"The adventures of this individual," says Johnson, "are neither of interest nor importance." He then proceeds to recount them at considerable length, sufficiently disproving his own words in the course of his narrative.

Tracey was heir to an estate of £900 annual value, in Norfolk. His father, himself a man of liberal education, wished his son to share the like advantage, and sent him to Oxford, where he hoped he would take a degree and then enter the Church. But Walter was a gay and idle blade; thoughtless and reckless. His character was otherwise gentle, open, and generous: so it will be noted that if his recklessness suited him for the profession of highwayman, his alleged mildness of disposition was distinctly a drawback. At the least of it, he seems to have been singularly unfitted for the Church, and, indeed, had never an opportunity of entering it, for his wild life as a student led to his being expelled from the University.

Our precious, delightful humbug, Johnson, greedily telling the story of the highwayman and omitting no scandalous detail from the task in which he revelled, halts at this point to make an insincere moral reflection, which he felt would be called for by some of his readers, even in the middle of the eighteenth century, when morals and improving discourses were alike at a heavy discount.

"The road to vice," he remarks, with his tongue in his cheek, "is of easy access, and, fascinating as it appears when you proceed, it closes behind, and leaves nothing on the retrospect but ruggedness and gloom. Tracey had entered the delusive path, and though he had the wish, possessed not the fortitude, to retrace his steps."

That was bad for Tracey. He and his companions, we learn, for some time amused their parents with various artifices; "but were at last denied any further pecuniary assistance." In this Micawberish high-falutin style, are Tracey's experiences told.

To fill their pockets, Tracey and his friends went upon the road. Expelled from the University, he reformed for awhile, and made his way through England until he arrived in Cheshire, where he took service with a wealthy grazier. He soon became fond of the country, and reconciled to his now humble lot, and being a youth of elegant appearance, and possessing very pleasing and fascinating manners, his friendship was courted by every one. He was proficient in music and singing, and often, when the toils of the day were over, the villagers would assemble at his master's door, and "measure their gay steps to the sound of his violin; 'in fact, as Mr. Micawber might say,' they danced to his fiddling."

The country girls vied with one another for his attention; but the grazier's daughter (or perhaps the prospect of the grazier's money) was the object of his choice; and so firmly had he gained the esteem of his master, that their marriage was agreed upon, and at length celebrated with every mark of happiness and satisfaction.

For a time he remained happy in this condition of life; especially as his wife had brought a part of her father's property with her. He managed farm and stock with skill and industry, and might have become an ornament and a shining light in the Cheshire cheese-farming, only for the vagabond blood in him. He found a respectable life insufferably dull after his early riotous days; and was so loud in his praise of town and its delights, that he at length disturbed the content of his wife and his father-in-law as well, and induced them to realise all their property, and to accompany him to London, where, he said, he expected to procure some lucrative situation.

Johnson, perhaps thinking this to be too great a demand upon the credulity of his readers, feels constrained to add at this point a criticism of his own. "It was no small proof of the influence he had over the resolutions and actions of others, that he could thus induce a country farmer to forget his accustomed habits, and follow an adventurous son-in-law into scenes with which he was altogether unacquainted." We may heartily agree with him here.

Having disposed of their joint stock and other property, they proceeded to London by way of Trentham, in Staffordshire, where they intended to rest for a day or two. In the house where they stayed Tracey met some of his old college friends, with whom he spent a jovial time. This confirmed him in his desire to return to his former extravagant way of living, and he seems instantly to have lost all his new-found honesty and sense of responsibility, under the influence of this old acquaintance.

Early next morning he arose and, stealing his father-in-law's pocket-book, and everything of value that lay handy, went off on his horse, and thus, without a word of farewell, disappeared. "Thus," remarks our author, ready with the moralising reflections we know he really detested, "he in a moment blasted the good hopes which the reader must have entertained of him; and his future serves only to confirm that contempt which every honourable mind must feel for him, after so infamous an action. Every endeavour to discover his retreat proved ineffectual, and his wife and father-in-law never heard of him again, until he expiated his crimes by an ignominious death."

