Born: Louis XII ('the
Just') of France, 1462, Blois; Charles IX of France,
1550, St. Germain; Charles XII of Sweden, 1682.
Died: Jean Rotrou, most
eminent French dramatist before Corneille, 1650;
Christian Heinecken,
prodigy of precocious learning,
1725, L�beck; Abbe de Chaulieu, French poet, 1740;
Nicholas Tindal, historian, 1774, Greenwich Hospital;
Dr. William Dodd, executed at Tyburn, 1777; Runjeet
Singh, chief of Lahore, 1839, Lahore; John Murray,
eminent publisher, 1843, London.
Feast Day: St. John of
Moutier and Chinon, priest and confessor, 6th century;
St. Ladislas I, King of Hungary, confessor, 1095.
CHRISTIAN HEINECKEN
Christian Heinecken, one of
the most remarkable beings recorded in the history of
mankind, was born of respectable parentage, at Lubec,
in 1721. If he had come into the world during the dim
and distant ages of antiquity, we might have set down
the whole story as a myth, and thus dismissed it as
unworthy of consideration. But the comparatively late
period of his birth, and the unimpeachable character
of the numerous witnesses that testify to his
extraordinary precocity, leave us no alternative from
belief and wonder. He spoke, we are told, and spoke
sensibly too, within a few hours after his birth; when
ten months old, he could converse on most subjects;
when a year old he was perfect in the Old Testament,
and in another short month he mastered the New. When
two and a half years old, he could answer any question
in ancient or modern history or geography. He next
acquired Latin and French, both of which he spoke with
great facility at the Court of Denmark, to which he
was taken in his fourth year. His feeble constitution
prevented him from being weaned until he was five
years old, when He died in consequence of this
necessary change of diet.
Some German savans, and one
Frenchman, have written learned disquisitions in the
attempt to explain on natural principles this
wonderful precocity; but the result of their
lucubrations has only been to prove that it is utterly
inexplicable.
THE UNFORTUNATE DR.
DODD
The son of a Lincolnshire
vicar�educated at Cambridge�possessed of talents and a
hand some person�witty and agreeable�Dodd might be
said to have a good start in life. With something of
the ballast of common sense and a decent degree of
probity, he ought to have been a successful man.
Wanting these, it is instructive to see what came of
him. In 1751, at twenty-two years of age, he is found
in London, without a profession or an income, yet
indulging in all the enjoyments he had a mind for.
When his father heard that he had married a gay,
penniless girl, and furnished a house (it was, by the
by, in Wardour-street), he came up to town in a state
of alarm. What was to be done? The church was, in
those days, simply looked on as a profession. The
elder Dodd had no scruples any more than his son. It
was decreed that William should take orders.
The step was, in a worldly
point of view, successful. Dodd had from nature a
showy oratorical power, and he cultivated it by the
most careful study of the arts of elocution.
Accordingly, in a succession of metropolitan cures, he
shone out as a popular preacher of the highest
attraction. George III made him his chaplain in
ordinary, and he was appointed tutor to the future
Earl of Chesterfield. Meanwhile Dr. Dodd and his wife
lived in extravagant style, and were in perpetual
pecuniary straits. They set up a coach, and took a
country-house at Ealing. The doctor worked hard for
the booksellers, and as he lacked leisure for original
thought, he played the plagiary with considerable
vigour. He took pupils at high fees, and neglected
them. He drew a lottery ticket for �1000, but the
money only seduced him into new depths of waste. Had
he only possessed an ordinary share of worldly wisdom,
riches and advancement in the church would certainly
have been his portion; but goaded by his necessities,
and impatient for preferment, he was foolish enough,
in 1774, to address an anonymous letter to the Lord
Chancellor Apsley's wife, offering 3000 guineas if by
her assistance Dr. Dodd was appointed to St. George's,
Hanover-square, then vacant. The letter was at once
traced to him, complaint was made to the king, and he
was dismissed with disgrace from his office of
chaplain to his majesty. The newspapers teemed with
satire and invective over his simony, and Samuel Foote turned
the transaction into a farce at the Haymarket.
Covered with shame, he retired
for a time to the Continent, and on his return resumed
preaching in London, and seemed in a fair way to
recover his lost popularity, when he committed his
last fatal act. Importuned by creditors, he forged a
bond on his old pupil, now Lord Chesterfield, for
�4200. By a curious train of circumstances the fraud
was detected. Dodd was arrested, brought to trial, and
sentenced to death. Powerful exertions were made for
his pardon. Curiously enough, in 1772, a highwayman
who had stopped Dodd's coach and shot at him was
captured, and on Dodd's evidence was hanged; whereon
he preached and published a sermon, entitled The
Frequency of Capital Punishments inconsistent with
Justice, Sound Policy, and Religion. Petitions
with upwards of 20,000 signatures were addressed to
the king. A cry was raised for his respite, for the
credit of the clergy; but it was answered that if the
honour of the clergy was tarnished, it was by Dodd's
crime, and not by his punishment. Dodd appealed to Dr.
