words and music may have been plagiarised from old Irish ballad and old Irish melody, it is probable that the story of Surgeon Robert Adair and Lady Caroline Keppel suggested the later version of John Braham, December 17, 1811.

* * * * *

NOTE.--We are indebted to Sir Thomas Frankland for one of the most charming mezzotints by Wm. Ward, after Hoppner--a picture of his two daughters.

THE KING’S ENGRAVER

THE CASE OF WILLIAM WYNNE RYLAND, 1783

About the time that Miss Blandy was commencing her ill-fated amour with Captain Cranstoun, a dark-eyed boy with earnest, clear-cut features, often carrying a portfolio of drawings under his arm, might have been met by any one who strolled along Fleet Street or the Strand in the early morning between Charing Cross and the Old Bailey. From his home beneath the grim shadow of Newgate prison, where his father, Edward Ryland, prints and engraves in a house next door to that in which thief-taker Wild levied blackmail, the young artist trudges each day to the St Martin’s Lane Academy. And should one meet him in the autumn of 1749, he will be wearing a suit of solemn black; and his grave, eager face will seem more sombre than wont, for his patron and godfather, the good and kind Sir Watkin Williams-Wynne, has been killed by a fall from his horse, to the unspeakable grief of every son of gallant little Wales.

Around the school of drawing where young Ryland is learning his craft, a new world is springing into life--a world of fancy, grace, and colour, destined to free old London from the sable sway of dulness. It is the world of art, over which the deep black deluge has rested for so long, soon to be peopled with the bright creations of genius. William Wynne Ryland will see some of these great ones ere he leaves St Martin’s Lane for the studio of a new master. Often, as he passes the coffee-tavern of Old Slaughter, he must catch sight of a placid, round-faced young man, with a mild pair of eyes that seem to need the aid of glasses, hurrying down Long Acre, while he envies Mr Reynolds, the portrait-painter, who has the entry to the Club that meets beneath the roof where Pope has held his court. Or, when he looks up at the house where the elegant Thornhill lived and worked, now the residence of Beau Hayman, more at home with the bottle than the brush, he may observe a tall, sentimental youth springing through the door, whose thoughts are far away amidst the woods and dales of Sudbury, where dwells a pretty miss called Peggy. And possibly, a little later, he will listen to the romantic fable that Tom Gainsborough has married a princess in disguise. Sometimes he may meet a middle-aged compatriot, named Richard Wilson, whose glowing scenes from Nature are to wrest the guerdon from France, and to found the incomparable school of British landscape.

Frequently a smile will steal over Wynne Ryland’s grave, nervous lips, as a small boy with a big head and a long, Punch-like body scampers down the lane, whirling his crooked legs, and he will hail the truant with the cry: “What, little Joey, have you been tolling for a funeral?” But the breathless lad, who has wasted too much time in his favourite game of assisting his friend the sexton at St James’s Church, scuttles back to his casts and models. Perhaps, one day, this little Joey Nollekens, who in good time produces many a beautiful bust and statue, will be allowed to take his friend into the studio of the great good-natured Roubiliac. “Hush, hush!” we can hear the volatile master cry, as he drags his young admirer before the figure which his deft chisel has caressed for a last time; “look, he vil speak in a minute!” And as the youth gazes upon the noble work, his quick Welsh blood, warmed by the infection of genius, glows with like ambition to do and dare. Soon, also, he becomes a pupil of the sculptor in St Peter’s Court, from whom, whatever else he learns, he must acquire a boundless self-confidence.

Shortly after the death of his godfather, young Wynne Ryland, now about seventeen years old, is bound apprentice to engraver Ravenet, who came over from France to help Hogarth with his plates, and who has set up a school south of the river in Lambeth Marsh. As the crows flies, it is a short journey from the Old Bailey, but one must turn up Ludgate Hill, wind round Black Friars through Water Lane, holding one’s nose if the wind comes north-west down the grimy Fleet, and from the steps take wherry to the Surrey side. Across the Thames, the wide, deep ditches, bordered by their fringes of willows, have changed the moss into a fertile plain.

Old Ryland is careful to conciliate the French artist now and then by a judicious commission, which takes the form of woolly book-plates after Sam Wale--classic pictures according to Queen Anne traditions, filled with urns and hose-pipe torches, wooden scrolls of parchment, and busts on pillar-boxes, gentlemen in cotton dressing-gowns, with stony beards, and demure ladies in flowing nightshirts. We meet these curious plates in a rare copy of the Book of Common Prayer, with the sign of Edward Ryland of the Old Bailey, and similar ones in Sir John Hawkins’ interpretation of Old Isaac. Young Wynne takes his part in the work, and though Master François gives him the lead, aided by fellow-countrymen Canot and Scotin, while the senior prentices, Grignion and Walker, also ply their gravers, a glance at ‘Luke the Physician,’ or ‘St Matthew at the Receipt of Custom’ will show that the youthful Welshman already is the equal of the best of them. Thus for five years he works under Ravenet.

It must have been a happy home in that dingy, sunless house in the Old Bailey, where Wynne Ryland’s early days were spent. The father, busy and prosperous, devoted to his wife, eager to encourage the talents of his boys, and observing proudly, with expert eye, the amazing genius of his third son. Yet over all there broods the sad shadow of the grim prison. Often in the night the silence is broken by the hoarse voice of the bellman chanting this refrain:--

“You prisoners that are within, Who for wickedness and sin,

“After many Mercies shown you, are now appointed to Dye to Morrow in the Forenoon: Give Ear and understand that to-morrow the Greatest Bell of St Sepulchre’s shall toll for you, in Form and Manner of a Passing Bell, as used to be tolled for those that are at the Point of Death....”

It is the loathly knell of the unhappy wretches within the deep black walls. And in the morning the awful boom of St Sepulchre rolls over the housetops, while a ribald, drunken mob chokes the street. Then comes the clank and clatter of sheriffs officers, and, as the procession moves from the iron portals of Newgate, there follows an open cart, driven by a gruesome creature astride a coffin, and in which, bound and quaking, lie the poor passengers to Tyburn. Such scenes are a portion of the boyhood of William Wynne Ryland, the great engraver.

But, after the long years of his apprenticeship have rolled away, a brighter and more glittering life than dingy old London, or even the whole world, can show, comes to the young genius. Since his youth Paris has been whispering to him her enticing summons--Paris, the Cyprus of art, where beauty, love, and colour walk hand in hand, and where he whose fingers can fashion their charms may become mightiest of the mighty. Two friends and old school-fellows are eager to make the same pilgrimage, and the indulgent parent, whose foresight perceives whither the talents of his gifted son will lead him, gives his consent. Although he knows that if the lowering storm-clouds shall burst, a visit to France may mean exile until the close of the war, he resolves that the young man shall pursue his art in the studios of the great French masters. So, early one morning the three enthusiasts mount Christopher Shaw’s stage-coach at the sign of the ‘Golden Cross’ and resting at Canterbury over night, reach Dover in good time the next day. With a fair wind, a stout smack will touch the opposite coast in a few hours, where they must tolerate a much less speedy team and a more shaky vehicle along the road to Paris.

