Dr Dodd

'These were the words with which the keeper, to whose custody Paul and Silas were committed by their prosecutors, addressed his prisoners, when he saw them freed from their bonds by the perceptible agency of divine favour, and was, therefore, irresistibly convinced that they were not offenders against the laws, but martyrs to the truth.' Dr. Johnson was so good as to mark for me with his own hand, on a copy of this sermon which is now in my possession, such passages as were added by Dr. Dodd. They are not many: whoever will take the trouble to look at the printed copy, and attend to what I mention, will be satisfied of this.

There is a short introduction by Dr. Dodd, and he also inserted this sentence, 'You see with what confusion and dishonour I now stand before you;--no more in the pulpit of instruction, but on this humble seat with yourselves.' The notes are entirely Dodd's own, and Johnson's writing ends at the words, 'the thief whom he pardoned on the cross.' What follows was supplied by Dr. Dodd himself.

The other pieces mentioned by Johnson in the above-mentioned collection, are two letters, one to the Lord Chancellor Bathurst, (not Lord North, as is erroneously supposed,) and one to Lord Mansfield;--A Petition from Dr. Dodd to the King;--A Petition from Mrs. Dodd to the Queen;-- Observations of some length inserted in the news-papers, on occasion of Earl Percy's having presented to his Majesty a petition for mercy to Dodd, signed by twenty thousand people, but all in vain. He told me that he had also written a petition from the city of London; 'but (said he, with a significant smile) they mended it.' The last of these articles which Johnson wrote is Dr. Dodd's last solemn Declaration, which he left with the sheriff at the place of execution. Here also my friend marked the variations on a copy of that piece now in my possession. Dodd inserted, 'I never knew or attended to the calls of frugality, or the needful minuteness of painful oeconomy;' and in the next sentence he introduced the words which I distinguish by Italicks;

'My life for some few unhappy years past has been dreadfully erroneous.' Johnson's expression was hypocritical; but his remark on

the margin is 'With this he said he could not charge himself.' Having thus authentically settled what part of the Occasional Papers,

concerning Dr. Dodd's miserable situation, came from the pen of Johnson.I proceed to present my readers with my record of the unpublished writings relating to that extraordinary and interesting matter. I found a letter to Dr. Johnson from Dr. Dodd, May 23, 1777, in which The Convict's Address seems clearly to be meant:--

'I am so penetrated, my ever dear Sir, with a sense of your extreme

benevolence towards me, that I cannot find words equal to the sentiments

of my heart.

* * * * *

'You are too conversant in the world to need the slightest hint from me,

of what infinite utility the Speech on the aweful day has been to me.

I experience, every hour, some good effect from it. I am sure that

effects still more salutary and important must follow from your kind

and intended favour. I will labour--GOD being my helper,--to do justice

to it from the pulpit. I am sure, had I your sentiments constantly to

deliver from thence, in all their mighty force and power, not a soul

could be left unconvinced and unpersuaded.'

* * * * *

He added:--

'May GOD ALMIGHTY bless and reward, with his choicest comforts, your

philanthropick actions, and enable me at all times to express what I

feel of the high and uncommon obligations which I owe to the first man

in our times.'

On Sunday, June 22, he writes, begging Dr. Johnson's assistance in

framing a supplicatory letter to his Majesty:--

'If his Majesty could be moved of his royal clemency to spare me and my

family the horrours and ignominy of a publick death, which the publick

itself is solicitous to wave, and to grant me in some silent distant

corner of the globe, to pass the remainder of my days in penitence and

prayer, I would bless his clemency and be humbled.'

This letter was brought to Dr. Johnson when in church. He stooped down

and read it, and wrote, when he went home, the following letter for Dr.

Dodd to the King:--

'SIR,

'May it not offend your Majesty, that the most miserable of men applies

himself to your clemency, as his last hope and his last refuge; that

your mercy is most earnestly and humbly implored by a clergyman, whom

your Laws and Judges have condemned to the horrour and ignominy of a

publick execution.

'I confess the crime, and own the enormity of its consequences, and the

danger of its example. Nor have I the confidence to petition for

impunity; but humbly hope, that publick security may be established,

without the spectacle of a clergyman dragged through the streets, to a

death of infamy, amidst the derision of the profligate and profane; and

that justice may be satisfied with irrevocable exile, perpetual

disgrace, and hopeless penury.

'My