Then we hear of him addressing letters to the heads of Government; and the rascal enters so circumstantially into a conspiracy to slay the King in Windsor Forest, that a reprieve reaches him, to enable him to reveal everything. He is even carried in a sedan to Whitehall! The wary fellow, however, stipulates that he should have a free pardon before he "makes his discovery." The high contracting parties cannot agree, and Whitney is made to oscillate between the gaol and the gibbet. He is carried to Tyburn, and brought back with the rope round his handsome neck. He will, nevertheless, tell nothing but under previous full pardon. A warrant is then issued to hang him “ at the Maypole in the Strand." This, however, is not done; but finally, the Government being convinced that he has nothing to reveal, give him up to justice; and Mr. Luttrell compliments him by noticing him under his Bagshot brevet-captaincy; and tells us that

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Yesterday (Wednesday, 1st of February, 1693), being the 1st instant, captn James Whitney, highwayman, was executed at Porter's Block, near Cow Crosse, in Smithfield; he seemed to dye very penitent; was an hour and a halfe in the cart before turn'd off.". From the Athenæum paper on Luttrell's Diary.

DICK TURPIN.

THE great feat of Turpin's life was his ride from London to York in twelve hours, mounted on his bonny Black Bess, as told in the story-books, and made by Mr. Harrison Ainsworth the startling episode of his popular novel of Rookwood. This is all very ingenious; but it is doubted whether Turpin ever

Lord Macaulay had no

performed the journey at all. faith in the story. He was dining one day at the Marquis of Lansdowne's; the subject of Turpin's ride was started, and the old story of the marvellous feat, as generally told, was alluded to, when Macaulay astonished the company by assuring them that the entire tale from beginning to end was false; that it was founded on a tradition at least 300 years old; that, like the same anecdote fathered on different men in succeeding generations, it was only told of Turpin because he succeeded the original hero in the public taste; and that, if any of the company chose to go with him to his library, he would prove to them the truth of what he had stated in "black and white,"—a favourite phrase with Lord Macaulay.*

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Turpin was long the terror of the North Road. Upon a verdant plot of ground, opposite the Green Man, Finchley, on the road to Barnet, was a large oak, which had weathered some centuries, and was known as Turpin's Oak," from the notorious Dick having often taken up his station behind this tree when he was intent upon a freebooting excursion. Its closeness to the high road rendered it a very desirable reconnoitring spot for Turpin, as well as for highwaymen generally, who a century and a quarter ago were continually robbing the mails, as well as commercial travellers (bagmen) proceeding to and fro between London and the north of England. From time to time were taken out of the bark of this oak pistol-balls which had been discharged at the trunk to deter highwaymen, should any have been at hand, from attacking the parties travelling. Mr. Nuthall, the solicitor, was upon one

* J. C. Hotten, in Notes and Queries, 2nd S. ix.

occasion stopped in his carriage by two highwaymen, who came from behind this oak, as he was proceeding to his country-house at Monken-Hadley; when Mr. N., being armed with pistols, wounded one of the thieves so severely, that he died of the effects.

Many years after the above encounter, as Mr. Nuthall was returning from Bath to the metropolis, he was attacked by a highwayman on Hounslow Heath; who, on his demands not being complied with, fired into the carriage. Mr. Nuthall returned the fire, and, it was thought, wounded the man, as he rode off precipitately. On arriving at the inn, Mr. N. wrote a description of the fellow to Sir John Fielding, but had scarcely finished the letter when he expired.

Turpin was a gay gallant: Mrs. Fountain, a celebrated beauty of her day, and nearly related to Dean Fountain, was once saluted by Turpin in Marylebone Gardens. "Be not alarmed, madame," said the highwayman; "you can now boast of having been kissed by Turpin ;" and the hero of the road walked off unmolested. Turpin was hanged at York in 1739.

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M'LEAN, THE FASHIONABLE HIGHWAYMAN,

FIGURED in the first half of the last century, and is portrayed by Horace Walpole with exquisite humour. He was robbed by M'Lean, in the winter of 1749, of which Walpole gives this account: "One night in the beginning of November 1749, as I was returning from Holland House by moonlight, about ten o'clock, I was attacked by two highwaymen in Hyde Park, and the pistol of one

of them going off accidentally, razed the skin under my eye, left some marks of shot on my face, and stunned me. The ball went through the top of the chariot, and if I had sat an inch nearer to the left side, must have gone through my head." (Short Notes.) One of these highwaymen was M'Lean. He also robbed Lord Eglinton, Sir Thomas Robinson of Vienna, Mrs. Talbot, &c. He took an odd booty from the Scotch Earl, a blunderbuss.

M'Lean's history is very particular; for he confesses everything, and is so little of a hero that he cries and begs, and, Walpole believes, if Lord Eglinton had been in any luck, might have been robbed of his own blunderbuss. His father was an Irish Dean; his brother was a Calvinist minister in great esteem at the Hague. M'Lean himself was a grocer in Welbeck Street, but losing a wife that he loved extremely, and by whom he had one little girl, he quitted his business with two hundred pounds in his pocket, which he soon spent, and then took to the road with only one companion, Plunket, a journeyman apothecary.

The

M'Lean was taken in the autumn of 1750, by selling a laced waistcoat to a pawnbroker in Monmouth Street, who happened to carry it to the very man who had just sold the lace. McLean impeached his companion, Plunket, but he was not taken. former had a lodging in St. James's Street over against White's, and another at Chelsea; Plunket one in Jermyn Street; and their faces were as well known about St. James's as any gentleman who lived in that quarter, and who perhaps went on the road too.

M'Lean had a quarrel at Putney Bowling-green, two months before he was taken, with an officer, whom he

had challenged for disputing his rank; but the captain declined, till M'Lean should produce a certificate of his nobility, which he had just received. Walpole says: "If he had escaped a month longer, he might have heard of Mr. Chute's genealogic expertness, and come hither to the College of Arms for a certificate. There were a wardrobe of clothes, three-and-twenty purses, and the celebrated blunderbuss, found at his lodgings, besides a famous kept mistress. As I con

clude he will suffer, I wish him no ill. I don't care to have his idea, and am almost single in not having been to see him. Lord Mountford, at the head of half White's, went the first day; his aunt was crying over him. As soon as they were withdrawn, she said to him, knowing they were of White's: My dear, what did the Lords say to you? Have you ever been concerned with any one of them?'-Was it not admirable? what a favourable idea people must have of White's !—and what if White's should not deserve a much better? But the chief personages who have been to comfort and weep over the fallen hero are Lady Caroline Petersham and Miss Ashe; I call them Polly and Lucy, and asked them if he did not sing

'Thus I stand like the Turk with his doxies around.''

To this Mr. Cunningham adds: Gray has made M'Lean immortal in his Long Story:

A sudden fit of ague shook him ;

He stood as mute as poor M'Lean.

See also Soame Jenyns in his poem of The Modern Fine Lady, written this year :

She weeps if but a handsome thief is hung.