While he was musing at this sight, he beheld a person of a grave and venerable aspect, in garb and appearance like a shepherd, who asked him twice or thrice, if he knew the meaning of what he there saw, to which he answered, No.  Well, then, says the stranger, I will inform you.  This sight which you see is just your present case.  You have nothing to resolve with yourself but whether you will prepare by swimming across this river immediately, forever to possess that beautiful country that lies before you; or by attempting the passage over the narrow board which crosses the first arm of the river and leads into the island, where you will be again amidst briars and thorns, and must at last pass that deep water, before you can enter the pleasant country you behold on the other side.

This vision made so strong an impression on the poor man’s spirits that when his friend came he refused absolutely to make his escape, but suffered with great marks of calmness and true repentance, at Tyburn, in the twenty-seventh year of his age.

FOOTNOTES: 

   [55] This was the statute of 1530 (22 Hen.  VIII, c, 10)
        directed against “outlandish people calling themselves
        Egyptians.”  It was amended 1 & 2 Ph. & Mary, c. 4 and 5 Eliz.,
        c. 10 and sundry other legislation was of a similar tenour.

The Life of JAMES WHITE, a Thief

Stupidity, however it may arise, whether from a natural imperfection of the rational faculties, or from want of education, or from drowning it wholly in bestial and sensual pleasures, is doubtless one of the highest misfortunes which can befall any man whatsoever; for it not only leaves him little better than the beasts which perish, exposed to a thousand inconveniences against which there is no guard but that of a clear and unbiased reason, but it renders him also base and abject when under misfortunes, the sport and contempt of that wicked and debauched part of the human species who are apt to scoff at despairing misery, and to add by their insults to the miseries of those who sink under their load already.

James White, who is to be the subject of the following narration, was the son of very honest and reputable parents, though their circumstances were so mean as not to afford wherewith to put their son to school, and they themselves were so careless as not to procure his admission into the Charity School.  By all which it happened that the poor fellow knew hardly anything better than the beasts of the field, and addicted himself like them, to filling his belly and satisfying his lust.  Whenever, therefore, either of those brutish appetites called, he never scrupled plundering to obtain what might supply the first, or using force that might oblige women to submit against their wills unto the other.