This looks as if the Office of Executioner had run in some Family for a generation or two, at the time when Shakspeare wrote; and that it was a circumstance well understood, and would be well relished, at least by the Galleries. This might indeed, with regard to time, point at the ancestors of Mr. Brandon himself; for it was in the Reign of King James I. that this person was, as we have seen, brought within the pale of Gentility. Nay, more, we are told by Dr. Grey, in his Notes on Shakspeare[385], that from this Gentleman, the Hangmen, his Successors, bore for a considerable time his Christian name of Gregory, though not his Arms, they being a personal honour, till a greater man arose, _viz. Jack Ketch_, who entailed the present official name on all who have hitherto followed him[386]. [385] Vol. ii. p. 163. [386] The Hangman was known by the name of _Gregory_ in the year 1642, as we learn from the Mercurius Aulicus, p. 553. Whether the name of _Ketch_ be not the provincial pronunciation of _Catch_ among the Cockneys, I have my doubts, though I have printed authority to confront me; for that learned and laborious Compiler, B. E. Gent. the Editor of the Canting Dictionary, says that _Jack Kitch_, for so he spells it, was the real name of a Hangman, which has become that of all his successors. When this great man lived, for such we must suppose him to have been, and renowned for his popularity or dexterity, Biographical History is silent. So much for this important Office itself; and we must now look to the Emoluments which appertain to it, and assign a reason why Thirteen Pence Halfpenny should be esteemed the standard Fee for this definitive stroke of the law. Hogarth has given a fine Picture of the _sang-froid_ of an Executioner in his Print of the London Apprentice; where the Mr. Ketch for the time being is lolling upon the Gallows, and smoaking his Pipe; waiting, with the utmost indifference, for the arrival of the Cart and the Mob that close the melancholy Procession. But Use becomes Nature in things at which even Nature herself revolts.