=1750.= _October 3._ Twelve malefactors executed at Tyburn. One of them was the celebrated “Gentleman Highwayman,” Mr. Maclean. Another was William Smith, the son of a clergyman in Ireland. Smith was convicted of forgery. The _Universal Magazine_ of October, 1750, gave long accounts of these worthies, and printed an ode by Smith on his melancholy condition. This is one stanza:— Justice has ranked me with the dead: I bow, and own the just decree; Yet, e’er each sense, each thought is fled, How shall I front the fatal tree? Hope, faith, the Christian world, inform me how With resignation to embrace the blow. But ah, Eternity! tremendous word! There, there, I sink, I tremble! Help me Lord! Smith had in an advertisement “entreated contributions for his decent interment, and that his poor body might not fall unto the surgeons, and perpetuate the disgrace of his family.” According to a newspaper of the time the surgeons got possession of one body only (not Smith’s): the rest were delivered to the friends. Smith edited several volumes of “Classicks.” The publisher seized the opportunity to advertise them. We have a full account of James Maclean, “The Gentleman Highwayman,” given by Horace Walpole, who was robbed by him (Letters, ed. 1857, i. lxvi. to lxvii., ii. pp. 218-9, 224, and in the _World_, No. 103, December 19, 1754). This is the account in the _World_: An acquaintance of mine was robbed a few years ago, and very near shot through the head by the going off of the pistol of the accomplished Mr. Maclean: yet the whole affair was conducted with the greatest good breeding on both sides. The robber, who had only taken a purse _this way_, because he had that morning been disappointed of marrying a great fortune, no sooner returned to his lodgings than he sent the gentleman two letters of excuses, which, with less wit than the epistles of Voiture, had ten times more natural and easy politeness in the turn of their expression. In the postscript, he appointed a meeting at Tyburn at twelve at night, where the gentleman might _purchase again_ any trifle he had lost, and my friend has been blamed for not accepting the rendezvous, as it seemed liable to be construed by ill-natured people into a doubt of the _honour_ of a man who had given him all the satisfaction in his power, for having unluckily been near shooting him through the head. The first Sunday after his condemnation three thousand people went to see him. He fainted away twice with the heat of his cell. He was only twenty-six when executed.