617 



DODDRIDGE, PHILIP, D.D. 



DODSWOKTH, ROGER. 



618 



never, as far as we are aware, contradicted, to doubt its correctness. 

 Foote is a very unsafe authority for such a statement. 



DODDRIDGE, PHILIP, D.D., was born in 1702, of an old dis- 

 senting family living in London, where he had the early part of 

 his education. He was then for a time at St. Albans ; and it having 

 been early perceived that his turn of mind peculiarly pointed to the 

 profession of a minister, lie was entered about 1718 at a dissenting 

 theological academy at Kibworth in Leicestershire, over which Mr. 

 John Jennings presided. In 1722 he commenced his ministry at 

 Kibworth, his late tutor Mr. Jennings removing in that year to 

 Hinckley, where he died in the succeeding year. The death of Mr. 

 Jennings was an important event in the history of Doddridge. Great 

 expectations had been formed among the Dissenters of the success of 

 Mr. Jennings in the education of ministers, and it was thought a point 

 of importance to maintain an academy of that kind in one of the 

 central counties. Mr. Jennings had mentioned his pupil Doddridge 

 as being a person eminently qualified to carry on the work, and the 

 eyes of the Dissenters were generally directed to him as the person 

 best qualified to do so. However, several years passed, during which 

 Doddridge was leading the life of a non-conformist minister, his 

 services being divided between the chapel at Kibworth, and one at the 

 neighbouring town of Market Harborough. He was diligent in his 

 ministry both in public and private, but he found time also for much 

 theological reading, by which means he qualified himself the better 

 for the office which he and his friends had in view. 



In 1 729 he began his academy, which soon attained a high reputa- 

 tion. It was the institution in which most of the more distinguished 

 ministers of the Old or orthodox Dissenters in the middle of the 13th 

 century were educated. It was first established at Market Har- 

 borough, where he at the time resided ; but before the end of the 

 year he removed to Northampton, having been invited to become the 

 minister of the Dissenting congregation in that town : and at North- 

 ampton he continued both aa pastor of the Dissenting congregation, 

 and head of the Dissenting academy, till his death. Having gone to 

 Lisbon on account of ill health, he died there thirteen days after his 

 arrival, October 26, 1751. 



Doddridge lived at a time when the zeal of the class of persons to 

 whom he belonged had lost some part of its former fervour. This he 

 saw with regret, and was very desirous to revive it This appears to 

 have been a principal object, and one kept steadily in viuw both in 

 his ministerial labours and his published writings. His printed 

 sermons are remarkable for the earnestness with which ho presses the 

 great importance of a religious life, the evil of spiritual indifference 

 or carelessness, and the indispensable necessity of uniting with the 

 practice of the moral duties the cultivation of the spirit of piety, and 

 a deep and serious regard to the momentous truths of religion. This 

 appears particularly in a book of his which has been very popular 

 both at home and abroad, entitled ' The Rise and Progress of Religion 

 ill the Soul,' and it is also very apparent in the practical part of 

 another very excellent publication of his entitled ' The Family 

 Expositor,' in which is given the whole of the New Testament (the 

 gospels being in a harmony), with a paraphrase, a series of critical 

 notes, and reflections, or, as he calls them, improvements of each 

 section into which the whole is divided. This work has also been 

 often printed, and it marks the extent of his learning, as well as the 

 depth of his piety ; the notes abound with critical remarks, gathered 

 out of numerous authors, or suggestions of his own mind, full of that 

 knowledge which fits a man to illustrate those difficult writings. The 

 course of metaphysical, ethical, and theological lectures, through 

 which he conducted the young men who were trained by him for the 

 Christian ministry, was published after his death ia 2 vols. 8vo, and 

 supplicil for the time an excellent text-book of systematic divinity, as 

 well as a very useful body of references to writers on metaphysics, 

 ethics, and divinity. To Doddridge also the Dissenters owe some of 

 the best hymns which are sung by them in their public services. 



Two accounts of his life by contemporaries have been published : 

 the first by Job Orton, another divine of a kindred spirit, who 

 belonged to the same community; the second" by the Rev. Dr. Kippis, 

 a pupil of Dr. Doddridge, who has introduced it in the 'Biographia 

 Britannica,' of which he was the editor. More recently his ' Corre- 

 spondence ' has been published by one of his descendants. 



DODSLEY, ROBERT, was born in 1709, as is supposed, near 

 Mansfield, in Nottinghamshire, where his father is said to have kept 

 the Free school. Robert and several brothers however appear to have 

 all commenced life as working artisans or servants. Robert is said to 

 have been put apprentice to a stocking-weaver, from whom, finding 

 himself ia danger of being starved, he ran away, and took the place of 

 a footman. After living in that capacity with one or two persons, he 

 entered the service of the Honourable Mrs. Lowther, and while with 

 that lady he published by subscription in 1732 an octavo volume of 

 poetical pieces, under the title of ' The Muse in Livery, or tho 

 Footman's Miscellany.' The eituation of the author naturally drew 

 considerable attention to this work at the moment of its appearance ; 

 but the poetry was of no remarkable merit. His next production was 

 a dramatic piece, called ' Tho Toyshop ; ' he sent it in manuscript to 

 Pope, by whom it wan much relished, and who recommended it to 

 Rich, the manager of Coven t Garden Theatre, where it was acted in 

 1735 with great success. With the profits of hia play, Dodsley tho 



BIOO, DIV. VOL. 1L 



same year set up as a bookseller ; and, under the patronage which 

 Pope's friendship and hia own reputation and talents procured him, 

 his shop in Pall Mall soon became a distinguished resort of the literary 

 loungers about town. His business, which he conducted with great 

 spirit and ability, prospered accordingly.; and in his latter days he 

 might be considered as standing at the head of the bookselling trade. 

