The Convict's Address to his Unhappy Brethren, written for Dr. WILLIAM DODD by SAMUEL JOHNSON and delivered by the former in the Chapel of Newgate, on Friday, June 6, 1777.
JEREMY TAYLOR died in 1667. Samuel John son wrote the Convict's Address in 1777. The century that intervened was not devoid of voices eloquent in English ; but there is a pedestrian quality in the accents of Tillotson, Barrow, South, and Stillingfleet, which falls below the highest level of oratorical expression. From their sermons the lyrical fervour of Taylor, on the one hand, and the rude vigour of Johnson on the other, are equally absent.
As an exponent of English eloquence,
Samuel Johnson occupies an intermediate position. He was a combination of the preacher and the politician, a sort of super-journalist whose moral judgments and the power of their expression were generally revered.
The Convict's Address is one of the few of Johnson's compositions known to have been delivered in public. It represents his efforts on behalf of Dr. Dodd, a popular preacher, who had been tried and condemned to death for forgery. To be asked to write it was a contemporary tribute to his reputation. To have written it for a man whom he pitied, but knew to be guilty, was an example of his humane benevolence. Its existence is a monument to the force of his eloquence.