a Layman," 1709, 1710, 3 vols. 8vo. This is the work to which Pope makes Lintot the bookseller allude, in their pleasant dialogue on a journey to Oxford, and which perhaps may also convey one of Pope's delicate sneers at Oldisworth's poetry *. He also published a translation of "The Accomplished Senator," from the Latin of Gozliski, bishop of Posnia, 1733, 4to. In the preface to this work he defends his own character as a writer for the prerogative and the ministry, and boldly asserts his independence, while he admits that he wrote under the earl of Oxford. He insinuates that some things have been published under his name, in which he had no hand, and probably the above-mentioned "State and Miscellany Poems" were of that number. His attachment to the Stuart family occasioned a report that he was killed at the battle of Preston in 1715; but it is certain that he survived this engagement many years, and died Sept. 15, 1734.1

OLDMIXON (JOHN), ridiculed in the Tatler by the name of Mr. Omicron, "the Unborn Poet," descended from an ancient family of the name, originally seated at Oldmixon, near Bridgewater, in Somersetshire, and was born in 1673. Where he was educated is not known. He appears to have been early a writer for the stage; his first production was "Amyntas," a pastoral, and his second, in 1700, an opera, neither of much merit or success. He soon, however, became a violent party-writer, and a severe and malevolent critic. In the former light he was a strong opponent of the Stuart family, whom he has, on every occasion, endeavoured to vilify without any regard to that impartiality, which ought ever to be the essential characteristic of an historian. As a critic he was perpetually attacking, with evident tokens of envy and malevolence, his several contemporaries; particularly Addison, Eusden, and Pope. The last of these, however, whom he had attacked in different letters which he wrote in "The Flying Post," and repeatedly reflected on in his "Prose essays on Criticism," and in his "Art of Logic and Rhetoric," written in imitation of Bouhours, has introduced him into his "Dunciad," with some very distinguishing marks of eminence among the devotees of dulness. In the second book of that severe poem, where the dunces are

"I'll say that for Oldisworth (though I lost by his Timothys) he translates an ode of Horace the quickest of any

man in the kingdom." Bowles's edition of Pope, vol. VII. p. 372.

1 Nichols's Bowyer.

contending for the prize of dulness, by diving in the mud of Fleet-ditch, he represents our author as mounting the sides of a lighter, in order to enable him to take a more efficacious plunge. Oldmixon's malevolence of abuse entitled him to the above-mentioned honour; and, to the disgrace of the statesmen of that time, his zeal as a virulent party-writer procured him the place of collector of the customs at the port of Bridgewater, but he died at his house in Great Pulteney-street, aged sixty-nine, July 9, 1742. He left a daughter, who died in 1789, at Newland in Gloucestershire, aged eighty-four. Another of his daughters sung at Hickford's rooms in 1746. He lies buried in Ealing church.

Mr. Oldmixon, though rigid to others, is far from unblameable himseif, in the very particulars concerning which he is so free in his accusations, and that sometimes even without the least regard to truth; one remarkable instance of this kind was his infamous attempt to charge three eminent persons with interpolation in Lord Clarendon's "History." This, however, was fully and satisfactorily disproved by bp. Atterbury, the only survivor of them; and the pretended interpolation, after a space of almost ninety years, was produced in his lordship's own hand-writing. Yet, notwithstanding Oldmixon's indignation against this pretended crime, it is a fact that when employed by bishop Kennet in publishing the historians in his "Collection," he made no scruple to pervert "Daniel's Chronicle" in numberless places, which renders Kennet's first edition of little value. His principal works were, the "History of the Stuarts," folio, and "the Critical History of England;" besides which he wrote, 1. "Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to the Earl of Oxford about the English Language,' 1712, 8vo. 2. "A volume of Poems," 1714. 3. "The Life of Arthur Maynwaring, esq." whose "Posthumous Works" were collected by Mr. Oldmixon in 1715, and whom he had considerably assisted in "The Medley." 4. "The Life of Queen Anne." 5. "A Review of Dr. Grey's Defence of our ancient and modern Historians." He wrote also a tragedy, an opera, and two pastorals; and his name is to one of Curll's infamous publications, called "Court tales, or a History of the Amours of the present Nobility," of which a second edition was published in 1731.1

1 Cibber's Lives.-Biog. Dram.-Swift and Pope's Works; see Indexes.Lysons's Environs, vol. II.

OLDYS (WILLIAM), a bibliographer of great industry and accuracy, was born July 14, 1696. He was the natural son of Dr. William Oldys, chancellor of Lincoln, commissary of St. Catharine's, official of St. Alban's, and advocate of the Admiralty, by a woman who was maintained by her keeper in a very penurious and private manner, and whose son, it is probable, had but little assistance in his education from parents so circumstanced.

This Dr. Oldys, who was connected with Dryden and others in a translation of Plutarch's lives, to which he contributed the life of Pompey, was advocate of the Admiralty to James II. and served king William in the same department, though he was not fully convinced of the validity of that prince's claim to the crown. When he was ordered, in 1693, to prosecute those seamen as pirates who had attacked the English ships by virtue of a commission from James, he refused to obey; alleging, when he was examined by a committee of the privy council, that they were not traitors or pirates, that they had only acted animo hostili, not animo furandi; that, though James was supposed in England to have abdicated the throne, his authority was still believed to be legitimate by those who had followed him in his exile, as well as by the people of that country from which the commissions had issued; and that, even if his pretensions were false, a reputed power was equivalent to a real one, according to an established maxim communis error facit jus. Sir John Trenchard, the secretary of state, declared, that these reasons amounted to high treason; but Dr. Oldys would not retract his opinion, in which sir Thomas Pynfold readily concurred. The doctors Littleton and Tindal, on the contrary, maintained that James had no right to grant such commissions, and that all who acted under them were pirates. Oldys was now deprived of his office, which was given to Littleton, and some of the prisoners were condemned and executed. Though not a favourite at court, Dr. Oldys continued to practice as an advocate with great reputation and success, until his death in 1708. As a scholar, he was respectable; as a civilian, he was learned; as a pleader, eloquent and judicious.

Of the early part of his son's life little is known, except that he lost his parents soon, and, probably, was left to make his way in life unassisted by every thing but his own talents. Captain Grose says he soon squandered away a

;

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 hinr 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 Q, 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.