 He continued also throughout his life to keep himself before the 

 public in his first profession of an author, and produced a considerable 

 number of works of varying degrees of merit, both in prose and 

 verse. In 1737 his farce of 'The King and the Miller of Mansfield' 

 was acted at Drury Lane with great applause. It was followed th 

 same year by a sequel, under the title of ' Sir John Cockle at Court,' 

 which however was not so successful. Nor was he more fortunate 

 with his ballad farce of ' The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Grecu,' which 

 was brought out at Drury Lane in 1741. This year also he set up a 

 weekly magazine, under the title of ' The Public Register,' to which 

 he was himself a principal contributor ; but it was discontinued after 

 the publication of the 24th number. It is curious to note that, in 

 his farewell address to his readers, he complains that certain rival 

 magazine publishers (understood to mean the proprietors of the 

 ' Gentleman's Magazine ') had exerted their influence with success to 

 prevent the newspapers from advertising his work. In 1745 he 

 published another short dramatic piece, entitled ' Rex et Pontifex, 

 being an attempt to introduce upon the stage a new species of pauto- 

 mime ; ' but this was never acted. A collected edition of all these 

 dramas was published in 1748, in a volume, to which he gave the title 

 of ' Trifles.' 



The following year he produced a masque on the subject of the 

 peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, under the title of ' The Triumphs of Peace,' 

 which was set to music by Dr. Arue, and performed at Drury Lane. 

 In 1750 appeared anonymously the first part of the ingenious and 

 well-known little work, ' The Economy of Human Life,' which was 

 long attributed to Lord Chesterfield, and was from the first extremely 

 popular. It was, after Dodsley's death, ascribed to him by the 

 'Monthly Review," and has ever since been confidently stated to be his 

 writing : as far as we know however its authorship is by no mean* 

 ascertained. The first part, entitled ' Agriculture,' of a poem in blank 

 verse, on the subject of public virtue, which Dodsley published in 

 1754, was so coldly received that the second and third parts which he 

 originally contemplated were never produced. In 1758 he closed his 

 career of dramatic authorship with a tragedy entitled ' Cleoue,' which 

 was acted at Covent Garden with Extraordinary applause, and drew 

 crowded audiences during a long run. When it was published, 2000 

 copies were sold the first day, and it reached a fourth edition within 

 the year. ' Cleone ' however is now pretty well forgotten. Dodsley 

 died at Durham, while on a visit to a friend, on the 25th of September 

 1764. He had retired from business some years before, having made 

 a good fortune. Besides his 'Select Collection of Old Plays,' 12 vols. 

 8vo, 1780, in connection with which his name is now most frequently 

 mentioned, and his ' Collection of Poems by Several Hands,' 4 voLs. 

 12ino, 1748, in which many since famous short poems appeared for 

 the first time, Dodsley'a name is associated with several works of 

 which he was ouly the projector and the publisher, but from his 

 connection with which he is now more generally remembered than for 

 his own production*. Among them may be mentioned the two 

 periodical works, 'The Museum,' begun in 1746 and extended to 

 threa volume?, in which there are many able essays by Horace 

 Walpole, the two Wartons, Akenside, &c. (of this Dodsley was only 

 one of the shareholders), and ' The World,' 1754-57, conducted by 

 Edward Moore, and contributed to by Lords Lyttleton, Chesterfield, 

 Bath, .ind Cork, Horace Walpole, Soame Jenyns, &c.; 'The Preceptor,' 

 2 vols., 1748, to which Johusou wrote a preface ; and especially the 

 'Annual Register,' begun in 1758, and still carried on. These, and 

 the other works in which he was engaged, brought him into intimate 

 connection with most of the eminent men belonging to tho world of 

 letters during the period of his able and honourable career. He has 

 also the credit of having first encouraged the talents of Dr. Johnson, 

 by purchasing his poem of ' London' in 1738 for the sum of 10 guineas, 

 and of having many years afterwards been the projector of the ' English 

 Dictionary.' A second volume of Dodsley'a collected works, forming 

 a continuation of the ' Trifles,' was published under the title of 

 ' Miscellanies,' in 1772. (Besides the articles in the second edition of 

 the 'Biographia Britaunioa,' in Chalmers, and in the 'Biographia 

 Dramatica,' there are many notices respecting Dodsley in Nichols's 

 ' Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century.') 



DODSWORTH, ROGER, an eminent antiquary, was the son of 

 Matthew Dodsworth, registrar of York Cathedral, and chancellor to 

 Archbishop Matthews. He was born on July 24th, 1585, at Newton 

 Graugo in the parish of St. Oswald, in Rydale, Yorkshire. He died 

 in the mouth of August, 1654, and wa* buried at Rufford in Lanca- 

 shire. His manuscript collections, partly relating to Yorkshire, in 

 162 volumes folio and quarto, 122 of them in his own handwriting, 

 were bequeathed to the Bodleian Library at Oxford in 1671, by General 

 Fairfax, who had been Dodsworth's patron. Chalmers says that Fair- 

 fax allowed Dodsworth a yearly salary to preserve the inscriptions in 

 churches. 



Dodsworth was the projector, aud collected many of the materials 

 for the early part, of the work now known aa 'Dugdnlu's Monasticon,' 



