Life of Johnson Volume III Part 55

[407] The fifth earl, the successor of the celebrated earl. On Feb. 22, 1777, Dodd was convicted of forging a bond for 4,200 in his name; _Ann.

Reg_. xx. 168. The earl was unfortunate in his tutors, for he had been also under Cuthbert Shaw (_ante_, ii 31 note 2).

[408] Mr. Croker quotes the following letter of Dodd, dated 1750:--'I spent yesterday afternoon with Johnson, the celebrated author of _The Rambler_, who is of all others the oddest and most peculiar fellow I ever saw. He is six feet high, has a violent convulsion in his head, and his eyes are distorted. He speaks roughly and loud, listens to no man's opinions, thoroughly pertinacious of his own. Good sense flows from him in all he utters, and he seems possessed of a prodigious fund of knowledge, which he is not at all reserved in communicating; but in a manner so obstinate, ungenteel, and boorish, as renders it disagreeable and dissatisfactory. In short it is impossible for words to describe him. He seems often inattentive to what pa.s.ses in company, and then looks like a person possessed by some superior spirit. I have been reflecting on him ever since I saw him. He is a man of most universal and surprising genius, but in himself particular beyond expression.'

Dodd was born in 1729.

[409] 'One of my best and tenderest friends,' Johnson called him, _post_, July 31, 1784. See _post_, April 10, 1778.

[410] _The Convict's Address to his Unhappy Brethren: Being a Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Dodd, Friday, June 6, 1777, in the Chapel of Newgate, while under sentence of death, for forging the name of the Earl of Chesterfield on a bond for 4,200. Sold by the booksellers and news-carriers. Price Two-pence_. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield on Aug. 9:--'Lucy said, "When I read Dr. Dodd's sermon to the prisoners, I said Dr. Johnson could not make a better."'

_Piozzi Letters_, i. 352. See _post_, p. 167.

[411] 'What must I do to be saved?' _Acts_ xvi. 30.

[412] 'And finally we must commend and entrust our souls to Him who died for the sins of men; with earnest wishes and humble hopes that He will admit us with the labourers who entered the vineyard at the last hour, and a.s.sociate us with the thief whom he pardoned on the cross.' p.

14.

[413] _The Gent. Mag_. for 1777 (p. 450) says of this address:--'As none but a convict could have written this, all convicts ought to read it; and we therefore recommend its being framed, and hung up in all prisons.' Mr. Croker, italicising _could_ and suppressing the latter part of the sentence, describes it as a criticism that must have been offensive to Johnson. The writer's meaning is simple enough. The address, he knew, was delivered in the Chapel of Newgate by a prisoner under sentence of death. If, instead of 'written' he had said 'delivered,' his meaning would have been quite clear.

[414] Having unexpectedly, by the favour of Mr. Stone, of London Field, Hackney, seen the original in Johnson's hand-writing, of 'The Pet.i.tion of the City of London to his Majesty, in favour of Dr. Dodd,' I now present it to my readers, with such pa.s.sages as were omitted in-closed in crotchets, and the additions or variations marked in Italicks.

'That William Dodd, Doctor of Laws, now lying under sentence of death _in your Majesty's gaol of Newgate_, for the crime of forgery, has for a great part of his life set a useful and laudable example of diligence in his calling, [and as we have reason to believe, has exercised his ministry with great fidelity and efficacy,] _which, in many instances, has produced the most happy effect_.

'That he has been the first inst.i.tutor, [or] _and_ a very earnest and active promoter of several modes of useful charity, and [that] therefore [he] may be considered as having been on many occasions a benefactor to the publick.

'[That when they consider his past life, they are willing to suppose his late crime to have been not the consequence of habitual depravity, but the suggestion of some sudden and violent temptation.]

'[That] _Your Pet.i.tioners_ therefore considering his case, as in some of its circ.u.mstances unprecedented and peculiar, _and encouraged by your Majesty's known clemency_, [they] most humbly recommend the said William Dodd to [his] your Majesty's most gracious consideration, in hopes that he will be found not altogether [unfit] _unworthy_ to stand an example of Royal Mercy.' BOSWELL.

[415] His Speech at the Old Bailey, when found guilty. BOSWELL.

[416] In the second edition he is described as 'now Lord Hawkesbury.'

He had entered public life as Lord Bute's private secretary, and, according to Horace Walpole, continued in it as his tool.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iv. 70, 115. Walpole speaks of him as one of 'the Jesuits of the Treasury' (_Ib_. p. 110), and 'the director or agent of all the King's secret counsels. His appearance was abject, his countenance betrayed a consciousness of secret guilt; and, though his ambition and rapacity were insatiate, his demeanour exhibited such a want of spirit, that had he stood forth as Prime Minister, which he really was, his very look would have encouraged opposition.' _Ib_. p.

135. The third Earl of Liverpool wrote to Mr. Croker on Dec. 7, 1845: --'Very shortly before George III's accession my father became confidential secretary of Lord Bute, if you can call secretary a man who all through his life was so bad a penman that he always dictated everything, and of whom, although I have a house full of papers, I have scarcely any in his own hand.' _Croker Corres_. iii. 178. The editor is in error in saying that the Earl of Liverpool who wrote this was son of the Prime Minister. He was his half-brother.

[417] Burke wrote to Garrick of Fitzherbert:--'You know and love him; but I a.s.sure you, until we can talk some late matters over, you, even you, can have no adequate idea of the worth of that man.' _Garrick Corres_. i. 190. See _ante_, i. 82.

