IN FIVE PARTS,

VIZ.

THE IMPRISONMENT, THE RETROSPECT, PUBLIC
PUNISHMENT, THE TRIAL, FUTURITY.

BY

WILLIAM DODD, L. L. D.

TO WHICH ARE ADDED, HIS LAST PRAYER, WRITTEN IN THE
NIGHT BEFORE HIS DEATH:

THE CONVICT'S ADDRESS TO HIS UNHAPPY BRETHREN;

AND

OTHER MISCELLANEOUS PIECES;

WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR.

These evils I deserve, and more;
"Acknowledge them from God inflicted on me
"Justly; yet despair not of his final pardon,

"Whose ear is ever open, and his eye,

"Gracious to re-admit the Suppliant."

Milton.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR J. MAWMAN; J. WALKER; SCATCHERD AND LETTERMAN;
LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME; VERNOR, HOOD, AND SHARPE;

B. CROSBY AND CO. AND SHERWOOD, NEELEY, AND JONES

Α

1809.

J. G. Barnard, Printer, Skinner-Street.

THOUGHTS IN PRISON;

COMMENCED

SUNDAY EVENING, EIGHT O'CLOCK*,

February 23, 1777.

WEEK THE FIRST.

THE IMPRISONMENT.

My friends are gone! Harsh on its sullen hinge

Grates the dread door; the massy bolts respond
Tremendous to the surly keeper's touch.

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

Is left to solitude,-to sorrow left.

But wherefore fastened? Oh still stronger bonds

The hour wher they lock up in this dismal place.

The Imprisonment.

Than bolts, or locks, or doors of molten brass,
To solitude and sorrow would consign

His anguish'd soul, and prison him, though free!
For, whither should he fly, or where produce
In open day, and to the golden sun,

His hapless head? whence every laurel torn,
On his bald brow sits grinning Infamy;
And all in sportive triumph twines around
The keen, the stinging adders of disgrace?
Yet what's disgrace with man? or all the stings
Of pointed scorn? What the tumultuous voice
Of erring multitudes? Or what the shafts

Of keenest malice, levell'd from the bow

Of human inquisition ?-if the God,

Who knows the heart, looks with complacence down Upon the struggling victim, and beholds

Repentance bursting from the earth-bent eye,

And faith's red cross held closely to the breast?
Oh Author of my being! of my bliss

Beneficent dispenser! wond'rous power,

Whose eye, all-searching, thro' this dreary gloom
Discerns the deepest secrets of the soul,