It is the eve before the deluge, and a sunset, having no part in the morrow, most brilliant and gorgeous of aspect. To the eye of the poet or painter there is no blemish in the fair landscape. His vision rests only upon graceful palace or shining gardens. Around the fountains, over the lawns, glide the creatures of Arcadia--beautiful gentlemen in dazzling frocks and scented ruffles, toying with bejewelled sword or flicking the lid of a golden snuff-box, moving their satin limbs in obeisance to their fair partners. Sweet ladies with snowy ringlets falling upon bare shoulders, the bloom of roses in their cheeks, and the sheen of pearls on their round breasts, fluttering like butterflies amidst the flower-beds, clad in shimmering draperies, flashing in a blaze of colour. Or, in the twinkling of an eye, the picture may dissolve, to become more entrancing. My lord now trips the mead a dainty Strephon, tuning his pipes, and shaking the ribbands at his knees, while his highborn Phyllis, still wearing her powdered hair and disdainful patches, twirls her silken ankles in the graceful freedom of short frocks. What though these scenes dwell only on the canvas of the painter of Valenciennes! They are as real as were visions of angels to the dreamer Blake! In the eyes of the artist the whole of laughing France must be a fairy Arcadia such as this, for the witching Pompadour, who fulfils the thoughts of prescient Watteau, directs the dance.

Then from the thicket comes the tinkle of silvery laughter, where the paths wind beneath the branches to lonely dells, through which the sunlight streams in floods of amber between the leaves. Here, amidst the gold and olive shadows, which chase each other in flickering play round some graven image of goat-faced Pan, flits a wanton lady, flying from her persistent lover, but laughing, tripping, and calling to him still, as she draws him onward. Or, in the cool grove, crowned by a wealth of ivy-tinged greenery, a sylph-like figure sweeps through the air in her velvet swing, and her shining arms, raised to grasp the ropes, throw the contours of her form into shapely pose. From the bushes beneath sounds a burst of raillery, as her swain rises to his feet, gazing with rapture as the pretty girl flies past him and returns, adoring the tiny slippers, and the silken hose that vanish in dainty curves beneath a fluttering screen of drapery. The fancy of Fragonard has painted the spirit of his age--a world full of leaves, and flowers, and sunshine, where life moves with the rhythmic cadence of the swing, where every breath is pleasure, recking naught of pain or death.

Each palace that crowns these fairy gardens, wherein the splendour of man reaches its highest goal, is a sanctuary dedicated to the worship of feminine beauty. From every wall glows her picture, majestic in opulent lines of dazzling flesh--Cytherea draped in creamy foam, or languishing upon her couch with robes of gossamer, the divinity of the shrine. All the fair throng of lords and ladies, flashing with brilliants, shining in silk attire, are her votaries, who bow in idolatry beneath the spell. More than human are these worshippers, for they have tasted the honey-dew upon her lips, and have drunk the milk of Paradise. Yet only half their life-story has been told by François Boucher. As semi-divinities he has limned them, sporting as children around their Venus-mother, grovelling as satyrs before the throne of their queen. We must turn to other pictures to view their destiny. Their fate is that of all mortals who seek to share the pleasures of the gods. Duped by the alluring smile of the deity, they spread their tiny wings to invade her home, and the outraged divinity turns upon them in her wrath and smites them with death.

Not one of those who immortalise the romance of that fairy age can read the writing on the wall. Boucher, Fragonard, and their gay school, who are as blind to the future as the dead painter of Valenciennes, depict only what they see. The squalid little leech of Boudry is still in his country home, or wandering, an enthusiastic boy, in greedy pursuit of science to the sunny south; the sea-green _avocat_ of Arras has not yet looked upon the light; the lion-hearted tamer of the Gironde also is unborn. Even the surly, pock-fretten features of giant Mirabeau have never passed through the streets of Paris. A long, brilliant night is still before the giddy capital.

None of the ominous hungry growls from squalid purlieus can arrest the ears of young Wynne Ryland, who has come to Paris to shake off the memory of sad Old Bailey, who sees naught but the colour and romance. Thus he breathes into his soul, with strong, eager lungs, the perfume-scented air. With the enthusiasm of genius he plunges into work at the seductive studio of the inspector of the Gobelins. Sieur Boucher is at the summit of his fame, petted by Madame de Pompadour, commissioned by King Pan. Surely the handsome, dark-faced Welshman, who can trace on copper the gallant compositions of his master as finely as any pupil of Le Bas, must have won the love of the gay, profligate painter. And, should it be his humour, what a strange world Monsieur Boucher can reveal to the pupil’s eyes! One day, perhaps, he may hold before him a jewelled fan, glowing with luscious pictures, which he has just created for la belle Marquise. Or it will be a fancy sketch of some lacquered tabouret that he has designed for her private room at Versailles. Sometimes he may grasp the young man’s arm, and, drawing him a little aside, will open a secret portfolio, whispering, with a smile upon his pleasure-worn face, and drooping his dissolute eyelids, “Pour le boudoir de Madame dans l’Hôtel de l’Arsenal.” Then, while Wynne Ryland gazes upon the beautiful Anacreontic pictures, which no scene within the cities of the plains can have excelled, his black, thoughtful eyes will flash with admiration, and his white teeth glitter between his parted lips. It is no place for innocence, nor for narrow virtue, this glowing, gilded salon of Sieur Boucher the incomparable.

Yet the young Welshman does not neglect his proper craft. As the work of later years bears eloquent testimony, none of the gifted pupils of Le Bas have profited more from the instruction of that famous school. Jacques Philippe, as might be expected, turns him on to the plates of his _Fables choisies_, designs after Oudry-interpretations of La Fontaine parables, spread over four mighty tomes, beloved of the amateur who collects the _estampes galantes_. Volume II., bearing date 1755, contains a couple of these--with signature in Gallic orthography, ‘G. Riland’--portraits of peacock-feathered jay and boastful mule, humanised in the text, though strangely wooden in the picture.

Still, the line-engraver, with all his splendid art, is not the master that moulds the destiny of William Wynne. Among the numerous pupils of Le Bas is an ingenious person named Gilles Demarteau, who is practising a new method of working his copper plate with tiny dots which make the finished print as smooth and soft as a drawing in chalk. Out of this arises a vehement artistic causerie, for it is a sure fact that a man of forty, one Jean Charles François, has received a pension of 600 francs for this same invention, which, some say, another before him invented after all. Ryland, no doubt, learns everything he can from both pioneers, without troubling to ascertain the original discoverer, and, as this ‘stipple’ manner takes his fancy, he soon becomes as dexterous as those who teach him. Further, he finds that this same dotted plate may be tinted by the engraver’s brush, giving an almost perfect illusion of a picture in water-colours.

At last the young Welshman makes up his mind to complete the grand tour, without which the education of an artist is incomplete. Some say that the medal he gained at the Académie Royale entitles him to free tuition at Rome. At all events, he flies south to blunt his pencil upon the gnarled contours of Michael Angelo, and to shade the tender lines of Raphael--for the immortals of Leyden and Seville have not yet thrown these high priests from their altar. This same enterprise proves of much service to him when, in a year or two, the great lords at home wish him to transcribe, in the novel ‘Demarteau-after-Boucher’ fashion, their collections of the great masters. Hitherto he has been true to his first love, the line-engraving, in the dainty fashion of Le Bas, and the Parisian connoisseurs of ’57, who glue their glasses upon the rounded limbs of Leda toying with her swan--a print after Boucher which Ryland has pulled from his plate--acknowledge that some good has come from Angleterre at last.

