, and the fate
of a volume which forms the groundwork of the most curious information
concerning our elder poets, and to which we must still frequently refer.

In this variety of literary arrangements, which we must consider as
single works in a progressive state, or as portions of one great work on
our modern literary history, it may, perhaps, be justly suspected that
Oldys, in the delight of perpetual acquisition, impeded the happier
labour of unity of design and completeness of purpose. He was not a
Tiraboschi--nor even a Niceron! He was sometimes chilled by neglect,
and by "vanity and vexation of spirit," else we should not now have to
count over a barren list of manuscript works; masses of literary
history, of which the existence is even doubtful.

In Kippis's Biographia Britannica we find frequent references to O. M.,
Oldys's Manuscripts. Mr. John Taylor, the son of the friend and executor
of Oldys, has greatly obliged me with all his recollections of this man
of letters; whose pursuits, however, were in no manner analogous to his,
and whom he could only have known in youth. By him I learn, that on the
death of Oldys, Dr. Kippis, editor of the Biographia Britannica, looked
over these manuscripts at Mr. Taylor's house. He had been directed to
this discovery by the late Bishop of Dromore, whose active zeal was very
remarkable in every enterprise to enlarge our literary history. Kippis
was one who, in some degree, might have estimated their literary value;
but, employed by commercial men, and negotiating with persons who
neither comprehended their nature, nor affixed any value to them, the
editor of the Biographia found Oldys's manuscripts an easy purchase for
his employer, the late Mr. Cadell; and the twenty guineas, perhaps,
served to bury their writer! Mr. Taylor says--"The manuscripts of Oldys
were not so many as might be expected from so indefatigable a writer.
They consisted chiefly of short extracts from books, and minutes of
dates, and were _thought worth purchasing_ by the doctor. I remember the
manuscripts well; though Oldys was not the author, but rather recorder."
Such is the statement and the opinion of a writer whose effusions are of
a gayer sort. But the researches of Oldys must not be estimated by this
standard; with him a single line was the result of many a day of
research, and a leaf of scattered hints would supply more _original
knowledge_ than some octavos fashioned out by the hasty gilders and