Johnson for his intercession, and Johnson, though he
knew little of Dodd, bestirred himself on his behalf
with all the energy of his tender heart. He drew up a
petition of Dr. Dodd to the king, and of Mrs. Dodd to
the queen; wrote The Convict's Address to his
Unhappy Brethren, a sermon which Dodd delivered in
the chapel of Newgate; also Dr. Dodd's last solemn
Declaration, and various other documents and letters
to people in power; all without effect.
The king had
an inclination to mercy; but the year before Daniel
and Robert Perreau, wine-merchants, had been executed
for forgery; and he was plainly told, 'If your majesty
pardon Dr. Dodd, you will have murdered the Perreaus.'
The law was therefore allowed to take its course, and
on the 27th of June 1777, Dodd was conveyed, along
with another malefactor, in an open cart, from Newgate
to Tyburn, and there hanged in the
presence of an
immense crowd. As soon as his body was cut down, it
was hurried to the house of Davies, an undertaker, in
Goodgestreet, Tottenham Court Road, where it was
placed in a hot bath, and every exertion made to
restore life, but in vain.
JOHN
MURRAY
Within the past century no
name has been more frequent on the title-pages of
first-rate books than that of John Murray; and few
perhaps are aware that one reason of its long
continuance arises from the fact that there has been a
dynasty of three John Murrays.
The founder of the house was
John MacMurray, who was born in Edinburgh about 1745,
and commenced life in the Marines. In 1768 Lieut.
MacMurray growing tired of his profession, bought for
�400 the stock and goodwill of Paul Sandby,
bookseller, 32 Fleet Street, opposite St. Dunstan's
Church, and close to Falcon Court, the site of the
office of Wynkyn de Worde, whose sign was the Falcon.
He was anxious to secure his friend Falconer, the
author of The Shipwreck, as a partner; but
Falconer declined, and the following year lost his
life in the wreck of the 'Aurora,' off the African
coast. Dropping the prefix of Mac, as Scotsmen were
not then popular in London, Murray contrived, with
much diligence, to improve and extend the business he
had purchased. At the end of twenty-five years, in
1793, he died, leaving his trade, under executors, to
his son John, at that time a minor of fifteen, having
been born in the house over the Fleet Street shop on
the 27th November 1778.
John II was educated at the
best schools his father could find; among others at
the High School of Edinburgh, and at Dr. Burney's at
Gosport, where he lost an eye by the writing-master's
penknife accidentally running into it. For a time
young Murray had for a partner
Samuel Highley, a
long-tried assistant of his father's; but feeling
hampered by his associate's slow and cautious ways, he
obtained a dissolution of the connexion in 1803�Highley
moving off a few doors to carry on bookselling, and
leaving Murray to his more hazardous adventures as a
publisher.
One of his earliest and
greatest projects was the Quarterly Review. To
George Canning, in 1807,
he wrote�'There is a work entitled the Edimburgh
Review, written with such unquestionable talent, that
it has already attained an extent of circulation not
equalled by any similar publication. The principles of
this work are, however, so radically bad, that I have
been led to consider the effect which such sentiments,
so generally diffused, are likely to produce, and to
think that some means equally popular ought to be
adopted to counteract their dangerous tendency.. .
Should you, sir, think the idea worthy of
encouragement, I should with equal pride and
willingness engage my arduous exertions to promote its
success; but as my object is nothing short of
producing a work of the greatest talent and
importance, I shall entertain it no longer if it be
not so fortunate as to obtain the high patronage which
I have thus, sir, taken the liberty to solicit. Permit
me, sir, to add, that the person who thus addresses
you is no adventurer, but a man of some property,
inheriting a business that has been established for
nearly a century.'
