[1] Ill-health prevented Dalton from accompanying Lord Beauchamp on travels through Europe, which ended in his death at Bologna in 1744.
Through the Duke of Somerset's influence he was appointed canon of the fifth stall in Worcester Cathedral in 1748, and about the same time obtained the rectory of St. Mary-at-Hill in the City of London.
Horace Walpole asserted in correspondence that both Henrietta Knight, Lady Luxborough and her friend Frances Seymour, then countess of Hertford, had had affairs with Dalton.
The Arne-Dalton Comus kept its place on the stage for many years, and in 1750 Dalton saw it was performed as a benefit for Elizabeth Foster, a granddaughter of Milton, supported by Samuel Johnson and David Garrick among others.
The sixth impression bore the date of 1741; it was often reissued until 1777, and was included in Bell's British Theatre, and other collections.
It was republished in Two Epistles, the first to a Young Nobleman from his Preceptor, written in the year 1735–6; the second to the Countess of Hartford at Percy Lodge, 1744, London 1745.
Dalton's verses on "Keswick's hanging woods and mountains wild" were praised in Thomas Sanderson's Poems (Carlisle, 1800), pp.