The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,055 pages of information about The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 3.

The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,055 pages of information about The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 3.
the side of the Earl; and in the evening, every -body going to Vaillant’s shop to hear the particulars.  I wrote to him ’. as he serves me, for the account:  but he intends to print it, and I will send it you with some other things, and the trial.  Lord Ferrers at first talked on indifferent matters, and observing the prodigious confluence of people, (the blind was drawn up on his side,) he said,—­“But they never saw a lord hanged, and perhaps will never see another;” One of the dragoons was thrown by his horse’s leg entangling in the hind wheel:  Lord Ferrers expressed much concern, and said, “I hope there will be no death to-day but mine,” and was pleased when Vaillant told him the man was not hurt.  Vaillant made excuses to him on his office.  “On the contrary,” said the Earl, “I am much obliged to you.  I feared the disagreeableness of the duty might make you depute your under-sheriff.  As you are so good as to execute it yourself, I am persuaded the dreadful apparatus will be conducted with more expedition.”  The chaplain of the Tower, who sat backwards, then thought it his turn to speak, and began to talk on religion; but Lord Ferrers received it impatiently.  However, the chaplain persevered, and said, he wished to bring his lordship to some confession or acknowledgment of contrition for a crime so repugnant to the laws of God and man, and wished him to endeavour to do whatever could be done in so short a time.  The Earl replied, “He had done every thing he proposed to do with regard to God and man; and as to discourses on religion, you and I, Sir,” said he to the clergyman, “shall probably not agree on that subject.  The passage is very short:  you will not have time to convince me, nor I to refute you; it cannot be ended before we arrive.”  The clergyman still insisted, and urged, that. at least, the world would expect some satisfaction.  Lord Ferrers replied, with some impatience, “Sir, what have I to do with the world?  I am going to pay a forfeit life, which my country has thought proper to take from me—­what do I care now what the world thinks of me?  But, Sir, since you do desire some confession, I will confess one thing to you; I do believe there is a God.  As to modes of worship, we had better not talk on them.  I always thought Lord Bolingbroke in the wrong, to publish his notions on religion:  I will not fall into the same error.”  The chaplain, seeing sensibly that it was in vain to make any more attempts, contented himself with representing to him, that it would be expected from one of his calling, and that even decency required, that some prayer should be used on the scaffold, and asked his leave, at least to repeat the Lord’s Prayer there.  Lord Ferrers replied, “I always thought it a good prayer; you may use it if you please.”

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The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 3 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.