Canning was willing, and other
helpers were found. On the 1st February 1809 the first
number of the Quarterly Review appeared, and
its success was instant and decisive, the circulation
quickly rising to 12,000 copies. The Review was the
origin of Mr. Murray's eminent fortune. It brought
around him such a galaxy of genius as no publisher
before or since has had at his service. In 1812 he
removed from under the shadow of Temple Bar to a
western position in Albemarle Street, where his
drawing-room became the resort in London of Scott,
Byron, Campbell, Heber,
D'Israeli, Canning, Hallam,
Croker, Barrow, Madame de Stael, Crabbe, Southey,
Belzoni, Washington Irving, Lockhart,
and many more,
remembered and forgotten. Murray's life-long
distinction was his masterly enterprise, his fine
combination of liberality with prudence, and his
consummate literary and commercial tact. His
transactions were the admiration and despair of lesser
men.
An intimate alliance of
business and friend-ship subsisted for a time between
Murray and the Ballantynes and Constable of Edinburgh.
Constable gave Scott �1000 for the copyright of
Marmion before it was written, of which Murray took a
fourth; and when Scott was in his difficulties he
gracefully made him a present of his share. Murray
published The Tales of my Landlord, and the
secret of the Great Unknown was manifest to him
from the beginning. He early foresaw the result of the
reckless trading of John Ballantyne, and, after
repeated warnings, finally broke off connexion with
him. Happy would it have been for Scott had he taken
the same course.
Mr. Murray made Lord Byron's
acquaintance in 1811, and gave him �600 for the first
two cantos of Childe Harold, while the poet's
fame was unestablished, thus shewing in a most happy
instance that independent perception of literary
talent which may be said to be the highest gift of the
great publisher. It is understood that by Mr. Murray's
aid and advice the poet profited largely. Hearing in
1815 that he was in pecuniary difficulties, Murray
sent him a draft for �1500, promising another for the
same amount in the course of a few months, and
offering to sell his copyrights if necessity required.
From first to last he paid Byron �20,000 for his
poems. Byron playfully styled him 'the Anak of
stationers,' and presented him with a handsome Bible,
with the text 'Now Barabbas was a robber,' altered to
Barabbas was a publisher.' Byron gave Moore his
Autobiography, and Murray lent Moore �2000 on the
security of the manuscript; and when Moore repaid the
hard cash in order to destroy the memoir, Murray made
up the loss by giving Moore �1000 for his life of
Byron.
When Crabbe came to town in
the summer of 1817, he was soon a visitor of Murray's,
whom he describes as a much younger and more lively
man than he had imagined. For his Poems Murray
offered the amply generous sum of �3000. It will
scarcely be believed that Crabbe had friends so
insensible to the publisher's liberality, and so
inconceivably foolish, as to think this sum too
little. Having, by their advice, opened negotiations
with another firm, the simple-minded poet was alarmed
to find a very much smaller price put upon his verses.
In great anxiety, and fearful that he had lost what
was to him a fortune, he wrote, saying he was willing
to accept his offer. Receiving no answer, he persuaded
Rogers and Moore to go to Albemarle Street and
diplomatize for him. To his delight, their
intervention proved unnecessary. 'Oh, yes,' said
Murray, when they had described their errand, 'I have
heard from Mr. Crabbe, and looked on the matter as
quite settled.'
Southey was one of Murray's
regular and most industrious workmen. In 1810 he wrote
an article on Nelson for the Quarterly. Murray
offered him �100 to expand it for separate
publication, and Southey turned out his perspicuous
and famous Life of Lord Nelson. At a later date he
received a further sum of �200 to revise the work as a
volume of the Family Library. This is only one
out of many instances which might be recorded in
illustration of Murray's generosity.
Washington Irving was another
of his authors. He gave �200 for the Sketch Book,
which he increased to �400 when it proved successful.
For Bracebridge Hall he paid �1000, for the
Chronicles of Granada �2000, and for the Life of
Columbus �3000. He wished to secure Irving's services
as editor of a monthly magazine at �1000 a year; but
the American could not endure the thought of permanent
residence out of his own country.
In 1826, seduced by others
more sanguine than himself, he started The
Representative, a daily newspaper, price sevenpence,
edited by Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, and intended to rival
The Times. It was a complete failure, and was stopped
at the end of six months, with a loss to Mr. Murray of
�20,000. It was the solitary serious miscalculation of
his life.
On the 27th of June 1843, Mr.
Murray closed his arduous and honourable career at the
age of sixty-five, and was succeeded by his son John
Murray III, who to this day maintains undimmed the
glory of his father's house, as publisher of the best
books by the best authors.
REVIVALS
AFTER SUS. PER. COLL.
The efforts made for the
restoration of the forfeited life of poor Dodd remind
us that reanimation after hanging is far from being an
uncommon event.
On the 16th August 1264, Henry
III granted a pardon to a woman named Inetta de
Balsham, who, having been condemned to death for
harbouring thieves, hung on a gallows from nine
o'clock of a Monday to sunrise of Thursday, and yet
came off with life, as was testified to the king by
sufficient evidence.
