Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/166

 he might have been ‘required to subscribe’ (Corresp. i. 335).

Doddridge's correspondence is remarkable at this period for its lively play of sportive vivacity, its absence of reserve, and its pervading element of healthy good sense. Whatever he did was done with zest; and the elasticity of his spirits found vent in playful letters to his female friends. At Coventry he was charged with ‘some levities,’ according to William Tong (ib. ii. 6). The use of tobacco (ib. p. 39) was a lawful form of dissipation for divines; but cards, ‘a chapter or two in the history of the four kings’ (ib. p. 139), were somewhat unpuritanical. While at Kibworth, he boarded for a short time with the Perkins family at Little Stretton; then for a longer period at Burton Overy, in the family of Freeman, related to William Tong. To the only daughter, Catherine, owner of the ‘one hoop-petticoat’ in his ‘whole diocess’ (ib. i. 245), Doddridge speedily lost his heart. His sister's warnings were met with the query, ‘Did you ever know me marry foolishly in my life?’ (ib. p. 432). The lady seems to have used him badly, and finally discarded him, in September 1728. On 29 May 1730 Doddridge wrote a proposal to Jane Jennings (mother of Mrs. Barbauld), then in her sixteenth year (ib. iii. 20, corrected by Le Breton, p. 201). Nothing came of this, and in the following August he began the addresses which ended in his singularly happy marriage with Mercy Maris.

Meantime Doddridge had left Kibworth. In October 1725 he had removed his residence to Market Harborough, where his friend, David Some, was minister. By arrangement, the friends entered into a kind of joint pastorate of the two congregations. He had received (August 1727) an invitation to Bradfield, Norfolk, but the people there were ‘so orthodox’ that he had ‘not the least thought of accepting it.’ In December 1727 he was offered the charge of the presbyterian congregation in New Court, Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, but declined it. In November 1728 he was invited by the independent congregation at Castle Gate, Nottingham, and went thither to preach. While at Nottingham, the presbyterian congregation of the High Pavement offered him a colleagueship. But he rejected both overtures; among the independents there was too much ‘high orthodoxy,’ the presbyterians were broken into parties (ib. ii. 440, 448; see for a correction of dates).

The death of Jennings in his prime (8 July 1723) had created a void in the dissenting institutions for theological training. Need was felt of a midland academy at once liberal and evangelical. The Derbyshire academy, under Ebenezer Latham, M.D., was favoured by the presbyterian board, but did not meet the wants of the time. Jennings, it was known, had looked to Doddridge as likely to take up his work. An account of Jennings's method, drawn up by Doddridge, was submitted to Dr. Isaac Watts, who thought the scheme might fairly be entrusted to one who had ‘so admirably described’ it. On 10 April 1729, at a ministers' meeting in Lutterworth, Some broached the design of establishing an academy at Market Harborough, and the approval of Doddridge as its first tutor was unanimous. He opened the institution at the beginning of July, with three divinity students and some others. On 28 Sept. a call to the pastorate was forwarded to him from the independent congregation at Castle Hill, Northampton. Doddridge accepted it on 6 Dec.; removing with his academy to Northampton, he began his ministry there on Christmas day. He was ‘ordained a presbyter’ on 19 March 1730 by eight ministers (five of them presbyterians), two others being ‘present and consenting.’ His confession of faith is given in Waddington.

Early in the same year (1730) appeared an anonymous ‘Enquiry’ into the causes of the decay of the dissenting interest, which made some stir. The author was [q. v.], a young dissenting minister, who shortly afterwards conformed. The ‘Enquiry’ provoked many replies, and among them was Doddridge's first publication. His ‘Free Thoughts on the most probable means of reviving the Dissenting Interest,’ by ‘a minister in the country,’ was issued on 11 July 1730 (according to the British Museum copy). Warburton, who was uncertain of its authorship, describes it as ‘a masterpiece’ (ib. iii. 392). Doddridge observes that in his neighbourhood ‘the number of dissenters is greatly increased within these twenty years.’ Like Calamy, he has an eye to the political importance of a united nonconformist body. He recommends a healing and unifying policy. The problem was to retain the liberal and cultivated element among nonconformists, without losing hold of the people. Separation into congregations of diverse sentiments Doddridge thought suicidal. Union might be preserved by an evangelical ministry which combined religion with prudence. Bigotry, he observes, ‘may be attacked by sap, more successfully than by storm.’

Doddridge carried out his own ideal with great fidelity and with conspicuous success, doing more than any man in the 18th century to obliterate old party lines, and to