superior), than to cog a die or to shuffle a pack of cards? Is not
as much art, as many excellent qualities, required to make a
pimping porter at a common bawdy-house as would enable a man to
prostitute his own or his friend's wife or child? Doth it not ask
as good a memory, as nimble an invention, as steady a countenance,
to forswear yourself in Westminster-hall as would furnish out a
complete tool of state, or perhaps a statesman himself? It is
needless to particularize every instance; in all we shall find
that there is a nearer connexion between high and low life than is
generally imagined, and that a highwayman is entitled to more
favour with the great than he usually meets with. If, therefore,
as I think I have proved, the same parts which qualify a man for
eminence in a low sphere, qualify him likewise for eminence in a
higher, sure it can be no doubt in which he would chuse to exert
them. Ambition, without which no one can be a great man, will
immediately instruct him, in your own phrase, to prefer a hill in
Paradise to a dunghill; nay, even fear, a passion the most
repugnant to greatness, will shew him how much more safely he may
indulge himself in the free and full exertion of his mighty
abilities in the higher than in the lower rank; since experience
teaches him that there is a crowd oftener in one year at Tyburn
than on Tower-hill in a century." Mr. Wild with much solemnity
rejoined, "That the same capacity which qualifies a mill-
ken,[Footnote: A housebreaker.] a bridle-cull,[Footnote: A
highwayman.] or a buttock-and-file, [Footnote: A shoplifter. Terms
used in the Cant Dictionary.] to arrive at any degree of eminence
in his profession, would likewise raise a man in what the world
esteem a more honourable calling, I do not deny; nay, in many of
your instances it is evident that more ingenuity, more art, are
necessary to the lower than the higher proficients. If, therefore,