With this same work the Welsh engraver first woos the British public, showing it at the Exhibition of the Society of Artists in Spring Gardens in the May of ’61. About this date, after an absence of five summers, when he is in his twenty-ninth year, he returns home to England. Chance has much in store for him. For a long time the canny Prime Minister, known to most of his fellow-countrymen as the Boot--an opprobrious, not a popular term,--has been looking out for a cheap line in engravings. Some time ago, courtly fellow-Scot Allan Ramsay had painted wonderful portraits of the noble favourite and royal Prince George; so, when the first was Premier and the other Defender of the Faith, it became necessary for the welfare of the nation that their lineaments should be scattered broadcast through the medium of a copper-plate.

“Robie Strange is my man,” thinks painter Allan, and makes the mistake of telling his illustrious ex-sitters before he has caught his engraver. There is a dreadful _contretemps_. Stout-hearted Robie is acquainted with Scottish truck--he will have none of them. “Off to Rome to copy great masters,” is the excuse. “Cannot waste four years over your pictures!” But in stout Robie’s heart of hearts there may lurk another motive; for Robie has whirled his claymore at Prestonpans, and Charlie is his darling. Indeed, he might have gone the way of wry-necked old Lovat had not a devoted damsel allowed him to hide beneath her hoop--to whose skirts, very properly, he remained attached ever after. Robie snorts at the canny price they offer him. A hundred pounds to engrave the cod-fish features of royal George! when Rome and the great masters are calling loudly, where he will kiss hands with his own King James III. “No, thank you!” says Robie, and, packing up chalks and drawing-board, takes himself off on his travels.

In this dilemma Mæcenas Bute, who, to do him justice, keeps his eyes open for budding genius, hears of the young Welsh engraver, the beater of Frenchmen on their own soil. Being an art-collector, probably he has seen an assortment of the fleshy prints after Boucher. So, as Robie is with Charlie over the water, Bute secures Ryland to copy his likeness by the polite Allan, and, in due course, “the handsomest legs in England”--legs literally fit for a boot--appear in a very creditable line-engraving, emblazoned with a coat of arms. Thus in this month of February 1763 William Wynne has reached the top of the tree, happy and smiling, at Ye Red Lamp, Russell Street, Covent Garden, close to Button’s and Will’s. The portrait of the beautiful legs, along with his red-chalk imitations--employed industriously ever since his return from the Continent in several sketches from the old masters,--convinces ‘Modern Mæcenas’ that Robie’s room is better than his company. A word whispered in the ear of the royal mother would be enough to persuade apron-string George that the clever Welshman is the artist for his features. At all events the great honour is offered, and Taffy, very shrewdly keeping his head, takes care that, from his point of view, it is a good deal. It is a most amazing deal--£100 down for the drawings, £50 a quarter as long as the work lasts, and the proceeds of the copyright. However, thus it stands--Wynne Ryland blazons himself with the fearsome title, ‘Calcographus Regis Britanniæ’ and, setting up in the true manner of a master, begins to take pupils. One of these, worthy James Strutt, who comes to him the year after his achievement with the beautiful legs, remains a trusted friend through life, and the tutor, in turn, of his eldest son, who, alas, meets an early death.

During the next four years, being paid for time, Ryland, like a true British workman, continues to pick out slowly the salmon-lips and Gillray stare of his royal master. A large number of the red-chalk engravings from pictures of the great painters in the possession of noble patrons belong to this period; and when George is finished, he goes on to copy Cotes’ picture of the Queen with the infant Princess Royal in her arms. While he is basking in smiles from the throne, he is employed in other ways, visiting Paris in the middle of his work to collect engravings for the royal connoisseur, which prints, we are told by the festive Wille, are “magnifiques épreuves ... fourniés comme pour un roi.”

These are the halcyon times of the artist’s life--these are the days when we catch a glimpse of him swaggering along Bow Street, with silver-hilted sword and ample ruffles, by the side of a heavy-jowled brawler of handsome person and agile, spiteful tongue, listening with black, eager eyes and flashing teeth to the jibes and sallies of his friend. Or, beneath the arm of this same aggressive Charles Churchill, he turns into Will’s coffee-house, and sits in easy deference on the fringe of a little ring, while he hears a torrent of charming, vicious diatribe, at the expense of poor patron Bute, pouring from the wine-stained lips of the cross-eyed apostle of liberty. Or perhaps poet Charles, who wields the Twickenham rapier in the fashion of a butcher with his cleaver, may take up this Dunciad of peers, roaring out a gruesome fable--how poor John Ayliffe was strung up at Tyburn to shut his lips concerning the crimes of peculator Fox. Then, while they talk of the forged deed that brought the luckless agent to the gallows, a shudder may pass through the graceful limbs of artist William as he thinks what a small matter may take a man to the triple tree.

At other times two chairs will halt in Russell Street, and Ryland and architect John Gwynn, gorgeous in brocade frocks, satin knee-breeches, and silk stockings, will step out gaily, giving the order to their bearers in two significant monosyllables--‘Carlisle House’ And among all the dazzling throng that crowds the salons of fair Therese Imer, alas for the worth of poor human nature! the one we know best--better, even, than the old maid in knickerbockers from Strawberry Hill--is a broad-limbed Italian, with frizzy hair and fierce nigger eyes; which same African-tinged gentleman moves through the company with much self-conscious play of robust leg, and a truculent stare, ogling such a one as half-draped Iphigenia Chudleigh, or making obeisance to buxom Caroline Harrington, while the whisper follows, keeping company the almost filial glance of pretty Sophy Cornelys--“The famous Casanova--it is the Chevalier de Seingalt.” Then, should Wynne Ryland draw close while the splendid blackguard babbles French to Milord Pembroke or Milord Baltimore, he will hear a dreadful tale of a certain Mademoiselle la Charpillon, who, to the eternal honour of her frail fame, has humiliated the sooty rascal to his native gutter. Wynne Ryland and companion John are very fond of these light and airy assemblies in Soho Square.

For the clever engraver his connoisseur Majesty seems to foster a great regard. Possibly, the proof prints of Wille--‘fit for a king’--have been picked up for an old song, and tickle his thrifty soul. At all events, he is pleased to grant to the artist a most amazing royal boon; for, at his intercession, he--the third George, by the grace of God--actually pardons a capital felon. A ne’er-do-weel rascal this same poor felon, so tradition relates, but all the same he is Wynne Ryland’s own brother. Near Brentford, or upon breezy Hounslow Heath, or some such fashionable highwayman resort, in a drunken frolic--after the fashion of Silas Told’s respited friend David Morgan--he calls upon two unprotected females to stand and deliver. And for this same daring frolic the rash Richard Ryland is taken, tried, and handed over to Jack Ketch. And Jack soon would have made short work of Richard if the favourite engraver to the King had not moved the royal bowels to compassion. For, incredible though it may seem, his Majesty does turn his thumb to the side of mercy, and brother Richard receives pardon; after which exertion the royal bowels remain obdurate for all time.

