Chapter C: Lamb (5)

A porter's lodge on one side, almost hidden in the trees, supplied an answer to my question, and on my giving a lusty pull at the bell, the door was opened and a slatternly woman appeared and inquired my business. "To look over Temple Bar," I replied. "Hutterly himpossible," she said; and I saw at once that tact and a coin were required. I used both. "Go up the drive to the great 'ouse and hask for the clerk [pronounced clark] of the works, Mr. 'Arrison; 'e may let ye hover."

I did as I was told and had little difficulty with Mr. Harrison. The house itself was undergoing extensive repairs and alterations. It has recently passed, under the will of Lady Meux, to its present owner, together with a fortune of five hundred thousand pounds in money.

Many years ago Henry Meux married the beautiful and charming Valerie Langton, an actress,--a Gaiety girl, in fact,--but they had had no children, and when he died in 1900, the title became extinct. Thereafter Lady Meux, enormously wealthy, without relatives, led a retired life, chiefly interested in breeding horses. A chance courtesy paid her by the wife of Sir Hedworth Lambton, who had recently married, together with the fact that he had established a reputation for ability and courage, decided her in her thought to make him her heir.

Sir Hedworth, a younger son of the second Earl of Durham, had early adopted the sea as his profession. He had distinguished himself in the bombardment of Alexandria, and had done something wonderful at Ladysmith. He was a hero, no longer a young man, without means--who better fitted to succeed to her wealth and name? In 1911 Lady Meux died, and this lovely country seat, originally a hunting-lodge of King James, subsequently the favorite residence of Charles I, and with a long list of royal or noble owners, became the property of the gallant sailor. All that he had to do was to forget that the name of Meux suggested a brewery and exchange his own for it, and the great property was his. It reads like a chapter out of a romance. Thus it was that the house was being thoroughly overhauled for its new owner at the time of my visit.

But I am wandering from Temple Bar. Armed with a letter from Mr. Harrison, I returned to the gate. First, I ascertained that the span of the centre arch, the arch through which for two centuries the traffic of London had passed, was but twenty-one feet "in the clear," as an architect would say; next, that the span of the small arches on either side was only four feet six inches. No wonder that there was always congestion at Temple Bar.

I was anxious also to see the room above, the room in which formerly Messrs. Child, when it had adjoined their banking-house, had stored their old ledgers and cash-books. Keys were sought and found, and I was admitted. The room was bare except for a large table in the centre, on which were quill pens and an inkstand in which the ink had dried up years before. One other thing there was, a visitor's book, which, like a new diary, had been started off bravely years before, but in which no signature had recently been written. I glanced over it and noticed a few well-known names--English names, not American, such as one usually finds, for I was off the beaten track of the tourist. The roof was leaking here and there, and little pools of water were forming on the floor. It was as cold as a tomb. I wished that a tavern, the Cock, the Devil, or any other, had been just outside, as in the old days when Temple Bar stood in Fleet Street.

The slatternly woman clanked her keys; she too was cold. I had seen all there was to see. The beauty of Temple Bar is in its exterior, and, most of all, in its wealth of literary and historic associations. I could muse elsewhere with less danger of pneumonia, so I said farewell to the kings in their niches, who in this suburban retreat seemed like monarchs retired from business, and returned to my cab.

The driver was asleep in the rain. I think the horse was, too. I roused the man and he roused the beast, and we drove almost rapidly back to the station; no, not to the station, but to a public house close by it, where hot water and accompaniments were to be had.

"When is the next train up to London?" I asked an old man at the station.

"In ten minutes, but you'll find it powerful slow."

I was not deceived; it took me over an hour to reach London.

As if to enable me to bring this story to a fitting close, I read in the papers only a few days ago: "Vice-Admiral Sir John Jellicoe was to-day promoted to the rank of Admiral, and Sir Hedworth Meux, who until now has been commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, was appointed Admiral of the Home Fleet."[12]

Good luck be with him! Accepting the burdens which properly go with rank and wealth, he is at this moment cruising somewhere in the cold North Sea, in command of perhaps the greatest fleet ever assembled. Upon the owner of Temple Bar, at this moment, devolves the duty of keeping watch and ward over England.

XI

A MACARONI PARSON

It will hardly be questioned that the influence of the priesthood is waning. Why this is so, it is not within the province of a mere book-collector to discuss; but the fact will, I think, be admitted. In the past, however, every country and almost every generation has produced a type of priest which seems to have been the special product of its time. The soothsayer of old Rome, concealed, perhaps, in a hollow wall, whispered his warning through the marble lips of a conveniently placed statue, in return for a suitable present indirectly offered; while to-day Billy Sunday, leaping and yelling like an Apache Indian, shrieks his admonitions at us, and takes up a collection in a clothes-basket. It is all very sad and, as Oscar Wilde would have said, very tedious.

Priests, prophets, parsons, or preachers! They are all human, like the rest of us. Too many of them are merely insurance agents soliciting us to take out policies of insurance against fire everlasting, for a fee commensurate, not with the risk, but with our means. It is a well-established trade, in which the representatives of the old-line companies, who have had the cream of the business, look with disapproval upon new methods, as well they may, their own having worked so well for centuries. The premiums collected have been enormous, and no evidence has ever been produced that the insurer took any risk whatever.

