his last occupation was to prepare a rough answer to that epistle. But the reply in its completed form never reached Philadelphia, for when the painter retired to bed he was seized with a distressing vomiting. Alarmed at his condition, he rang his bell with such violence as to tear the wire from the wall. In a few moments the summons was answered by Hogarth's cousin, Mary Lewis, and, in her arms, two hours later, he passed away. The monument over his grave was not erected until seven years later, but since then it has been the object of unceasing care. It bears an inscription by Garrick, who probably penned more epitaphs than any other versifier of his time. H CONCERNING DICK TURPIN The AD it not been for the idealizing pen of Harrison Ainsworth it is likely the name of Dick Turpin would have been consigned to oblivion many years ago. rehabilitation of the novelist was accomplished in the nick of time. Executed in 1739, the fame of that notorious highwayman had been kept alive by numerous chapbooks for three generations, but was on the eve of extinction in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.. At that period the old coaching days were becoming little more than a memory, and with their passing all the exciting legends of "the road" were also fading away. In a few more years the name and fame of Dick Turpin would have suffered no revival save in that unexplored underworld of hair-raising fiction frequented only by the small boy of lawless tastes. Then came the turn in Dick Turpin's fortunes. The tales of his daring exploits were still fresh in the memory of Bulwer Lytton when, by the writing of "Paul Clifford," he resolved to demonstrate how the prisons and criminal laws of that period fostered" the habit of first corrupting the boy by the very punishment that ought to redeem him, and then hanging the man, at the first occasion, as the easiest way of getting rid of our own blunders." To point this moral and adorn this tale, Lytton conceived the case of an illegitimate son of a prosperous villain deserted in a low London slum and the victim of evil influences. No reader of "Paul Clifford can fail to recall the squalor of the disreputable ale-house where the young hero of the story is discovered when the story opens. At the age of twelve he has learnt to read, but unfortunately he is applying that accomplishment in an unprofitable manner. "Paul, my ben cull," asked his besotted foster-mother, "what gibberish hast got there? "Turpin, the great highwayman," answered the lad, without lifting his eyes from the page. What particular version of Turpin's life was affected by Paul Clifford his creator does not stop to explain, but, obviously it was sufficiently exciting to prompt the use of that adjective usually reserved for such monarchs as Alexander and Alfred. That many another |