PHILIP, D.D.,** an eminent Dissenting minister, was the son of an oliman in London, and born there 26th June 1702. At his birth, according to his biographer Orton, "he was thrown aside as dead;" and in his feeble childhood his parents, who were exceedingly pious, took great pains in his instruction. He was left an orphan at the age of thirteen; and after having completed his classical studies at various schools, he was placed by Dr Clarke of St Albans under the tuition of the Rev. John Jennings, who kept an academy at Kibworth, Leicestershire, for the education of Dissenting ministers. Previous to this he had hesitated greatly in regard to his course in life. Some of his friends pressed him to study law; and the Duchess of Bedford, hearing of his inclination for the ministry, offered to defray the expenses of his education and provide him a living in connection with the Church of England. Both of these offers, however, he declined on conscientious grounds. On the removal of his tutor to Hinckley, Doddridge began to preach to the vacant congregation; and on the death of Jennings in 1723, he succeeded to the charge of the academy, which he at first opened at Market-Harborough. Having been soon afterwards chosen minister of a large congregation of Dissenters at Northampton, he removed his academy to that place, where he continued to preside over it for twenty years. Here he was especially known as a preacher for the earnestness with which he sought to elevate the spiritual tone of his communion, and to urge the practical realities of the Christian life. His prelections were attended by students from all quarters of the kingdom, and were remarkable for the facility with which he brought the results of an extensive course of various reading to bear on almost every topic of divinity. He received the degree of D.D. from the university of Aberdeen. In 1751 his health began to break down amid the incessant labours of the pulpit and the academy. On the 30th September he embarked for Lisbon, where he died the 13th October 1751. His remains were interred in the burying-ground belonging to the British factory at Lisbon, and a handsome monument was erected to his memory in the meeting-house at Northampton.

As a writer Dr Doddridge was exceedingly voluminous. The works on which his fame principally rests are his *Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul,* and his *Family Expositor.* Among his minor works, his *Treatise on Regeneration,* *Sermons on the Education of Children,* and the *Life of Colonel Gardiner,* are best known. His *Theological Lectures* were published after his death by Dr Kippis; and among his collected hymns are some of the finest now in use among the Dissenters. Biographies of Doddridge have appeared from the pens of Jacob Orton and Dr Kippis. The best delineation of his character will be found in his *Private Life and Correspondence,* collected in five vols. 8vo, by one of his descendants. His works have been collected and edited by Williams in 10 vols. 8vo.

**DODECAGON,** in *Geometry,* a regular polygon consisting of twelve equal sides and angles.

**DODECAHEDRON,** in *Geometry,* one of the platonic bodies, or regular solids, contained under twelve equal and regular pentagons.

**DODO,** an extinct bird, one of the largest, or rather the largest of the feathered race, but so unwieldy and helpless as to be captured without the least difficulty. It is said to have been found in Madagascar when that island was first visited by the Dutch, but is now an extinct species. It is described as having had only four or five short black feathers in the place of wings, a small tuft of curly feathers for a tail, short-unwebbed toes, and a bill of very large size. The foot of a dodo is preserved in the British Museum, and the head exists in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The beak resembles that of the ank, and the foot has a resemblance to that of the penguin, though not palmated.

**DODONA,** the seat of one of the most celebrated of the ancient oracles, was a Pelasgic town of Epirus in the north of Greece. Though the oracle of this town was the oldest and one of the most sacred of antiquity, ranking indeed with those of Delphi and Ammon, no vestige either of the city of Dodona or of the temple of Jupiter has been discovered in modern times. Even the district of Epirus in which the town was situated has become matter of discussion. By some it is believed to have been in Thesprotia, by others in Molossia. It is not impossible that, as the town was somewhere on the boundary line of these two divisions, it may have been included at one time in Molossia, at another in Thesprotia. The antiquity of the Dodonian oracle was very great. Its name occurs frequently in the Homeric poems, where it is said that the service of the temple was performed by the "Selli—men with unwashed feet, sleeping on the ground." The actual abode of the deity, however, was not at first a temple, but the stem of a great oak-tree, the wide-spreading branches of which when shaken by the wind were believed to be giving voice to the mystic utterances of the inhabitant within. From this circumstance the oak-grove of Dodona was feigned by some of the ancient poets to be endowed with the power of speech. By others it was said that the responses were delivered by the doves that nestled in the branches. Hence the constant allusions in the classics to the "Chaoniae aves." In later times it was maintained that the oracular Peleias, or Peleiadics, were not doves, but priestesses, to whom Jupiter sent a message by the doves to devote their lives to the service of his temple at Dodona.

With the rise of Delphi, the general repute of Dodona began to decline, though its local celebrity remained unimpaired. The final destruction of the oracle is attributed to the Ætolians, who near the end of the third century B.C. ravaged Epirus and levelled the temple of Jupiter with the ground. So complete was the destruction of the place, that not a fragment of house or temple now remains that can with certainty be identified as belonging to the ancient Dodona. Colonel Leake has endeavoured to fix the site of the old oracle at the modern Kastritsa, but his arguments are far from being conclusive.