And the profession has been, not only immensely lucrative, but highly honorable. In times past priests have ranked with kings: sometimes wearing robes of silk studded with jewels; on fortune's cap the topmost button, exhibit Wolsey; sometimes appearing in sackcloth relieved by ashes; every man in his humor. But it is not my purpose to inveigh against any creed or sect; only I confess my bewilderment at the range of human interest in questions of doctrine, while simple Christianity stands neglected.

The subject of this paper, however, is not creeds in general or in particular, but an eighteenth-century clergyman of the Church of England. It will not, I think, be doubted by those who have given the subject any attention that religious affairs in England in the eighteenth century were at a very low ebb indeed. Carlyle, as was his habit, called that century some hard names; but some of us are glad occasionally to steal away from our cares and forget our present "efficiency" in that century of leisure. Perhaps not for always, but certainly for a time, it is a relief to

... live in that past Georgian day
When men were less inclined to say
That "Time is Gold," and overlay

And to quote Austin Dobson again, with a slight variation:--

Seventeen hundred and twenty-nine:--
That is the date of this tale of mine.

First great George was buried and gone;
George the Second was plodding on.

Whitefield preached to the colliers grim;
Bishops in lawn sleeves preached at him;

Walpole talked of "a man and his price";
Nobody's virtue was over-nice:--

certainly not that of the clergyman of whom I am about to speak.

And now, without further delay, I introduce William Dodd. Doctor Dodd, he came to be called; subsequently, the "unfortunate Doctor Dodd," which he certainly considered himself to be, and with good reason, as he was finally hanged.

William Dodd was born in Lincolnshire, in 1729, and was himself the son of a clergyman. He early became a good student, and entering Clare Hall, Cambridge, at sixteen, attracted some attention by his close application to his studies. But books alone did not occupy his time: he attained some reputation as a dancer and was noted for being very fond of dress. He must have had real ability, however, for he was graduated with honors, and his name appears on the list of wranglers. Immediately after receiving his Arts degree, he set out to make a career for himself in London.

Young Dodd was quick and industrious: he had good manners and address, made friends quickly, and was possessed of what, in those days, was called "a lively imagination," which seems to have meant a fondness for dissipation; with friends to help him, he soon knew his way about the metropolis. Its many pitfalls he discovered by falling into them, and the pitfalls for a gay young blade in London in the middle of the eighteenth century were many and sundry.

But whatever his other failings, of idleness Dodd could not be accused. He did not forget that he had come to London to make a career for himself. He had already published verse; he now began a comedy, and the death of the Prince of Wales afforded him a subject for an elegy. From this time on he was prepared to write an ode or an elegy at the drop of a hat. The question, should he become author or minister, perplexed him for some time. For success in either direction perseverance and a patron were necessary. Perseverance he had, but a patron was lacking.

While pondering these matters, Dodd seemed to have nipped his career in the bud by a most improvident marriage. His wife was a Mary Perkins, which means little to us. She may have been a servant, but more likely she was the discarded mistress of a nobleman who was anxious to see her provided with a husband. In any event, she was a handsome woman, and his marriage was not his greatest misfortune.

Shortly after the wedding, we hear of them living in a small establishment in Wardour Street, not then, as now, given over to second-hand furniture shops, but rather a good quarter frequented by literary men and artists. Who supplied the money for this venture we do not know; it was probably borrowed from someone, and we may suspect that Dodd already was headed the wrong way--or that, at least, his father thought so; for we hear of his coming to London to persuade his son to give up his life there and return to Cambridge to continue his studies.

Shortly after this time he published two small volumes of quotations which he called "Beauties of Shakespeare." He was the first to make the discovery that a book of quotations "digested under proper heads" would have a ready sale. Shakespeare in the dead centre of the eighteenth century was not the colossal figure that he is seen to be as we celebrate the tercentenary of his death. I suspect that my friend Felix Schelling, the great Elizabethan scholar, feels that anyone who would make a book of quotations from Shakespeare deserves Dodd's end, namely, hanging; indeed, I have heard him suggest as much; but we cannot all be Schellings. The book was well received and has been reprinted right down to our own time. In the introduction he refers to his attempt to present a collection of the finest passages of the poet, "who was ever," he says, "of all modern authors, my first and greatest favorite"; adding that "it would have been no hard task to have multiplied notes and parallel passages from Greek, Latin and English writers, and thus to have made no small display of what is commonly called learning"; but that he had no desire to perplex the reader. There is much good sense in the introduction, which we must also think of as coming from a young man little more than a year out of college.

As it was his first, so he thought it would be his last, serious venture into literature, for in his preface he says: "Better and more important things henceforth demand my attention, and I here, with no small pleasure, take leave of Shakespeare and the critics: as this work was begun and finish'd before I enter'd upon the sacred function in which I am now happily employ'd."

