Thornhill, ’tis thine to gild with fame Th’ obscure, and raise the humble name: To make the form elude the grave, And Sheppard from oblivion save. … Apelles Alexander drew, Cæsar is to Aurellius due, Cromwell in Lilly’s works doth shine, And Sheppard, Thornhill, lives in thine. Nor did the pulpit disdain to draw a moral from Sheppard’s career:— “O that ye were all like Jack Sheppard! Mistake me not, my brethren, I don’t mean in a carnal, but in a spiritual sense, for I purpose to spiritualise these things.… Let me exhort ye then, to open the Locks of your Hearts with the Nail of Repentance: burst asunder the Fetters of your beloved Lusts: mount the Chimney of Hope, take from thence the Bar of good Resolution, break through the Stone-wall of Despair, fix the blanket of Faith with the Spike of the Church. Let yourselves down to the Turner’s House of Resignation, and descend the Stairs of Humility; so shall you come to the Door of Deliverance from the Prison of Iniquity, and escape from the Clutches of that old Executioner, the Devil” (Villette, i. 253-72). A few days before, on November 11, Joseph Black, better known as “Blueskin,” a companion of Jack Sheppard, had been hanged at Tyburn.[211] =1725.= _May 24._ Jonathan Wild, “the thief-taker.” Jonathan Wild, whose exploits were celebrated by Fielding in “Jonathan Wild, the Great,” invented a new method which may be described as running with the hare and riding with the hounds. He was in league with great numbers of thieves of all kinds, from highwaymen downwards. This body was described as “a corporation of thieves of which Wild was the head or director.” He divided the country into districts, assigning gangs for the working of each. These gangs accounted to him for the proceeds of their robberies. He selected by preference convicts returned from transportation, because, in case of accident, they could not give legal evidence against him; moreover, they were in his power, and if any rebelled he could hang them. For fifteen years he carried on this system. His depredations were on a large scale: he had in his pay several artists to alter watches, rings, and other objects of value, so as not to be recognised by their owners. At his trial he circulated among the jury a list of persons apprehended and convicted by his means: 35 for highway robbery, 22 for burglary, 10 for returning from transportation. It would be too tedious, he said, to give a list of minor cases. Written in his name is an elegy, of which these are a few lines:— Ye Britons! curs’d with an unthankful mind, For ever to exalted merit blind, Is thus your constant benefactor spurn’d? Are thus his faithful services return’d? This dungeon his reward for labours past? And Tyburn his full recompence at last?