'SIR,
'I most seriously enjoin you not to let it be at all known that I have written this letter, and to return the copy to Mr. Allen in a cover to me. I hope I need not tell you, that I wish it success.—But do not indulge hope.—Tell nobody.'
It happened luckily that Mr. Allen was pitched on to assist in this melancholy office, for he was a great friend of Mr. Akerman, the keeper of Newgate. Dr. Johnson never went to see Dr. Dodd. He said to me, 'it would have done him more harm, than good to Dodd, who once expressed a desire to see him, but not earnestly.'
Dr. Johnson, on the 20th of June, wrote the following letter:
'To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES JENKINSON.