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 he sought to make ‘a seminary and nursery of christian virtue.’ With this view he collated the admirable Dr. Comber, afterwards dean of Durham [q. v.], to the precentorship, where he proved his earnest coadjutor in his unwelcome but salutary reformations. Among these was the restoration of the weekly celebration of the holy communion, which had fallen into desuetude. The change was strongly opposed by the canons. He also, ‘though with great temper and moderation,’ according to Thoresby, strongly urged the observance of saints' days in all the churches of his diocese, defending the institution from the charge of Romish superstition. The best of the clergy and laity of the diocese deemed themselves ‘very happy’ in their archbishop, so ‘very active in his station.’ On his journey from London to York just before Easter 1686 he slept at an inn in a room infected with the small-pox. On Good Friday he preached in the minster pulpit. On Easter Tuesday the disease declared itself, accompanied with a lethargic seizure, and on the following Sunday he died at his palace of Bishopthorpe, on the improvement of which he had spent a large sum, his end being due, according to his friend Dr. Comber, ‘rather to grief at the melancholy prospect of public affairs,’ James II using his utmost endeavours to destroy the church of England, than to the small-pox (, Memoirs, p. 211). He was buried on the north side of the south aisle of York minster, under a marble monument bearing his effigy robed and mitred, with a long epitaph recording the chief facts of his life, from the pen of his chaplain, the Rev. Leonard Welstead. Evelyn speaks of the death of the archbishop, ‘my special loving friend and excellent neighbour,’ as ‘an inexpressible loss to the whole church, and to his province especially, being a learned, wise, strict, and most worthy prelate.’ He adds: ‘I look on this as a great stroke to the poor church of England in this defecting period’ (Diary, 15 April 1686, ii. 252, edit. 1850). His loss was not less felt as a member of the legislature than as a prelate. ‘No one of the bench of bishops,’ writes Sir W. Trumbull, ‘I may say not all of them, had that interest and authority in the House of Lords which he had … he was not to be browbeaten or daunted by the arrogance or titles of any courtier or favourite. His presence of mind and readiness of elocution, accompanied with good breeding and inimitable wit, gave him a greater superiority than any other lord could pretend to from his dignity of office’ (History of Rochester, 1772). By his wife, who survived him twenty years, dying and being buried at Finedon, he had two sons, Gilbert [q. v.] and John [q. v.], and one daughter, Catherine, who died in infancy. He bequeathed his chapel plate to the altar of York minster, and above three thousand volumes of great value to its library. His only published works are three sermons preached before Charles II: (1) On Job xix. 19, preached at Whitehall on Good Friday 1664; (2) on Ps. liv. 6, 7, also before the king on 20 June 1665, on the thanksgiving for the defeat of the Dutch off Harwich, June 3; (3) on Ps. xviii. 1–31, on 14 Aug. 1666, on the defeat of De Ruyter, 25 July (see Pepys's Diary of that date). There are also two copies of Latin verses reprinted by his descendant, the Rev. Dolben Paul: (a) on the return of Charles I from Scotland, 1641; (b) on the death of the Princess of Orange in 1660.

His person was commanding, but over-corpulent; his complexion dark. His countenance is described as open, his eye lively and piercing, his presence majestic, his general aspect of extraordinary comeliness. Besides the historical picture already mentioned by Lely, and engraved by Loggan, Bromley mentions a portrait by Huysman, engraved by Tompson. Portraits of Dolben exist also in Christ Church Hall and in the deanery, Westminster (engraved in 1822 by Robert Grove), at Bishopthorpe, and at Finedon Hall.

[Welch's List of Queen's Scholars, Westminster; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. vol. iv. col. 188, 868; Grainger's Biog. Hist. iii. 245–7, ed. 1775; Taswell's Autobiography, p. 12 (Camd. Soc.); Memoirs of Comber, pp. 186–9, 212; Bedford's Life of Barwick, p. 295; Burnet's Own Time, i. 396, 590, fol. ed.; Thoresby's Diary, i. 172, ii. 425, 436, 439, 440; Evelyn's Diary, ii. 43, 183, 252; Pepys's Diary, ii. 430, iii. 329, 333, 366, 385; Calamy's Own Time, ii. 228; History and Antiquities of Rochester, 1772, 8vo; Overton's Life in the English Church, 1660–1714, pp. 33–34, 243–5, 310; Paul's Dolben's Life and Character, 1884.] 

DOLBEN, JOHN (1662–1710), politician, the younger son of Archbishop Dolben [q. v.], was baptised in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, on 1 July 1662. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 23 March 1678, but his name does not appear in the printed list of graduates. His parents intended him for the study of the law, and he was duly called to the bar at the Temple, but took to bad company, spent the greater part of the fortune inherited on his father's death in 1686, and withdrew with the remnant of his means to the West Indies, where he succeeded in marrying a rich wife. His uncle, the judge, soon afterwards sent for him back to England, but the old temptations proved too