Chaplain, encouraging him to a final act of hypocrisy, gives him a free
pass (so to say) into another and more exclusive world. So, too, the
moralist would test the thief by his own narrow standard, forgetting
that all professions are not restrained by the same code. The road has
its ordinances as well as the lecture-room; and if the thief is commonly
a bad moralist, it is certain that no moralist was ever a great thief.
Why then detract from a man's legitimate glory? Is it not wiser to
respect 'that deep intuition of oneness,' which Coleridge says is 'at
the bottom of our faults as well as our virtues?' To recognise that
a fault in an honest man is a virtue in a scoundrel? After all, he
is eminent who, in obedience to his talent, does prodigies of valour
unrivalled by his fellows. And none has so many opportunities of various
eminence as the scoundrel.

The qualities which may profitably be applied to a cross life
are uncommon and innumerable. It is not given to all men to be
light-brained, light-limbed, light-fingered. A courage which shall face
an enemy under the starlight, or beneath the shadow of a wall, which
shall track its prey to a well-defended lair, is far rarer than a
law-abiding cowardice. The recklessness that risks all for a present
advantage is called genius, if a victorious general urge it to success;
nor can you deny to the intrepid Highwayman, whose sudden resolution
triumphs at an instant of peril, the possession of an admirable gift.
But all heroes have not proved themselves excellent at all points. This
one has been distinguished for the courtly manner of his attack, that
other for a prescience which discovers booty behind a coach-door or
within the pocket of a buttoned coat. If Cartouche was a master of
strategy, Barrington was unmatched in another branch; and each may claim
the credit due to a peculiar eminence. It is only thus that you may
measure conflicting talents: as it were unfair to judge a poet by a