Thomas Dogget [sic], / an author of some merit, but more eminent as an actor, was born in Castle-street, Dublin, towards the close of the seventeenth century, and made his first theatrical attempt on the stage of that metropolis; but not meeting with the encouragement to which his merit was entitled, he quitted Dublin, and came over to England, where he entered himself in a travelling company, and from thenoe was very soon removed to London, when he procured an engagement in Drury-lane and Lincoln’s-Inn-fields Theatres, where he was universally admired in every character he performed; but shone in none more conspicuously than those of Fondlewife, in the Old Batchelor; and Ben, in Love for Love; which Congreve, with whom he {109} was a very great favourite, wrote in some measure with a view to his manner of acting.

In a few years after, he removed to Drury-lane theatre, where he became joint-manager with Wilks and Cibber, which situation he continued, till, on a disgust he took in the year 1712, at Mr. Booth s being forced on him as a sharer in the management, he threw up his share in the property of the theatre, though it was calculated to have been worth 1000Z. per annum. By his frugality, however, he had accumulated sufficient to render him comfortable for the remainder of his life, with which he retired from the fatigue of his profession in the very meridian of his reputation. As an actor he had great merit; and his contemporary, Cibber, informs us, that he was the most original, and the strictest observer of nature of any actor of his time. His manner, though borrowed from none, frequently served for a model to many; and he possessed that peculiar art of arriving at the perfectly ridiculous, without stepping into the least impropriety to obtain it. And so extremely careful and skilful was he in the dressing of his character to the greatest exactness of propriety, that the least article of what he wore, seemed in some degree to speak and mark the different humour he represented. “This”, says Wilks, ”I have heard confirmed by one who performed with Dogget, and that he likewise could, with uncommon exactness, paint his face so as to represent the age of seventy, eighty, and ninety, distinctly, which occasioned Sir Godfrey Kneller to tell him one day at Button’s, that he excelled him in painting, for that he (Sir Godfrey) could only copy nature from the originals before him; but that Dogget could vary them at pleasure, and yet keep a close likeness.[”] “This great actor,” says the facetious Tom Davis, “was perhaps the only one who confined himself to such characters as nature seemed to have made him for. No temptation could induce him to step out of his own circle, and from this circumstance he never appeared to the audience with any diminution of his general excellence.” In his temper he was a true {110} humorist; and in his political principles he was, in the words of Sir Richard Steele, “a Whig, up to the head and ears:”; and so firmly was he attached to the interests of the House of Hanover, that he never let pass any opportunity that offered itself, of demonstrating his sentiments on that head. One instance among others is well known. The year after George the First came to the throne, this performer gave a waterman’s coat and silver badge, to be rowed for by six watermen, on the first day of August, being the anniversary of that king s accession to the throne; and at his death, (which occurred at Eltham, in Kent, September 22, 1721,) bequeathed a certain sum of money, the interest of which was to be appropriated annually for ever, to the purchase of a similar coat and badge, to be rowed for in honour of the day. This ceremony still continues to be performed every year on the first of August. The competitors, according to the rules of the match, starting on a given signal at that time of the tide when the current is strongest against them, and rowing from the Old Swan near London Bridge, to the White Swan at Chelsea.

As a writer, Dogget has left behind him only one comedy, which has not been performed in its original state for many years, entitled, “The Country Wake”, 4to. 1696. It has, however, been altered into a ballad farce, which frequently makes its appearance under the title of “Flora; or, Hob in the Well.”

Dogget lies buried in the church-yard of the place where he died.