of
Hayley relating to Cowper, and a unique copy of the _Tales of Terror_.
His wide sympathies and scholarly methods made his influence on
criticism both sound and stimulating, and his own ideals are well
described in his essay on "The Interpretation of Literature" in his
_Transcripts and Studies_. As commissioner of education in Ireland
(1896-1901), trustee of the National Library of Ireland, secretary of
the Irish Liberal Union and vice-president of the Irish Unionist
Alliance, he enforced his view that literature should not be divorced
from practical life. He married twice, first (1866) Mary Clerke, and
secondly (1895) Elizabeth Dickinson West, daughter of the dean of St
Patrick's.

DOWDESWELL, WILLIAM (1721-1775), English politician, was a son of
William Dowdeswell of Pull Court, Bushley, Worcestershire, and was
educated at Westminster school, at Christ Church, Oxford, and at the
university of Leiden. He became member of parliament for the family
borough of Tewkesbury in 1747, retaining this seat until 1754, and from
1761 until his death he was one of the representatives of
Worcestershire. Becoming prominent among the Whigs, Dowdeswell was made
chancellor of the exchequer in 1765 under the marquess of Rockingham,
and his short tenure of this position appears to have been a successful
one, he being in Lecky's words "a good financier, but nothing more." To
the general astonishment he refused to abandon his friends and to take
office under Lord Chatham, who succeeded Rockingham in August 1766.
Dowdeswell then led the Rockingham party in the House of Commons, taking
an active part in debate until his death at Nice on the 6th of February
1775. The highly eulogistic epitaph on his monument at Bushley was
written by Edmund Burke.

DOWER (through the Old Fr. _douaire_ from late Lat. _dotarium_,
classical Lat. _dos_, dowry), in law, the life interest of the widow in
a third part of her husband's lands. There were originally five kinds of
dower: (1) at common law; (2) by custom; (3) _ad ostium ecclesiae_, or
at the church porch; (4) _ex assensu patris_; (5) _de la plus belle_.
The last was a conveyance of tenure by knight service, and was abolished
in 1660, by the act which did away with old tenures. Dower _ad ostium
ecclesiae_, by which the bride was dowered at the church porch (where
all marriages used formerly to take place), and dower _ex assensu
patris_, by the father of the bridegroom, though long obsolete