epiphytic plants forming the genus Cuscuta and natural order Cuscutacece or, according to seme botanists, the tribe Cuscuteae of the Convolvulaceae. All the species are natives of temperate regions, and all have strong acrid properties. The flowers, which grow in clusters, have a quinque-partite, coloured calyx ; scales alternating with the corolline lobes ; carpels forming a syncarpous ovary; the albumen of the seeds fleshy ; and the embryo spiral, filiform, and acotyledonous. On coming in contact with the living stem of some other plant the seedling dodder throws out a sucker, by which it attaches itself and commences to absorb the sap of its foster-parent ; it then soon ceases to have any connection with the ground. As it grows, it throws out fresh suckers, establishing itself firmly on its victim. After making a few turns round one stem the dodder finds its way to another, and thus it continues twining and branching till it resembles "fine, closely-tangled, wet catgut." The injury done to flax, clover, hop, and bean crops by species of dodder is often very great. C. europcea, the Greater Dodder, is found parasitic on nettles, thistles, vetches, and the hop ; C. Epilimim, on flax ; G. Epithijmum, on furze, ling, and thyme. C. Trifolii, the Clover Dodder, is perhaps a sub-species of the last-mentioned. For a figure of C.
verrucosa, the Warty Dodder, see vol. iv. pl. x.DODDRIDGE, Philip (1702–1751), a celebrated nonconformist divine, was born in 1702. His father, Daniel Doddridge, was a London merchant, and his mother the orphan daughter of the Rev. John Bauman, a Bohemian clergyman who had fled to England to escape religious persecution, and had held for some time the mastership of the grammar school at Kingston-upon-Thames. He was the youngest of a family of twenty, of whom there was at his birth only one other child, a daughter, surviving. It is also remarkable that he himself at his birth was put aside as actually dead, and was only preserved alive owing to the accidental glance of one of the attendants, who fancied she perceived a feeble heaving of the infant s chest, and was successful in rekindling the almost extinguished vital spark. Before he could read, his mother taught him the history-of the Old and New Testament by the assistance of some blue Dutch tiles ; and these stories, he says, were the means of enforcing such good impressions on his heart as never afterwards wore out. When sufficiently old to leave the paternal roof he was placed under the tuition of the Rev. Mr Scott, who taught a private school in London, and on attaining his tenth year he was sent to the grammar school at Kingston-upon-Thames. About 1715 he was removed to a private school at St Albans, where he began to keep an exact account of his time in order the better to improve himself by private meditation and study, and was in the habit during his walks of entering the neighbouring cottages to read to the inmates a few pages from the Bible or from some religious book. Through the interest of friends a proposal was made to him, in 1719, which would have enabled him to enter the English bar ; but receiving at the same time an invitation to study for the ministry, he preferred the latter, and shortly thereafter removed to the academy for dissenters at Kibworth in Leicestershire, taught at that time by the Rev. John Jennings. Mr Jennings having in 1722 received an invitation to Hinckley, the academy was removed thither; and in 1723 Doddridge, having finished his studies, accepted an invitation to succeed him in the ministry at Kibworth. He had also been mentioned by Jennings, who died in 1723, as the person most fitted to extend his plans and views as an instructor of candidates for the ministry, but it was not till 1729 that, at a general meeting of nonconformist ministers, he was chosen to conduct the academy established in that year at Harborough. In the same year he received an invitation from the congregation at Northampton, which he accepted. Here he continued his ministrations till 1751, when the rapid progress of con sumptive disease caused him to seek the advantages of a milder climate. Accordingly he sailed for Lisbon on the 30th September of that year; but the change was unavailing, and he died there on 26th October.
His popularity as a preacher is said to have been chiefly due to his " high susceptibility, joined with physical advantages and perfect sincerity." His sermons were mostly practical in character, and his great aim was to cul tivate in his hearers a spiritual and devotional frame of mind. " He endeavoured," he says, "to write on the com mon general principles of Christianity, and not in the narrow spirit of any particular party." " There is," says his biographer, " a remarkable delicacy and caution evinced in the works of Dr Doddridge whenever the subject approaches the disputed points of theology. The genuine expressions of the sacred writers are then employed, and the reader is allowed to draw his own conclusions, unbiassed by the prejudices of human authorities." Those portions of his theological lectures which treat on the matter alluded to, substantiate this statement. His principal works are The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, The Family Expositor, Life of Colonel Gardiner, and a Course of Meta physical, Ethical, and Theological Lectures. He also pub lished several courses of sermons on particular topics, and is the author of many well-known hymns.
DÖDERLEIN, Johann Christoph Wilhelm Ludwig (1791–1863), a distinguished German philologist, was born at Jena on the 19th December 1791. His father, Johann Christoph Döderlein, professor of theology at Jena, was celebrated for his varied learning, for his eloquence as a preacher, and for the important influence he exerted in guiding the transition movement from strict orthodoxy to a freer theology. Ludwig Döderlein, after receiving his preliminary education at Windsheim and Schulpforta, studied at Munich, Heidelberg, Erlangen, and Berlin. He devoted his chief attention to philology under the instruc tion of such men as Thiersch, Creuzer, Voss, Wolf, Boeckh, and Buttmann. In 1815, soon after completing his studies at Berlin, he accepted the appointment of ordinary professor of philology in the academy of Bern. In 1819 he was transferred to Erlangen, where he became second professor of philology in the university and rector of the gymnasium. In 1827 he became first professor of philology and rhetoric and director of the philological seminary. He continued to discharge the duties of both these offices until within a short period of his death, which occurred on the 9th November 1863. Döderlein's most valuable work as a philologist was rendered in the department of etymology and lexicography. He is best known by his Lateinische Synony- men und Etymologien (6 vols., Leipsic, 1826–38), and his Homerische Glossarium (3 vols., Erlangen, 1850–58). To the same class belong his Lateinische Wortbildung (Leipsic, 1838), Handbuch der Lateinischen Synonymik (Leipsic, 1839), and the Handbuch der Lateinischen Etymologic (Leipsic, 1841), besides various works of a more elementary kind intended for the use of schools and gymnasia. Most of the works named have been translated into English. To critical philology Doderlein contributed valuable editions of Tacitus (Opera, 1847; Germania, with a German transla tion) and Horace (Epistolce, with a German translation, 1856-8; Satirce, 1860). His Reden und Aufsatztn (Erlangen, 1843-7) and Oe/entliche Reden (1860) consist chiefly of academic addresses dealing with various subjects in pedagogy and philology.