It appears that Tracey proceeded to Coventry, where he alighted at an inn, in which he observed an unusual stillness. Entering the house, and hearing sounds of quarrelling upstairs, his curiosity led him to enquire what was amiss, and walking abruptly into one of the rooms, surprised the innkeeper and his wife in a heated dispute. The innkeeper, an elderly man, had married a woman much younger than himself, and had discovered, too late, that she had really been angling for his money, rather than for himself: hence these disagreements.

The dispute ran high as Tracey entered. Both husband and wife were eager to state their respective grievances, and he listened patiently. Having heard both sides, he summed up judicially.

"Money," he said, "has been the cause of this confusion. Without it you may live in peace and quietness; so, for your own sakes, hand me at once the money you possess"; handling a loaded pistol significantly the while. He took first eighty-five guineas, and then his farewell.

On his way south he met a young Oxonian, whom he accompanied as far as Ware, where they passed the evening in great harmony and friendship. Proceeding next day, Tracey frequently remarked that his companion's valise—a prosperous-looking article—was certainly too weighty for him. But, in constantly recurring to the subject, he aroused his companion's suspicions that this pleasant fellow, whom he had picked up on the road, was none other than a highwayman. He said nothing of his suspicion, but was resolved to be even with him. Presently, remarking that he was travelling to take up his degree of Master of Arts, he hinted that he had with him, in his portmanteau, sixty pounds for his expenses.

"Have you so?" said Tracey. "That is very convenient for me at this time, for I want to borrow just such a sum, and you could not lend it to a better person than myself."

So, without more ado, he helped himself to the valise, untying it from the other's horse and strapping it on his own.

The student poured forth the most lamentable entreaties, and begged Tracey not to thus deprive him of what was to establish his future prospects in life. The money, he declared, was all borrowed, and if it were sto—— er! borrowed from him at this juncture, he had not the least prospect of ever being able to repay it.

All these tears and protestations moved Tracey only so far as to give him his own purse, containing some four pounds, to carry him on for a few days. He then disappeared down a bye-road with the valise, and the student saw him no more, and perhaps had no wish to see him again; for, as Tracey discovered when he halted at the next hedge-row alehouse and unstrapped the valise, the sixty pounds was purely imaginary, and its contents were nothing but two old shirts, half a dozen dirty collars, a ragged and threadbare student's gown, a pair of stockings minus the feet, a pair of shoes with but one heel between them, a comb, some needles and thread, and a ham. The picturesque force of the sucking highwayman's language when he discovered these treasures, and how simply he had been taken in, must have considerably astonished the landlord of that wayside tavern.

The biographers of Ben Jonson mention his once being robbed by Tracey in very humorous style. Tracey met the poet, whom he knew well by sight, on a road in Buckinghamshire, and demanded his purse. To this "Rare Ben," as his epitaph in Westminster Abbey styles him, answered in the following impromptu:

Upon which Tracey is supposed to have replied:

This ingenious reply disarmed Jonson, who thus discovered that he had both a wit and a knave to contend with. He endeavoured to save his money, but to no purpose, and had to resign it to the man who, it seemed, could rhyme better, impromptu, than himself, and at greater length. This was not the only misfortune that befel Jonson on this journey; for, when within two or three miles of London, he was attacked by a gang of thieves, who knocked him from his horse, bound him hand and foot, and threw him into a park, where some other wayfarers who had shared the same fate were lying. One of his unfortunate companions calling out that he and his wife and children were undone, another, who was tied up also, said, "Pray, if you are all undone come and undo me"; which afforded Ben a hearty laugh, and a subject upon which he afterwards expressed his poetical powers.

Tracey was not one of your common highwaymen who expended their money as fast as they earned it. He was of a saving disposition, and after some time amassed sufficient to keep him in comfort during the rest of his life. Unfortunately there is little dependence to be placed upon the honesty of the world, as Tracey found, for the person to whom he had entrusted his savings embezzled them; and so our highwayman's intention to retire was upset, and he was reduced to going once more upon the road. His hand seems by this time to have lost its cunning, or else he had the very worst luck, for he was soon taken, in an attempt to rob the Duke of Buckingham; and, after being brought to trial at Winchester, was executed there in 1634, aged thirty-eight.