fortunate that some of our public characters (using the term in the sense referred to) have been eqnally distinguished for their virtus, as Turpin and his compeers have been for their deeds of abomination; though the blackest crimes touch the public mind more forcibly, and not less transiently, than the brighest amiabilities, the latter being limitee to the circle in which the possessor moved while the former is rung in heavy numbers upon the lisfening ear of the populace at large, ⟨who⟩ catch the sounds as they vibrste with the tensest anxiety and perturbation.
Dick Turpin was for a long time the dread of travellers on the Essex road, an account of the daring robberies he daily committed; he was also a noted housebreaker; and though for a considerable time remarkably successful in his desporate career of robbery he was brought to an ignominious end, by circumstances which, in themselves, may appear trifling: he was apprehended in consequence of shooting a fowl; and his brother refusing to pay 6d. for the postage of his letter occasioned his conviction. He was the son of a farmer and grazier at Thaxted, in Essex, the place of his birth; and, having received a common school education, he was apprenticed to a butcher in White-chapel, in whose house he was conspicuous for gross impropriety of behaviour, and brutality of manners. On the expiration of his apprenticeship, at the persuasion of his friends, who hoped such a course would restrain his evil pursuits, he wedded a young woman of East Ham, in
