Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/174

 speech in the House of Commons (22 Feb. 1757) against the execution of Byng. He returned to office for a short time from April to June 1757, during the interregnum which followed Pitt's resignation, but was again turned out for George Grenville when Pitt formed his great administration with Newcastle. To Dodington's great disgust his friend Halifax consented to resume office, but Dodington remained out of place until the king's death. He then managed to ally himself with the new favourite, Lord Bute, and in 1761 reached the summit of his ambition. In April of that year he was created Baron Melcombe of Melcombe Regis in Dorsetshire. He received no official position, however, and died in his house at Hammersmith 28 July 1762.

Besides his political activity Dodington aimed at being a Mæcenas. He was the last of the ‘patrons,’ succeeding Charles Montagu (Lord Halifax) in the character. It is curious that Pope's ‘Bufo’ in the epistle to Arbuthnot was in the first instance applied to Bubb or Dodington, who is also mentioned in the epilogue to the Satires, along with Sir W. Yonge, another place-hunter (, Pope, iii. 258–61, 462). Dodington was complimented by many of the best-known writers of his day. About 1726 Young (of the ‘Night Thoughts’) addressed his third satire to Dodington; he received verses from Dodington in return. Thomson's ‘Summer’ (1727) was dedicated to Dodington. Fielding addressed to him an epistle on ‘True Greatness’ (Miscellanies, 1743). Dodington was the patron of Paul Whitehead, who addresses a poem to the quack Dr. Thompson, another sycophant of Dodington's (, Johnson, pp. 329–340). Richard Bentley (1708–1782) [q. v.] published an epistle to him in 1763. He offered his friendship to Johnson upon the appearance of the ‘Rambler,’ but Johnson seems to have scorned the proposal. ‘Leonidas’ Glover was another of his friends, and was returned for Weymouth when Dodington himself accepted a peerage. The first Lord Lyttelton also addresses an ‘eclogue’ to Dodington.

Dodington was himself a writer of occasional verses, and had a high reputation for wit in his day. The best description of him is in Cumberland's ‘Memoirs’ (1807, i. 183–96). Cumberland, as secretary to Lord Halifax, was concerned in the negotiations between them about 1757. He visited Dodington at Eastbury, at his Hammersmith villa, called by reason of the contrast La Trappe, and at his town house in Pall Mall. All these houses were full of tasteless splendour, minutely described by Cumberland and Horace Walpole. Dodington's state bed was covered with gold and silver embroidery, showing by the remains of pocket-holes that they were made out of old coats and breeches. His vast figure was arrayed in gorgeous brocades, some of which ‘broke from their moorings in a very indecorous manner’ when he was being presented to the queen on her marriage to George III. After dinner he lolled in his chair in lethargic slumbers, but woke up to produce occasional flashes of wit or to read selections, often of the coarsest kind, even to ladies. He was a good scholar, and especially well read in Tacitus.

In 1742 Dodington acknowledged that he had been married for seventeen years to a Mrs. Behan, who had been regarded as his mistress. According to Walpole he had been unable to acknowledge the marriage until the death of a Mrs. Strawbridge, to whom he had given a bond for 10,000l. that he would marry no one else (, Letters, i. 216, 296; ix. 91). Mrs. Dodington died about the end of 1756 (ib. iii. 54). Dodington left no children, and upon his death Eastbury went to Lord Temple, with whom he was connected through his grandmother (see above). All but one wing was pulled down in 1795 by Lord Temple (created Marquis of Buckingham in 1784), who had vainly offered 200l. a year to any one who would live in it. Dodington left all his disposable property to a cousin, Thomas Wyndham of Hammersmith. The Hammersmith villa was afterwards the property of the margrave of Anspach. His papers were left to Wyndham on condition that those alone should be published which might ‘do honour to his memory.’ They were left to Wyndham's nephew, Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, who published the diary in 1784, persuading himself by some judicious sophistry that the phrase in the will ought not to hinder the publication. It is the most curious illustration in existence of the character of the servile place-hunters of the time, with unctuous professions of virtuous sentiment which serve to heighten the effect. It also contains some curious historical information, especially as to the Prince and Princess of Wales during the period 1749–60.

Dodington more or less inspired various political papers and pamphlets, including the ‘Remembrancer,’ written by Rudolph in 1745; the ‘Test,’ attacking Pitt in 1756–7; and some, it is said, too indelicate for publication. He addressed a poem to Sir R. Walpole on his birthday, 26 Aug. 1726; and an epistle to Walpole is in Dodsley's collection (1775, iv. 223, vi. 129). A manuscript copy of the last is in Addit. MS. 22629, f. 1841. A line from it, ‘In power a servant, out of power a