Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Dodwell, Edward" to "Drama" Volume 8, Slice 6

DODWELL, HENRY (1641-1711), scholar, theologian and controversial writer, was born at Dublin in October, 1641. His father, having lost his property in Connaught during the rebellion, settled at York in 1648. Here Henry received his preliminary education at the free school. In 1654 he was sent by his uncle to Trinity College, Dublin, of which he subsequently became scholar and fellow. Having conscientious objections to taking orders he relinquished his fellowship in 1666, but in 1688 he was elected Camden professor of history at Oxford. In 1691 he was deprived of his professorship for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary. Retiring to Shottesbrooke in Berkshire, and living on the produce of a small estate in Ireland, he devoted himself to the study of chronology and ecclesiastical polity. Gibbon speaks of his learning as "immense," and says that his "skill in employing facts is equal to his learning," although he severely criticizes his method and style. Dodwell's works on ecclesiastical polity are more numerous and of much less value than those on chronology, 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 doctrine which he afterwards promulgated, that the soul is naturally mortal, and 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, did not strengthen his reputation. Dodwell died at Shottesbrooke on the 7th of June 1711. His chief works on classical chronology are: A Discourse concerning Sanchoniathon's Phoenician History (1681); Annales Thucydidei et Xenophontei (1702); Chronologia Graeco-Romana pro hypothesibus Dion. Halicarnassei (1692); Annales Velleiani, Quintilianei, Statiani (1698); and a larger treatise entitled De veteribus Graecorum Romanorumque Cyclis (1701).

His eldest son Henry (d. 1784) is known as the author of a pamphlet entitled Christianity not founded on Argument, to which a reply was published by his brother William (1709-1785), who was besides engaged in a controversy with Dr Conyers Middleton on the subject of miracles.

See The Works of H. D. ... abridg'd with an account of his life, by F. Brokesby (2nd ed., 1723) and Thomas Hearne's Diaries.

DOG, the English generic term for the quadruped of the domesticated variety of Canis (Fr. chien). The etymology of the word is unknown; "hound" represents the common Teutonic term (Ger. Hund), and it is suggested that the "English dog"--for this was a regular phrase in continental European countries--represented a special breed. Most canine experts believe that the dog is descended from the wolf, although zoologists are less certain (see CARNIVORA); the osteology of one does not differ materially from that of the other: the dog and the wolf breed with each other, and the progeny thus obtained will again breed with the dog. There is one circumstance, however, which seems to mark a difference between the two animals: the eye of the dog of every country and species has a circular pupil, but the position or form of the pupil is oblique in the wolf. W. Youatt says there is also a marked difference in the temper and habits of the two. The dog is generally easily managed, and although H. C. Brooke of Welling, Kent, succeeded in making a wolf fairly tractable, the experience of others has been the reverse of encouraging. G. Cuvier gives an interesting account of a young wolf which, having been trained to follow his master, showed affection and submission scarcely inferior to the domesticated dog. During the absence from home of his owner the wolf was sent to a menagerie, but pined for his master and would scarcely take any food for a considerable time. At length, however, he became attached to his keepers and appeared to have forgotten his former associate. At the end of eighteen months his master returned, and, the moment his voice was heard, the wolf recognized him and lavished on him the most affectionate caresses. A still longer separation followed, but the wolf again remembered his old associate and showed great affection upon his return. Such an association proves that there is very little difference between the dog and the wolf in recognition of man as an object of affection and veneration. H. C. Brooke succeeded in training his wolf so well that it was no uncommon sight to see the latter following his master like a dog. The wolf did not like strangers, however, and was very shy in their presence.

In the Old and New Testaments the dog is spoken of almost with abhorrence; it ranked amongst the unclean beasts: traffic in it was considered as an abomination, and it was forbidden to be offered in the sanctuary in the discharge of any vow. Part of the Jewish ritual was the preservation of the Israelites from the idolatry which at that time prevailed among every other people. Dogs were held in considerable veneration by the Egyptians, from whose tyranny the Israelites had just escaped; figures of them appeared on the friezes of most of the temples, and they were regarded as emblems of the divine being. Herodotus, speaking of the sanctity in which some animals were held by the Egyptians, says that the people of every family in which a dog died shaved themselves--their expression of mourning--adding that this was a custom of his own time.

