THE NEPHEW OF A BRITISH PEER.
In 1813, the nephew of a British peer was executed at Lisbon. He had involved himself by gambling, and being detected in robbing the house of an English friend, by a Portuguese servant, he shot the latter dead to prevent discovery. This desperate act, however, did not enable him to escape the hands of justice. After execution, his head was severed from his body and fixed on a pole opposite the house in which the murder and robbery were committed.
The following facts will show the intimate connection between gambling and Robbery or Forgery.
EDWARD WORTLEY MONTAGU AND THE JEW ABRAHAM PAYBA.
Edward Wortley Montagu was the only son of the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, whose eccentricities he inherited without her genius. Montagu, together with Lords Taffe and Southwell, was accused of having invited one Abraham Payba, alias James Roberts, a Jew, to dine with them at Paris, in the year 1751; and of having plied him with wine till he became intoxicated, and so lost at play the sum of 800 louis d'ors. It was affirmed that they subsequently called at his house, and that on his exhibiting an evident disinclination to satisfy their demands, they threatened to cut him across the face with their swords unless he instantly paid them. Terrified by their violence, and, at the same time, unwilling to part with his gold, the Jew had cunning enough to give them drafts on a Paris banker, by whom, as he had no dealings with him, he well knew that his bills would be dishonoured; and, to escape the vengeance of those whom he had outwitted, quitted Paris. On ascertaining how completely they had been duped, Montagu, with his associates Lords Taffe and Southwell, repaired to the house of the Jew, and after ransacking his drawers and strong boxes, are said to have possessed themselves of a very considerable sum of money, in addition to diamonds, jewels, and other valuable articles. The Jew had it now in his power to turn on his persecutors, and accordingly he appealed to the legislature for redress. Lord Southwell contrived to effect his escape, but Lord Taffe and Montagu were arrested, and were kept in separate dungeons in the Grand Chatelet, for nearly three months. The case was subsequently tried in a court of law, and decided in favour of the accused,—the Jew being adjudged to make reparation and defray the costs! Against the injustice of this sentence he appealed to the high court of La Tournelle at Paris, which reversed it. Lord Taffe and Montagu afterwards appealed, in their turn, but of the definitive result there is no record.
DR WILLIAM DODD.
Le Sage, in his 'Gil Blas,' says that 'the devil has a particular spite against private tutors;' and he might have added, against popular preachers. By popular preachers I do not mean such grand old things as Bossuet, Massillon, and Bourdaloue. All such men were proof against the fiery darts of the infernal tempter. From their earliest days they had been trained to live up to the Non nobis Domine, 'Not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy name, give glory.' All of them had only at heart the glory of their church-cause; though, of course, the Jesuit Bourdaloue worked also for his great Order, then culminating in glory.
The last-named, too, was another La Fontaine in simplicity, preparing for his grandest predications by sorrily rasping on an execrable fiddle. So, if the devil had lifted him up to a high mountain, showing him all he would give him, he would have simply invited him to his lonely cell, to have a jig to the tune of his catguts.
Your popular preachers in England have been, and are, a different sort of spiritual workers. They have been, and are, individualities, perpetually reminded of the fact, withal; and fiercely tempted accordingly. The world, the flesh, and the devil, incessantly knock at their door. If they fall into the snare it is but natural, and much to be lamented.
Dr Dodd had many amiable qualities; but his reputation as a scholar, and his notoriety as a preacher, appear to have entirely turned his head.