Dodd had already been ordained deacon and settled down as a curate in West Ham in Essex, where he did not spare himself in the dull round of parochial drudgery. So passed two years which, looking back on them from within the portals of Newgate Prison, he declared to have been the happiest of his life. But he soon tired of the country, his yearning for city life was not to be resisted, and securing a lectureship at St. Olave's, Hart Street, he returned to London and relapsed into literature.

A loose novel, "The Sisters," is credited to him. Whether he wrote it or not is a question, but he may well have done so, for some of its pages seem to have inspired his sermons. Under cover of being a warning to the youth of both sexes, he deals with London life in a manner which would have put the author of "Peregrine Pickle" to shame; but as nobody's virtue was over-nice, nobody seemed to think it particularly strange that a clergyman should have written such a book. In many respects he reminds us of his more gifted rival, Laurence Sterne.

Dodd's great chance came in 1758, when a certain Mr. Hingley and some of his friends got together three thousand pounds and established an asylum for Magdalens, presumably penitent. The scheme was got under way after the usual difficulties; and as, in the City, the best way to arouse public interest is by a dinner, so in the West End a sermon may be made to serve the same purpose. Sterne had talked a hundred and sixty pounds out of the pockets of his hearers for the recently established Foundling Hospital; Dodd, when selected to preach the inaugural sermon at Magdalen House, got ten times as much. Who had the greater talent? Dodd was content that the question should be put. The charity became immensely popular. "Her Majesty" subscribed three hundred pounds, and the cream of England's nobility, feeling a personal interest in such an institution, and perhaps a personal responsibility for the urgent need of it, made large contributions. The success of the venture was assured.

Dodd was made Chaplain. At first this was an honorary position, but subsequently a small stipend was attached to it. The post was much to his liking, and it became as fashionable to go to hear Dodd and see the penitent magdalens on Sunday, as to go to Ranelagh and Vauxhall with, and to see, impenitent magdalens during the week. Services at Magdalen House were always crowded: royalty attended; everybody went.

Sensational and melodramatic, Dodd drew vivid pictures of the life from which the women and young girls had been rescued: the penitents on exhibition and the impenitents in the congregation, alike, were moved to tears. Frequently a woman swooned, as was the fashion in those days, and her stays had to be cut; or someone went into hysterics and had to be carried screaming from the room. Dodd must have felt that he had made no mistake in his calling. Horace Walpole says that he preached very eloquently in the French style; but it can hardly have been in the style of Bossuet, I should say. The general wantonness of his subject he covered by a veneer of decency; but we can guess what his sermons were like, without reading them, from our knowledge of the man and the texts he chose. "These things I command you, that ye love one another," packed the house; but his greatest effort was inspired by the text, "Whosoever looketh on a woman." It does not require much imagination to see what he would make out of that!

But for all his immense popularity Dodd was getting very little money. His small living in the country and his hundred guineas or so from the Magdalen did not suffice for his needs. He ran into debt, but he had confidence in himself and his ambition was boundless; he even thought of a bishopric. Why not? It was no new way to pay old debts. Influence in high places was his; but first he must secure a doctor's degree. This was not difficult. Cambridge, if not exactly proud of him, could not deny him, and Dodd got his degree. The King was appealed to, and he was appointed a Royal Chaplain. It was a stepping-stone to something better, and Dodd, always industrious, now worked harder than ever. He wrote and published incessantly: translations, sermons, addresses, poems, odes, and elegies on anybody and everything: more than fifty titles are credited to him in the British Museum catalogue.

And above all things, Dodd was in demand at a "city dinner." His blessings--he was always called upon to say grace--were carefully regulated according to the scale of the function. A brief "Bless, O Lord, we pray thee" sufficed for a simple dinner; but when the table was weighted down, as it usually was, with solid silver, and the glasses suggested the variety and number of wines which were to follow one another in orderly procession until most of the company got drunk and were carried home and put to bed, then Dodd rose to the occasion, and addressed a sonorous appeal which began, "Bountiful Jehovah, who has caused to groan this table with the abundant evidences of thy goodness."

The old-line clergy looked askance at all these doings. Bishops, secure in their enjoyment of princely incomes, and priests of lesser degree with incomes scarcely less princely, regarded Dodd with suspicion. Why did he not get a good living somewhere, from someone; hire a poor wretch to mumble a few prayers to half-empty benches on a Sunday while he collected the tithes? Why this zeal? When a substantial banker hears of an upstart guaranteeing ten per cent interest, he awaits the inevitable crash, certain that, the longer it is postponed, the greater the crash will be. In the same light the well-beneficed clergyman regarded Dodd.

Dodd himself longed for tithes; but as they were delayed in coming, he, in the meantime, decided to turn his reputation for scholarship to account, and accordingly let it be known that he would board and suitably instruct a limited number of young men; in other words, he fell back upon the time-honored custom of taking pupils. He secured a country house at Ealing and soon had among his charges one Philip Stanhope, a lad of eleven years, heir of the great Earl of Chesterfield, who was so interested in the worldly success of his illegitimate son, to whom his famous letters were addressed, that he apparently gave himself little concern as to the character of instruction that his lawful son received.

