mitted a sizar of Clare Hall,
Cambridge, in 1745, and took the degree of B.A. in 1750, being fifteenth
wrangler. On leaving the university he married a young woman of a more
than questionable reputation, whose extravagant habits helped to ruin
him. In 1751 he was ordained deacon, and in 1753 priest, and he soon
became a popular and celebrated preacher. His first preferment was the
lectureship of West-Ham and Bow. In 1754 he was also chosen lecturer of
St Olave's, Hart Street; and in 1757 he took the degree of M.A. at
Cambridge, subsequently becoming LL.D. He was a strenuous supporter of
the Magdalen hospital, founded in 1758, and soon afterwards became
preacher at the chapel of that charity. In 1763 he obtained a prebend at
Brecon, and in the same year he was appointed one of the king's
chaplains,--soon after which the education of Philip Stanhope,
afterwards earl of Chesterfield, was committed to his care. In 1768 he
had a fashionable congregation and was held in high esteem, but
indiscreet ambition led to his ruin. On the living of St George's,
Hanover Square, becoming vacant in 1774, Mrs Dodd wrote an anonymous
letter to the wife of the lord chancellor, offering three thousand
guineas if, by her assistance, Dodd were promoted to the benefice. This
letter having been traced, a complaint was immediately made to the king,
and Dodd was dismissed from his office as chaplain. After residing for
some time at Geneva and Paris, he returned to England in 1776. He still
continued to exercise his clerical functions, but his extravagant habits
soon involved him in difficulties. To meet his creditors he forged a
bond on his former pupil Lord Chesterfield for L4200, and actually
received the money. He was detected, committed to prison, tried at the
Old Bailey, found guilty, and sentenced to death; and, in spite of
numerous applications for mercy, he was executed at Tyburn on the 27th
of June 1777. Samuel Johnson was very zealous in pleading for a pardon,
and a petition from the city of London received 23,000 signatures. Dr
Dodd was a voluminous writer and possessed considerable abilities, with
but little judgment and much vanity. He wrote one or two comedies, and
his _Beauties of Shakespeare_, published in 1752, was long a well-known
work; while his _Thoughts in Prison_, a poem in blank verse, written
between his conviction and execution, naturally attracted much
attention. He published a large number of sermons and other theological