small patrimony, and afterwards became an attendant on lord Oxford's library, of which, after Wanley's death, in 1726, it may be conjectured, he had the principal care, During this period he produced his most valuable works; and, while in this situation, had every opportunity of gratifying his passion for ancient and curious books. On the death of lord Oxford, in 1741, his valuable library fell into the hands of Osborne the bookseller, who dispersed it by a catalogue, in the formation of which Mr. Oldys was employed, as he was also in the selection made from the pamphlets, in a work in eight volumes 4to, entitled "The Harleian Miscellany." In compiling the catalogue, it is supposed he proceeded only to the end of the second volume. Dr. Johnson was afterwards employed.

His circumstances through life seem to have been at the best times moderate, and often approaching to necessitous. At one period, which, sir John Hawkins says, was while he was employed on Osborne's catalogue, he was confined in the Fleet-prison, and acquired such a liking for the company he found there, that to the end of his life, he used to spend his evenings in a house within the rules, with persons who, though confined within a certain district, were exempted from actual imprisonment. The only post he ever held was that of Norroy king of arms, given him by the duke of Norfolk, in return for the pleasure he had received from his Life of sir Walter Raleigh, which is undoubtedly his best biographical work. The chief part of his subsistence was derived from the booksellers, by whom he appears to have been constantly employed. He seems to have had but little classical learning, and his style is very uncouth, but his knowledge of English books has hardly been exceeded.

Captain Grose, who was acquainted with him, says he was a man of great good-nature, honour, and integrity, particularly in his character of an historian. "Nothing," adds he, "I firmly believe, would ever have biassed him to insert any fact in his writings he did not believe, or to suppress any he did. Of this delicacy he gave an instance. at a time when he was in great distress. After his publication of the Life of sir Walter Raleigh, some booksellers, thinking his name would sell a piece they were publishing, offered him a considerable sum to father it, which he rejected with the greatest indignation."

From the same authority we learn, that Mr. Oldys, in the latter part of his life, abandoned himself to drinking, and was almost continually in a state of intoxication. At the funeral of the princess Caroline he was in such a situation as to be scarcely able to walk, and actually reeled about with a crown on a cushion, to the great scandal of his brethren *. He is said also to have been much addicted to low company.

His excesses, however, seem not to have shortened his life, though they might render his old age unrespected: he died April 15, 1761, at the age of sixty-five, and was buried the 19th following in the North aisle of the church of St. Bennet, Paul's-wharf, towards the upper end of the aisle. He left no will; and the property he possessed was barely sufficient to defray his debts and funeral expences: administration therefore was claimed by, and granted to, a creditor, Dr. Taylor the oculist, to whose family he was under obligations for acts of kindness to him beyond the loan of the money for which he was indebted.

Of the writings of Mr. Oldys, some of which were anonymous, the following account is probably very imperfect: 1. In the British Museum is Oldys's copy of "Langbaine's Lives," &c. not interleaved, but filled with notes written in the margin, and between the lines, in an extremely small hand. It came to the Museum as a part of the library of Dr. Birch, who bought it at an auction of Oldys's books and papers for one guinea. Transcripts of this have been made by various literary gentlemen. 2. Mr. Gough, in the first volume of his "British Topography," p. 567, tells us, that he had "been favoured, by George Steevens, esq. with the use of a thick folio of titles of books and pamphlets relative to London, and occasionally to Westminster and Middlesex, from 1521 to 1758, collected by the late Mr. Oldys, with many others added, as it seems, in another hand. Among them," he adds, " are many purely historical, and many of too low a kind to rank under the head of topography or history. The rest, which are very numerous, I have inserted, marked O, with corrections, &c. of those I had myself collected. Mr. Steevens purchased this MS. of T. Davies, who bought Mr. Oldys's library. It had been in the hands of Dr. Berkenhout, who had a

This story is doubted by Mr. Noble, who says that the crown, on such

funeral occasions, is always carried by Clarenceux, not Norroy.

design of publishing an English Topographer, and may possibly bave inserted the articles in a different hand. It afterwards became the property of sir John Hawkins." 3. "The British Librarian, exhibiting a compendious Review of all unpublished and valuable books, in all sciences," which was printed without his name, in 1737, 8vo, and after having been long neglected and sold at a low price, is now valued as a work of such accuracy and utility deserves. 4. A "Life of sir Walter Raleigh," prefixed to his "History of the World," in folio. 5. "Introduction to Hayward's British Muse (1738);" of which he says, "that the penurious publishers, to contract it within a sheet, left out a third part of the best matter in it, and made more faults than were in the original." In this he was assisted by Dr. Campbell. 6. "His Observations on the Cure of William Taylor, the blind boy at Ightham, in Kent, by John Taylor, jun. oculist, 1753," 8vo. The title of the pamphlet here alluded to was, "Observations on the Cure of William Taylor, the blind Boy, of Ightham, in Kent, who, being born with cataracts in both eyes, was at eight years of age brought to sight on the 8th of October, 1751, by Mr. John Taylor, jun. oculist, in Hattongarden; containing his strange notions of objects upon the first enjoyment of his new sense; also, some attestations thereof; in a letter written by his father, Mr. William Taylor, farmer, in the same parish: interspersed with several curious examples, and remarks, historical and philosophical, thereupon. Dedicated to Dr. Monsey, physician to the Royal hospital at Chelsea. Also, some address to the public, for a contribution towards the foundation of an hospital for the blind, already begun by some noble personages," 8vo. 7. Various lives in the " 7. Various lives in the "Biographia Britannica," with the signature G, the initial letter of Gray'sInn, where he formerly lived. He mentions, in his notes on Langbaine, his life of sir George Etherege, of Caxton, of Thomas May, and of Edward Alleyn, inserted in that work. He composed the "Life of Atherton ;" which, if it ever deserved to have had a place in that work, ought not to have been removed from it any more than the "Life of Eugene Aram," which is inserted in the second edition. That the publishers of the second edition meant uo indignity to Oldys, by their leaving out his "Life of Atherton," appears from their having transcribed into their work a much superior quantity of his writings, consisting of notes VOL. XXIII.