At last the regal portrait is finished, hanging in state upon the walls of the ‘Great Room’ belonging to the excellent Incorporated Society, when it opens its exhibition on the 22nd of April 1767. The artist is now a resident in Stafford Row, close to the Green Park, or, rather, as he prefers to particularise his address, ‘near the Queen’s Palace,’ upon whose picture, with the slumbering baby Princess in her arms, he is engaged. His portrait by Pierre Falconet, drawn during the next year, shows him a man in the prime of life, with clean-cut, delicate profile and a neat bob-wig tied by black ribbon, published by a dutiful pupil who trades as Bryer & Co. in Cornhill. This kind of trade, unhappily, has much allurement for Wynne Ryland, who, with his splendid monopoly of plates--the royal George, her maternal Majesty, the Modern Mæcenas with his shapely legs--seems to scent appetising profits. So Bryer & Co. becomes Ryland & Co., and any of the royal public who desire these regal portraits must purchase them from the proprietors at No. 27 Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange. Unhappily for this same No. 27, the public--enamoured of the Wilkes squint and disdaining the regal stare--do not treat these prints in the manner of hot cakes, and upon a fateful day in December 1771, No. 27 is in the hands of the broker’s men.

Early in the same year a strange thing happens in Ryland’s studio. A proud father brings along his fourteen-year-old son, a boy of splendid and weird genius, as the sequel shows--a sequel prolific in pictures of the immortal sheik struggling against his environment of sands and storms and improvidence, which, like his interpreter Blake, sheik Job, overwhelmed by tree-trunk legs and half a gale of beard, regards as the judgment of his God. But this weird boy with the large head and amazing eyes objects to the parental scheme of making him a pupil of the great engraver. “Father, I do not like the man’s face,” murmurs boy Blake, when the pair have left Ryland’s studio. “It looks as if he will live to be hanged!” “Prescience, intuition--all the things not dreamt of in thy philosophy,” babble his legatee mystics, bowing the knee to jaundiced mind as rapturously as to portraits of human abortions, aping verbal harmony of empty sound, plastering deformities with giraffe necks and swollen limbs in a wealth of muddy hair and a saffron skin--good and sedulous disciples. Boy Blake can have heard nothing of the brother Richard hanging-escape! Such a small affair has never been breathed by fond parents who go to entrust a weird son to brother Wynne! Prescience, intuition, are more potent physical instincts than the throb of suggestion or empiric thought. Thus clamour legatee mystics, spurning the simple mental machinery put into motion by the association of ideas.

It has been reserved for a lady of our own times, whose graceful pen has been devoted to the radiant prints of fair women of olden days, to tell the romantic story of poor, crushed, bankrupt Ryland and sweet feminine charity in the person of dove-eyed ‘Miss Angel’ A scene, alluring as any of the glowing old-world engravings, is this dainty-coloured picture painted by Mrs Frankau. Within the oak-panelled studio, through which the winter twilight is stealing in flickering shadows, the two ardent souls are wrapt in the communion of art. And while coy, diaphanous Angelica listens to the fascinating tongue of the virile, dark-skinned Welshman, her quick southern fancy whispers that this man is the knight-errant who shall write her fame amidst the stars. Ryland has come with a heart of lead; he goes away with a heart of gold. For one of the most famous of unions in the annals of painting has been sealed, and in a little while the prints after Kauffman will have captured the imagination of the whole world.

In a house in Queen’s Row, Knightsbridge, the great engraver commences one of those life-and-death struggles that genius alone can wage successfully against malicious fate. Gradually--for he is young and strong and brave, while the trust of a sweet woman warms his courage--he emerges from the choking atmosphere of debt. One by one his creditors are paid, and at last, free from his bankrupt chains, he is his own master. It is a fine work, this proud, independent cancelling of obligations--merely moral claims--a fair tribute to the lady who has been his tutelar divinity. For it is through his engravings of Miss Angel’s pictures, to which he applies the ‘stipple method’ which he learnt in France, that he wins his way back to fame and fortune. Soon he is a contributor to the newly-formed Royal Academy exhibition, sending very properly as his first works a couple of drawings copied from the canvas of the sylph Kauffman. Thus pass three sober years, while he perfects his new art, living with his young wife far from the delights of town and the old seductive companionship, first at Knightsbridge, and then moving a couple of miles further out into rural Hammersmith.

At last he resolves to tempt the grimy god of trade once more. Better assets are in his store than a salmon-profile king or maternal majesty, and he knows that the marketing bourgeois will not be hindered by squint of Wilkes from clamouring for his many pictures of Venus, beaming with the soft, dove-like eyes of pretty Miss Angel. So, in the third year after his bankruptcy, he hangs out his sign once more as an honest print-seller at No. 159 in the Strand, near Somerset House, by the corner of Strand Lane, trading as William Wynne Ryland, engraver to his Majesty. From the first the enterprise flourishes. Angelica’s plump little Cupids, drawn in rosy chalk, appeal in their suggestive resemblance to the heart of the British matron; the dainty Angelica Venus, with her large haunting eyes, becomes a pattern of female loveliness; Angelica’s mild and chaste interpretations of classic romance push aside all previous readings. More than all, the Kauffman pinks and yellows, transformed by the deft fingers of the wonderful Welshman into soft, rainbow-tinged impressions--like a delicate painting in water-colours--capture the public fancy. Such engravings never have been seen before, and never will be seen again. It is not strange that No. 159 in the Strand becomes one of the most popular print-shops in London.

During those nine years, from 1774 until the spring of 1783, the trade venture of the engraver to his Majesty continues to enjoy great prosperity. Profits reach the sum of two thousand a year, while stock and plant swell to a total of five figures. Few well-fobbed merchants, no chair-sporting City dame, can resist the temptations of that seductive window. A pleasant sight for Miss Angel, that little knot of open-mouthed shop-gazers with burning pockets, as she passes in hackney coach, a vision of clinging drapery in her white Irish polonese. While, if at that moment the happy proprietor steps out, bound for the counting-house of Sir Charles Asgill and his friend Mr Nightingale, with whom he is having some considerable bill of exchange transactions--a glimpse of those large eyes and crest of feathers at the coach window will bring down his laced hat in a sweep of obeisance, as he bows to the knees. Then, after the bankers have discounted all he wants, he will hurry off to Golden Square to show his Miss Angel the last impressions of some of her pictures, glowing in colours, or copied in the popular shade of red. Perhaps, one of these days, as he comes near the studio, a chair may stop as he passes, from which glides a beautiful lady, wearing a crown of glorious hair, brushed from her forehead, who rests her starry eyes upon him for a moment with a slight motion of her tiny rosebud lips. And his heart will beat more quickly as he recognises the woman whose radiant face has brought poor Daniel Perreau and his brother to a shameful death.

For Wynne Ryland’s conscience is becoming a heavy burden. In spite of his princely income, artistic improvidence is beginning to weigh him down. Over his soul the like spirit that swayed Sieur Boucher the incomparable reigns absolute. Gilded rooms, where the Eo. tables pave the road to ruin, swallow his guineas in their rapacious maw. His open hand scatters gold amidst his friends. Miss Angel, his patron saint, returns to her native land. Although he remains the kind husband and devoted father, the shadow of sin creeps over his roof-tree. A pretty girl, whose fresh young beauty has stolen his heart from the mother of his children, becomes a mistress who squanders his earnings faster than they are reaped. Those bill of exchange transactions with bankers Asgill and Nightingale grow more considerable. Friends and accommodators Ransome and Moreland often receive him in their counting-house, with his pockets full of crisp notes drawn upon the Honourable the East India Company of Leadenhall Street; for this clean, easy paper-credit is always welcomed as deposit for current coin.