Dodd's pupils must have brought a substantial increase of his small income, which was also suddenly augmented in another way. About the time he began to take pupils, a lady to whom his wife had been a sort of companion died and left her, quite unexpectedly, fifteen hundred pounds. Nor did her good fortune end there. As she was attending an auction one day, a cabinet was put up for sale, and Mrs. Dodd bid upon it, until, observing a lady who seemed anxious to obtain it, she stopped bidding, and it became the property of the lady, who in return gave her a lottery ticket, which drew a prize of a thousand pounds for Mrs. Dodd.

With these windfalls at his disposal, Dodd embarked upon a speculation quite in keeping with his tastes and abilities. He secured a plot of ground not far from the royal palace, and built upon it a chapel of ease which he called Charlotte Chapel, in honor of the Queen. Four pews were set aside for the royal household, and he soon had a large and fashionable congregation. His sermons were in the same florid vein which had brought him popularity, and from this venture he was soon in receipt of at least six hundred pounds a year. With his increased income his style of living became riotous. He dined at expensive taverns, set up a coach, and kept a mistress, and even tried to force himself into the great literary club which numbered among its members some of the most distinguished men of the day; but this was not permitted.

For years Dodd led, not a double, but a triple life. He went through the motions of teaching his pupils. He preached, in his own chapels and elsewhere, sermons on popular subjects, and at the same time managed to live the life of a fashionable man about town. No one respected him, but he had a large following and he contrived every day to get deeper into debt.

It is a constant source of bewilderment to those of us who are obliged to pay our bills with decent regularity, how, in England, it seems to have been so easy to live on year after year, paying apparently nothing to anyone, and resenting the appearance of a bill-collector as an impertinence. When Goldsmith died, he owed a sum which caused Dr. Johnson to exclaim, "Was ever poet so trusted before?" and Goldsmith's debts were trifling in comparison with Dodd's. But, at the moment when matters were becoming really serious, a fashionable living--St. George's--fell vacant, and Dodd felt that if he could but secure it his troubles would be over.

The parish church of St. George's, Hanover Square, was one of the best known in London. It was in the centre of fashion, and then, as now, enjoyed almost a monopoly of smart weddings. Its rector had just been made a bishop. Dodd looked upon it with longing eyes. What a plum! It seemed beyond his reach, but nothing venture, nothing have. On investigation Dodd discovered that the living was worth fifteen hundred pounds a year and that it was in the gift of the Lord Chancellor. The old adage, "Give thy present to the clerk, not to the judge," must have come into his mind; for, not long after, the wife of the Chancellor received an anonymous letter offering three thousand pounds down and an annuity of five hundred a year if she would successfully use her influence with her husband to secure the living for a clergyman of distinction who should be named later. The lady very properly handed the letter to her husband, who at once set inquiries on foot. The matter was soon traced to Dodd, who promptly put the blame on his wife, saying that he had not been aware of the officious zeal of his consort.

The scandal became public, and Dodd thought it best to go abroad. His name was removed from the list of the King's chaplains. No care was taken to disguise references to him in the public prints. Libel laws in England seem to have been circumvented by the use of asterisks for letters: thus, Laurence Sterne would be referred to as "the Rev. L. S*****," coupled with some damaging statement; but in Dodd's case precaution of this sort was thought unnecessary. He was bitterly attacked and mercilessly ridiculed. Even Goldsmith takes a fling at him in "Retaliation," which appeared about this time. It remained, however, for Foote, the comedian, to hold him up to public scorn in one of his Haymarket farces, in which the parson and his wife were introduced as Dr. and Mrs. Simony. The satire was very coarse; but stomachs were strong in those good old days, and the whole town roared at the humor of the thing, which was admitted to be a great success.

On Dodd's return to London his fortunes were at a very low ebb indeed. A contemporary account says that, although almost overwhelmed with debt, his extravagance continued undiminished until, at last, "he descended so low as to become the editor of a newspaper." My editorial friends will note well the depth of his infamy.

After a time the scandal blew over, as scandal will when the public appetite has been appeased, and Dodd began to preach again: a sensational preacher will always have followers. Someone presented him to a small living in Buckinghamshire, from which he had a small addition to his income; but otherwise he was almost neglected.

At last he was obliged to sell his interest in his chapel venture, which he "unloaded," as we should say to-day, on a fellow divine by misstating its value as a going concern, so that the purchaser was ruined by his bargain. But he continued to preach with great pathos and effect, when suddenly the announcement was made that the great preacher, Dr. Dodd, the Macaroni Parson, had been arrested on a charge of forgery; that he was already in the Compter; that he had admitted his guilt, and that he would doubtless be hanged.

The details of the affair were soon public property. It appears that, at last overwhelmed with debt, Dodd had forged the name of his former pupil, now the Earl of Chesterfield, to a bond for forty-two hundred pounds. The bond had been negotiated and the money paid when the fraud was discovered. A warrant for his arrest was at once made out, and Dodd was taken before Justice Hawkins (Johnson's first biographer), who sat as a committing magistrate, and held him for formal trial at the Old Bailey. Meanwhile all but four hundred pounds of the money had been returned; for a time it seemed as if this small sum could be raised and the affair dropped. This certainly was Dodd's hope; but the law had been set in motion, and justice, rather than mercy, was allowed to take its course. The crime had been committed early in February. At the trial a few weeks later, the Earl of Chesterfield, disregarding Dodd's plea, appeared against him, and he was sentenced to death; but some legal point had been raised in his favor, and it was several months before the question was finally decided adversely to him.

