You admire not his success, because, like the success of the popular
politician, it depended rather upon his dupes than upon his merit. You
approve not his raffish exploits in the hells of Covent Garden or Drury
Lane. But you cannot withhold respect from his consistent dandyism, and
you are grateful for the record that, engaged in a mean enterprise, he
was dressed 'in a green velvet frock and a short lac'd waistcoat.' Above
all, his picturesque capture at Hockcliffe atones for much stupidity.
The resolution, wavering at the wine glass, the last drunken ride from
St. Albans--these are inventions in experience, which should make Simms
immortal. And when he sits 'by the fireside a good deal chagrined,'
he recalls the arrest of a far greater man--even of Cartouche, who
was surprised by the soldiers at his bedside stitching a torn pair of
breeches. His autobiography, wherein 'he relates the truth as a dying
man,' seemed excellent in the eyes of Borrow, who loved it so well that
he imagined a sentence, ascribed it falsely to Simms, and then rewarded
it with extravagant applause.
But Gentleman Harry knew how to tell a simple story, and the book, 'all
wrote by myself while under sentence of death,' is his best performance.
In action he had many faults, for, if he was a highwayman among rakes,
he was but a rake among highwaymen.
A PARALLEL
(THE SWITCHER AND GENTLEMAN HARRY)
HAGGART and Simms are united in the praise of Borrow, and in the
generous applause of posterity.
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