checks the eager ardour of his pen, and reminds himself of
its repose, in Latin, Italian, and English.

----Non vi, sed saepe cadendo.
Assai presto si fa quel che si fa bene.

Some respite best recovers what we need,
Discreetly baiting gives the journey speed.

There was a thoughtless kindness in honest Oldys; and his simplicity of
character, as I have observed, was practised on by the artful or the
ungenerous. We regret to find the following entry concerning the famous
collector, James West:--

I gave above threescore letters of Dr. Davenant to his son, who was
envoy at Frankfort in 1703 to 1708, to Mr. James West,[351] with one
hundred and fifty more, about Christmas, 1746: but the same fate they
found as grain that is sown in barren ground.

Such is the plaintive record by which Oldys relieved himself of a groan!
We may smile at the simplicity of the following narrative, where poor
Oldys received manuscripts in lieu of money:--

Old Counsellor Fane, of Colchester, who, _in forma pauperis_,
deceived me of a good sum of money which he owed me, and not long
after set up his chariot, gave me a parcel of manuscripts, and
promised me others, which he never gave me, nor anything else,
besides a barrel of oysters, and a manuscript copy of Randolph's
poems, an original, as he said, with many additions, being devolved
to him as the author's relation.

There was no end to his aids and contributions to every author or
bookseller who applied to him; yet he had reason to complain of both
while they were using his invaluable but not valued knowledge. Here is
one of these diurnal entries:--

I lent the tragical lives and deaths of the famous pirates, Ward and
Dansiker, 4to, London, 1612, by Robt. Daborn, alias Dabourne, to Mr.
T. Lediard, when he was writing his Naval History, and he never
returned it. See Howell's Letters of them.

In another, when his friend T. Hayward was collecting, for his "British
Muse," the most exquisite commonplaces of our old English dramatists, a
compilation which must not be confounded with ordinary ones, Oldys not
only assisted in the labour, but drew up a curious introduction with a
knowledge and love of the subject which none but himself possessed. But
so little were these researches then understood, that we find Oldys, in
a moment of vexatious recollection, and in a corner of one of the
margins of his Langbaine, accidentally preserving