"Yet when the Dragon in the deep abyss
"Shall lie, fast bound in adamantine chain, "Ye with the Lamb shall rise to ceaseless bliss, "First-fruits of death, and partners of his reign; "Then shall repay the momentary tear
"The great sabbatick rest, the millenary year:
Dodd's was a life of thoughtlessness and extravagance, and he paid dearly for all his faults in the conclusion of it. Courage at an earlier period, to have met the evils he brought upon himself, might have saved him from the last and most terrible one. Had he lived an economist he might have died honourably.
Yet, let him have his due; and his claim is not small-Many
were reclaimed from vice and many relieved from wretchedness by his labours. Who derived advantage from his death? When one reads his pathetick appeals for mercy, at his trial, and in the Prison-thoughts, one is tempted to ask if the hearts to which they were made were human, or ever knew what it was to err?
But it was an appeal to Avarice under the name of Justice;
and at a tribunal, where property is of more value than the life of man, such an appeal is not likely to he heard. The advertisement prefixed to the MS. of the Prison-thoughts,
concludes with a remarkable break, more impressive than the most finished rhetorick.
"The thinking will easily pardon all inaccuracies, as I am
neither able nor willing to read over these melancholy lines with a curious and critical eye. They are imperfect, bat the language of the heart; and had I time and inclination, might and should be improved.
YET, oh ye sons of Justice! -ere we quit
This awful court, expostulation's voice
One moment hear impartial. Give a while
Your honest hearts to nature's touches true,
Her fine resentments faithful. Draw aside
That veil from reason's clear reflecting view,
Which practice long, and rectitude supposed
Of laws establish'd, hath obstructive húng.
But pleads or time, or long prescription aught
In favour or abatement of the wrong
By folly wrought, or errour? Hoary grown,
And sanctify'd by custom's habit grey,
Absurdity stalks forth, still more absurd,
And double shame reflect upon an age
Wise and enlighten'd. Should not equal laws
Their punishments proportionate to crimes;
Nor, all Draconic, ev'n to blood pursue
Vindictive, where the venial poor offence
Cries loud for mercy? Death's the last dem and
Law can exact: the penalty extreme
Of human crime! and shall the petty thief
Succumb beneath its terrours, when no more
Pays the bold murderer, crimson'd o'er with guilt?
Few are the crimes against or God or man,
-Consult the eternal code of right or wrong,-
Which e'er can justify this last extreme,
This wanton sporting with the human life,
This trade in blood. Ye sages, then, review,
Speedy and diligent, the penal code,
Humanity's disgrace: our nation's first
And just reproach, amidst its vaunted boasts
Of equity and mercy: Shiver not
Full of your inmost souls, when from the bench
Ye deal cut death tremendous ? and proclaim
Th' irrevocable sentence on a wretch
Pluck'd early from the paths of social life,
And immature, to the low grave consign'd
For misdemeanors trivial! Runs not back,
Affrighted, to its fountain your chill'd blood,
When, deck'd in all the horrid pomp of death,
And Gothick rage surpassing, to the flames
The weaker sex,-incredible-you doom;
Denouncing punishments the more severe,
As less of strength is found to bear their force?
Shame on the savage practice! Oh stand forth
In the great cause,-Compassion's, Equity's,
Your Nation's, Truth's, Religion's, Honour's cause,
- Stand forth, reflecting EDEN! Well thou'st toil'd
Already in the honourable field:
Might thy young labours animate, the hour
Auspicious is arrived. Sages esteem'd,
And venerably learn'd, as in the school
Of legal science, so in that of worth
And sentiment exalted, fill the bench:
And lo! the imperial Muscovite, intent
On public-weal, a bright example shines
Of civilizing justice. Sages, rise?
The cause, the animating pattern calls.
Oh, I adjure you, with my parting breath,
By all your hopes of mercy and of peace,
By all the blood henceforth unjustly spilt,
Or wantonly by all the sorrows deep,
And scalding tears shed for that blood so spilt!
In God's tremendous name, lo, I adjure,
|