Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/158

 story. Towards the close of January 1754, ‘on account of some deaths in his family,’ Dodd set out for the continent, returning in May following. In 1759 he again entered the navy; ‘came as supernumerary in the Sheerness from Leghorn to Gibraltar;’ there went on board the Prince, and continued in her till June 1762. In the same year he qualified at Surgeons' Hall as master-surgeon of any ship of the first rate, and was warranted for the Hawke, in which he served till she was paid off at the peace, February 1763. He then settled once more in London, ‘chiefly,’ as he says, ‘in the literary line.’ One of these literary undertakings was a series of lectures first delivered in 1766 in the great room of Exeter Exchange, and afterwards published with the title ‘A Satyrical Lecture on Hearts, to which is added a Critical Dissertation on Noses,’ 8vo, London, 1767 (second edition the same year). In his preface Dodd disclaimed all notion of having imitated G. A. Stevens's lectures on heads, asserting ‘that both the heads and hearts were first thought on in consequence of the beau and coquette in the “Spectator.”’ The reviewer of the book in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (xxxvii. 73–4) attributes to Dodd the authorship of a periodical essay published some years before under the title of ‘The Scourge.’ On 7 Feb. 1767 the house in which he lodged, adjoining the gateway of the Saracen's Head inn on Snow Hill, suddenly fell to the ground, but he and his family escaped with the loss only of their belongings (ib. xxxvii. 92). His wife's head being affected by this accident, Dodd left London and went to Bath and Bristol for her recovery; thence he wandered to Ireland, where he ‘followed his business and literary employments’ in Dublin. In March 1779 he was ‘invited’ to return to London. He brought with him a play founded on ‘Le Naufrage’ of J. de Lafont, which held the boards at Covent Garden for exactly one night. It was published the same year as ‘Gallic Gratitude; or, the Frenchman in India,’ a comedy in two acts, 8vo, London, 1779, and was reissued as having been acted in Dublin, with a new title-page, ‘The Funeral Pile,’ 12mo, Dublin, 1799 (, Biographia Dramatica, ed. 1812, i. 191, ii. 254, 255). At the end of the first issue are some ‘Critical Remarks on Mrs. Jackson's Performance of Lady Randolph in the Tragedy of “Douglas,” &c.’ Another undertaking was ‘The Ancient and Modern History of Gibraltar. … With an accurate Journal of the Siege … by the Spaniards … 1727, translated from the original Spanish, published by authority at Madrid,’ 8vo, London, 1781. In 1781 he became intimate with a Major John Savage, who styled himself Baron Weildmester, and had, he alleged, pressing claims on Lord North. This adventurer, on undertaking to defray all expenses, induced Dodd to embark with his family with him for Russia, where, he said, he had a plan to propose from a foreign power to the empress to enter into a treaty of alliance, and thus he and Dodd would be sent as ambassadors; ‘that Mrs. Dodd, &c. should remain under the czarina's protection, and that on their return they would be decorated with the order of St. Catherine & have 1,000l. a year pension.’ Charmed with this proposal, Dodd cheerfully bore the expense until Riga was reached, where he learned Savage's true character. Accordingly he was glad to take passage in a vessel bound to Bowness on the Firth of Forth. He landed at Leith in December 1781 almost destitute of means. In the following year he appeared at Edinburgh as actor and lecturer. David Stewart Erskine, eleventh earl of Buchan [q. v.], was interested in him, and among Buchan's manuscripts is a paper in Dodd's handwriting relating the story of his career from his earliest years. A verbatim transcript is given in ‘Notes and Queries,’ 6th ser. vii. 483–4. He died in Mecklenburgh Street, Dublin, in the spring of 1805, aged 84, ‘a gentleman of amiable and entertaining manners, whose converse with the literary world and fund of anecdote rendered his company extremely agreeable.’ In the obituaries of Walker's ‘Hibernian Magazine,’ 1805, p. 256, and of the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ vol. lxxv. pt. i. p. 388, his age is foolishly asserted to have been 104. According to the ‘European Magazine,’ xlvii. 402, Dodd ‘was a great frequenter of the disputing societies and a president of one of them.’

[Authorities as above.]  DODD, PHILIP STANHOPE (1775–1852), divine, son of the Rev. Richard Dodd, rector of Cowley, Middlesex, author of a translation of Formey's ‘Ecclesiastical History,’ who died in 1811, was born in 1775. He was educated at Tunbridge School, and having entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, was elected a fellow, and proceeded B.A. in 1796, and M.A. in 1799. In 1798 he published anonymously ‘Hints to Freshmen, from a Member of the University of Cambridge,’ of which the third edition was printed in 1807. In early life he was for some years curate of Camberwell, Surrey, which appointment he exchanged in 1803 for the ministry of Lambeth Chapel, retaining the afternoon lecture at Camberwell.