If Lord Chesterfield had wished to suppress that vital
evidence he could have done so.
Dr Johnson exerted himself to the utmost to try and save poor
Dodd; but George III. was inexorable. Respecting this benevolent
attempt of the Doctor, Chalmers writes as follows:--
Dr Johnson appears indeed in this instance to have been more
swayed by popular judgment than he would perhaps have been
willing to allow. The cry was--"the honour of the clergy;" but
if the honour of the clergy was tarnished, it was by Dodd's
crime, and not his punishment; for his life had been so long a
disgrace to his cloth that he had deprived himself of the
sympathy which attaches to the first deviation from rectitude,
and few criminals could have had less claim to such a display of
popular feeling.'
All applications for the Royal mercy having failed, Dr Dodd
prepared himself for death, and with a warmth of gratitude wrote
to Dr Johnson as follows:--
'June 25, Midnight.
'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 my 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 transport, and rejoice to acknowledge that you
were my comforter, my advocate, and my FRIEND.
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