1

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and extracts from printed books, styled "Oldys's MSS." Of these papers no other account is given than that "they are a large and useful body of biographical materials;" but we may infer, from the known industry and narrow circumstances of the writer, that, if they had been in any degree prepared for public consideration, they would not have so long lain dormant. 8. At the importunity of Curll, he gave him a sketch of the life of Nell Gwin, to help out his "History of the Stage." 9. He was concerned with Des Maizeaux in writing the "Life of Mr. Richard Carew," the antiquary of Cornwall, in 1722. 10. "Observations, Historical and Critical, on the Catalogue of English Lives." Whether this was ever printed we know not. 11. "Tables of the eminent persons celebrated by English Poets." This he seems to quote in a manuscript note on Langbaine, but it does not appear to have been printed. 12. He mentions, ibidem, the first volume of his "Poetical Characteristics," on which we may make the same remark. If these two works continued in MS. during his life-time, it is probable that they were not finished for publication, or that no bookseller would buy them. 13. Oldys seems to have been concerned likewise as a writer in the "General Dictionary," for he mentions his having been the author of "The Life of sir John Talbot," in that work; and in Birch's MSS. is a receipt from him for 11. 5s. for writing the article of Fastolf. 14. He mentions likewise, in his notes on Langbaine, that he was the author of a pamphlet against Toland, called "No blind Guides." 15. He says, ibidem, that he communicated many things to Mrs. Cooper, which she published in her "Muse's Library." 16. In 1746 was published, in 12mo, "Health's Improvement; or, Rules comprising the nature, method, and manner, of preparing foods used in this nation. Written by that ever famous Thomas Moffett, doctor in physic; corrected and enlarged by Christopher Bennet, doctor in physic, and fellow of the College of Physicians in London. To which is now prefixed, a short View of the Author's Life and Writings, by Mr. Oldys; and an Introduction by R. James, M. D." 17. In the first volume of British Topography," page 31, mention is made of a translation of " Camden's Britannia,' in 2 vols. 4to, "by W. O. esq." which Mr. Gough, with great probability, ascribes to Mr. Oldys. 18. Among the MSS. in the British Museum, described in Mr. Ayscough's Catalogue, we find p. 24, "Some Considerations upon the

publication of sir. Thomas Roe's Epistolary Collections, supposed to be written by Mr. Oldys, and by him tendered to Sam. Boroughs, esq. with proposals, and some notes of Dr. Birch." 19. In p. 736, "Memoirs of the family of Oldys *" 20. In p. 741, "Two small pocket books of short Biographical Anecdotes of many Persons," and "some Fragments of Poetry," perhaps collected by Mr. Oldys? 21. In p. 750, and p. 780, are two MS letters "of Mr. Oldys," 1735 and 1751. 22. It is said, in a MS paper, by Dr. Ducarel, who knew him well, that Oldys had by him, at the time of his death, some collections towards a "Life of Shakspeare †," but not digested into any order, as he told the doctor a few days before he died. 23. On the same authority he is said to be a writer in, or the writer of, "The Scarborough Miscellany," 1732, and 1734. 24. "The Universal Spectator," of which he was some time the publisher, was a newspaper, a weekly journal, said, on the top of the paper, which appeared originally in single sheets, to be " by Henry Stonecastle, in Northumberland," 1730-1732. It was afterwards collected into two volumes 8vo; to which a third and fourth were added in 1747. In one of his MSS. we find the following wellturned anagram:

W. O.

In word and WILL I AM a friend to you,

And one friend OLD IS worth an hundred new.'

OLEARIUS (ADAM), a learned traveller, whose German name was OELSCHLAGER, was born in 1599, or 1600, at Aschersleben, a small town in the principality of Anhalt. His parents were very poor, and scarcely able to maintain him, yet by some means he was enabled to enter as a student at Leipsic, where he took his degrees in arts and philosophy, but never was a professor, as some biographers

* These memoirs are among the 'Birch MSS. No. 4240, and contain an account of the family, drawn up by W. Oldys himself. As they are too long for our limits, and will not bear an abridgment, we refer our readers to the MS. itself in the British Museum. Alexander Oldys, called "The Little Poet," and sometimes "The English Scarron," appears by this MS. to have been a relation of our Oldys.

+ It appears, from the edition of Shakspeare, 1778, vol. I. p. 223, that Mr. Steevens had seen these papers; as that gent eman quotes from them, with a compliment to Mr. Oldys's "veracity," the first stanza of a "satirical ballad" by Shakspeare, on his old friend sir Thomas Lucy, the magistrate, who punished him for deerstealing.

1 European Mag.-Gent. Mag. LIV. and LV; see Indexes.-Coote's Cata⚫gue of Civilians.-Noble's College of Arms.-Grose's “ Olio."