He said to me, 'Sir, I believe we may at the house of a Roman Catholick lady in Cumberland; a high lady, Sir.' I afterwards discovered he meant Mrs. Strickland, sister of Charles Townley, Esq., whose very noble collection of pictures is not more to be admired, than his extraordinary and polite readiness in shewing it, which I and several of my friends have agreeably experienced. They who are possessed of valuable stores of gratification to persons of taste, should exercise their benevolence in imparting the pleasure. Grateful acknowledgments are due to Welbore Ellis Agar, Esq., for the liberal access which he is pleased to allow to his exquisite collection of pictures. BOSWELL.
[355] See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 11, 1773.
[356] It is no doubt, on account of its brevity that Boswell in speaking of it writes:--'What is called The Life.'
[357] See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct, 29, 1773.
[358] See ante, under Feb. 7, 1775.
[359] See post, p. 139.
[360] See ante, i. 494.
[361] From Prior's imitation of Gualterus Danistonus ad Amicos; the poem mentioned by Boswell in his Hebrides, Aug. 18, 1773.
[362] Copy is manuscript for printing.
[363] Hawkins (Life, p. 521) says that the jury did not at the trial recommend Dodd to mercy. To one of the petitions 'Mrs. Dodd first got the hands of the jury that found the bill against her husband, and after that, as it is supposed, of the jury that tried him.' Ib. p. 527. He says that the public were at first very little interested in his fate, 'but by various artifices, and particularly the insertion of his name in public papers, with such palliatives as he and his friends could invent, never with the epithet of unfortunate, they were betrayed into such an enthusiastic commiseration of his case as would have led a stranger to believe that himself had been no accessory to his distresses, but that they were the inflictions of Providence.' Ib. p. 520. Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on May 19:--'Poor Dodd was sentenced last week.... I am afraid he will suffer. The clergy seem not to be his friends. The populace, that was extremely clamorous against him, begins to pity him. Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 423.
[364] Horace Walpole says 'the criminal was raised to the dignity of a confessor in the eyes of the people--but an inexorable judge had already pronounced his doom. Lord Mansfield, who never felt pity, and never relented unless terrified, had indecently declared for execution even before the judges had given their opinion. An incident that seemed favourable weighed down the vigorous [qu. rigorous] scale. The Common Council had presented a petition for mercy to the king. Lord Mansfield, who hated the popular party as much as he loved severity, was not likely to be moved by such intercessors. At Court it grew the language that the king must discountenance such interposition.' Walpole adds that 'as an attempt to rescue Dodd might be apprehended, two thousand men were ordered to be reviewed in Hyde Park during the execution.' Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 125.
[365] Johnson, in the 'Observations inserted in the newspapers' (post, p. 142), said 'that though the people cannot judge of the administration of justice so well as their governors, yet their voice has always been regarded. That if the people now commit an error, their error is on the part of mercy; and that perhaps history cannot shew a time in which the life of a criminal, guilty of nothing above fraud, was refused to the cry of nations, to the joint supplication of three and twenty thousand petitioners.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 528. Johnson's earnestness as a petitioner contrasts with the scornful way in which he had spoken of petitions. 'There must be no yielding to encourage this,' the minister might have answered in his own words. Ante, ii. 90.
[366] The king signs no sentences or death warrants; but out of respect to the Royal perogative of mercy, expressed by the old adage, 'The King's face gives grace,' the cases of criminals convicted in London, where the king is supposed to be resident, were reported to him by the recorder, that his Majesty might have an option of pardoning. Hence it was seriously doubted whether a recorder's report need or, indeed, could be made at Windsor. All his Majesty did on these occasions was, to express verbally his assent or dissent to or from the execution of the sentence; and, though the King was on such occasions attended by his Ministers and the great legal Privy Councillors, the business was not technically a council business, but the individual act of the King. On the accession of Queen Victoria, the nature of some cases that it might be necessary to report to her Majesty occasioned the abrogation of a practice which was certainly so far unreasonable that it made a difference between London and all the rest of the kingdom. CROKER. 'I was exceedingly shocked,' said Lord Eldon, 'the first time I attended to hear the Recorder's report, at the careless manner in which, as it appeared to me, it was conducted.