[4] Compare the hero of Swift's "Clever Tom Clinch going to be hanged" (1726), "Who hung like a Hero, and never would flinch." He "Rode stately through Holbourn, to die in his Calling," and adjured his friends to "Take Courage, dear Comrades, and be not afraid, / Nor slip this Occasion to follow your Trade."
[5] Henry Fielding, "An Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers," Works, ed. Henley (London, 1903), vol. 13, p. 122. Fielding might have added that the criminal-hero also enjoyed the amorous admiration of the fair: when clever Tom Clinch rode by "The Maids to the Doors and the Balconies ran, / And said, lack-a-day! he's a proper young Man"; according to Mrs. Peachum "The youth in his cart hath the air of a lord, / And we cry, There dies an Adonis!"
[6] George Ollyffe, An Essay Humbly Offer'd, for an Act of Parliament to prevent Capital Crimes, and the Loss of many Lives; and to Promote a desirable Improvement and Blessing in the Nation, second edition, (London, 1731), p. 8.
[7] Fielding's and Mandeville's positions may be compared to that of an anonymous pamphleteer writing in 1701: "I might add, that it were not amiss, if after Condemnation they were allowed nothing but Bread and Water; a good way to humble them, and bring them to a sense of their Condition, as to a future state, and to put a stop to their murthering their Keepers, and attempting to break Gaol. And it were well, if a Particular Habit (Black the most proper Colour) were assigned them, at least at their Executions; and that they might not be suffered to make their Exits in gay Clothes (as they sometimes do like Men that Triumph) but rather as becomes Those, who are just going to undergo the Curse of the Law, and that are intended to be a Warning to Others." R. J., Hanging not punishment enough, for Murtherers, High-way Men, and House-Breakers, p. 21.
[8] Both the criminal and the "mob" detested the anatomists. In the British Journal of March 20, 1725—one of the issues in which Mandeville's letters appeared—a captured murderer is reported to have said "d——n my Soul; but I desire I may not be Anatomiz'd." In the same issue is recorded a mob's assault on a doctor whom they suspected, rightly it seems, of grave-robbing. He was forced to flee for his life and his stable was "pulled down."
A NOTE ON THE TEXT
The letters (which Mandeville tells us were composed before Wild's capture) appeared in nos. 128-133 of the British Journal (Feb. 27, Mar. 6, Mar. 13, Mar. 20, Mar. 27, and Apr. 3, 1725). The differences between the text of the newspapers and that of the pamphlet have some significance, for what alterations there are suggest that Mandeville was a fairly careful editor. The Preface to the pamphlet is entirely new—its addition is one of several changes Mandeville made to put the articles in pamphlet form. He also, for example, added a Table of Contents, and gave headings to each chapter and, in one instance, changed "Papers" to "Chapters."
Throughout minor changes (not clearly purposeful) in punctuation, italicization, and capitalization occur, and occasionally a word is changed ("Holland" becomes "Leyden," p. 27) or a word is inserted ("none of them should" becomes "none of them likewise should," p. 13), but only three changes may be called substantial. (1) In the first newspaper article the following sentence appeared in the text in brackets after the footnoted sentence on p. 3 of the pamphlet: "Here I beg leave to observe, that the greatest Part of this Treatise was wrote some Months before Jonathan Wild was apprehended; and that as nothing was said of him, but what may be equally applied to any one, who either now follows, or shall take upon him the same Employment, I keep to the original Manuscript, imagining the Reader will be better pleased to see the Author's Sentiments concerning Jonathan, and the Trade he drove before his Commitment, than any Alterations that might be expected from what has happen'd since." (2) The phrase on p. 17, "with Applause, and repeated with Impunity," corrects the newspaper version "with Impunity, and repeated with Applause." (3) On p. 25, lines 3 through 17 appear only in the pamphlet, the newspaper version reading merely "... of Course, we seldom meet with any Thing that is edifying, or moving."
The pamphlet is reproduced from the copy at the Huntington Library.