Dodd was now in Newgate Prison. There he was indulged in every way, according to the good old custom of the time. He was plentifully supplied with money, and could secure whatever money would buy. Friends were admitted to see him at all hours, and he occupied what leisure he had with correspondence, and wrote a long poem, "Thoughts in Prison," in five parts. He also projected a play and several other literary ventures.

Meanwhile a mighty effort was set on foot to secure a pardon. Dr. Johnson was appealed to, and while he entertained no doubts as to the wisdom of capital punishment for fraud, forgery, or theft, the thought of a minister of the Church of England being publicly haled through the streets of London to Tyburn and being there hanged seemed horrible to him, and he promised to do his best. He was as good as his word. With his ready pen he wrote a number of letters and petitions which were conveyed to Dodd, and which, subsequently copied by him, were presented to the King, the Lord Chancellor, to any one, in fact, who might have influence and be ready to use it. He even went so far as to write a letter which, when transcribed by Mrs. Dodd, was presented to the Queen. One petition, drawn by Johnson, was signed by twenty-three thousand people; but the King--under the influence of Lord Mansfield, it is said--declined to interest himself.

And this brings me to a point where I must explain my peculiar interest in this thoroughgoing scoundrel. I happen to own a volume of manuscript letters written by Dodd, from Newgate Prison, to a man named Edmund Allen; and as not every reader of Boswell can be expected to remember who Edmund Allen was, I may say that he was Dr. Johnson's neighbor and landlord in Bolt Court, a printer by trade and an intimate friend of the Doctor. It was Allen who gave the dinner to Johnson and Boswell which caused the old man to remark, "Sir, we could not have had a better dinner had there been a Synod of Cooks." The Dodd letters to Allen, however, are only a part of the contents of the volume. It contains also a great number of Johnson's letters to Dodd, and the original drafts of the petitions which he drew up in his efforts to secure mitigation of Dodd's punishment. The whole collection came into my possession many years ago, and has afforded me a subject of investigation on many a winter's evening when I might otherwise have occupied myself with solitaire, did I happen to know one card from another.

Allen appears to have been an acquaintance of Dodd's, and, I judge from the letters before me, called on Johnson with a letter from a certain Lady Harrington, who for some reason which does not appear, was greatly interested in Dodd's fate. Boswell records that Johnson was much agitated at the interview, walking up and down his chamber saying, "I will do what I can." Dodd was personally unknown to Johnson and had only once been in his presence; and while an elaborate correspondence was being carried on between them, Johnson declined to go to see the prisoner, and for some reason wished that his name should not be drawn into the affair; but he did not relax his efforts. Allen was the go-between in all that passed between the two men. In the volume before me, in all of Dodd's letters to Allen, Johnson's name has been carefully blotted out, and Johnson's letters intended for Dodd are not addressed to him, but bear the inscription, "This may be communicated to Dr. Dodd." Dodd's letters to Johnson were delivered to him by Allen and were probably destroyed, Allen having first made the copies which are now in my possession. Most of Dodd's letters to Allen appear to have been preserved, and Johnson's letters to Dodd, together with the drafts of his petitions, were carefully preserved by Allen, Dodd being supplied with unsigned copies. Allen in this way carried out Johnson's instructions to "tell nobody."

Dodd's letters seem for the most part to have been written at night. The correspondence began early in May, and his last letter was dated June 26, a few hours before he died. None of Dodd's letters seem to have been published, and Johnson's, although of supreme interest, do not appear to have been known in their entirety either to Hawkins, Boswell, or Boswell's greatest editor, Birkbeck Hill. The petitions, so far as they have been published, seem to have been printed from imperfect copies of the original drafts. Boswell relates that Johnson had told him he had written a petition from the City of London, but they _mended_ it. In the original draft there are a few _repairs_, but they are in Dr. Johnson's own hand. The petition to the King evidently did not require mending, as the published copies are almost identical with the original.

In the petition which he wrote for Mrs. Dodd to copy and present to the Queen, Johnson, not knowing all the facts, left blank spaces in the original draft for Mrs. Dodd to fill when making her copy; thus the original draft reads:--

TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY

MADAM:--

It is most humbly represented by ---- Dodd, the Wife of Dr. William
Dodd, now lying in prison under Sentence of death.

That she has been the Wife of this unhappy Man for more
than--years, and has lived with him in the greatest happiness of
conjugal union, and the highest state of conjugal confidence.

That she has been therefore for--years a constant Witness of his
unwearied endeavors for publick good and his laborious attendance
on charitable institutions. Many are the Families whom his care has
relieved from want; many are the hearts which he has freed from
pain, and the Faces which he has cleared from sorrow.

