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legs. An excellent magiftrate, James Collier, efq. prefented an account of the cafe accompanied with a drawing, to the king; with which his majesty was much affected, and gave immediate orders for a proper inquiry and redrefs.'

And this gaol is the property of the bishop, who is lord of the franchise of the isle of Ely.

Grievances may be redreffed, when they are known; but, if none will take the trouble to point them out, who is to redress them? Mr. Howard and Mr. Collier have done their part; let parliament do theirs! It is a lefs labo

rious one.

Government should enquire a little about those who are imprifoned by Exchequer writs.-Some gentleman of the law would act humanely in taking up the cause of these numerous wretches. Such a step might lead him to eminence in his profeffion-would certainly lead him to happiness; if he have any feelings.

The infertion of the fubfequent extract will, we hope, be of fervice in more respects than one.

At Penzance is also a prifon for the hundred and liberties of Penwith.--The property of lord Arundel. Two rooms in the keeper's ftable yard; but diftant from his houfe, and quite out of fight and hearing The room for men is full eleven feet fquare, and fix high: window eighteen inches square: no chimney. Earth floor; very damp. The door had not been opened for four weeks when I went in; and then the keeper began fhoveling away the dirt-There was only one debtor, who feemed to have been robuft, but was grown pale by ten weeks clofe confinement, with little food, which he had from a brother, who is poor and has a family. He faid, the dampnefs of the prifon, with but little ftraw, had obliged him (he fpoke with forrow) to fend for the bed on which fome of his children lay. He had a wife and ten children, two of whom died fince he came thither, and the rest were almost starving. He has written me a letter fince, by which I learn that his diftrefs was not mitigated, and that he had a companion, miferable as himself. No allowance. Keeper no falary: fees 8s. 4d. every action, no table.

A year or two ago five prifoners, I was informed, grew defperate by what they fuffered in this wretched prison, and broke out."

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One other extract will furprize many of our readers.

In the old prifon at Rothwell, I faw both times I was there, one William Carr a weaver: he had given a bad name to a woman who was faid not to deserve a very good one: the cited

him to the Ecclefiaftical Court; and he was imprisoned 4th of May 1774. He had a wife and three children.-I will tranfcribe a line or two of the Warrant.-" For as much as the royal power ought not to be wanting to the holy church in its complaints-attach the faid W. C.-until he fhall have made fatisfaction to the holy church as well for the contempt as for the injury by him done unto it." He was difcharged 26 July laft by the Infolvent Act.'

In our distributions of praise it would be culpable to omit the name of the only phyfician whom Mr. Howard found vifiting prifoners, and visiting them affiduously, without fee or reward:

among the friends to his fellow creatures, Dr. Rotheram of Newcastle muft not be forgotten.

Nor muft thofe be forgotten who are no longer within hearing of our praife. We fay no longer; but are we certain that the dull, cold ear of death' is perfectly infenfible to applaufe? Our delicate readers must not be fcandalized because we bestow our applaufe upon the memory of the keeper of a prifon. Fame is unacquainted with our little earthly diftinctions of country, fex, profeffion. The first care, Mr. Howard juftly obferves, must be to find a good man for a gaoler; one that is honeft, active, humane. Such, he adds, was Abel Dagge, formerly keeper of Briftol Newgate. I regretted his death, and revere his memory*? And fo will our readers, when they fhall know that this is the very Dagge who has a particular claim upon immortality for his much more than motherly behaviour to the unfortunate Savage, the natural fon of the most unnatural countess of Macclesfield. It was in the prifon of this gaoler that poor Savage finished his miferable existence, after a confinement of about fix monthsbut let it be remembered that the tenderness of the gaoler lengthened his exiftence, and rendered that part of it which Savage spent in prison the least miserable, perhaps, of his whole life. Dr. Johnfon, in his incomparable Life of this sport of Fortune, mentions the merit of Mr. Dagge in terms which, in our opinion, would well become the tombstone of that worthy man; for Bristol, furely! has more gratitude than to let him want a tombstone. Virtue is undoubtedly, fays the elegant and judicious biographer, moft laudable in that state which makes it moft difficult; therefore the humanity of a gaoler certainly deferves this public atteftation; and the man whose heart has not been hardened by such an employment, may be justly proposed as a pattern of benevolence. If an inscription

* Dagge, 'tis true, is dead; but the humane Akerman is in perfect health.

were

were once engraven to the boneft toll-gatherer, lefs honours ought not to be paid to the tender gaoler.'

But we must take our leave of Mr. Howard's performance. -To fay a fingle fyllable of its utility, its patriotism, its humanity, were to fuppofe our readers deficient not only in feeling but in understanding. As to praife and thanks, Mr. Howard experiences both, from the miferable objects of his benevolence, in a manner much more affecting, than they can be bestowed by Reviewers.

One thing this gentleman muft fuffer us to obferve, that his book would have been of more general utility, had it been printed in a smaller fize, had it been cheaper. If the dignity of the British fenate cannot bend from its height to perufe a dedication in duodecimo or octavo, the most useful parts of the publication might be printed fo as to come within the purchase of a gaoler's, perhaps a prifoner's, purfe.-Another kind of patriotism, among some people called by a harder name, circulated Dr. Price's pamphlet in a manner and at a price which would have been moft praise-worthy, had the ends propofed by the circulation been altogether as commendable (pace tantorum dicetur beroum!), as the ends which the circulation of this performance might probably anfwer.