The cause of this attachment to and veneration for the dog is, however, explained in a far more probable and pleasing way than by many of the fables of ancient mythology. The prosperity of Lower Egypt, and almost the very subsistence of its inhabitants, depended upon the annual overflowing of the Nile; and they looked for it with the utmost anxiety. Its approach was announced by the appearance of a certain star, Sirius, and as soon as that star was seen above the horizon the people hastened to remove their flocks to the higher ground and abandoned the lower pastures to the fertilizing influence of the stream. They hailed it as their guard and protector; and, associating with its apparent watchfulness the well-known fidelity of the dog, they called it the "dog-star" and worshipped it. It was in far later periods and in other countries that the appearance of the dog-star was regarded as the signal of insufferable heat or prevalent disease. In Ethiopia, not only was great veneration paid to the dog, but the inhabitants used to elect a dog as their king. It was kept in great state, and surrounded by a numerous train of officers and guards: when it fawned upon them it was supposed to be pleased with their proceedings; when it growled, it disapproved of the manner in which their government was conducted. Such indications of will were implicitly obeyed, or were translated by the worshippers as their own caprice or interest indicated.

Even 1000 years after this period, the dog was highly esteemed in Egypt for its sagacity and other excellent qualities; for when Pythagoras, after his return from Egypt, founded a new sect in Greece, and at Croton in southern Italy, he taught, with the Egyptian philosophers, that at the death of the body the soul entered into that of various animals. After the death of any of his favourite disciples he would hold a dog to the mouth of the man in order to receive the departing spirit, saying that there was no animal which could perpetuate his virtues better than that quadruped. It was in order to preserve the Israelites from errors and follies of this kind, and to prevent the possibility of such idolatry being established, that the dog was afterwards regarded with utter abhorrence amongst the Jews, and this feeling prevailed during the continuance of the Israelites in Palestine.

Plate I. TYPICAL NON-SPORTING DOGS. (From Photos by Bowden Bros.)

BOSTON TERRIER.]

Plate II. TYPICAL SPORTING DOGS. (From Photos by Bowden Bros.)

The Hindus also regard the dog as unclean, and submit to various purifications if they accidentally come in contact with it, believing that every dog is animated by a wicked and malignant spirit condemned to do penance in that form for crimes committed in a previous state of existence. In every Mahommedan and Hindu country the most scurrilous epithet bestowed on a European or a Christian is "a dog," and that accounts for the fact that in the whole of the Jewish history there is not a single allusion to hunting with dogs. Mention is made of nets and snares, but the dog does not seem to have been used in the pursuit of game.

In the early periods of the history of other countries this seems to have been the case even where the dog was esteemed and valued, and had become the companion, the friend and the defender of man and his home; and in the 2nd century of the Christian era Arrian wrote that "there is as much difference between a fair trial of speed in a good run, and ensnaring a poor animal without an effort, as between the secret piratical assaults of robbers at sea and the victorious naval engagements of the Athenians at Artemisium and at Salamis." The first hint of the employment of the dog in the pursuit of other animals is given by Oppian in his Cynegetica, who attributes it to Pollux about 200 years after the promulgation of the Levitical law. The precise species of dog that was cultivated in Greece at that early period cannot be affirmed, although a beautiful piece of sculpture in the possession of Lord Feversham at Duncombe Hall, representing the favourite dog of Alcibiades, differs but little from the Newfoundland dog of the present day. In the British Museum is another piece of early sculpture from the ruins of the villa of Antoninus, near Rome. The greyhound puppies which it represents are identical with a brace of saplings of the present day. In the early periods of their history the Greeks depended too much on their nets to capture game, and it was not until later times that they pursued their prey with dogs, and then not with greyhounds, which run by sight, but with beagles, the dwarf hound which is still very popular. Later, mention is made of large and ferocious dogs which were employed to guard sheep and cattle, or to watch at the door of the house, or even to act as a companion, and G. Cuvier expresses the opinion that the dog exhibits the most complete and the most useful conquest that man has made. Each individual is entirely devoted to his master, adopts his manners, distinguishes and defends his property, and remains attached to him even unto death; and all this springs not from mere necessity nor from constraint, but simply from gratitude and true friendship.

The swiftness, the strength and the highly developed power of scent in the dog, have made it a powerful ally of man against the other animals; and perhaps these qualities in the dog were necessary to the establishment of society. Instances of dogs having saved the lives of their owners by that strange intuition of approaching danger which they appear to possess, or by their protection, are innumerable: their attachment to man has inspired the poet and formed the subject of many notable books, while in Daniel's Rural Sports is related a story of a dog dying in the fulness of joy caused by the return of his master after a two years' absence from home.