ABSTRACT
Hanway’s description seems to have been perfectly tailored for the Magdalen’s most famous preacher, the Reverend William Dodd. In a poem from 1771, “On hearing Dr. Dodd preach,” Dodd is described as precisely such a zealous and sentimental Christian. Dodd is: “True to his text and faithful to his God,” and while he “moves the passions, mends the heart.”3 He is, moreover, by general consensus, an example of that precarious balance of elegant politeness and sentimental feeling that is so prized by the proponents of moral-sense sentimental ideas. In a review Dodd published of his own work Reections Upon Death, Dodd describes his style as at once “elegant and nervous – neither careless nor yet affected – in short, such a style as we could recommend to the young divines who would desire to instruct without being tedious, and would acquire popularity without meanness.”4 The terms “elegant” and “polite” dominate descriptions both of his life and his preaching.
