between the pupil and patron was well known, and to the great agitation of the prisoner in the dock. "O, that eternal night," he wrote from his cell, "had in that moment screened me from myself, My Stanhope to behold!”

But that evidence was decisive. Everything was only too clear. The case for the prosecution closed, and then Mr. Justice Peryn said, "Now, Doctor Dodd, this is the time for you to make your defence to what the witnesses have said." And Doctor Dodd then spoke his defence-a very pathetic and moving address, but which was yet, after all, no defence. He said he was advised that the Act of Parliament runs perpetually in that style-with an intention to defraud," but that in his mind there could have been none such, for he had restored and meant to restore what he had taken.* He had made a perfect and

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*The Act under which the prisoner was indicted was one passed in the year 1729, which made the punishment capital, in consequence of the increase of the "pernicious and abominable crimes" of perjury and forgery. Up to the year 1821 the succession of victims had been kept up steadily, when the punishment was commuted to transportation, with some exceptions, and notably that of forging a will. And the first year of the present reign was happily inaugurated by a complete abrogation of capital punishment for such offences. The Act of George the Second runs exactly as the Doctor pleaded, "with an intention to defraud;" and it shows that his advisers must have been at their wits' end for an excuse, when they had nothing better to suggest. The law has no means of ascertaining the secret intentions of delinquents; it can only deal with their acts. For every criminal act the law supplies a criminal intention; and it lies on the prisoner to remove this presumption by proof. Here the offence was complete, and the Doctor's intention to restore the money-if it really existed -would have been merely a sort of atonement, which in our own day

ample restitution. "I leave it, my lords, to you, and gentlemen of the jury, to consider, if an unhappy man does transgress, what can God and man desire more?" He then added, that he had been "pursued with the most oppressive cruelty, prosecuted after the most express engagement, after the most delusive and soothing arguments" (a curious expression) "from Mr. Manley." Death, he owned, would be the most pleasant of all blessings after this place. But he would be glad to live for the sake of his wife, who, for twenty-seven years, had been "an unparalleled example of conjugal affection to me, and whose behaviour in this crisis would draw tears of approbation from the most inhuman." He then urged that his creditors would suffer cruelly by his death. All of which were idle topics, and could have no effect with men who consider their oath, and the stern duty cast upon them by that oath. So, indeed, the judge hinted, who owned that this had been "a very pathetic address." But he could scarcely pass by the weakness of the Doctor's defence. As to his having no intention to defraud, and a purpose to

might have been considered in passing sentence. A few weeks later,
in that absurd piece of bombast the "Prison Thoughts," he could ac-
tually reduce his legal "point" and its refutation to blank verse:
On full intention to repay the whole,
And in that full intention perfect work
Free restoration and complete: on wrong
Or injury to none design'd or wrought,
I rest my claims.

Groundless-'tis thundered in my ears-and weak!
For in the rigid courts of human law

No restitution wipes away th' offence,

Nor does intention justify.

make restitution, he very gently pointed out that if excuses of such a kind were to be admitted, it would be a defence for criminals of every kind and degree— for how could the law take notice of what was passing in their minds. Doctor Dodd could scarcely answer for himself that he would have restored the sum. To which the judge might have added, that the restitution on which the prisoner leant so much was after his arrest—a step which we may be sure any detected criminal would gladly take, if it was to help him.

At the close of the charge, an ingenious "point" was made by the prisoner's counsel. These were the days when "a flaw" in the indictment was fatal. If the prisoner was accused of an offence ever so little differing from the one proved, he escaped. Now, the indictment can be amended on the spot. It was laid in the charge that he had forged an instrument for seven hundred pounds annuity; but the bond produced to support that charge had the word seven all blotted, so as to be illegible. The proof and the charge did not therefore correspond. It was a bit of true Old Bailey ingenuity; and the judge admitted its force, but neutralised it by telling the jury it was for them to consider whether the blotted word was meant to represent seven.

They retired. They were only away a few minutes. In a broken voice (it was said "weeping") they brought in their verdict-" GUILTY!" The scene must have been very affecting. The court, the jury, the spectators, were all in tears. A foreigner who was present received an extraordinary impression

of an English judicial proceeding.* The jury recommended him to mercy; but the judges were constrained to refuse to second the recommendation, and bid them apply to the Recorder. The miserable prisoner was carried away in a crowd of sobbing friends. It however brought to a close a miserable day, during which he could not have had a moment's hope.†

A yet more miserable duty remained—the breaking the news to the wretched wife, who had sat all day in a room near the court, expecting news of his fate.

*Archenholtz. He was also attracted by the prisoner's noble mien and appearance.

In the ill-judged production to which allusion has been made, he has courage to deal with this situation in such heroics as these:

Cheerly, my friends, oh cheerly! All is not lost.

Lo! I have gained on this important day

A victory consummate. . . . On this day,
My birthday to eternity, I've gain'd
Dismission from a world . . .

...

Ah, little thought ye, prosecutors prompt,
To do me good like this!

CHAPTER THE NINTH.

PRISON THOUGHTS.

NEWGATE was then very much in the state of the prison to which the good Doctor Primrose was consigned. It was an abomination, and one of the plague-spots of the land, though Mr. James Hanway was even then trying to bring about some amelioration in the condition of the prisoners. But as criminal life was then held so cheap, it was only natural that what ministered to the support of that life should be disregarded. In all the agitation of this terrible change, with death hanging over his head, and his wife just torn from his arms, as the hour for locking up drew near, on the second night of his arrival-a Sunday-how will it be supposed the prisoner spent his hours? In writing vapid, stilted, unprofitable blank verse-the mass of weak, vain, ill-judged lines that go to make up "The Prison Thoughts"— a task he continued steadily for five weeks. A piece which, taken with its surrounding associations, with