Rev. James Dodds of Dunbar. They have much of the form of the lays of Macaulay and Aytoun, fine flowing rhythm, and fearless military ring; what is peculiar to them is their intense sympathy with the pious loyalty of the covenanters.
The covenanters were the subject, too, of his first prose volume. It was his habit to deliver lectures here and there on subjects that greatly interested him. Usually these were given in Scottish towns, but occasionally to metropolitan audiences; one of his lectures, in which he combined prose and poetry, lays and lecture, being delivered to an enthusiastic London assemblage of three thousand persons. The covenanters were his favourite topic, and the lectures bearing on them were composed with scrupulous care. When they came to be published, under the characteristic title, ‘The Fifty Years' Struggle of the Covenanters, 1638–1688,’ renewed pains were taken to make sure of accuracy. The book has been very popular, and has passed through several editions. It was his intention to give lectures of the same kind on the Scottish reformation, but of these only two were written. The graphic power and great natural eloquence of Dodds, and his way of throwing his soul into the delivery, gave him great popularity and power as a lecturer. A lecture on Dr. Chalmers, for whom he had an intense admiration, developed into a volume of great interest and power—‘Thomas Chalmers, a Biographical Study.’ Dodds died very suddenly at Dundee on 12 Sept. 1874.
[Memoir of James Dodds (140 pp.), prefixed to his Lays of the Covenanters, by the Rev. James Dodds, Dunbar; Scotsman, September 1874.]
DODDS, JAMES (1812–1885), religious and general writer, was born at Annan in Dumfriesshire in 1812, and educated at the university of Edinburgh, where he obtained the highest distinction in the class of Professor Wilson (‘Christopher North’). Studying for the ministry in the established church, he was first appointed to the parish of Humbie in East Lothian, but in 1843, joining the Free church, was called to Dunbar, where he remained to the close of his life. As a Dumfriesshire man he early became acquainted with Thomas Carlyle, and had much correspondence with him. Dodds was of literary habits, and when other engagements permitted made much use of his pen. ‘Famous Men of Dumfriesshire’ consists of sketches of honourable names in the annals of his native country, marked by the strong local sympathies of one born and brought up on its soil. ‘The Lily of Lammermoor’ is a story of disruption times, and ‘A Century of Scottish Church History’ is a sketch of the religious history of Scotland from the first secession to the disruption in 1843. He was the author of a brief biographical sketch of his friend, Dr. Patrick Fairbairn, principal of the Free Church College in Glasgow, and author of the ‘Typology of Scripture,’ ‘Coast Missions, a Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Rosie,’ 1862, and other well-known theological works. He wrote also the memoir of his cousin, James Dodds [q. v.], prefixed to his posthumous volume ‘Lays of the Covenanters,’ which he edited and annotated. He was a frequent contributor to various periodicals, the ‘Christian Treasury,’ ‘Sunday at Home,’ ‘Leisure Hour,’ &c. Though neither original nor brilliant, he was a sensible and useful writer, and personally he was held in great esteem by those among whom he lived. He died in 1885.
[Haddingtonshire Advertiser, 11 Sept. 1885; Scott's Fasti; personal acquaintance.]
DODGSON, GEORGE HAYDOCK (1811–1880), water-colour painter, was born at Liverpool, 16 Aug. 1811. After receiving the usual middle-class education he was apprenticed to George Stephenson, the celebrated engineer, who employed him in surveying and drawing up specifications. Among other work he prepared the plans for the Whitby and Pickering railway. In 1836 appeared ‘Illustrations of the Scenery on the Line of the Whitby and Pickering Railway,’ from drawings made by him, and engraved by J. T. Willmore, Challis, Stephenson, and others. Before long his health gave way, and he gratified his youthful ambition by abandoning the desk for the easel. Removing to London about 1835, he turned to account his architectural knowledge in making picturesque drawings for several eminent architects. One of these, a ‘Tribute to the Memory of Sir Christopher Wren,’ being a group of Wren's principal works arranged by Charles Robert Cockerell, R.A., was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1838, and afterwards engraved. He also made drawings on wood for the ‘Illustrated London News’ and other publications. His love for the beauties of nature, however, led him by degrees to devote his whole attention to landscape-painting, and in 1842 he was elected an associate of the New Society of Painters in Water-colours, of which he became a full member in 1844; but this position he resigned in 1847, in order that he might be eligible for the older Society of Painters in Water-colours, of which he was elected an associate in 1848, and a full member in 1852. He was never out of England, and returned again and again to paint at Whitby and Richmond in Yorkshire; Gower Swansea, and the Mumbles in South Wales,