That therefore she most humbly throws herself at the feet of the
Queen, earnestly entreating that the petition of a distressed Wife
asking mercy for a husband may be considered as naturally exciting
the compassion of her Majesty, and that when her Wisdom has
compared the offender's good actions with his crime, she will be
graciously pleased to represent his case in such terms to our most
gracious Sovereign, as may dispose him to mitigate the rigours of
the law.

The case of the unfortunate Dr. Dodd was by now the talk of the town. If agitation and discussion and letters and positions could have saved him, saved he would have been, for all London was in an uproar, and efforts of every kind on his behalf were set in motion. He can hardly have been blamed for feeling sure that they would never hang him. Johnson was not so certain, and warned him against over-confidence.

Rather curiously, merchants, "city people," who, one might suppose, would be inclined to regard the crime of forgery with severity, were disposed to think that Dodd's sufferings in Newgate were sufficient punishment for any crime he had committed. After all, it was said, the money, most of it, had been returned; so they signed a monster petition; twenty-three thousand names were secured without difficulty. But the West End was rather indifferent, and Dr. Johnson finally came to the conclusion that, while no effort should be relaxed (in a letter to Mr. Allen he says, "Nothing can do harm, let everything be tried"), it was time for Dodd to prepare himself for his fate. He thereupon wrote the following letter, which we may suppose Allen either transcribed or read to the unfortunate prisoner:--

SIR:--

You know that my attention to Dr. Dodd has incited me to enquire
what is the real purpose of Government; the dreadful answer I have
put into your hands.

Nothing now remains but that he whose profession it has been to
teach others to dye, learn how to dye himself.

It will be wise to deny admission from this time to all who do not
come to assist his preparation, to addict himself wholly to prayer
and meditation, and consider himself as no longer connected with
the world. He has now nothing to do for the short time that
remains, but to reconcile himself to God. To this end it will be
proper to abstain totally from all strong liquors, and from all
other sensual indulgences, that his thoughts may be as clear and
calm as his condition can allow.

If his Remissions of anguish, and intervals of Devotion leave him
any time, he may perhaps spend it profitably in writing the history
of his own depravation, and marking the gradual declination from
innocence and quiet to that state in which the law has found him.
Of his advice to the Clergy, or admonitions to Fathers of families,
there is no need; he will leave behind him those who can write
them. But the history of his own mind, if not written by himself,
cannot be written, and the instruction that might be derived from
it must be lost. This therefore he must leave if he leaves
anything; but whether he can find leisure, or obtain tranquillity
sufficient for this, I cannot judge. Let him however shut his doors
against all hope, all trifles and all sensuality. Let him endeavor
to calm his thoughts by abstinence, and look out for a proper
director in his penitence, and May God, who would that all men
shall be saved, help him with his Holy Spirit, and have mercy on
him for Jesus Christ's Sake.

I am, Sir,

Your most humble Servant, SAM JOHNSON.

_June 17, 1777._

Then, in response to a piteous appeal, Johnson wrote a brief letter for Dodd to send to the King, begging him at least to save him from the horror and ignominy of a public execution; and this was accompanied by a brief note.

SIR:--

I most seriously enjoin you not to let it be at all known that I
have written this letter, and to return the copy to Mr. Allen in a
cover to me. I hope I need not tell you that I wish it success, but
I do not indulge hope.

SAM JOHNSON.

As the time for Dodd's execution drew near, he wrote a final letter to Johnson, which, on its delivery, must have moved the old man to tears. It was written at midnight on the 25th of June, 1777.

Accept, thou great and good heart, my earnest and fervent thanks
and prayers for all thy benevolent and kind efforts in my behalf.
Oh! Dr. Johnson! as I sought your knowledge at an early hour in
life, would to heaven I had cultivated the love and acquaintance of
so excellent a man! I pray God most sincerely to bless you with the
highest transports--the infelt satisfaction of humane and
benevolent exertions! And admitted, as I trust I shall be, to the
realms of bliss before you, I shall hail your arrival there with
transports, and rejoice to acknowledge that you were my Comforter,
my Advocate and my Friend! God be ever with you!

The original letter in Dodd's handwriting was kept by Johnson, who subsequently showed it to Boswell, together with a copy of his reply which Boswell calls "solemn and soothing," giving it at length in the "Life." My copy is in Allen's hand, but there is a note to Allen in Dodd's hand which accompanied the original, reading: "Add, dear sir, to the many other favors conferred on your unfortunate friend that of delivering my dying thanks to the worthiest of men. W. D."

Two other things Johnson did: he wrote a sermon, which Dodd delivered with telling effect to his fellow convicts, and he prepared with scrupulous care what has been called Dr. Dodd's last solemn declaration. It was without doubt intended to be read by Dodd at the place of execution, but unforeseen circumstances prevented. Various versions have been printed in part. The original in Johnson's hand is before me and reads:--

To the words of dying Men regard has always been paid. I am brought
hither to suffer death for an act of Fraud of which I confess
myself guilty, with shame such as my former state of life naturally
produces; and I hope with such sorrow as The Eternal Son, he to
whom the Heart is known, will not disregard. I repent that I have
violated the laws by which peace and confidence are established
among men; I repent that I have attempted to injure my fellow
creatures, and I repent that I have brought disgrace upon my order,
and discredit upon Religion. For this the law has sentenced me to
die. But my offences against God are without name or number, and
can admit only of general confession and general repentance.
Grant, Almighty God, for the Sake of Jesus Christ, that my
repentance however late, however imperfect, may not be in vain.

