On the 20th of February 1749, Usher Gahagan, by birth a gentleman, and
by education a scholar, perished at Tyburn. His attainments were elegant
and superior; he was the editor of Brindley’s beautiful edition of the
classics, and translated Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” into Latin verse.
Better grounded in learning than in principle, he concentrated liberal
talents to the degrading selfishness of robbing the community of its
coin by clipping. During his confinement, and hoping for pardon, he
translated Pope’s “Temple of Fame,” and his “Messiah,” into the same
language, with a dedication to the duke of Newcastle. To the same end,
he addressed prince George and the recorder in poetic numbers. These
efforts were of no avail. Two of his miserable confederates in crime
were his companions in death. He suffered with a deeper guilt, because
he had a higher knowledge than ignorant and unthinking criminals, to
whom the polity of society, in its grounds and reasons, is unknown.
Accomplishments upon vice are as beautiful colours on a venomous
reptile. Learning is a vain show, and knowledge mischievous, without the
love of goodness, or the fear of evil. Children have fallen from
careless parents into the hands of the executioner, in whom the means of
distinguishing between right and wrong might have become a stock for
knowledge to ripen on, and learning have preserved the fruits to
posterity. Let not him despair who desires to know, or has power to
teach--
There is in every human heart,
Some not completely barren part,
Where seeds of truth and love might grow
And flowers of generous virtue blow:
To plant, to watch, to water there,
This be our duty, be our care.
_Bowring._
[5] Butler’s Lives of the Saints.
[6] Stow.
~February 21.~
_St. Severianus_, Bp. A. D. 452. _Sts. German_, Abbot, and _Randaut_,
or _Randoald_, A. D. 666. _Sts. Daniel_ and _Verda_, A. D. 344. B.
_Pepin_, of Landen, A. D. 640.