being only bolted within-side, he opened it easily, and mounting to the top of it, he got over the wall, and so to the upper leads. “His next consideration was, how to get down; for which purpose looking round him, and finding the top of the Turner’s house adjoining to Newgate, was the most convenient place to alight upon, he resolved to descend thither; but as it would have been a dangerous leap, he went back to the Castle the same way he came, and fetched a blanket he used to lie on. This he made fast to the wall of Newgate, with the spike he stole out of the Chapel, and so sliding down, dropped upon the Turner’s leads, and then the clock struck nine. Luckily for him, the Turner’s garret-door on the leads happened to be open. He went in, and crept softly down one pair of stairs, when he heard company talking in a room below. His irons giving a clink, a woman started, and said, ‘Lord! What noise is that?’ Somebody answered, ‘The dog or the cat’; and thereupon Sheppard returned up to the garret, and having continued there above two hours, he ventured down a second time, when he heard a gentleman take leave of the company, and saw the maid light him down stairs. As soon as the maid came back, and had shut the chamber door, he made the best of his way to the street door, unlocked it, and so made his escape about twelve at night.” But on October 31st Jack made merry at a public-house in Newgate Street, with two ladies of his acquaintance, afterwards treated his mother in Clare Market with three quarterns of brandy, and in a word got so drunk that he forgot all caution and was once more apprehended. He still had schemes for eluding justice. He had got hold of a penknife; with this on the road to Tyburn he would cut the cords binding his hands, jump from the cart into the crowd and run through Little Turnstile, where the mounted officers could not follow him, and he reckoned on the sympathy of the mob to help him to make good his escape. But he was searched, and the knife was taken from him. He had one last hope; he urged his friends to get possession of his body as soon as cut down, and put it into a warm bed; so he thought, and precedents were not wanting, his life might be prolonged. This, too, came to naught (Villette, i. 261-6). In the twenty-third year of his age “died with great difficulty, and much pitied by the mob,” the prince of prison-breakers. Villette says: “I don’t remember any felon in this kingdom, whose adventures have made so much noise as Sheppard’s.” Six or more stories of his life appeared: among his biographers was Defoe. Sir James Thornhill painted his portrait, reproduced in a mezzotint engraving. The _British Journal_ of November 28, 1724, contained verses on this portrait:—