Richardson's Politics
1990; University of Toronto Press; Volume: 2; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/ecf.1990.0040
ISSN1911-0243
Autores Tópico(s)Scottish History and National Identity
ResumoRichardson's Politics Margaret Anne Doody You will find a strange, strange heart laid open to you," Harriet Byron says to Sir Charles in Sir Charles Grandison, that novel of frankness and opening of hearts.1 But hearts were laid open in a more macabre fashion in England at the time. On 7 June 1753, a few months before the publication of the first volumes of Sir Charles Grandison, a shocking event took place in London. Archibald Cameron, a Jacobite physician who had officiated as physician to the followers of Bonnie Prince Charlie, was executed for treason. The Gentleman's Magazine gives a detailed account of the event: the sledge drew away amongst a great number of spectators, who all pitied his unfortunate circumstances ... . The doctor was dressed in a light coloured coat, red waistcoat and breeches, and a new bag wig. He look'd much at the spectators in the houses, and balconies, as well as at those in the streets, and bow'd to several persons. About a quarter past twelve he came to the place of execution, and looked on the officers and spectators with an undaunted and composed countenance; and as soon as he was unloos'd from the sledge, he started up, and with an heroick deportment stept up into the cart, by the help of one of the executioners; whence looking round, with unconcern, on all the apparatus of death, he smiled: and seeing the clergyman that attended him coming up the steps, he came forward to meet him, and endeavour'd with his fetter'd hands to help him up, saying. "So—are you come? this is a glorious day to me! 'tis my new birth-day; there are more witnesses at this birth than there were at my first." The clergyman ask'd him how he did: he said, "Thank God, I am very well, but a little fatigued with my journey; but, blessed be God, I am now 1 Samuel Richardson, TAe History ofSir Charles Grandison, ed. Jocelyn Harris, 3 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), DJ1 270. References are to this edition. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 2, Number 2, January 1990 114 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION come to the end of it—" One of the gentlemen who presided at the execution asking the Clergyman whether he would be long about his office, Dr. Cameron immediately took the word, and said, he required but very little time; for it was but disagreeable being there, and he was as impatient to be gone as they were. ... Then turning to the clergyman, he said, "I have done with this world, and am ready to leave it." —He joined heartily in the commendatory prayers, &c. and then repeated some ejaculations out of the psalms: after which he embraced the clergyman and took leave. —As the clergyman was going down from the cart he had like to have missed the steps, which the doctor observing, called out to him with a chearful tone of voice, saying "take care how you go. I think you don't know this way so well as I do." —He was then tum'd off, and after hanging about 20 minutes was cut down, his heart cut out and burnt, but his body not quartered, and on the Sunday following it was interr'd in the large vault in the Savoy chapel.2 The Gentleman's Magazine deftly and consistently, if unostentatiously, draws a picture of a hero, and moves us to the pity that it says existed among numbers of spectators. Cameron among all these spectators is "undaunted and composed," moves with a "heroick deportment" to the fatal cart. The Gentleman's Magazine had already pointed out Cameron's plea at his trial, when Cameron faced his judges "pleading the acts of kindness and humanity which he had perform'd thro' the course of the rebellion."3 Kindness and humanity, as well as manly courage, are here exemplified in Archibald Cameron, as not in the cruel Government which insists on destroying him in this barbarous manner. The Gentleman s Magazine was from its inception a subtle opponent of Walpole and George II. It was cleverly calculated to catch the market of new...
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