PREFACE.

THE following "Story" is not put forward as a biography of Doctor Dodd-who, for many good reasons, would be wholly unworthy of regular biographical treatment-but as a picture of a certain phase of life and manners towards the end of the last century. The reader will have before him a character very familiar to those days—a leading actor in the wild society of the time-the wellknown figure of what was called the Macaroni Clergyman. The semi-barbarism of judicial procedure, and the horrible, but dramatic, incidents which then attended the final process of the law, all deserve study and illustration, and could in no way be so conveniently illustrated as by the singular and almost romantic history of "the unfortunate Doctor Dodd." It may be added, also, that the subject was long ago pointed to, in a Quarterly Review of high authority, as worthy of being seriously taken up; and

that Doctor Doran, in one of his "Pictures," has drawn a very faithful portrait of this unlucky divine.

Not to crowd the page with foot-notes and references, I may mention that nearly everything that is known about Dodd will be found in the following authorities in Boswell; Wraxall; the Life of Romaine; Life of Horne; Toplady's Memoirs; Archenholtz's Travels; Selwyn's Memoirs; Angelo's Memoirs; Walpole's Diary and Letters; Thicknesse's Memoirs ; Hawkins's Johnson; the contemporary Newspapers; the Town and Country Magazine, 1773 (the magazine which, found in the window of an old inn, so delighted Charles Lamb with its Tête-à-têtes); the Magazines and Newspapers of 1777; Villette's Account; the published Trial; Taylor's Recollections; Croft's Love and Madness; together with many passages and allusions up and down, through such reading as Garrick's Letters and Nichol's valuable Anecdotes.

This little Memoir has also profited by the kindness of my friend Mr. John Forster, who has allowed me to use his most curious collection of newspaper "cuttings," pamphlets, and engravings; all relating to this "unfortunate divine." It seems to have been made by some contemporary admirer, and includes almost every scrap of published town gossip that could bear on the subject.

January, 1865.

P. F.