DODWELL, Edward (1767-1832), an English antiquarian writer and draughtsman of considerable note in the department of classical investigation. He belonged to the same family as Henry Dodwell the theologian, and received his education at Cambridge. Being under no necessity to adopt a profession as a means of livelihood, he devoted himself entirely to his favourite pursuits, travelled for several years—from 1801 to 1806—in Greece, and spent the rest of his life for the most part in Italy, either at Naples or at Rome. An illness contracted in 1830 during a visit of exploration to the Sabine Mountains, undermined his constitution and ultimately resulted in his death, which took place at Rome in May 1832. His widow, a daughter of Count Giraud, was thirty years his junior, and after his death became famous as the “beautiful” countess of Spaur, and played a considerable rôle in the political life of the Papal city.
His works are— A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece, 2 vols., London, 1819, of which a German translation by Sickler was published at Meiningen in 1821; Views in Greece, consisting of thirty toloured plates, London, 1821; and Views and Descriptions of Cyclopian and Pelasgic Remains in Italy and Greece, London 1834. The last work, which contains 130 plates, was brought out simultaneously at Paris with a French text....
DODWELL, Henry (1641-1711), a learned controversial writer, was born at Dublin in October 1641. His father had once been possessed of considerable property in Connaught, but having lost it at the rebellion settled at York in 1648. Here Henry received his preliminary education at the free school. By the death of his parents he was reduced in early life to the greatest poverty. In 1654 he was sent by his uncle to Trinity College, Dublin, of which he was soon afterwards chosen scholar and fellow. Having conscientious objections to take orders he relinquished his fellowship in 1666, and resided for some time at Oxford, Dublin, and London successively. In 1688 he was elected Camden professor of history at Oxford; but in 1691 he was deprived of his professorship for refusing to take the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary. Retiring to Shottesbrooke in Berkshire, and living on the produce of a small estate in Ireland, which he had at first generously relinquished in favour of a near relation, he devoted himself to those literary labours m chronology and ecclesiastical polity on which his fame now rests. In the former department he published— Discourse on the Phenician History of Sanchoniathon (1681); Annales Thucydidei et Xenophontei (1696); Chronologia Groeco- Romana pro Hgpothesibus Dion. Halicarnassei (1692); Annales Velleiani, Quintiliani, Statiani (1698); and a larger treatise entitled De Veteribus Groecorum Romanor-umque Cyclis, obiter que de Cyclo Judoeorum ac Aetate Christi, Dissertationes (1701). All these obtained considerable reputation, and were frequently reprinted. Gibbon speaks of his learning as “immense,” and says that his “skill in employing facts is equal to his learning.” In the department of ecclesiastical polity his works are more numerous and of much less value, his judgment being far inferior to his power of research. In his earlier writings he was regarded as one of the greatest champions of the non-jurors; but the absurd doctrine which he afterwards promulgated, that immortality could be enjoyed only by those who had received baptism from the hands of one set of regularly ordained clergy, and was therefore a privilege from which dissenters were hopelessly excluded, justly deprived him of the confidence even of his friends. It is interesting, however, in view of the recent revival of the same doctrine, to know that he published in 1706 a treatise professing to prove from Scripture and the first fathers that the soul is naturally mortal. Dodwell died at Shottesbrooke, 7th June 1711. His eldest son Henry is known as the author of a pamphlet entitled Chnstianity not founded on Argument, to which a reply was published by his brother William, who was besides engaged in a controversy with Dr Conyers Middleton on the subject of miracles.
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