DR. DODD.

"Much of the misery which prevails at present in the world, is justly to be imputed to the want of economy."

Dr. Knox.

"We cannot leave our proper rank in the community, by emulating our superiors, in equipage, buildings, furniture, or apparel, without great folly, sin, and mischief: yet on this fatal rock thousands are continually shipwrecked."

T. Scott.

In human society, those who hold a respectable rank, need the exercise of wisdom, and the exertion of industry, to keep their station, and to secure the blessings they enjoy; and, in a profession of religion, those who have begun well, made some progress, and acquired reputation and favour, must never remit their vigilance against danger, nor relax their diligence in duty. In the number of those unhappy beings who have fallen from the superior stations of life, by misconduct, and from the honour of a religious profession, by transgression, Dr. Dodd is the most noted; and his case is, in some respects, the most remarkable. Frequently it has not been correctly represented; and therefore the important instruction which it would teach has been lost. He has usually been styled the unfortunate Dr. Dodd, and has been held up as an object of pity rather than of blame. To describe the man as he was, and to state the facts of his history as

they happened, will present an account which may deserve attention, and suggest reflections which may have an useful influence.

Dr. William Dodd was the son of a clergyman; and enjoyed all the advantages of a liberal education. He gave early indications of talent, and obtained the favour of some eminent men, among whom were Bishop Horne and Bishop Squire. By the recommendation of the latter, he became tutor to the Honourable Philip Stanhope, afterwards Earl of Chesterfield. He acquired fame as a popular preacher; he distinguished himself as the advocate of benevolent institutions, particularly the Magdalen hospital; and published a number of works, chiefly theological. There was a time, also, when he was considered decidedly evangelical in his sentiments; and it is said, by the recent biographer of Lady Huntingdon, that there have been instances of persons called to salvation under his ministry. In one period of his life, he stood well with Christians, was reputed a preacher of the gospel, and was honoured with being the instrument of the conversion of sinners.

He entered upon a course in which he did not persevere; and did run well, but was hindered. His vanity and pomp, his inconsistent conduct and unbecoming deportment, disgusted and alienated those whose friendship did him most honour, and was likely to do him most good. But the great folly of the man, and the cause of his ruin, was a love of display

and a taste for expense. He had a passion for gentility, which he indulged with boundless extravagance. He lived in a style which was beyond his means, and contracted debts which he could not pay.

Nor was this the worst. On the information of a man who was brother to Mrs. Dodd, and who rented some land of Sir John Hawkins, we are told, by the latter, that at the time when he flourished as a preacher, and was well accounted of by good men, he kept a harlot, named Kennedy, in a back lane near his house; and it is certain that he who published a commentary on the bible, and several volumes of sermons, also published a licentious novel.

The profusion of his habits, and the expense of his vices, involved him in embarrassments, from which he tried to liberate himself by means which failed of their object, and operated to his disgrace and injury. He became so importunate a suitor for preferment, that his applications were contemptuously rejected, and his messenger narrowly escaped being kicked down stairs. When solicitations did not succeed, he tried the influence of bribery. To the Lord Chancellor's lady he offered £3000, if, by her means, he could be appointed to the rich rectory of St. George's, Hanover Square. The immediate consequence of this overture was that he was struck off the list of royal chaplains, and was made the subject of censure and the theme of ridicule, in the newspapers and on the stage.

• Life of Dr. Johnson, p. 435.

When men lose character, the spirit of recklessness often appears in their conduct. In this stage of his degeneracy, he indicated that infatuation which is the forerunner of ruin. The shame which covered him, and the remorse or mortification which tormented him, induced him to go on to the continent, and there he threw off all clerical restraints, and pursued a course of folly and dissipation which would have deepened his disgrace in England, and must have increased his debts any where. Early in the winter of 1776 he returned; and what he had to return to were a situation which was hedged about with thorns, and a scene which was darkened with gloom. To have retrieved himself at this crisis was, perhaps, impossible, if he had been a wiser man, but he took the way to make things worse. He made an unavailing attempt to disengage himself from his debts, by a commission of bankruptcy; and when divers expedients had failed, he ventured on forgery,—that which was, of all others, the most desperate and fatal; and he seems to have done it with the delusive hope of escaping the consequences. On Feb. 4th, 1777, he fabricated a bond, as from the Earl of Chesterfield, for the sum of £4,200, on the credit of which he obtained a considerable part of the money. Detection immediately followed; he was committed to prison, and tried and convicted at the Old Bailey, Feb. 22nd: but there was a singularity in the case which caused the execution of the sentence to be delayed to June 27th. A Mr. Robertson was

indicted with him as a principal in the offence, and afterwards was admitted as evidence against him. This was a very unusual way of proceeding, and a demur arose whether such evidence was admissible.

This unhappy man, with all his delinquencies, had friends who stuck to him to the last; and, during the respite which was unexpectedly given him, they exerted themselves so much as to excite a powerful interest in his favour. They applied to Dr. Johnson, who took up the matter very zealously; and wrote several papers on his behalf, in a style so eloquent and persuasive that they gave internal evidence of their author. The jury who tried his cause drew up a memorial of him to his Majesty for mercy, which they signed, and presented to the court. On the 13th

Lastly, a petition from

of June, the Sheriffs, attended by the city remembrancer, presented to his Majesty a petition from the city of London, in favour of Dr. Dodd; another petition from the Magdalen charity was presented to the Queen; and another to her Majesty from Mrs. Dodd, presented by herself. the inhabitants of Westminster, signed by twentythree thousand persons, was presented to the King by Earl Percy. When the voice of the people was thus loudly expressed, and when their prayer was for mercy, it was thought, by a considerable number, that their request should have been granted; or that, at least, his sentence should have been commuted: by others it was contended that the efforts on his