The little good that now remains in my power, is to warn others
against those temptations by which I have been seduced. I have
always sinned against conviction; my principles have never been
shaken; I have always considered the Christian religion, as a
revelation from God, and its Divine Author, as the Saviour of the
world; but the law of God, though never disowned by me, has often
been forgotten. I was led astray from religious strictness by the
Vanity of Show and the delight of voluptuousness. Vanity and
pleasure required expense disproportionate to my income. Expense
brought distress upon me, and distress impelled me to fraud.

For this fraud, I am to die; and I die declaring that however I
have offended in practice, deviated from my own precepts, I have
taught others to the best of my knowledge the true way to eternal
happiness. My life has been hypocritical, but my ministry has been
sincere. I always believed and I now leave the world declaring my
conviction, that there is no other name under heaven by which we
can be saved, but only the name of the Lord Jesus, and I entreat
all that are here, to join with me, in my last petition that for
the Sake of Christ Jesus my sins may be forgiven.

Anything more gruesome and demoralizing than an eighteenth-century hanging it would be impossible to imagine. We know from contemporary accounts of Dodd's execution that it differed only in detail from other hangings, which were at the time a common occurrence. His last night on earth was made hideous by the ringing of bells. Under the window of his cell a small bell was rung at frequent intervals by the watch, and he was reminded that he was soon to die, and that the time for repentance was short. At daybreak the great bell of St. Sepulchre's Church just over the way began to toll, as was customary whenever prisoners in Newgate were being rounded up for execution.

"Hanging Days" were usually holidays. Crowds collected in the streets, and as the day wore on, they became mobs of drunken men, infuriated or delighted at the proceedings, according to their interest in the prisoners. At nine o'clock the Felon's Gate was swung open and the prisoners were brought out. On this occasion, there were only two; frequently there were more--once indeed as many as fifteen persons were hanged on the same day. This was counted a great event.

Dodd was spared the ignominy of the open cart in which the ordinary criminal was taken to the gallows, and a mourning coach drawn by four horses was provided for him by some of his friends. This was followed by a hearse with an open coffin. The streets were thronged. After the usual delays the procession started, but stopped again at St. Sepulchre's, that he might receive a nosegay which was presented him, someone having bequeathed a fund to the church so that this melancholy custom could be carried out. Farther on, at Holborn Bar, it was usual for the cortège to stop, that the condemned man might be regaled with a mug of ale.

Ordinarily the route from Newgate to Tyburn was very direct, through and along the Tyburn Road, now Oxford Street; but on this occasion it had been announced that the procession would follow a roundabout course through Pall Mall. Thus the pressure of the crowd would be lessened and everyone would have an opportunity of catching a glimpse of the unfortunate man; and everyone did. The streets were thronged, stands were erected and places sold, windows along the line of march were let at fabulous prices. In Hyde Park soldiers--two thousand of them--were under arms to prevent a rescue. The authorities were somewhat alarmed at the interest shown, and it was thought best to be on the safe side; the law was not to be denied.

Owing to the crowds, the confusion, and the out-of-the-way course selected, it was almost noon when the procession reached Tyburn. We do not often think, as we whirl in our taxis along Oxford Street in the vicinity of Marble Arch, that this present centre of wealth and fashion was once Tyburn. There is nothing now to suggest that it was, a century or two ago, an unlovely and little-frequented outskirt of the great city, given over to "gallows parties."

At Tyburn the crowd was very dense and impatient: it had been waiting for hours and rain had been falling intermittently. As the coach came in sight, the crowd pressed nearer; Dodd could be seen through the window. The poor man was trying to pray. More dead than alive, he was led to the cart, on which he was to stand while a rope was placed about his neck. There was a heavy downpour of rain, so there was no time for the farewell address which Dr. Johnson had so carefully prepared. A sudden gust of wind blew off the poor man's hat, taking his wig with it: it was retrieved, and someone clapped it on his head backwards. The crowd was delighted; this was a hanging worth waiting for. Another moment, and Dr. Dodd was swung into eternity.

Let it be said that there were some who had their doubts as to the wisdom of such exhibitions. Might not such frequent and public executions have a bad effect upon public taste and morals? "Why no, sir," said Dr. Johnson; "executions are intended to draw spectators. If they do not draw spectators they do not answer their purpose. The old method is satisfactory to all parties. The public is gratified by a procession, the criminal is supported by it." And his biographer, Hawkins, remarks complacently: "We live in an age in which humanity is the fashion."

* * * * *

"And so they have hanged Dodd for forgery, have they?" casually remarked the Bishop of Bristol, from the depths of his easy-chair. "I'm sorry to hear it."

"How so, my Lord?"

"Because they have hanged him for the least of his crimes."

XII

OSCAR WILDE

My interest in Oscar Wilde is a very old story: I went to hear him lecture when I was a boy, and, boy-like, I wrote and asked him for his autograph, which he sent me and which I still have.

