inclines men to imagine that right is "the confequence of power."

The benevolent Dr. Price himfelf could not have advanced a doctrine more unfavoury to the palate of Dr. Johnson's friends, nor needs it much fagacity to shew how it appears in contrast with the change which experience hath made in the Doctor's opinions. The Doctor, we prefume, found his account in both his opinions, and all fides ought to be fatiffied.

There is indeed one performance af cribed to the pen of the Doctor, where the proftitution is of fo fingular a nature, that it would be difficult to felect an adequate motive for it out of the * Life of Sange, p. 122.

moun

mountainous heap of conjectural caufes of human paffions or human caprice. We allude to the speech delivered by the late unhappy Dr. William Dodd, when he was about to hear the fentence of the law pronounced upon him, in confequence of an indictment for forgery.

The voice of the public has given the honour of manufacturing this fpeech to Dr. Johnfon; and the ftile and configuration of the speech itfelf confirm the imputation.

Dr. Dodd was a man of parts, a poet, and an orator. He can hardly be fupposed to have fufpected that the powers of his own rhetoric would be too feeble for fo cri ical an occafion. Prefence of mind he could not want to compofe a speech

4

fpeech for himself. His effufions both. in profe and poetry, during the mofttrying moments of his confinement, prove that he did not. The naked unadorned feelings of his own mind on that awful occafion (which he could hardly convey to Dr. Johnson) would have been the moft expreffive of his fincerity and felfhumiliation; and the moft proper and effectual recommendation of his cafe to the commiferation of his audience, and the merciful interpofition of his judges.

An ambition to go out of the world with the applaufe of having made a florid speech, we cannot, with any degree of charity, impute to the unfortunate criminal. He muft, in that cafe, have

had

had vanity fufficient to prevent him from borrowing his materials from another. . But whatever inducement Dr. Dodd might have to folicit Dr. Johnfon's aid on fuch an occafion, it is hardly poffible to divine what could be Dr. Johnson's motive for accepting the office. A man to exprefs the precife ftate of mind of another about to be deftined to an ignominious death for a capital crime, fhould, one would imagine, have fome confcioufnefs, that he himfelf had incurred fome guilt of the fame kind; in which cafe his own apprehenfions would furnifh him with topics of deprecation, fuited to the purpose of his obtaining mercy. But this, we truft, was not the cafe.

Was

Was it then the vanity of fhewing: how far he was fuperior in abilities to an eminent mafter in his own craft of artificial compofition, that prevailed with Dr. Johnfon to lend his talent on fo critical an occafion? Such, one might fear, was the motive, from the early and general intelligence imparted to the public, by whom this admired piece of oratory was fabricated.

Was it, laftly, the prefumption that a fpeech compofed by Dr. Johnson, and delivered by Dr. Dodd, could not fail of interefting all the world in favour of the prifoner, and of procuring the moft powerful interceffion for the unhappy criminal's life?

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