'Here lies a poet who was robbed in verse.'"
This ingenious reply disarmed Jonson, who thus discovered that he had both a wit and a knave to contend with. He endeavoured to save his money, but to no purpose, and had to resign it to the man who, it seemed, could rhyme better, impromptu, than himself, and at greater length. This was not the only misfortune that befel Jonson on this journey; for, when within two or three miles of London, he was attacked by a gang of thieves, who knocked him from his horse, bound him hand and foot, and threw him into a park, where some other wayfarers who had shared the same fate were lying. One of his unfortunate companions calling out that he and his wife and children were undone, another, who was tied up also, said, "Pray, if you are all undone come and undo me"; which afforded Ben a hearty laugh, and a subject upon which he afterwards expressed his poetical powers.
Tracey was not one of your common highwaymen who expended their money as fast as they earned it. He was of a saving disposition, and after some time amassed sufficient to keep him in comfort during the rest of his life. Unfortunately there is little dependence to be placed upon the honesty of the world, as Tracey found, for the person to whom he had entrusted his savings embezzled them; and so our highwayman's intention to retire was upset, and he was reduced to going once more upon the road. His hand seems by this time to have lost its cunning, or else he had the very worst luck, for he was soon taken, in an attempt to rob the Duke of Buckingham; and, after being brought to trial at Winchester, was executed there in 1634, aged thirty-eight.
NED WICKS
The famous Edward Wicks—more famous as "Ned," one of the favourites of the romancing Harrison Ainsworth—was born in 1684, and was the son of an innkeeper at Coventry. His father had him properly grounded in reading, writing, and 'rithmetic, with the ambition of seeing him a clerk, but the youthful Edward shunned the desk, and for a few months filled the post of exciseman. The excisemen of that day were looked upon with that suspicion and hatred with which tax-gatherers, tithe-collectors, landlords, people who render accounts for payment, and the like vermin, have ever been regarded from the earliest times, and ever will be by all right-minded folk; and Edward soon quitted the unpopular post of gauger, not only because of its unpopularity, but for reasons not altogether unconnected with an inability to make his accounts balance. His reasons for the change are, however, put in a different light by Smith, who, with sardonic humour, says: "Not thinking that a post sufficient to cheat Her Majesty's subjects, he was resolved to impose upon 'em more by taking all they had on the highway." Or, in milder fashion, according to Johnson, "he chose rather to gather contributions for himself than for the King." For "King" read "Queen," for Wicks practised in the reign of Queen Anne.
The first two interviews he held with travellers upon the highway were successful, but the third brought him misfortune, for he was apprehended near Croydon, and sent to prison in the Marshalsea, a doleful hold, at that time said to be "a lively representation of the Iron Age, since nothing but gingling of keys and rattling of shackles and bolts and grates are here to be heard."
His third attempt would no doubt have remained also his last, had it not been for the exertions of his friends, who, during the interval between his arrest and the trial at Sessions, got at the prosecutor and bribed him with sixty guineas, to fail in identifying him. As the prosecutor had been robbed of only thirty shillings, he profited largely by the transaction and was doubtless sorry it could not be often repeated.
Wicks was accordingly acquitted, on the failure of this suborned prosecutor to swear to him; and was immediately on the road again; this time in partnership with a certain Joe Johnson, alias Saunders. Near Colnbrook they held up a stage-coach containing four gentlemen, one of whom discharged a blunderbuss at the luckless Joe, who received seven or eight bullets, and was thus wounded so severely that he was easily seized: the more easily in that Wicks instantly made off, with the speed of the wind. The "chivalry" of the highwaymen, of which we read so much in novels, was an elusive thing, and was apt to be altogether missing in the stress of danger. The highwayman who would stand by a wounded comrade was a very rare bird: so rare, indeed, that we are inclined to doubt his existence.