motives he had traced. He was a great organiser, and he controlled
various bands of robbers whose lives he did not hesitate to
sacrifice, when his own was in danger. Naturally he was so hated
by many of his underlings that it is a wonder he was able to
maintain his authority over them as many years as he did. His
rascality had been notorious a long time before his crimes could
actually be proved. He was executed at last according to the
statute which made receivers of stolen goods equally guilty with
the stealers.

Beyond this general resemblance, the adventures of the real
Jonathan, so far as we know them, are not much like those of the
fictitious. True, the real Jonathan's married life was unhappy,
though his quarrel with his wife did not follow so hard upon his
wedding as the quarrel of Fielding's hero and the chaste Laetitia.
Not until a year from his marriage did the real Jonathan separate
from his spouse, after which time he lived, like Fielding's, not
always mindful of his vows of faithfulness. Like Fielding's, too,
he was called upon to suppress rebellions in his gangs, and once
he came very near being killed in a court of justice by one Blake,
alias Blueskin. Apart from these misadventures, the experiences of
Fielding's Wild seem to be purely imaginary. "My narrative is
rather of such actions which he might have performed," the author
himself says, [Footnote: Introduction to Miscellanies, 1st ed., p.
xvii.] "or would, or should have performed, than what he really
did. ... The Life and Actions of the Late Jonathan Wild, got out
with characteristic commercial energy by Defoe, soon after the
criminal's execution, is very different from Fielding's satirical
narrative, and probably a good deal nearer the truth."