At last comes the fatal crash, bursting over the town in a thunderclap, striking sorrow into the hearts of thousands. On the 3rd of April 1783, when the London merchant opens his newspaper--_Morning Chronicle or Daily Advertiser_--he reads there that William Wynne Ryland stands charged before the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor on suspicion of forging the acceptance of two bills of exchange for payment of £7114, with intent to defraud the United East India Company. Kind John Gwynn throws aside his plans of stately edifices, walking the streets with streaming eyes, sorrowing for his friend. Statuesque Domenico Angelo hurries to condole with poor Mary Ryland, and the sight of the agonised wife and children robs the good-hearted Italian swordsman of sleep. But the engraver had left his home at Knightsbridge on the first of the month, and although the City Marshal searches for him in the Old Bailey and in the Minories, nothing is heard of him for fourteen days.

On the morning of the 15th of April, a drunken woman reels into the ‘Brown Bear’ Bow Street, hiccupping an exciting story that entices the runners even from their pewter pots. She is the wife of a Stepney cobbler, who for many days has been harbouring a strange lodger--a man garbed in an old rusty coat, with green apron and worsted nightcap, who poses as invalid Mr Jackson who needs the country air; which same delicate invalid rests indoors all day, only venturing out after nightfall to enjoy the health-giving April east winds. But he is not Mr Jackson at all, babbles tipsy Mrs Cobbler Freeman, for, when taking one of his shoes to her husband to mend, she noticed a bit of paper pasted on the inside, and, tearing it away, she has seen written his real name--William Wynne Ryland. This is great news for the ‘Brown Bear’ runners, and Chief-officer Daly, accompanied by a fellow robin-redbreast, takes coach with Mrs Cobbler Freeman to Stepney Green.

From his garret window the guilty engraver beholds the coming of the bloodhounds. With a brief prayer for pardon he flies to his razor, and when the constables burst through the door they find him stretched upon the boards with a gash across his throat. Still, he has not cheated cruel fate. A surgeon staunches his wound, and watchers surround his bed lest he should seek to meet death once more. In the agony of that long night, while physical torture conquers even the deep, black pain of unutterable despair, the wretched sufferer atones for the sins of a lifetime. Yet on the morrow they take him rudely from his couch, and while the foul cobbler goes clamouring to the India House for his blood-money, Ryland is brought before Sir Sampson Wright, who sits in the place of blind John Fielding in the office at Bow Street. There he is given over to Governor Smith, who carries him to the Bridewell at Tothill Fields, where he lies for weeks sick almost unto death.

Newspaper canards spring up in wonted manner like mushrooms from a dunghill. Mr Ryland, who cannot recover--so they say--has confessed his crime to Sheriff Robert Taylor, naming also a pair of accomplices, and hints a third. As he cannot recover--so they say--Keeper Smith has a couple of men to watch him always, lest he should kill himself. Newspaper reason uses these odd arguments and more. Among the feasts of scandal crammed down the public gullet one fact is readily digested--Ryland is guilty beyond all refutation! Forged E.I.C. bills have been found in shoals--none but the great engraver could have been their author--he attempted self-murder because he was certain of conviction. All true, possibly; nay, probably, but where is the proof?

The trial of the poor sick artist skips a session. In tender mercy those in power do not shut him up in fetid, overcrowded Newgate, but allow him to remain under the watchful care of good Keeper Smith. His kind jailor does everything in his power to lighten his dreary lot, making him a trusted friend, allowing him to take walks with him in the open street, confident that he will not break his parole. It is not until the eve of the session that they drive him to the Old Bailey, around whose bloodstained walls he used to play with his brothers as a child.

On Saturday, the 26th of July, he is brought to face his accusers. Not until the last moment do Crown lawyers intimate the terms of indictment, for there are several forged bills laid to his charge, and, conviction appearing a matter of doubt, the Honourable E.I.C. wishes to be certain of its prey. So Crown lawyers select a minor charge--a small bill for £210--which they assert Ryland has copied and engraved from a true document, uttering it knowing it to be forged. Both bills have been lately in the prisoner’s possession--this is made clear--but which is the counterfeit? A hard nut for Crown lawyers, since both are like as two peas. Unless they show that the first which Ryland had received is the true one, their case falls to the ground, for no man can copy what he has not seen. A breathless crowd, whose hearts are all for the man in the dock, watch the ghastly duel of keen wits, for it is death to one if he is vanquished. Witnesses come and go, but tierce and parry keep the defendant unscathed. Witnesses advance and retire, but Crown lawyers find them weak reeds. Banker Ammersley swears to his signature on the first bill, but this proves nothing, as Banker Ammersley’s autograph is not the seal of Company John. One Holt, late E.I.C. secretary, whose brain is not so clear as it was, makes a dismal display in the box, while the courage of Ryland’s friends mounts high. One Omer, E.I.C. clerk, tries to spot the true bill, but counsel Peckham involves him in a maze of legerdemain. All the gallant little host of well-wishers, who have drunk deeply of newspaper canards, and still more insidious City gossip, are amazed that Hicks’s Hall should have deemed such evidence worthy of a true bill--amazed, moreover, that their friend seems to have a chance of escape.

Suddenly the quick shadow of despair flits across the face of the prisoner. For a moment the brave, easy self-confidence leaves him naked to his enemies. Crown counsel Sylvester--who lives in fame as the judge of maiden Fenning--has played his last card, calling to the witness-box a calm, unemotional man of commerce, Mr Waterman of Maidstone, papermaker for twenty years. Then the reason of the Hicks’s Hall opinion is made clear. Papermaker Waterman brushes aside all doubts--he made the sheet upon which one of the bills is printed, recognising the marks of his moulds, distinguishable only by expert eye. Since this Maidstone Waterman is positive that the paper on which one of the E.I.C. acceptances is stamped did not reach London till May 1783, it is certain that the first bill which came into the possession of Ryland was the true one accepted by the Company. Thus two counts of the indictment are decided--the last bill is the spurious one, and it was uttered by the prisoner.

Yet what is the whole significance of this carefully accumulated evidence! Merely that an amazing forgery has been wrought, and that Ryland alone, who had the motive and the skill, possessed also the opportunity. Every heart within the crowded court is filled with pity for the accused man. Bankers Moreland and Ammersley, though called by the Crown, have striven to assist the defence. Prosecutors Sylvester, Rous, and Graham have shown no vindictive spirit. Even stripping Judge Buller--he who drew up a specification of rod for the benefit of wife-beaters--strives to find a “chasm in the evidence,” endeavouring to prove that the honourable servants of the E.I.C. have made a mistake. Finally, when this big-brained lady-whipping Buller comes to instruct the jury, he specially commends the prisoner’s defence--read by the clerk of arraigns, as poor Ryland’s throat is too sore for the effort--for its matter and good sense.

