The set phrases, the vain prayer offered for other sinners, the hypocritical profession of a superior righteousness, were neither noble nor sincere.  When Tom Jones (for instance) was hanged, in 1702, after a prosperous career on Hounslow Heath, his biographer declared that he behaved with more than usual ‘modesty and decency,’ because he ’delivered a pretty deal of good advice to the young men present, exhorting them to be industrious in their several callings.’  Whereas his biographer should have discovered that it is not thus that your true hero bids farewell to frolic and adventure.

As little in accordance with good taste was the last appearance of the infamous Jocelin Harwood, who was swung from the cart in 1692 for murder and robbery.  He arrived at Tyburn insolently drunk.  He blustered and ranted, until the spectators hissed their disapproval, and he died vehemently shouting that he would act the same murder again in the same case.  Unworthy, also, was the last dying repartee of Samuel Shotland, a notorious bully of the Eighteenth Century.  Taking off his shoes, he hurled them into the crowd, with a smirk of delight.  ’My father and mother often told me,’ he cried, ’that I should die with my shoes on; but you may all see that I have made them both liars.’  A great man dies not with so mean a jest, and Tyburn was untouched to mirth by Shotland’s facile humour.

On the other hand, there are those who have given a splendid example of a brave and dignified death.  Brodie was a sorry bungler when at work, but a perfect artist at the gallows.  The glory of his last achievement will never fade.  The muttered prayer, unblemished by hypocrisy, the jest thrown at George Smith—­a metaphor from the gaming-table—­the silent adjustment of the cord which was to strangle him, these last offices were performed with an unparalleled quietude and restraint.  Though he had pattered the flash to all his wretched accomplices, there was no trace of the last dying speech in his final utterances, and he set an example of a simple greatness, worthy to be followed even to the end of time.  Such is the type, but others also have given proof of a serene temper.  Tom Austin’s masterpiece was in another kind, but it was none the less a masterpiece.  At the very moment that the halter was being put about his neck, he was asked by the Chaplain what he had to say before he died.  ‘Only,’ says he, ’there’s a woman yonder with some curds and whey, and I wish I could have a pennyworth of them before I am hanged, because I don’t know when I shall see any again.’  There is a brave irrelevance in this very human desire, which is beyond praise.

Valiant also was the conduct of Roderick Audrey, who after a brief but brilliant career paid his last debt to the law in 1714.