Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/191

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Doggett
185
Dogmael

Bellchambers's ‘Notes to Cibber's Apology,’ he died, and was buried at Eltham. Doggett was a strong Hanoverian. On 1 Aug. 1716 appeared a notice: ‘This being the day of his majesty's happy accession to the throne, there will be given by Mr. Doggett an orange colour livery with a badge representing liberty, to be rowed for by six watermen that are out of their time within the year past. They are to row from London Bridge to Chelsea. It will be continued annually on the same day for ever.’ The custom is still maintained, the management of the funds left by Doggett being in the disposition of the Fishmongers' Company. Colley Cibber bears a handsome tribute to Doggett's merits as an actor, stating that ‘he was the most an original and the strictest observer of nature of all his contemporaries. He borrowed from none of them, his manner was his own; he was a pattern to others whose greatest merit was that they had sometimes tolerably imitated him. In dressing a character to the greatest exactness he was remarkably skilful. … He could be extremely ridiculous without stepping into the least impropriety to make him so’ (Apology, ed. Bellchambers, 422–3). Cibber speaks of the great admiration of Congreve for Doggett. In private affairs Doggett is said to have been ‘a prudent, honest man’ (p. 323), and obstinate in standing upon his rights. A story is told of his resisting successfully an attempted act of oppression on the part of the lord chamberlain. Tony Aston, in his ‘Supplement to Colley Cibber,’ pp. 14, 15, tells of an attempt of Doggett to play Phorbas in ‘Œdipus,’ which was interrupted by laughter, and closed his progress in tragedy. He calls him ‘a lively, spract man, of very good sense, but illiterate.’ Steele in a letter tells him, ‘I have always looked upon you as the best of comedians.’ Numerous references to Doggett are found in the ‘Tatler’ and the ‘Spectator.’ Doggett's one comedy, ‘The Country Wake,’ 4to, 1690, is a clever piece, the authorship of which, on no good authority, has been assigned to Cibber. It was reduced by Cibber into a ballad farce, entitled ‘Flora, or Hob in the Well,’ which was played so late as 1823.

According to George Daniel (Merrie England, ii. 18), the only portrait known is a small print representing him dancing the Cheshire Round, with the motto ‘Ne sutor ultra crepidam.’ This print Daniel reproduces. A memoir appears in Webb's ‘Compendium of Irish Biography,’ Dublin, 1878, p. 153. A portrait of Doggett is in the reading-room of the Garrick Club. It shows him with a fat face and small twinkling eye, but is of dubious authority.

[Books cited; Genest's Account of the English Stage; Biographia Dramatica; Doran's Their Majesties' Servants; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. v. 237, vii. 409, 471, 6th ser. ii. 269, x. 349, 437, xi. 319. ]

J. K.

DOGHERTY. [See also Docharty and Dougharty.]

DOGHERTY, THOMAS (d. 1805), legal writer, was an Irishman of humble origin, educated at a country school, who removed to England, and became clerk to Mr. Foster Bower, an eminent pleader. After passing upwards of sixteen years in this capacity, studying law industriously, and making from his master's manuscripts, and those of Sir Joseph Yates and Sir Thomas Davenport, vast collections of precedents and notes, he, on Bower's advice, became a member of Gray's Inn and special pleader about 1785. For some years he held the office of clerk of indictments on the Chester circuit. He wore himself out with hard work, and died at his chambers in Clifford's Inn 29 Sept. 1805, leaving a large family ill provided for. He wrote, in 1787, the ‘Crown Circuit Assistant,’ in 1790 and 1799 edited the sixth and seventh editions of the ‘Crown Circuit Companion,’ and in 1800 brought out an edition of Hale's ‘Pleas of the Crown.’

[Law List; Gent. Mag. 1805.]

J. A. H.

DOGMAEL, also called DOGVAEL, Saint (6th cent.), was an early Welsh saint. Of his life and date no authentic particulars are recorded, though the numerous churches dedicated to and reputed to be founded by him are ample evidence of the fact of his existence. He is said in the ‘Achau y Saint’ to have been the son of Ithael, the son of Ceredig, the son of Cunedda, the famous legendary Gwledig. He was the founder, as was said, of St. Dogmael's in Cemmes, opposite Cardigan, on the left bank of the lower Teivi; but the Benedictine priory at that place was the foundation of Martin of Tours, the Norman conqueror of Cemmes, in the earlier half of the twelfth century. This does not prevent an early Celtic foundation from having been on the same spot. The other churches connected with Dogmael's name are St. Dogwel's in Pebidiog, Monachlogddu, and Melinau, all, like the more famous foundation, in the modern Pembrokeshire, which may therefore be regarded as the region of the saint's life and chief cultus. He is said to have been also the patron saint of Llanddogwel in Anglesey. His festival is on 14 June.

[R. Rees's Welsh Saints, p. 211; Achau y Saint in W. J. Rees's Lives of Cambro-British Saints, p. 265; Acta Sanctorum (June), iii. 436 (Paris, 1867); Dugdale's Monasticon, iv. 128–132, ed. Caley, Ellis, and Bandinel.]

T. F. T.