Then mercy hides her face, for the youthful judge lays down calmly the most astounding of eighteenth-century judicial dogmas. “It stands prisoner,” declares this Buller, “to show how he came by the bill in order to prove he did not know it to be forged.” So--musty old twiners of red tape--they cannot fasten the guilt upon the man, thus with impotent _tu quoque_ they demand that he shall prove his innocence. Since they cannot rip him open in the witness-box, they shift their own burden upon his shoulders. Since he cannot prove his innocence, they deem him guilty, forgetting the good British legal converse of this proposition. Bewildered by judicial hair-splitting, the jury at last withdraw. No direct evidence convicts him--circumstances, prejudice rather, the whispered stories of numerous E.I.C. bills (forgeries all) that have passed through the hands of the engraver. If one indictment does not draw, others will follow--he had the motive, means, and opportunity, and he flew to his razor when the runners came to take him. Half an hour of such reasoning kneads the brains of jury into proper hanging shape, and they decide that to Tyburn the prisoner must go.

Quiet and brave, as he has been through his long trial, the man in the dock rises to his feet when his judges return. Courage is stamped on the strong, deep lines of his face, though the face is white as his soft ruffles, or as the snowy vest that lies beneath his russet coat. Coming forward, he listens calmly while they declare him guilty, bowing to the Bench. A thrill runs through the court when the foreman pronounces the dread word, but, though all hearts are throbbing with pain, one fond hope rises in every breast--that the power of a gracious king will rescue this erring genius from a shameful death. Also, the poor servant himself thinks first of his royal master; for as he is conducted back to loathsome Newgate, he tells the friends around him that, although he has been the victim of persecution, he can perceive a beam of mercy. Alas, he could not know his sovereign!

A week later the dreary session draws to a close, and Ryland is brought up again, and alone, before the rest of the convicts, to hear his sentence. Calmly and bravely he bears this ordeal like the last. Already two petitions have been presented at Windsor--one the day after he was condemned, the other on the thirtieth of the month. It is supposed that he will be kept alive for a while, since he has begged that his life may be preserved a little longer, not for his own sake, but that he may finish some plates for the benefit of his wife and children. Even the heart of royal George may have been touched by the piteous request. So the prisoner spends the gloomy days in toiling at his task, scraping the copper sheets with his stipple-graver, literally dying in harness. Nor is it inadequate work, for when his printer is allowed to bring him the proofs he is able to murmur with satisfaction, “Mr Haddrill, my task is finished!” Yet two pictures after all are left incomplete, one of which Bartolozzi, to whom he sends to beg the favour, and who owes him as a master of his craft so much, promises to take in hand, while jovial William Sharp polishes the other. For King George, when pressed once more to spare the poor artist because of his great genius, replies sternly--“No; a man with such ample means of providing for his wants could not reasonably plead necessity as an excuse for his crime.” Material logic, worthy of the man!

On Friday, the 29th of August, dawns the fatal morning. Before nine o’clock the outer Press Yard is overflowing with sight-seers; but because of Governor Akerman’s humane order, none are allowed within the smaller court to disturb the last moments of the unhappy sufferers. Presently the iron-studded door of the lodge is flung open, and Sheriff Taylor, bearing his wand of office, enters the prison to demand the bodies of his victims. Then through the expectant crowd the turnkeys slowly force a path, and down this narrow lane the malefactors walk one by one with hideous clank of fetters. On his knees beside a block of stone a creature with punch and hammer deftly rids them of their chains. Five times the strident blows echo through the vaulted walls, while as many unhappy wretches pass into the hands of the hangman’s lacqueys, busy with their bonds and cords. Last of all comes a slim, graceful figure, clad in a suit of mourning with white ruffles and silver shoe-buckles, unencumbered by chains, walking as unconcernedly as though he were a spectator of the scene. A shudder runs through the throng as all eyes rest upon the gifted artist, who, as he passes on, quietly salutes those friends whom he chances to recognise. With a respectful bow the Sheriff advances and leads the prisoner to the lodge, away from the crowded quadrangle.

“Don’t tie Mr Ryland too tight,” he commands the attendants as they fasten the cords.

“Never mind, sir,” is the quiet answer; “they give me no uneasiness.”

All the time he chats calmly to those around, bearing himself in this, as through all other scenes to the end, as a brave heart and a gentleman. Then the clatter of arms is heard outside, for the City Marshal is bringing up his troop. A moment later the door is thrown back, and from the steps a stentorian voice bellows aloud, “Mr Ryland’s coach.” With brisk, easy steps he passes out into the street, closely followed by the attendant Ordinary. Suddenly he springs forward, and in an instant a tiny girl has thrown her little hands around his pinioned arms, while he kisses her passionately--his own daughter, the child of sin. Tenderly they induce him to hasten the agonising farewell, but his steel-clad soul is steadfast and unshaken. Tearing himself away, he hurries on with a firm tread.

Then the procession moves forward. A strong company of Sheriff’s men and City Marshal’s constables leads the way, parting the dense surging mob for the progress of the official chariots and the black mourning-coach that follows next in line. Another carriage, in which sits one Lloyd, an ex-housebreaker turned psalm-singing penitent, comes after that of Ryland, and then the pair of loathsome carts with four more miserable victims. No cant or cowardice marks the bearing of the poor artist. Unlike the conventional hypocrite of such a time, his lips do not move in response to the exhortations of white-banded Ordinary Villette. No prayer-book rests in his fingers. Having made his peace with God, he does not deign to humour the prejudices of man. Unjustly, they are sending him to a cruel death. Why should he appear to worship in the fashion they have chosen? Thus, while the procession moves onward, his calm, inscrutable face gazes upon the scene that passes before his eyes.

An amazing spectacle, this eighteenth-century march to Tyburn, revealing as completely as the roofless city of romance the human animal taken unawares. No braver picture of dauntless courage ever has been displayed in battlefield than the serene victim, tied and bound, who is drawn along slowly to his shameful death. Though the deep toll of St Sepulchre’s passing bell may beat in cruel blows against his heart, as he moves past the old church at whose font his brothers and sisters were given their Christian names, there is no tremor visible to the thousands who gloat upon his form. Down the slopes of Snow Hill runs the quick, eager whisper, for the eyes of all seek but one man, “Which is Mr Ryland?” And the careless murmur swells into a louder key, “There he is in the coach--that is he--that is Ryland”--the heartless babble of a multitude of savages. Thicker and thicker teems the concourse, as the procession crawls over the bridge and up Holbourn Hill, swollen like a black, turgid river by streams that flow from haunts of filth and foulness--the sweepings of the slums. Thieves, cut-throats, hoarse drunkards, and shrill strumpets join in the delirious march with the loud, mad tread of a thousand clattering feet.

Thus they move onward. Within the sable coach the smug Ordinary is mumbling scraps of Holy Writ pertaining to the time and place, the valley of the shadow of death. In response, a hundred ribald oaths and loathsome jests are pealing all around. Within the sable coach the poor ecstatic housebreaker is piping a quavering hymn, his joints shaking in palsy, his eyes, which gleam in horrible whiteness, raised to the skies. All around, the hands of a hundred thieves are busy at work as they tramp along in this march to the grave. Beyond Chancery Lane the wide thoroughfare seems to pass into a new world. Although the street echoes still to the tread of ten thousand squalid footsteps, high up on either side, at the windows or in the narrow balconies, wealth and beauty take their part in the mighty spectacle. Sweet, pale faces look down, while soft, heaving bosoms press the casements. Beings who might soar amidst the stars are sunk in the mire--all compelled by the haunting, irresistible tramp rolling onward in the march of death.

