The immense crowd which fills the streets, especially in a case like this one, which has been so much talked about, maintains a respectful silence. When they arrived at Tyburn Dr. Dodd left his carriage and mounted on a cart which stopped under the horizontal beam of the gallows. The executioner then appeared, untied the rope, and attached it to the transverse beam. The victim conversed with a minister of the Church, who recalled his crime, and spoke of the necessity of expiation. After a short pause, the executioner covered the victim’s head with a handkerchief, which he drew down to his chin. The first sheriff made a sign; the executioner touched the horse, the cart went on, and the work of execution was thus almost imperceptibly accomplished. After the body has remained hanging for an hour it is cut down and restored to the relatives of the deceased. He is then no longer a culprit, but a citizen who regains the rights he had forfeited by crime. His memory is not held in obloquy; for instance, the brother of Dr. Dodd succeeded to his living on the recommendation of Lord Chesterfield. Now to return to the playhouse and “Hamlet.” How is it that a people which abhors bloodshed in general, which fears murder, to whom poison and assassination are unknown, and which carries regard even towards the criminal to the extent I have described, can take pleasure in theatrical spectacles as barbarous and revolting as their own? The executions at London seem but games. The tragedies of the playhouse, on the other hand, are butcheries, causing even such spectators as are familiar with bloodshed to shudder. It is only fair to say that those Englishmen who have read and travelled are slightly embarrassed when a foreigner, who has heard the extravagant praises paid to the “divine” Shakespeare, comes to London to see for himself the works of this genius. They tell us that the populace are the lords of the English stage, and that they must needs be pleased. It is their depraved taste, we are told, which maintains these spectacles which would empty the theatres in any other country. I am quite ready to believe it; but then it is only drunken sailors who should be asked to admire Shakespeare, since it is only by drunken sailors that his altars are supported.