Chapter Wickfield to Wild of W by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Wigmore Street (London). So called from Harley earl of Oxford and Mortimer, created baron Harley of Wigmore, in Herefordshire (1711).

Wild (Jonathan), a cool, calculating, heartless villain, with the voice of a Stentor. He was born at Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire, and, like Jack Sheppard, was the son of a carpenter.

He had ten maxims: (1) Never do more mischief than is absolutely necessary for success; (2) Know no distinction, but let self-interest be the one principle of action; (3) Let not your shirt know the thoughts of your heart; (4) Never forgive an enemy; (5) Shun poverty and distress; (6) Foment jealousies in your gang; (7) A good man, like money, must be risked in speculation; (8) Counterfeit virtues are as good as real ones, for few know paste from diamonds; (9) Be your own trumpeter, and don’t be afraid of blowing loud; (10) Keep hatred concealed in the heart, but wear the face of a friend.

Jonathan Wild married six wives. Being employed for a time as a detective, he brought to the gallows thirty-five highwaymen, twenty-two burglars, and ten returned convicts. He was himself executed at last at Tyburn for housebreaking (1682–1725).

(Daniel Defoe made Jonathan Wild the hero of a romance (1725). Fielding did the same in 1743. In these romances he is a coward, traitor, hypocrite, and tyrant, unrelieved by human feeling, and never betrayed into a kind or good action. The character is historic, but the adventures are in a measure fictitious.)