sorts of wicked artists, of whom he made several uses, according as he perceived which way every man’s particular talent lay.’  This statesman—­Thomas Dun was his name—­drew up for the use of his comrades a stringent and stately code, and he was wont to deliver an address to all novices concerning the art and mystery of robbing upon the highway.  Under auspices so brilliant, thievery could not but flourish, and when the Stuarts sat upon the throne it was already lifted above the level of questioning experiment.

Every art is shaped by its material, and with the variations of its material it must perforce vary.  If the skill of the cutpurse compelled the invention of the pocket, it is certain that the rare difficulties of the pocket created the miraculous skill of those crafty fingers which were destined to empty it.  And as increased obstacles are perfection’s best incentive, a finer cunning grew out of the fresh precaution.  History does not tell us who it was that discovered this new continent of roguery.  Those there are who give the credit to the valiant Moll Cutpurse; but though the Roaring Girl had wit to conceive a thousand strange enterprises, she had not the hand to carry them out, and the first pickpocket must needs have been a man of action.  Moreover, her nickname suggests the more ancient practice, and it is wiser to yield the credit to Simon Fletcher, whose praises are chanted by the early historians.

Now, Simon, says his biographer, was ’looked upon to be the greatest artist of his age by all his contemporaries.’  The son of a baker in Rosemary Lane, he early deserted his father’s oven for a life of adventure; and he claims to have been the first collector who, stealing the money, yet left the case.  The new method was incomparably more subtle than the old:  it afforded an opportunity of a hitherto unimagined delicacy; the wielders of the scissors were aghast at a skill which put their own clumsiness to shame, and which to a previous generation would have seemed the wildest fantasy.  Yet so strong is habit, that even when the picking of pockets was a recognised industry, the superfluous scissors still survived, and many a rogue has hanged upon the Tree because he attempted with a vulgar implement such feats as his unaided forks had far more easily accomplished.

But, despite the innovation of Simon Fletcher, the highway was the glory of Elizabeth, the still greater glory of the Stuarts.  ’The Lacedaemonians were the only people,’ said Horace Walpole, ’except the English who seem to have put robbery on a right foot.’  And the English of the seventeenth century need fear the rivalry of no Lacedaemonian.  They were, indeed, the most valiant and graceful robbers that the world has ever known.  The Civil War encouraged their profession, and, since many of them had fought for their king, a proper hatred of Cromwell sharpened their wits.  They were scholars as well as gentlemen; they tempered their sport with a merry wit; their avarice alone surpassed their courtesy; and they robbed with so perfect a regard for the proprieties that it was only the pedant and the parliamentarian who resented their interference.