(GILDEROY AND SIXTEEN-STRING JACK)
THEIR closest parallel is the notoriety which dogged them from the very
day of their death. Each, for his own exploits, was the most famous
man of his time, the favourite of broadsides, the prime hero of the
ballad-mongers. And each owed his fame as much to good fortune as to
merit, since both were excelled in their generation by more skilful
scoundrels. If Gilderoy was unsurpassed in brutality, he fell
immeasurably below Hind in artistry and wit, nor may he be compared
to such accomplished highwaymen as Mull Sack or the Golden Farmer. His
method was not elevated by a touch of the grand style. He stamped all
the rules of the road beneath his contemptuous foot, and cared not what
enormity he committed in his quest for gold. Yet, though he lived in
the true Augustan age, he yielded to no one of his rivals in glorious
recognition. So, too, Jack Rann, of the Sixteen Strings, was a near
contemporary of George Barrington. While that nimble-fingered prig was
making a brilliant appearance at Vauxhall, and emptying the pockets of
his intimates, Rann was riding over Hounslow Heath, and flashing his
pistol in the eye of the wayfarer. The very year in which Jack danced
his last jig at Tyburn, Barrington had astonished London by a fruitless
attempt to steal Prince Orloff's miraculous snuff-box. And not
even Ellen Roach herself would have dared to assert that Rann was
Barrington's equal in sleight of hand. But Rann holds his own against
the best of his craft, with an imperishable name, while a host of more
distinguished cracksmen are excluded even from the Newgate Calendar.
In truth, there is one quality which has naught to do with artistic
supremacy; and in this quality both Rann and Gilderoy were rich beyond
their fellows. They knew (none better) how to impose upon the world. Had
their deserts been even less than they were, they would still have
been bravely notorious. It is a common superstition that the talent for
advertisement has but a transitory effect, that time sets all men in
their proper places.
Nothing can be more false; for he who has once declared himself among
the great ones of the earth, not only holds his position while he lives,
but forces an unreasoning admiration upon the future. Though he declines
from the lofty throne, whereon his own vanity and love of praise have
set him, he still stands above the modest level which contents the
genuinely great. Why does Euripides still throw a shadow upon the
worthier poets of his time? Because he had the faculty of displacement,
because he could compel the world to profess an interest not only in
his work but in himself. Why is Michael Angelo a loftier figure in the
history of art than Donatello, the supreme sculptor of his time? Because
Donatello had not the temper which would bully a hundred popes, and
extract a magnificent advertisement from each encounter. Why does
Shelley still claim a larger share of the world's admiration than Keats,
his indubitable superior? Because Shelley was blessed or cursed with the
trick of interesting the world by the accidents of his life.
So by a similar faculty Gilderoy and Jack Rann have kept themselves and
their achievements in the light of day. Had they lived in the nineteenth
century they might have been the vendors of patent pills, or the
chairmen of bubble companies. Whatever trade they had followed, their
names would have been on every hoarding, their wares would have been
puffed in every journal. They understood the art of publicity better
than any of their contemporaries, and they are remembered not because
they were the best thieves of their time, but because they were
determined to interest the people in their misdeeds. Gilderoy's
brutality, which was always theatrical, ensured a constant remembrance,
and the lofty gallows added to his repute; while the brilliant
inspiration of the strings, which decorated Rann's breeches, was
sufficient to conquer death. How should a hero sink to oblivion who had
chosen for himself so splendid a name as Sixteen-String Jack?
So far, then, their achievement is parallel. And parallel also is their
taste for melodrama. Each employed means too great or too violent for
the end in view. Gilderoy burnt houses and ravished women, when his
sole object was the acquisition of money. Sixteen-String Jack terrified
Bagnigge Wells with the dreadful announcement that he was a highwayman,
when his kindly, stupid heart would have shrunk from the shedding of
a drop of blood. So they both blustered through the world, the one in
deed, the other in word; and both played their parts with so little
refinement that they frightened the groundlings to a timid admiration.
Here the resemblance is at an end. In the essentials of their trade
Gilderoy was a professional, Rann a mere amateur. They both bullied;
but, while Sixteen-String Jack was content to shout threats, and pick up
half-a-crown, Gilderoy breathed murder, and demanded a vast ransom.
Only once in his career did the 'disgraceful Scotsman' become gay and
debonair. Only once did he relax the tension of his frown, and pick
pockets with the lightness and freedom of a gentleman. It was on his
voyage to France that he forgot his old policy of arson and pillage, and
truly the Court of the Great King was not the place for his rapacious
cruelty. Jack Rann, on the other hand, would have taken life as a
prolonged jest, if Sir John Fielding and the sheriffs had not checked
his mirth. He was but a bungler on the road, with no more resource
than he might have learned from the common chap-book, or from the
dying speeches, hawked in Newgate Street. But he had a fine talent for
merriment; he loved nothing so well as a smart coat and a pretty woman.
Thieving was no passion with him, but a necessity. How could he dance at
a masquerade or court his Ellen with an empty pocket? So he took to the
road as the sole profession of an idle man, and he bullied his way from
Hounslow to Epping in sheer lightness of heart. After all, to rob Dr.
Bell of eighteenpence was the work of a simpleton. It was a very pretty
taste which expressed itself in a pea-green coat and deathless strings;
and Rann will keep posterity's respect rather for the accessories of
his art than for the art itself. On the other hand, you cannot imagine
Gilderoy habited otherwise than in black; you cannot imagine this
monstrous matricide taking pleasure in the smaller elegancies of life.
From first to last he was the stern and beetle-browed marauder, who
would have despised the frippery of Sixteen-String Jack as vehemently as
his sudden appearance would have frightened the foppish lover of Ellen
Roach.
Their conduct with women is sufficient index of their character. Jack
Rann was too general a lover for fidelity. But he was amiable, even in
his unfaithfulness; he won the undying affection of his Ellen; he never
stood in the dock without a nosegay tied up by fair and nimble fingers;
he was attended to Tyburn by a bevy of distinguished admirers. Gilderoy,
on the other hand, approached women in a spirit of violence. His Sadic
temper drove him to kill those whom he affected to love. And his cruelty
was amply repaid. While Ellen Roach perjured herself to save the lover,
to whose memory she professed a lifelong loyalty, it was Peg Cunningham
who wreaked her vengeance in the betrayal of Gilderoy. He remained true
to his character, when he ripped up the belly of his betrayer. This was
the closing act of his life.
Rann, also, was consistent, even to the gallows. The night before his
death he entertained seven women at supper, and outlaughed them all. The
contrast is not so violent as it appears. The one act is melodrama, the
other farce. And what is farce, but melodrama in a happier shape?