Sir John, was born in 1773, and was educated at the grammar-school of Salisbury, under Dr Skinner. Having made considerable proficiency at that institution, he entered Christ Church, Oxford, in 1790, where he studied divinity; but subsequently preferring the law, he commenced the study of it, and took the degree of D.C.L. in 1801. In 1796 and 1798 he had engaged in a joint translation of the Fiesco and Don Carlos of Schiller with Dr Noehden. Taking, at the outset, a favourable view of the French Revolution, he had published in 1797 a translation of a French work on the Executive Directory of France. In 1801 he wrote Remarks on Local Scenery and Manners in Scotland, during the years 1799 and 1800, 2 vols. 4to. Stoddart having entered the College of Advocates, was appointed in 1803 King's Advocate and Admiralty Advocate in Malta, where he remained for the next four years. In 1810 he commenced writing on politics in The Times newspaper, which in 1812 led to his appointment as political editor of the same journal. With much energy, great knowledge, a clear style, and a great deal of bluster, he wrote such vigorous and often absurd articles in "the great Thunderer," as led to his being burlesqued and caricatured by the wits of London as the great Dr Slop of Printing-House Square. The proprietors of The Times disapproving, it is said, of the rancour of his fulminations against the exiled Emperor N. Buonaparte, dissolved his connection with that newspaper in 1816. In 1817 he made an attempt to revive his decadent political glory by the publication of the New Times. The English people did not regard his fire and fury, and allowed it quietly to burn itself out. In 1826 he was made a knight, and was appointed Chief-Justice and Judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court of Malta, where he remained during the next thirteen years. On his return to England he went into retirement, where he is said to have been much and widely esteemed. He wrote *An Introduction to General History*, and a *Universal Grammar* for the *Encyclopedia Metropolitana*, which have also appeared as separate works. Besides writing political pamphlets on various subjects of popular note, he took a lively interest in the amendment of law; and at the first meeting of the Law Amendment Society after his death, which occurred on February 16, 1856, Lord Brougham pronounced a eulogium on his memory.