CHAPTER THE FOURTH. WEST HAM. HERE he spent the most delightful hours of his life. His behaviour-say the newspaper paragraphs, in the detestable "valet" jargon in which they describe every step in his life-was "proper, decent, and exemplary." He took up his new duties with zeal. He is said to have worked laboriously amongst his parishioners, and not to have spared himself in the round of parochial drudgery. Yet he relished these duties, and long after, in his day of trial, looked back to this Ham life very wistfully: Return blest hours, ye peaceful days return! Ennobling piety my glad feet led Continual, and my head each night to rest Lull'd on the downy pillow of content! Dear were thy shades, O, Ham! and dear the hours In manly musing 'midst thy forests pass'd, And antique woods of sober solitude, O, Epping, witness to my lonely walks. It was thought at this time that he "entertained favourable sentiments of the doctrines of Mr. Hut chinson," and was even suspected of a leaning to Methodism. But he soon cast off this weakness, and some seven or eight years later put his thoughts into the shape of "A Dialogue between a Mystic, a Hutchinsonian, and a Methodist;" in which he showed off the professors of these creeds to considerable disadvantage. Notwithstanding this backsliding in the direction of Mr. Hutchinson, his parishioners esteemed him highly, and chose him as their lecturer on the demise of the former occupant of that office. Two years afterwards, a lectureship at St. Olave's, Hart-street, became vacant, and Mr. Dodd was chosen for this duty also. Then he suddenly relapsed into literature, not only forgot his vow of abstinence, but burst upon the town with a strange novel, which, coming from a working curate, seems a singular and unbecoming composition. It was entitled "The Sisters;" which, under the specious veil of "a warning to youth of both sexes," contrives to deal with some free pictures of London life, the treatment of which suggests the coarse, but not the vigorous, handling of Fielding and Smollett. How the laborious curate of West Ham could issue such a production and not forfeit the favour of his faithful parishioners and the patrons of the lectureship of St. Olave's, is a riddle only to be solved by the free temper of the age. The ecclesiastical barometer was never registered so low. The laity were easy, and expected no restraint from their priests. There were many parsons like Trulliber, and many like the ordinary who attended on Mr. Wild, and whose pocket was picked of "a bottle screw." The world was not to be scandalised by "The Sisters," or a novel of that sort; and six years later the Bishop of Gloucester was so delighted with the two first volumes of "Tristram Shandy," that he took their reverend author round the fashionable world, and made all the bishops call upon him. "The Sisters" contain many pictures drawn from young Mr. Dodd's wild London life. The story is that of two young girls sent up to London, and ruined there. There is a hint of Pamela, with suggestions from some of Hogarth's pictorial stories. The names of the characters are the names of real persons read backwards. Dookalb, the villain of the piece, was a Mr. Blackwood, a gentleman who was said to have injured him, and upon whom he took this fashion of retaliating. Beau Leicart was a certain fashionable Mr. Tracey, known as Handsome Tracey, who had met a pretty girl in the Park—a butter-woman's daughter-and, seized with an ungovernable passion, had made himself the talk of the town by marrying her.* Lucy Repook, another of the characters, was put for Lucy Cooper, a notorious lady who divided the favour of the town with "Kitty Fisher." She was the lady who furnished the story which contains a satire finer than ever professional satirist could furnish.† Lord Sandwich was also introduced, which would seem to support the story *The story is given in detail by Walpole, ii. 126. There is more about him in Taylor's Recollections. †To a young nobleman professing "eternal attachment," she hinted a settlementt-as she was sure, she said, he could not bear to see her miserable and in want, in her old age. "No, by G-,” said the young nobleman, promptly, "for then I could not bear to see you at all." She used to tell this story herself. Walpole later circulated as to Mrs. Dodd's relation to that nobleman. Speaking of one of the ladies of the story who was in the habit of taking bank-notes en sandwich for breakfast, to show her admirers how little she cared for money, the Reverend Mr. Dodd puts a note to the effect that he had known "at least four, who have excelled and gloried in the same notable feat." There are allusions, too, "to the inimitable Garrick" who "thunders through the crowded theatre," which show that he was familiar with dramatic effects. Most curious, however, is his treatment of his arch villain, Dookalb, or Blackwood, whom he eventually led to the gallows and made him suffer "in the most abject and pusillanimous manner;" and attached to one of his characters was 66 a large bunch of keys, not unlike those which grace the venerable turnkey of Newgate." He never dreamt, when he gave this flippant description, that he himself was to have a dreadful familiarity with the venerable turnkey of Newgate. Indeed, it is very strange to think how, all through Mr. Dodd's life, little shadows of such an awful final end were cast across his path. It will be seen how, in many directions, he was led to it by a sort of mysterious attraction, and dwelt upon it as upon a favourite subject. He was about this year-1752-appointed to preach "Lady Moyer's Lecture" at St. Paul's, for which he took up the doctrine of the Trinity as his subject. He also plunged into classical learning, issued proposals for a translation of Callimachus, and wrote a play on the Greek model, with choruses, entitled "The Syracusan," which was actually sent с to a manager. In these times, parsons were very busy writing plays, and seeing them acted; nay, and acting them themselves.* Strange to say, "The Sisters" did him no damage; for the following year the translation of Callimachus came out with a learned preface, in which Doctor Horne, the Bishop of Norwich, lent him his assistance. The Reverend Mr. Dodd was, perhaps, looking for a mitre himself, and might naturally hope to reach one by his "Callimachus," as later postulants were to do by a play of Sophocles' or Euripides'. This book had a splendid list of names "prancing before it." As a more direct means of promotion, he dedicated it to the reigning Duke of Newcastle, the desperate adherent of office, who in his time had made many bishops, and found them all ungrateful. Meanwhile he was writing sermons, and some years later published four volumes quarto of discourses, a monument of parochial industry. All this while he was still at Ham: Dear favourite shades, by peace And pure religion sanctified, I hear The tuneful bells their hallowed message sound, He was lecturing at St. Olave's. He could not be idle, and had his time too well employed to go astray. These were the more innocent seasons of his life. No wonder, when the Newgate bells were clanging *It was actually written over to Garrick from Dublin-and this as no astounding piece of news-that they had a parson there who was coming out at the theatre, in the character of Scrub. |