[418] 'I remember a man,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonomy_, i. 2l7), 'much delighted in by the upper ranks of society, who upon a trifling embarra.s.sment in his affairs hanged himself behind the stable door, to the astonishment of all who knew him as the liveliest companion and most agreeable converser breathing. "What upon earth," said one at our house, "could have made--[Fitzherbert] hang himself?" "Why, just his having a mult.i.tude of acquaintance," replied Dr. Johnson, "and ne'er a friend."' See _ante_, ii. 228.

[419] Dr. Gisborne, Physician to his Majesty's Household, has obligingly communicated to me a fuller account of this story than had reached Dr. Johnson. The affected Gentleman was the late John Gilbert Cooper, Esq., author of a _Life of Socrates_, and of some poems in Dodsley's _Collection_. Mr. Fitzherbert found him one morning, apparently, in such violent agitation, on account of the indisposition of his son, as to seem beyond the power of comfort. At length, however, he exclaimed, 'I'll write an Elegy.' Mr. Fitzherbert being satisfied, by this, of the sincerity of his emotions, slyly said, 'Had not you better take a postchaise and go and see him?' It was the shrewdness of the insinuation which made the story be circulated. BOSWELL. Malone writes:--'Mr. Cooper was the last of the _benevolists_ or sentimentalists, who were much in vogue between 1750 and 1760, and dealt in general admiration of virtue. They were all tenderness in words; their finer feeling evaporated in the moment of expression, for they had no connection with their practice.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 427. See _ante_, ii. 129. This fas.h.i.+on seems to have reached Paris a few years later. Mme. Riccoboni wrote to Garrick on May 3, 1769:--'Dans notre brillante capitale, ou dominent les airs et la mode, s'attendrir, s'emouvoir, s'affliger, c'est le bon ton du moment. La bonte, la sensibilite, la tendre humanite sont devenues la fantaisie universelle.

On ferait volontiers des malheureux pour gouter la douceur de les plaindre.' Garrick _Corres_. ii. 561.

[420] Johnson had felt the truth of this in the case of 'old Mr.

Sheridan.' _Ante_, i. 387.

[421] Johnson, in his letters from Ashbourne, used to joke about Taylor's cattle:--'July 23, 1770. I have seen the great bull, and very great he is. I have seen likewise his heir apparent, who promises to enherit all the bulk and all the virtues of his sire, I have seen the man who offered an hundred guineas for the young bull, while he was yet little better than a calf.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 33. 'July 3, 1771. The great bull has no disease but age. I hope in time to be like the great bull; and hope you will be like him too a hundred years hence.' _Ib_. p.

39. 'July 10, 1771. There has been a man here to-day to take a farm.

After some talk he went to see the bull, and said that he had seen a bigger. Do you think he is likely to get the farm?' _Ib_. p. 43. 'Oct.

31, 1772. Our bulls and cows are all well; but we yet hate the man that had seen a bigger bull.' _Ib_. p. 61.

[422] Quoted by Boswell in his _Hebrides_, Aug. 16, 1773.

[423] In the letters that Boswell and Erskine published (_ante_, 384, note) are some verses by Erskine, of very slight merit.

[424] Horace, _Odes_, ii. 4.

[425]

'The tender glance, the red'ning cheek, O'erspread with rising blushes, A thousand various ways they speak A thousand various wishes.'

Hamilton's _Poems_, ed. 1760, p. 59.

[426] In the original, _Now. Ib_. p. 39.

[427] Thomson, in _The Seasons_, Winter, 1. 915, describes how the ocean

'by the boundless frost Is many a fathom to the bottom chain'd.'

In 1. 992, speaking of a thaw, he says,

'The rivers swell of bonds impatient.'

[428] See _ante_ March 24, 1776.

[429] Johnson wrote of Pope (_Works_, viii. 309):--'The indulgence and accommodation which his sickness required had taught him all the unpleasing and unsocial qualities of a valetudinary man.'

[430] When he was ill of a fever he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'The doctor was with me again to-day, and we both think the fever quite gone. I believe it was not an intermittent, for I took of my own head physick yesterday; and Celsus says, it seems, that if a cathartick be taken the fit will return _certo certius_. I would bear something rather than Celsus should be detected in an error. But I say it was a _febris continua_, and had a regular crisis.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 89.

[431] Johnson must have shortened his life by the bleedings that he underwent. How many they were cannot be known, for no doubt he was often bled when he has left no record of it. The following, however, I have noted. I do not know that he was bled more than most people of his time. Dr. Taylor, it should seem, underwent the operation every quarter.

Dec. 1755. Thrice. 54 ounces. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 100.

Jan. 1761. Once. _Ib_. p. 122.

April 1770. Cupped. _Pemb. Coll. MSS_.

Winter of 1772-3. Three times. _Ante_, ii. 206, and _Pemb. Coll. MSS_.

May 1773. Two copious bleedings. _Pr. and Med_. 130.

1774. Times not mentioned. 36 ounces. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 209.

Jan. 1777. Three bleedings. 22 ounces in first two. _Ib_. i. 343.

Jan. 1780. Once. _Post_, Jan. 20, 1780.

June 1780. Times not mentioned. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 649.

Jan. and Feb. 1782. Thrice. 50 ounces. _Post_, Feb. 4 and March 20, 1782.