varnishers of modern literature. These _discoveries_ occupy small space
to the eye; but large works are composed out of them. This very lot of
Oldys's manuscripts was, indeed, so considerable in the judgment of
Kippis, that he has described them as "_a large and useful body of
biographical materials, left by Mr. Oldys_." Were these the
"Biographical Institutes" Oldys refers to among his manuscripts? "The
late Mr. Malone," continues Mr. Taylor, "told me that he had seen _all
Oldys's manuscripts_; so I presume they are in the hands of Cadell and
Davies." Have they met with the fate of sucked oranges?--and how much of
Malone may we owe to Oldys?

This information enabled me to trace the manuscripts of Oldys to Dr.
Kippis; but it cast me among the booksellers, who do not value
manuscripts which no one can print. I discovered, by the late Mr.
Davies, that the direction of that hapless work in our literary history,
with its whole treasure of manuscripts, had been consigned by Mr. Cadell
to the late George Robinson, and that the successor of Dr. Kippis had
been the late Dr. George Gregory. Again I repeat, the history of
voluminous works is a melancholy office; every one concerned with them
no longer can be found! The esteemed relict of Dr. Gregory, with a
friendly promptitude, gratified my anxious inquiries, and informed me,
that "she perfectly recollects a mass of papers, such as I described,
being returned, on the death of Dr. Gregory, to the house of Wilkie and
Robinson, in the early part of the year 1809." I applied to this house,
who, after some time, referred me to Mr. John Robinson, the
representative of his late father, and with whom all the papers of the
former partnership were deposited. But Mr. John Robinson has terminated
my inquiries, by his civility in promising to comply with them, and his
pertinacity in not doing so. He may have injured his own interest in not
trading with my curiosity.[350] It was fortunate for the nation that
George Vertue's mass of manuscripts escaped the fate of Oldys's; had the
possessor proved as indolent, Horace Walpole would not have been the
writer of his most valuable work, and we should have lost the "Anecdotes
of Painting," of which Vertue had collected the materials.

Of a life consumed in such literary activity we should have known more
had the _Diaries_ of Oldys escaped destruction. "One habit of my
father's old friend, William Oldys," says Mr. Taylor, "was that of
keeping a dia