Yet the footsteps never pause. Forward still, winding through St Giles, the highroad to Tyburn opens to the view. There is no halt now for the Lazar-house bowl, nor would those fettered men in the carts wish to quaff it. Huddled together in the first, the three are babbling supplications; prone and fainting, a half-dying creature is stretched within the last. In front, the hysterical housebreaker is swaying like a drunkard on the seat of his coach, still quavering forth his piteous hymn. Only the artist, whose carriage leads the way to the shambles, gazing calmly around with grave, stony face, will have no truck with the cant of humanity. For his thoughts are far distant, fleeing from the mighty roll of footsteps till they soften to his ears like the murmur of muffled drums. All around him are visions of bygone days. Yon narrow road that is pouring forth its human torrent leads to Soho, where, with the gentle Gwynn, he used to visit the gilded palace of Therese Cornelys, or that other Carlisle House, the fencing-school of splendid Angelo. Down that long street is Golden Square, but there is no pretty Miss Angel to weep for him. And far away, beyond the distant horizon, lies the palace of his king, but before it there is reared the gaunt, frightful spectre of the triple tree.

Then the sound of voices swells louder while the march is stayed. Through the windows of his coach he can see the three bare posts close at hand, so that he can almost touch them. Slowly the creaking carts roll forward, halting beneath the wooden bars, and a sweeping circle of soldiers spreads itself around. Perched upon the park wall is a long mass of expectant faces. Here and there rise huge stands, tier upon tier, choked to the full with swaying humanity. As far as the eye can reach is a dense, surging throng, crushing forward, ever crushing, as though eager to press the victims to their doom.

Presently the black clouds that have been slowly unfurling their shadows across the August sky burst in a peal of thunder, and the tempest rushes through the air. Amidst the flashes of lightning, a fierce rainstorm hurls itself to earth. For a moment the bloody work must pause, since it is impossible to stand against the blinding torrents. Half an hour passes. Then the deluge ceases as suddenly as it arose. Hastily the Sheriff gives his orders, and soon expert hands have arranged the ropes around the necks of the three rain-soaked wretches in the cart. Swiftly the second tumbril, in which the sick man is lying prostrate, backs to the coach where sits the penitent housebreaker, and he is summoned to the gallows. In a few moments the halters are placed upon their heads, while the contrite thief entreats the multitude to take warning from his fate. At last, when all is ready, they call upon Mr Ryland. Springing lightly down the steps, he mounts the cart, and stands beside his two fellow-sufferers--a brave, graceful gentleman in black, quiet and unflinching. Strange contrast indeed to the swooning creature on the floor, or to the noisy burglar, who shrieks to heaven, wringing his hands. Ordinary Villette comes forward, pressing his holy attentions upon the unhappy artist, who listens to him calmly and respectfully, while close at hand his wretched companions pray long and loud. Suddenly there is a shrill, wailing sound, rising and falling in equal cadence with the see-saw rhythm of a hymn, “The Sinner’s Lamentation,” which four terror-stricken creatures, with their heads thrown back, bellow loudly to the skies. And all this time, firm, motionless, inscrutable, bearing even the greatest ignominy--the contact of these foul ones--without a tremor, Wynne Ryland stands silent, waiting for the last cruel moment. Swiftly it comes. His face is covered, the hangman lashes his horse, the foothold sweeps from beneath, and he passes into oblivion. To the other five who sway in the air at his elbow (save one) death also is merciful.

A holiday of butchery, cries Mercy; yea, and more, a holiday in which butchery alone has a part, giving naught that chance or strength or valour might lend its victim; butchery a thousand times more squalid than that of the noble Roman. Ah, but it is the pious retribution of majestic laws, declares the spirit of those times; the just conclusion of the social contract; butchery, alas! for these poor victims can have no resemblance to the gladiators of the arena. Yes, indeed, retorts Mercy; it is the vengeance of the sacred majesty of commerce, whose garments have been soiled by the hands of these malefactors, which cannot be appeased by the code of savages, an eye for an eye, a life for a life. Yet ’tis stern for the sake of utility, pleads the spirit; harsh for the public good, so that the evil-doer may be terrified to the advantage of all innocence, and to the encouragement of a Christian life. But what of that handsome youth, is the reply, whose face is seared by vice, and whose hand is in the fob of your sleek, well-fed City merchant: is this one dismayed by these six dangling victims on the tree? No, answers the spirit; but we must not adopt a universal conclusion from a particular case, for how can we judge how many of the tempted have been saved from crime by the terrible example of the fatal rope? True in logic, false in truth, Mercy well may thunder--a valid deduction from _conditional_ premiss, but the terms of jurisprudence should not be qualified by an ‘if’ Thus, surely, unless we admit the old Hebrew ‘eye for an eye’ dogma, must we view all legal punishments that deprive a fellow-creature of his life. Alas, that we are controlled by the logic of other times!

The same coach that conveyed William Wynne Ryland along the road to Tyburn brought back his dead body to his friends. Five days later--on Thursday, the 3rd of September--they took him to the tiny churchyard of Feltham, beyond Hounslow, where his father and mother had been laid to rest. For a long time after his death Mrs Ryland continued to keep a print-shop at the corner of Berners Street, where her husband’s engravings commanded a large sale. Subsequently she transferred her business to New Bond Street. From contemporary newspapers we learn that the Ryland plates were much sought after in Paris when his untimely fate became known. Nine years later, on the 20th of October 1792, the unhappy wife went to join her husband in the little grass-plot of the village by the Thames.

With the exception of that mighty scholar Eugene Aram, the eighteenth century never suffered deeper loss by the hangman’s rope than in the death of brave and graceful Wynne Ryland. Just as the marvellous usher is the greatest of schoolmen, so is the Strand engraver incomparably the greatest artist that ended his days upon the scaffold. With him the dissolute and passionate Theodore Gardelle can no more be contrasted than poet Gahagan with the former. Yet, unlike the sombre Aram, poor Ryland did not bear the stain of blood upon his hands. Nor was the evidence of his guilt less open to doubt. Because he failed to prove his innocence they sent him to his death. Still, although there was no lack of tears and lamentation, his cruel fate did not excite the same interest nor cause the universal consternation that was aroused in similar cases. Neither Horace Walpole, Mrs Delany, nor George Selwyn speak his name, and gossip Tom Smith merely mentions him incidentally in a list of engravers. A reason is not far to seek. Not being a man of fashion, how was it possible that an epoch which had beheld so many stupendous melodramas should be greatly shocked by his atonement? Preacher Dodd, the pet of devout ladies; the unfortunate brothers over whom the charms of Margaret Rudd cast the halo of romance; soldier-parson Hackman, with his love and madness; poisonous Captain Donellan of Lawford Hall--all these magnificent criminals had lately made the march to Tyburn, or elsewhere. Little wonder that society, _ennuyé_ by the sight of the gallows, had lost its zest for convict-worship.

