As it was his first, so he thought it would be his last, serious venture into literature, for in his preface he says: "Better and more important things henceforth demand my attention, and I here, with no small pleasure, take leave of Shakespeare and the critics: as this work was begun and finish'd before I enter'd upon the sacred function in which I am now happily employ'd."
Dodd had already been ordained deacon and settled down as a curate in West Ham in Essex, where he did not spare himself in the dull round of parochial drudgery. So passed two years which, looking back on them from within the portals of Newgate Prison, he declared to have been the happiest of his life. But he soon tired of the country, his yearning for city life was not to be resisted, and securing a lectureship at St. Olave's, Hart Street, he returned to London and relapsed into literature.
A loose novel, "The Sisters," is credited to him. Whether he wrote it or not is a question, but he may well have done so, for some of its pages seem to have inspired his sermons. Under cover of being a warning to the youth of both sexes, he deals with London life in a manner which would have put the author of "Peregrine Pickle" to shame; but as nobody's virtue was over-nice, nobody seemed to think it particularly strange that a clergyman should have written such a book. In many respects he reminds us of his more gifted rival, Laurence Sterne.
Dodd's great chance came in 1758, when a certain Mr. Hingley and some of his friends got together three thousand pounds and established an asylum for Magdalens, presumably penitent. The scheme was got under way after the usual difficulties; and as, in the City, the best way to arouse public interest is by a dinner, so in the West End a sermon may be made to serve the same purpose. Sterne had talked a hundred and sixty pounds out of the pockets of his hearers for the recently established Foundling Hospital; Dodd, when selected to preach the inaugural sermon at Magdalen House, got ten times as much. Who had the greater talent? Dodd was content that the question should be put. The charity became immensely popular. "Her Majesty" subscribed three hundred pounds, and the cream of England's nobility, feeling a personal interest in such an institution, and perhaps a personal responsibility for the urgent need of it, made large contributions. The success of the venture was assured.