ce
it was never published, because it might hurt his interest with Lord
Chesterfield, and some other noblemen who favoured Mr. Pope for his
fine genius. The tract I liked best of his writings was the history
of his playhouse in Goodman's Fields. (Remember that which was
published against that playhouse, which I have entered in my London
Catalogue. Letter to Sir Ric. Brocas, Lord Mayor, &c., 8vo, 1730.)
Saw nothing of the history of his conversations with ingenious men;
his characters, tales, jests, and intrigues of them, of which no man
was better furnished with them. She thinks she has some papers of
these, and promises to look them out, and also to inquire after Mr.
Griffin, of the Lord Chamberlain's office, that I may get a search
made about _Spenser_.
So intent was Oldys on these literary researches that we see, by the
last words of this entry, how in hunting after one sort of game, his
undivided zeal kept his eye on another. One of his favourite subjects
was the realising of original discoveries respecting Spenser and
Shakspeare; of whom, perhaps, to our shame, as it is to our vexation, it
may be said that two of our master-poets are those of whom we know the
least! Oldys once flattered himself that he should be able to have given
the world a Life of Shakspeare. Mr. John Taylor informs me, that "Oldys
had contracted to supply ten years of the life of Shakspeare _unknown to
the biographers_, with one Walker, a bookseller in the Strand; and as
Oldys did not live to fulfil the engagement, my father was obliged to
return to Walker twenty guineas which he had advanced on the work."
_That interesting narrative is now hopeless for us._ Yet, by the solemn
contract into which Oldys had entered, and from his strict integrity, it
might induce one to suspect that he had made positive discoveries which
are now irrecoverable.
We may observe the manner of his anxious inquiries about _Spenser_:--
Ask Sir Peter Thompson if it were improper to try if Lord Effingham
Howard would procure the pedigrees in the Herald's office, to be seen
for Edmund Spenser's parentage or family? or how he was related to
Sir John Spenser of Althorpe, in Northamptonshire? to three of whose
daughters, who all married nobility, Spenser dedicates three of his
poems.
Of Mr. Vertue, to examine Stowe's memorandum-book. Look more
carefully for the year when Spenser's monument was raised, or be
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