Each resumes for his own generation the
prowess of his kind. Each has assured his immortality by an experiment
in literature; and if epic simplicity and rapid narrative are the
virtues of biography, it is difficult to award the prize. The Switcher
preferred to write in the rough lingo, wherein he best expressed
himself. He packs his pages with ill-spelt slang, telling his story of
thievery in the true language of thieves. Gentleman Harry, as became a
person of quality, mimicked the dialect wherewith he was familiar in the
more fashionable gambling-dens of Covent Garden. Both write with out the
smallest suggestion of false shame or idle regret, and a natural vanity
lifts each of them out of the pit of commonplace on to the tableland of
the heroic. They set forth their depredation, as a victorious general
might record his triumphs, and they excel the nimblest Ordinary that
ever penned a dying speech in all the gifts of the historian.
But when you leave the study for the field, the Switcher instantly
declares his superiority. He had the happiness to practise his craft
in its heyday, while Simms knew but the fag-end of a noble tradition.
Haggart, moreover, was an expert, pursuing a difficult art, while Simms
was a bully, plundering his betters by bluff. Simms boasted no quality
which might be set off against the accurate delicacy of Haggart's hand.
The Englishman grew rich upon a rolling eye and a rusty pistol. He put
on his 'fiercest manner,' and believed that the world would deny him
nothing.
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