Henry Dodwell

Life
1641-1711; fellow of TCD, resigned as unwilling to take orders, 1666; refused oath of allegiance and was deprived of the post; acc. to Macaulay, he was attained ‘by the popish parliament in Dublin [for the] unpardonable crime of having a small estate in Mayo’; returned to established church, 1701; appt. Camden professor of History at Oxon., 1688-91; his Book of Schism, controverted by Richard Baxter; Annales Thucydideani, for Hudson’s Thucydides; and A Discourse concerning the Time of Phalaris (1704), et al.; his views that rational faith was not of suffieient force to compel our passions seconded by Edmund Burke; bur. at Oxford. RR CAB ODNB OCIL

 

Commentary

Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies, 2 Vol. [of 2] (London & Dublin 1821) - writes:

[...]

Although he still declined communion with the established church, yet he was not willing that the schism should be perpetuated; accordingly he was a warm supporter of the bill for preventing occasional conformity; and in 1705, finding the number of the deprived bishops very much reduced, he wrote "A Case in View considered; in a Discourse, proving that (in case our present invalidly deprived Fathers shall leave all their Sees vacant, either by Death or Emigration) we shall not be obliged to keep up our Separation from those Bishops who are as yet involved in the Guilt of the Present unhappy Schism." In 1707, he vindicated this work, in "A farther Prospect of the Case in View, &c." {107}

In all his previous writings, Mr. Dodwell had been backed by the approbation and support of a strong party; but the palpable absurdity of his next performance, brought upon him almost universal censure. The title of this work which will be sufficient to give a view of its purpose, runs thus, "An epistolary Discourse, proving from the Scripture, and the first Fathers, that the Soul is a Principle, naturally mortal; but immortalised actually, by the pleasure of God, to Punishment or to Reward, by its Union with the divine Baptismal Spirit; wherein is proved, that none have the power of giving this divine immortalising Spirit since the Apostles, but only the Bishops. He prefixed to it a dissertation to prove that Sacerdotal Absolution is necessary for the Remission of Sins, even of those who are truly penitent." These monstrous and abhorrent propositions were warmly attacked by the most celebrated men of the day, and as warmly defended by their bigotted author in several publications, which afford a melancholy prospect of the absurdities into which a man may be led by means of a vast store of acquired learning, unaccompanied by strong natural powers of discrimination.

Mr. Dodwell was, as we have before said, desirous of seeing the breach in the church made up; accordingly, on the death of his friend Dr. Lloyd, which took place on the 1st of Jan. 1710-11, he wrote, in conjunction with some others, to Dr. Kenn [sic], the only surviving deprived bishop, to know, whether he challenged their subjection? His answer was such as to induce Mr. Dodwell to return into the communion; on which he turned round on such of his old friends as still refused to conform, and wrote, "The Case in View, now in Fact, &tc.," in order to induce them to follow his example.

Ryan, op. cit., p.107; see full-text version in RICORSO Library - via index or as attached.

W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP 1976; this ed. 1984), b. Dublin 1641; ed. TCD, Fellow in 1662; resigned in 1666 as being unwilling to take divine orders; became Cambden Professor of History at Oxford from 1688; deprived of chair as refusing oath of allegiance to William and Mary; besides ecclesiastical writings, De Veteris Cyclis (1701 and 1702), and Account of the Lesser Geographers, 3 vols. (1698-1712); also involved in acrimonious dispute with between Boyle and Bentley about the letters of Phalaris; An Invitation to Gentlemen to Acquaint Themselves with Ancient History (1694) was influential, arguing that - as opposed to ancient literature - ancient history was ‘much more fitted for the use of an active than a studious life, and therefore much more useful for Gentlemen than Scholars’. Wrote with ‘a graceful urbanity that must have pleased his readers very persuasively’, says Stanford, rather oddly. [145-45].

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References
Dictionary of National Biography: b. Dublin, parents English extraction; father’s Connaught estate in possession of rebels; family came to England, 1648, and resided at York &c.; TCD, 1656; favourite pupil of Dr John Stearn; refused oath of allegiance; Gibbon, ‘the worst of this author is his method ..; &c., see infra].

Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature [1876-78]: extensive notice and no extracts, b. Dublin where his mother fled in 1641; carried to England in 1648; ed. York; father died of plague in Waterford; mother died of TB in house of her brother, Sir Henry Slingsby; taken in by uncle, Henry Dodwell, rector of Newbourn, Suffolk; a year at school in Dublin, entered TCD in 1656, under Dr Sterne, nephew of Ussher; schol. and fellow, but avoided holy orders, 1666; refused offer of precedent regarding non-DD fellow, offered by Jeremy Taylor; lived in Oxford; returned to Dublin and ed. posthum. treatise of Dr Sterne, with preface (1672); also pref. to Francis de Sale, Introduction to a Devout Life (1673); settled in London, 1674; Camden prof. of history at Oxon, 1688; deprived for refusing to take oath of allegiance to William and Mary; retired to parts of England; retrieved his property in Waterford from unsatisfactory agent; large family; issued Discourse concerning Sanchoniathon (1681); Dissertationes Cyprianicae (1682); Annales Velleiani &c. (1698); De Veteribus Graecorum Romanorum Cyclis &c. (1701); Annals of Thucydides and Xenophon (1702); Chronology of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1704); also wrote 2 exercitations on a dispute between Bentley and Boyle; Discourse on the natural Mortality of the Soul (1706); three pieces in defence of his work, 1707-08; Pamphlet in defence of his returning to Church of England (1711); discourse on use of incense (1711); d. 7 June 1711. Gibbon says, Dodwell’s learning was immense, in this part of history especially [that of the Upper Empire] the most minute fact or passage could not escape him; and his skill in employing them is equal to his learning. The worst of this author is his method and style; the one perplexed beyond imagination, the other negligent to the degree of barbarism.’ [cited in ODNB] Generally travelled on foot and read as he walked. Editor admits being unable to find passage suitable for inclusion due to complexity and abstruousity.

 

Notes
Lord Macaulay: T. E. Webb cites Dodwell is cited as an example of an Irish logician in The Veil of Isis: Essays on Idealism (Longmans 1885), with the remark that Macaulay seems only to have known him as a Camdenian Professor of Ancient History at Oxford, while observing that he was attained by the Catholic parliament in Dublin for holding an estate in Mayo. (Webb, op. cit., p.2, n.)

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