compassion for him, so impress'd with the awful idea of his situation, the last evening of his life, he probably did not think of his former transgressions, or thought, perhaps, that he ought not to remember them, when the offender was so soon to appear before the Supreme Judge of Heaven and Earth.
Dr. Johnson gave me a copy of this letter, I believe the Day after Dodd's execution, and also of that which he wrote to Mr. Jenkinson (now the Earl of Liverpool) in Dodd's behalf, which, tho' they have already appear'd in Print, I am tempted to insert them, as they seem to have a slight connexion with some particulars which Dr. Johnson related to me at the same time, concerning Dodd's behaviour, which I believe are not much known. [For the letter to Jenkinson see Life, iii. 145, and to Dodd, ib. iii. 147.]
Dr. Johnson wrote his speech at his Tryal [sic], at least the best part of it, and also that which he spoke at the Place of execution 1 , with the alteration but of one word. It was originally, ' My life has been) most dreadfully Hypocritical,' [sic].
Dr. Johnson told me that on Dodd's reading the letter he sent to him the evening before his execution, he gave it into the hands of his wife, with a strong injunction never to part
Executions is entered, ' See Domestic Lord Chesterfield never altogether Occurrences at the end of the Month' surmounted the unfavourable im- Wraxall met Dodd at a dinner at pression produced by the prominent the Messrs. Dilly in Nov. 1776. He share which he took in Dodd's prose- describes him as ' a plausible, agree- cution.' Wheatley's WraxaWs Me- able man, lively, entertaining, well- moirs, iv. 248.
informed and communicative in con- T Dodd did not utter this speech,
versation. . . . The King felt the but left it with the sheriff. Life, iii.
strongest impulse to save him To 143.
the firmness of the Lord Chief Justice 8 Dodd objecting to hypocritical (Mansfield) his execution was due, said: ' With this he could not charge for no sooner had he pronounced his himself.' Ib. He kept up his self- decided opinion that no mercy ought deception to the end. As Johnson to be extended, than the King, taking said of him : * A man who has been up the pen, signed the death warrant. canting all his life may cant to the . . . During a pelting shower of rain last.' Ib. iii. 270. he was turned off at Tyburn. . . .
with
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