It seems strange that I can look back through thirty years to his visit to Philadelphia, and in imagination see him on the platform of old Horticultural Hall. I remember, too, the discussion which his visit occasioned, preceded as it was by the publication in Boston of his volume of poems, the English edition having been received with greater cordiality than usually marks a young poet's first production--for such it practically was.

At the time of his appearance on the lecture platform he was a large, well-built, distinguished-looking man, about twenty-six years old, with rather long hair, generally wearing knee-breeches and silk stockings. Any impressions which I may have received of this lecture are now very vague. I remember that he used the word "renaissance" a good deal, and that at the time it was a new word to me; and it has always since been a word which has rattled round in my head very much as the blessed word "Mesopotamia" did in the mind of the old lady, who remarked that no one should deprive her of the hope of eternal punishment.

_From an original drawing by Aubrey Beardsley_]

Now, it would be well at the outset, in discussing Oscar Wilde, to abandon immediately all hope of eternal punishment--for others. My subject is a somewhat difficult one, and it is not easy to speak of Wilde without overturning some of the more or less fixed traditions we have grown up with. We all have a lot of axioms in our systems, even if we are discreet enough to keep them from our tongues; and to do Wilde justice, it is necessary for us to free ourselves of some of these. To make my meaning clear, take the accepted one that genius is simply the capacity for hard work. This is all very well at the top of a copy-book, or to repeat to your son when you are didactically inclined; but for the purposes of this discussion, this and others like it should be abandoned. Having cleared our minds of cant, we might also frankly admit that a romantic or sinful life is, generally speaking, more interesting than a good one.

Few men in English literature have lived a nobler, purer life than Robert Southey, and yet his very name sets us a-yawning, and if he lives at all it is solely due to his little pot-boiler, become a classic, the "Life of Nelson." The two great events in Nelson's life were his meeting with Lady Emma Hamilton and his meeting with the French. Now, disguise it as we may, it still remains true that, in thinking of Nelson, we think as much of Lady Emma as we do of Trafalgar. Of course, in saying this I realize that I am not an Englishman making a public address on the anniversary of the great battle.

Southey's life gives the lie to that solemn remark about genius being simply a capacity for hard work: if it were so, he would have ranked high; he worked incessantly, produced his to-day neglected poems, supported his family and contributed toward the support of the families of his friends. He was a good man, and worked himself to death; but he was not a genius.

On the other hand, Wilde was; but his life was not good, it was not pure; he did injury to his friends; and to his wife and children, the greatest wrong a man could do them, so that she died of a broken heart, and his sons live under an assumed name; yet, notwithstanding all this, perhaps to some extent by reason of it, he is a most interesting personality, and no doubt his future place in literature will be to some extent influenced by the fate which struck him down just at the moment of his greatest success.

Remembering Dr. Johnson's remark that in lapidary work a man is not upon oath, it has always seemed to me that something like the epitaph he wrote for Goldsmith's monument in Westminster Abbey might with equal justice have been carved upon Wilde's obscure tombstone in a neglected corner of Bagneux Cemetery in Paris. The inscription I refer to translates: "He left scarcely any style of writing untouched and touched nothing that he did not adorn."

I am too good a Goldsmithian to compare Goldsmith, with all his faults and follies, to Wilde, with his faults and follies, and vices superadded; but Wilde wrote "Dorian Gray," a novel original and powerful in conception, as powerful as "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"; and remembering that Wilde was also an essayist, a poet, and a dramatist, I think we may fairly say that he too touched nothing that he did not adorn.

But, to begin at the beginning. Wilde was not especially fortunate in his parents. His father was a surgeon-oculist of Dublin, and was knighted by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland--just why, does not appear, nor is it important; his son always seemed a little ashamed of the incident. His mother was the daughter of a clergyman of the Church of England. She was "advanced" for her time, wrote prose and verse, under the _nom de plume_ of "Speranza," which were published frequently in a magazine, which was finally suppressed for sedition. If Lady Wilde was emancipated in thought, of her lord it may be said that he put no restraint whatever upon his acts. They were a brilliant, but what we would call to-day a Bohemian, couple. I have formed an impression that the father, in spite of certain weaknesses of character, was a man of solid attainments, while of the mother someone has said that she reminded him of a tragedy queen at a suburban theatre. This is awful.

Oscar Wilde was a second son, born in Dublin, on the 16th of October, 1854. He went to a school at Enniskillen, afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin, and finally to Magdalen College, Oxford. He had already begun to make a name for himself at Trinity, where he won a gold medal for an essay on the Greek comic poets; but when, in June, 1878, he received the Newdigate Prize for English verse for a poem, "Ravenna," which was recited at the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, it can fairly be said that he had achieved distinction.

While at Magdalen, Wilde is said to have fallen under the influence of Ruskin, and spent some time in breaking stones on the highways, upon which operation Ruskin was experimenting. It may be admitted that the work for its own sake never attracted Wilde: it was the reward which followed--breakfast-parties, with informal and unlimited talk, in Ruskin's rooms.