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Page 76
But though envy was, through fear, obliged to join the general
voice in applause on this occasion, there were not wanting some
who maligned this completion of glory, which was now about to be
fulfilled to our hero, and endeavoured to prevent it by knocking
him on the head as he stood under the tree, while the ordinary was
performing his last office. They therefore began to batter the
cart with stones, brick-bats, dirt, and all manner of mischievous
weapons, some of which, erroneously playing on the robes of the
ecclesiastic, made him so expeditious in his repetition, that with
wonderful alacrity he had ended almost in an instant, and conveyed
himself into a place of safety in a hackney-coach, where he waited
the compulsion with a temper of mind described in these verses:
Suave mari magno, turbantibus aequora ventis,
E terra alterius magnum spectare laborem.
We must not, however, omit one circumstance, as it serves to shew
the most admirable conservation of character in our hero to his
last moment, which was, that, whilst the ordinary was busy in his
ejaculations, Wild, in the midst of the shower of stones, &c.,
which played upon him, applied his hands to the parson's pocket,
and emptied it of his bottle-screw, which he carried out of the
world in his hand.
The ordinary being now descended from the cart, Wild had just
opportunity to cast his eyes around the crowd, and to give them a
hearty curse, when immediately the horses moved on, and with
universal applause our hero swung out of this world.
Thus fell Jonathan Wild the GREAT, by a death as glorious as his
life had been, and which was so truly agreeable to it, that the
latter must have been deprobably maimed and imperfect without the
former; a death which hath been alone wanting to complete the
characters of several ancient and modern heroes, whose histories
would then have been read with much greater pleasure by the wisest
in all ages. Indeed we could almost wish that whenever Fortune
seems wantonly to deviate from her purpose, and leaves her work
imperfect in this particular, the historian would indulge himself
in the license of poetry and romance, and even do a violence to
truth, to oblige his reader with a page which must be the most
delightful in all his history, and which could never fail of
producing an instructive moral.
Narrow minds may possibly have some reason to be ashamed of going
this way out of the world, if their consciences can fly in their
faces and assure them they have not merited such an honour; but he
must be a fool who is ashamed of being hanged, who is not weak
enough to be ashamed of having deserved it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE CHARACTER OF OUR HERO, AND THE CONCLUSION OF THIS HISTORY.
We will now endeavour to draw the character of this great man;
and, by bringing together those several features as it were of his
mind which lie scattered up and down in this history, to present
our readers with a perfect picture of greatness.
Jonathan Wild had every qualification necessary to form a great
man. As his most powerful and predominant passion was ambition, so
nature had, with consummate propriety, adapted all his faculties
to the attaining those glorious ends to which this passion
directed him. He was extremely ingenious in inventing designs,
artful in contriving the means to accomplish his purposes, and
resolute in executing them: for as the most exquisite cunning and
most undaunted boldness qualified him for any undertaking, so was
he not restrained by any of those weaknesses which disappoint the
views of mean and vulgar souls, and which are comprehended in one
general term of honesty, which is a corruption of HONOSTY, a word
derived from what the Greeks call an ass. He was entirely free
from those low vices of modesty and good-nature, which, as he
said, implied a total negation of human greatness, and were the
only qualities which absolutely rendered a man incapable of making
a considerable figure in the world. His lust was inferior only to
his ambition; but, as for what simple people call love, he knew
not what it was. His avarice was immense, but it was of the
rapacious, not of the tenacious kind; his rapaciousness was indeed
so violent, that nothing ever contented him but the whole; for,
however considerable the share was which his coadjutors allowed
him of a booty, he was restless in inventing means to make himself
master of the smallest pittance reserved by them. He said laws
were made for the use of prigs only, and to secure their property;
they were never therefore more perverted than when their edge was
turned against these; but that this generally happened through
their want of sufficient dexterity. The character which he most
valued himself upon, and which he principally honoured in others,
was that of hypocrisy. His opinion was, that no one could carry
priggism very far without it; for which reason, he said, there was
little greatness to be expected in a man who acknowledged his
vices, but always much to be hoped from him who professed great
virtues: wherefore, though he would always shun the person whom he
discovered guilty of a good action, yet he was never deterred by a
good character, which was more commonly the effect of profession
than of action: for which reason, he himself was always very
liberal of honest professions, and had as much virtue and goodness
in his mouth as a saint; never in the least scrupling to swear by
his honour, even to those who knew him the best; nay, though he
held good-nature and modesty in the highest contempt, he
constantly practised the affectation of both, and recommended this
to others, whose welfare, on his own account, he wished well to.
He laid down several maxims as the certain methods of attaining
greatness, to which, in his own pursuit of it, he constantly
adhered. As--
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