To say that William Wynne Ryland might have been the greatest engraver that the world has seen would be to state an equivocal proposition, since modern print-science, to which the splendid art has given birth, scarce realises comparative methods, and has no complete list of precise terms. Yet the assertion that none have ever excelled him as a creator of the coloured stipple is a mere platitude. Also, it would be difficult to name any other artist who has produced finer work in all the three great branches of engraving--line, dot, and mezzotint. Still, like every rolling stone, he suggests rather than demonstrates the possession of superlative powers. Although few surpass him as a draughtsman, colourist, and craftsman, he shares the fate of all who pursue unworthy models. While the fair Kauffman sinks into insignificance in contrast to Sir Joshua, the man who translated her pictures into their popular form is worthy to take his place beside all the masters who fashioned engravings after Reynolds. Through the whole of his life it is the same. In careless vigour he speeds along the difficult paths that lead to the golden mountain-tops, but never reaches the summit. To Wale or to Oudry he gives more than to François Boucher. Smiling Ramsay and courtly Bute snatch him from his allegiance to the mighty Italians. Always opportunist, the pleasures of the world entangle him amidst a stifling undergrowth, where his wings may not expand to bear him aloft, free and unconfined.

Nor are his copies of Angelica the best that she can offer. In humble servitude he seems to take all that is given to him. The slave of popular taste, unlike Bartolozzi he never casts off his shackles. A simpering Venus, an over-fed Cupid, a Grecian warrior with a feminine frame--these are the subjects upon which he wastes his powers. Even when opportunity comes to draw a human portrait in the person of a noble woman, he has to struggle against the mockery of a burlesque dress--furled Turkish trousers, or a Grecian turban. Yet how different is the obvious ideal! Since he could transform the work of ‘Miss Angel’ with such wondrous art, conjecture may dream of entrancing pictures after Gainsborough, in miniature, but in perfect semblance, glowing with all the gorgeous tints of the great master.

An illustrious feather-pate, gazing with idolatry upon his own modern photograph, has screamed, “Camera beats the brush! Look upon that picture, and then presume to tell me that Rembrandt or Velasquez has fashioned its equal.” Obviously, for those painters never had such a model as illustrious feather-pate. Yet feather-pate but babbles the gibberish of his times. All who inveigh against soulless lithograph or poll-parrot photography, saying that monarchs of the brush are with us still whose works are worthy of the engraver’s steel, cry as prophets of the wilderness. “Camera beats the print,” shrieks Cosmos; “magna est vilitas, et prævalebit.” Thus poor Cinderella, who never went to the ball with her more gorgeous sisters, is driven even from her home in the kitchen.

Still, could some god transport Wynne Ryland from the sunny plains, he would find work for his hand as alluring as the canvas of Angelica Kauffman. In the gossamer creations of such as Alma Tadema and Blair Leighton, the soft-coloured print might begin a new life. Is it too late to hope that ere he passed over the dark river he left his mantle upon the shore?

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE RYLAND CASE

I. CONTEMPORARY AUTHORITIES

1. _Authentic Memoires of William Wynne Ryland._ Printed for J. Ryall, No. 17 Lombard Street, 1784. Brit. Mus.

As these _Authentic Memoires_ do not present a very lucid account, it is necessary to place the principal events of Wynne Ryland’s career in chronological order:--

Born November 2, 1733, in St John’s Street, Clerkenwell; the third son and fifth child of Edward and Mary Ryland.

Baptized December 2, at St Martin’s Church, Ludgate, where his name appears in the register as William Wynn.

Studied at St Martin’s Lane Academy--probably during the latter half of the forties.

If, as is generally stated, he served an apprenticeship of five years with Ravenet, he must have been bound to that engraver before 1750.

The second volume of _Les Fables choisies de la Fontaine_, with illustrations after Oudry, shows that he was in Paris in 1755. Having studied for two years under Le Bas, it would seem that he went to Boucher about 1757. According to most accounts he remained abroad for five years.

Probably he was in England in 1761, for several of his red-chalk engravings after the old master were finished during the next year.

In April 1762 he published at Lichfield Street, Soho, an engraving of George III., after Ramsay.

In February 1763 his engraving of Lord Bute, after Ramsay, was finished.

From 1763-67 he was engaged upon the portrait of George III. in his Coronation Robes, after Ramsay.

In the spring of 1765 he visited Paris on a commission for the King (_v._ Journal of J. G. Wille).

In 1767 he was living in Stafford Row, Pimlico.

From 1767-69 he was engaged upon the portrait of the Queen, after Cotes.

In 1767 or 1768 he entered into partnership with his late pupil, Henry Bryer, at 27 Cornhill. This firm became bankrupt in December 1771.

In 1772 he was living at Queen’s Row, Knightsbridge, and in 1773 near the Hammersmith turnpike.

In 1774 he opened his print-shop, No. 159 in the Strand.

On November 4, 1782, he deposited the forged bill on the East India Company with Messrs Ransome, Moreland & Ammersley, bankers.

On the 1st of April 1783 he fled from his home at Knightsbridge, and the advertisement offering £300 for his arrest was published in the newspapers on April 3.

2. _A Catalogue of Mr Ryland’s Exhibition_ at Mr Pollard’s in Piccadilly. Brit. Mus.

3. _Exhibition Catalogue of Incorporated Society of Artists_, 1761-69. “In their Great Room in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross.” Brit. Mus.

The following were Ryland’s exhibits:--

1761. No. 215. A Print of “Jupiter and Leda,” after Boucher.

1767. No. 217. A Print of his Majesty in his Coronation Robes after Ramsay.

1769. No. 301. Two Drawings.

No. 302. One Drawing.

4. _Catalogue of the Royal Academy._ 1772-1775. Brit. Mus. The exhibits of Ryland, with their dates, are as follows:--

1772. No. 227. Vortigern falling in love with Rowena--after A. Kauffman.

No. 228. The interview between Edgar and Elfrida after her marriage with Athelwald--after A. Kauffman.

No. 229. A Portrait of a child drawing.

1773. No. 259. Domestic Employment--a drawing.

1774. No. 255. A Frame with sundry Portraits.

No. 256. ” ” ”

1775. No. 268. Juno borrowing the Cestus from Venus. A Drawing in red chalk, after A. Kauffman.

5. _Dodd’s Memoires of English Engravers_, xi. pp. 104-110. Add. MSS. 33404. Brit. Mus.

6. _Joseph Strutt’s Biog. Dic. of Engravers_ (1785-6), ii. 285. Brit. Mus.

7. _A Collection of Prints in Imitation of Drawings._ 2 vols. 1778. Edited by Charles Rogers. Brit. Mus.

Ryland contributed fifty-seven plates. These two volumes should be included in any collection of Ryland’s works.

8. _Nichol’s Literary Anecdotes_ (1813). Vol. iii. 256, vol. v. 668, 681, 686.

9. _Reminiscences of Henry Angelo._ 2 vols. London, 1828-30. Vol. i. pp. 473-83. New Edition by Joseph Grego and H. Lavers Smith. Kegan Paul. 1904. Vol. i. pp. 366, 370-75.

Ryland was a frequent visitor at the fencing and riding school, which the elder Angelo had established at Carlisle House, Carlisle Street, and which, oddly enough, was the second building of that name in Soho Square.

10. _Mémoires et Journal de J. G. Wille._ 2 vols. Jules Renouard. Paris, 1857. Vol. i. pp. 287, 288.

Wille met Ryland in Paris on April 17, April 18, and May 9, 1765. He tells us that he had been acquainted with him when the English engraver was in France seven or eight years previously (_i.e._ in 1757-1758), which dates fit in with other known incidents of Ryland’s life.

II. CONTEMPORARY NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES

1. _The Gentleman’s Magazine_ (1771), p. 572; (1778), p. 594; (1783),