Thoughts in Prifon: in five Parts. vix. The Imprisonment. The Retrofpea. Public Punishment. The Trial. Futurity. By the rev. William Dodd, LL.D. To which are added, his laft Prayer, written in the Night before his Death: and other Mifcellaneous Pieces. 8vo. 3's. Dilly.

THIS

HIS work, as the dates of the refpective parts inform us, was begun by its unhappy author in his apartments in Newgate, on Sunday the 23d of February, the day fubfequent to his trial and conviction; and was finished, amidst maný neceffary interruptions, in about two months.

A note, which is figned W. D. and prefixed to this publi cation, leaves us no room to doubt its authencity. But without this atteftation, the difcerning reader will perceive, that it is evidently the production of the unhappy convict, to whom it is afcribed. The thoughts are the genuine effufions of the heart, correfponding with the dreadful fituation of the writer.

A critical eye may discover many imperfections in the compofition;, but every person of candor and humanity will eafily pardon all inaccuracies, when he reflects, that this long work, confifting of 230 pages, was compofed under the bitter anguish of a difconfolate mind, the horrors of a prifon, and the im mediate

mediate apprehenfions of an ignominious death. In this view, it is a furprising performance, unrivalled, perhaps, in the annals of literature..

At eight o'clock in the evening, after the prisoners were locked up in their respective apartments, the unhappy author thus begins his melancholy reflections.

My friends are gone! Harfh on its fullen hinge
Grates the dread door: the maffy bolts refpond
Tremendous to the furly keeper's touch.

The dire keys clang: with movement dull and flow
While their beheft the ponderous locks perform:
And, fastened firm, the object of their care

Is left to folitude,-to forrow left!

• But wherefore faftened? Oh still stronger bonds
Than bolts, or locks, or doors of molten brafs,
To folitude and forrow would confign
His anguifh'd foul, and prifon him, tho' free!
For, whither fhould he fly, or where produce
In open day, and to the golden fun,
His hapless head whence every laurel torn,
On his bald brow fits grinning infamy;
And all in fportive triumph twines around
The keen, the ftinging adders of difgrace!

Yet what's difgrace with man? or all the ftings

Of pointed fcorn? What the tumultuous voice
Of erring multitudes? Or what the shafts

Of keenest malice, levell'd from the bow

Of human inquifition ?-if the God

Who knows the heart, looks with complacence down
Upon the ftruggling victim; and beholds
Repentance bursting from the earth-bent eye,
And faith's red cross held clofely to the breaft!
Oh Author of my being! of my blifs
Beneficent Difpenfer! wond'rous power,
Whofe eye, all-fearching, thro' this dreary gloom
Difcerns the deepeft fecrets of the foul;

Affift me? With thy ray of light divine

Illumine my dark thoughts; upraife my low;
And give me Wifdom's guidance, while I ftrive
Impartially to ftate the dread account,

And call myself to trial!'

The following paffage is no unpoetical defcription of the deftru&tive allurements of ambition, the deceitfulness of the world, and the author's frailties and follies.

• Plac'd thus, and shelter'd underneath a tree,

Which feem'd like that in vifions of the night
To Babylonia's, haughty prince pourtray'd,

Whofe height reach'd heaven, and whofe verdant boughs

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Extended wide their fuccour and their shade;
How did I truft, too confident! How dream

That Fortune's fmiles were mine; and how, deceiv'd,
By gradual declenfion yield my trust,

My humble happy truft on Thee, my God!
How ill exchang'd for confidence in man,
In Chesterfields, in princes!-Wider scenes,
Alps ftill on Alps were open'd to my view;
And, as the circle in the flood enlarg'd,
Enlarg'd expences call. Fed to the full
With Flattery's light food, and the puff'd wind
Of promifes delufive-" Onward still!

Prefs onward!" cried the world's alluring voice;
"The time of retribution is at hand:

See, the ripe vintage waits thee !" Fool, and blind,
Still credulous I heard, and ftill purfu'd
The airy meteor glittering thro' the mire,

Thro' brake and bog, till more and more ingulph'd
In the deceitful quag, floundering I lay.
Nor heard was then the world's alluring voice,
Or promises delufive; then not feen

The tree umbrageous, with its ample fhade:
For me, alas, that tree had fhade no more!
But, ftruggling in the gulph, my languid eye
Saw only round the barren rushy moor,
The flat, wide, dreary defert:-till a hope,
Dreis'd by the tempter in an angel's form,
Prefenting its fair hand,-imagin'd fair,
Though foul as murkiet hell,-to drag me forth,
Down to the center plung'd me, dark and dire
Of howling rain ;-bottomlefs abyss

Of defolating fhame, and nameless woe!

But, witness heav'n and earth, 'midft this brief ftage,
This blafting period of my chequer'd life,
Tho' by the world's gay vanities allur'd,
I danc'd, too oft, alas! with the wild rout
Of thoughtless fellow-mortals, to the found
Of Folly's tinkling bells; tho' oft, too oft
Thofe paftimes fhar'd enervating, which ill
-Howe'er by fome judg'd innocent,-become
Religion's fober character and garb :
Tho' oft, too oft, by weak compliance led,
External feemings, and the ruinous bait
Of fmooth politenefs, what my heart condemn'd
Unwife it practis'd;-never without pang!
Tho' too much influenc'd by the pleasing force
Of native generofity, uncurb'd

And unchaftis'd (as Reafon, Duty taught),
Prudent Oeconomy, in thy fober school

Of parfimonious lecture; ufeful lore,

And

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