the physicians have pronounced her out of all danger.Honoured Sir, I humbly crave your pardon for fending away my fcribble juft now, which I am afraid has made you uneafy; but indeed, Honoured Sir, I thought it was all over with my poor dear mistress; and then, I am fure I should have broke my heart. For, to be fure, no fervant ever had a better, nor a kinder miftrefs. Sir, I prefume to see your Honour tomorrow. My mistress fainted away as she began this, but is now better. A. 6 a'clock. LETTER To Mifs XLIV. Cannon Coffee-house, As I want both appetite and spirits to touch my dinner, though it has been standing before me these ten minutes, I can claim no merit in writing to you. May you enjoy that pleasure in your delightful fituation on the banks of the Thames, which no fituation, no thing upon earth, can in your abfence afford me! Do Do you ask me what has lowered my spirits to-day? I'll tell you. Don't be angry, but I have been to see the laft of poor Dodd. Yes, "poor "Dodd !" though his life was juftly forfeited to the laws of his country. The scene was affecting-it was the firft of the kind I had ever feen; and shall certainly be the laft. Though, had I been in England when Peter Tolofa was defervedly executed in February, for killing Duarzey, a young French woman with whom he lived, I believe I should have attended the last moments of a man who could murder the object of his love. For the credit of my country, this man (does he deferve the name of man?) was a Spaniard. Do not think I want tenderness, because I was present this morning. Will you allow yourself to want tenderness, because you have been present at Lear's madnefs, or Ophelia's? Certainly not. Believe me (you will believe me, I am fure)—I do not make a profefsion of it, like George S. Your H. is neither artiste nor amateur-nor do I, like Paoli's friend and hiftorian, hire a window by the year, which looks upon the Grass-market at Edinburgh. Raynall's book you have read, and admire. For its humanity it merits admiration. The Abbè Abbè does not countenance an attendance on fcenes of this fort by his writings, but he does by his conduct. And I would fooner take Practice's word than Theory's. Upon my honour Raynall and Charles Fox, notwithstanding the rain, beheld the whole from the top of an unfinished house, close by the ftand in which I had a place. However meanly Dodd behaved formerly, in throwing the blame of his application to the chancellor on his wife, he certainly died with refolution. More than once to-day I have heard that refolution afcribed to his hope that his friend Hawes, the humane founder of the humane fociety, would be able to reftore him to life. But I give him more credit. Befides, Voltaire obferves that the courage of a dying man is in proportion to the number of those who are prefent and St. Evremond (the friend of the French M.) discovered that les Anglois furpassent toutes les nations à mourir. Let me furpass all mankind in happiness, by poffeffing my Ninon for life, and I care not how I die. Some little circumftances ftruck me this morning, which, however you may refuse to forgive me for so spending my morning, I am sure you would not forgive me were I to omit.-Before the the melancholy proceffion arrived, a fow was driven into the space left for the fad ceremony, nor could the idea of the approaching fcene, which had brought the fpectators together, prevent too many from laughing, and shouting, and enjoying the poor animal's diftrefs, as if they had only come to Tyburn to see a fow baited. After the arrival of the proceffion, the preparation of the unhappy victim mixed fomething difagreeably ludicrous with the folemnity. The tendereft could not but feel it, though they might be forry that they did feel it. The poor man's, wig was to be taken off, and the night-cap brought for the purpose was too little, and could not be pulled on without force. Valets de chambre are the greatest enemies to heroes. Every guinea in my pocket would I have given, that he had not worn a wig, or that (wearing one) the cap had been bigger. At laft arrived the moment of death. The driving away of the cart was accompanied with a noise which best explained the feelings of the spectators for the fufferer. Did you never obferve, at the fight or the relation of any thing shocking, that you closed your teeth hard, and drew in your breath hard through them, fo as to make make a fort of hiffing found? This was done fo univerfally at the fatal moment, that I am perfuaded the noife might have been heard at a confiderable distance. For my own part, I detected myself, in a certain manner, accompanying his body with the motion of my own; as you have seen people wreathing and twisting and biaffing themfelves, after a bowl which they have just delivered. Not all the refufcitating powers of Mr. Hawes can, I fear, have any effect; it was fo long before the mob would fuffer the hearfe to drive away with his body.-- How Thus ended the life of Dr. Dodd. shocking, that a man with whom I have eaten and drunk, fhould leave the world in fuch a manner! A manner which, from familiarity, has almost ceased to fhock us, except when our attention is called to a Perreau or a Dodd. How many men, how many women, how many young, and, as they fancy, tender females, with all their fenfibilities about them, hear the founds, by which at this moment I am difturbed, with as much indifference as they hear muffins and matches cried along the streets! The last dying speech and confeffion, birth, parentage, and education-Familiarity has even annexed a kind of humour to the cry. |