Dr. Plot, who quotes the
original words of the pardon, surmises that it might
have been a case like one he had heard of from Mr.
Obadiah Walker, Master of University College, being
that of a Swiss who was hung up thirteen times without
effect, life being preserved by the condition of the
wind-pipe, which was found to be by disease converted
into bone.
Dr. Plot relates several cases
of the resuscitation of women after hanging, and makes
the remark that this revival of life appears to happen
most frequently in the female sex. One notable case
was that of a poor servant girl named
Anne Green, who was condemned
to death, at Oxford in 1650 for alleged child-murder,
although her offence could only be so interpreted by
superstition and pedantry. This poor woman, while
hanging, had her legs pulled, and her breast knocked
by a soldier's musket; she was afterwards trampled on,
and the rope was left unslackened around her neck.
Yet, when in the hands of the doctors for dissection,
she gave symptoms of life, and in fourteen hours was
so far well as to be able to speak. Eager inquiries
were made as to her sensations from the moment of
suspension; but she remembered nothing she came back
to life like one awakening out of a deep sleep. This
poor woman obtained a pardon, was afterwards married,
and had three children.
A second female malefactor,
the servant of a Mrs. Cope, at Oxford, was hanged
there in 1658, and kept suspended an unusually long
time, to make sure of the extinction of life; after
which, being cut down, her body was allowed to fall to
the ground with a violence which might have been
sufficient to kill many unhanged persons. Yet she
revived. In this case the authorities insisted on
fulfilling their imperfect duty next day. Plot gives a
third case, that of Marjory Mausole, of Arley, in
Staffordshire, without informing us of its date or any
other circumstances.
On the 2nd of September 1721,
a poor woman named Margaret
Dickson, married, but separated from her husband,
was hanged at Edinburgh for the crime of concealing
pregnancy in the case of a dead child. After
suspension, the body was inclosed in a coffin at the
gallows' foot, and carried off in a cart by her
relatives, to be interred in her parish churchyard at
Musselburgh, six miles off. Some surgeon apprentices
rudely stopped the cart before it left town, and broke
down part of the cooms, or sloping roof of the
coffin,�thus undesignedly letting in air. The
subsequent jolting of the vehicle restored animation
before it had got above two miles from the city, and
Maggy was carried home a living woman, though faint
and hardly conscious. Her neighbours flocked around
her in wonder; a minister came to pray over her; and
her husband, relenting under a renewed affection, took
her home again. She lived for many years after, had
several more children creditably born, and used to be
pointed out in the streets of Edinburgh, where she
cried salt, as Half-hanget Maggy Dickson.
The instances of men reviving
after hanging are scarcely less numerous than those of
females. In 1705, a housebreaker named Smith being
hung up at Tyburn, a reprieve came after he had been
suspended for a quarter of an hour. He was taken down,
bled, and revived. One William Duell, duly hanged in
London in 1740, and taken to the Surgeons' Hall to be
anatomized, came to life again, and was transported.
At Cork a man was hanged in January 1767 for a street
robbery, and immediately after carried to a place
appointed, where a surgeon made an incision in his
windpipe, and in about six hours recovered him. The
almost incredible fact is added, that the fellow had
the hardihood to attend the theatre the same evening.
William Brodie, executed in Edinburgh, October 1788,
for robbing the excise-office, had similar
arrangements made for his recovery. It was found,
however, that he had had a greater fall than he
bargained for with the hangman, and thus the design
was frustrated.
On the 3rd of October 1696, a
man named Richard Johnson was hanged at Shrewsbury, He
had previously, on a hypocritical pretence, obtained a
promise from the under-sheriff that his body should be
laid in his coffin without being stripped. He hung
half an hour, and still showed signs of life, when a
man went up to the scaffold to see what was wrong
with him. On a hasty examination, it was found that
the culprit had wreathed cords round and under his
body, connected with a pair of hooks at his neck, by
which the usual effect of the rope was prevented, the
whole of this apparatus being adroitly concealed under
a double shirt and a flowing periwig. On the trick
being discovered, he was taken down, and immediately
hanged in an effectual manner.
It may be remarked, as helping
to account for the great number of recoveries from
hanging, that in former days a criminal was allowed to
slide or slip gently from a ladder, so as to have very
little fall; and consequently, as a rule, he suffered
only asphyxia, and not a breaking of the vertebral
column. In the mode followed nowadays, hanging is a
process very effectual for its end, so as to make
resuscitation almost impossible.
