Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/175

 friend,' is quoted in Pope's 'Epilogue to the Satires' (dialogue ii. l. 161). It has been said that this poem is identical with an epistle addressed to Bute and published in 1776 with corrections by the author of 'Night Thoughts.' In fact, however, the two poems are quite different.

 DODS, MARCUS, D.D. (1786–1838), theological writer, was born near Gifford in East Lothian in 1786, and educated at Edinburgh. In 1810 he was ordained presbyterian minister at Belford in Northumberland, and in that charge he remained till his death in 1838. He was a man of deep theological scholarship, and at the same time of irrepressible wit. As a leading contributor to the 'Edinburgh Christian Instructor,' under the editorship of the distinguished Dr. Andrew Thomson, it fell to him to write a critique on the views of Edward Irving on the incarnation of our Lord (January 1830). Irving wrote a very characteristic letter to Dods, frankly stating that he had not read his paper, but that he understood it was severe, and inviting him to correspond with him on the subject. Mrs. Oliphant, not having read the critique any more than Irving, writes as if Dods had been a malleus hereticorum, and mistakes the character of the man. Dods published his views at length in a work entitled 'On the Incarnation of the Eternal Word,' the second edition of which appeared after his death with a strongly recommendatory notice by Dr. Chalmers. A monument to Dods erected at Belford bears an inscription written by the late Professor Maclagan, D.D., which has been greatly admired both for truthful delineation and artistic power: 'A man of noble powers, nobly used, in whom memory and judgment, vigour and gentleness, gravity and wit, each singly excellent, were all happily combined, and devoted with equal promptitude and perseverance to the labours of christian godliness and the deeds of human kindness. The delight of his household, the father of his flock, the helper of the poor, he captivated his friends by his rich converse, and edified the church by his learned and eloquent pen. The earthly preferment which be deserved but did not covet, the earth neglected to bestow; but living to advance and defend, he died in full hope to inherit, the everlasting kingdom of Christ Jesus, our Lord.'

 DODSLEY, JAMES (1724–1797), bookseller, a younger brother of [q. v.], was born near Mansfield in Nottinghamshire in 1724. He was probably employed in the shop of his prosperous brother, Robert, by whom he was taken into partnership—the firm trading as R. & J. Dodsley in Pall Mall—and whom he eventually succeeded in 1759. In 1775 he printed 'A Petition and Complaint touching a Piracy of "Letters by the late Earl of Chesterfield,"' 4to. Dr. Joseph Warton told Malone that Spence had sold his 'Anecdotes' to Robert Dodsley for a hundred pounds. Before the matter was finally settled both Spence and Dodsley died. On looking over the papers Spence's executors thought it premature to publish them, and 'James Dodsley relinquished his bargain, though he probably would have gained 400l. or 500l. by it' (, Life of Malone, pp. 184-5). A list of forty-one works published by him is advertised at the end of Hull's 'Select Letters,' 1778, 2 vols. 8vo. In 1780 he produced an improved edition of the 'Collection of Old Plays,' 12 vols. 8vo, edited by Isaac Reed, who also edited for him anew, two years later, the 'Collection of Poems,' 6 vols. 8vo. He was a member of the 'Congeries,' a club of booksellers who produced Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets' and other works. Dodsley was the puzzled referee in the well-known bet about Goldsmith's lines,

which George Selwyn rightly contended were not to be found in Butler's 'Hudibras' (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. iv. 61-3). The plan of the tax on receipts was suggested by him to the Rockingham administration in 1782. On 7 June 1787 he lost 2,500l. worth of quirestock, burnt in a warehouse (, Illustr. vii. 488). He paid the usual fine instead of serving the office of sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1788. Dodsley carried on an extensive business, but does not seem to have possessed all his brother's enterprise and energy. Writing from Woodstock on 26 July 1789 Thomas King refers to his farming and haymaking (Add. MS. in British Museum, No. 15932, ff. 20-2). Eighteen thousand copies of Burke's 'Reflections on the Revolution in France' were sold by him in 1790.

He enjoyed a high character in commercial affairs, but was somewhat eccentric in private life. He always led a reserved and secluded life, and for some years before his