With the exception of that mighty scholar Eugene Aram, the eighteenth century never suffered deeper loss by the hangman’s rope than in the death of brave and graceful Wynne Ryland. Just as the marvellous usher is the greatest of schoolmen, so is the Strand engraver incomparably the greatest artist that ended his days upon the scaffold. With him the dissolute and passionate Theodore Gardelle can no more be contrasted than poet Gahagan with the former. Yet, unlike the sombre Aram, poor Ryland did not bear the stain of blood upon his hands. Nor was the evidence of his guilt less open to doubt. Because he failed to prove his innocence they sent him to his death. Still, although there was no lack of tears and lamentation, his cruel fate did not excite the same interest nor cause the universal consternation that was aroused in similar cases. Neither Horace Walpole, Mrs Delany, nor George Selwyn speak his name, and gossip Tom Smith merely mentions him incidentally in a list of engravers. A reason is not far to seek. Not being a man of fashion, how was it possible that an epoch which had beheld so many stupendous melodramas should be greatly shocked by his atonement? Preacher Dodd, the pet of devout ladies; the unfortunate brothers over whom the charms of Margaret Rudd cast the halo of romance; soldier-parson Hackman, with his love and madness; poisonous Captain Donellan of Lawford Hall--all these magnificent criminals had lately made the march to Tyburn, or elsewhere. Little wonder that society, _ennuyé_ by the sight of the gallows, had lost its zest for convict-worship.