what singular: he
had a number of small parchment bags, inscribed with the names of
the persons whose lives he intended to write; into these bags he put
every circumstance and anecdote he could collect, and from thence
drew up his history."

[348] At the Bodleian Library, I learnt by a letter with which I am
favoured by the Rev. Dr. Bliss, that there is an interleaved
"Gildon's Lives and Characters of the Dramatic Poets," with
corrections, which once belonged to Coxeter, who appears to have
intended a new edition. Whether Coxeter transcribed into his Gildon
the notes of Oldys's _first_ "Langbaine," is worth inquiry.
Coxeter's conduct, though he had purchased Oldys's first
"Langbaine," was that of an ungenerous miser, who will quarrel with
a brother rather than share in any acquisition he can get into his
own hands. To Coxeter we also owe much; he suggested Dodsley's
Collection of Old Plays, and the first tolerable edition of
Massinger.

Oldys could not have been employed in Lord Oxford's library, as Mr.
Chalmers conjectures, about 1726; for here he mentions that he was
in _Yorkshire_ from 1724 to 1730. This period is a remarkable blank
in Oldys's life. My learned friend, the Rev. Joseph Hunter, has
supplied me with a note in the copy of Fuller in the Malone
collection preserved at the Bodleian. Those years were passed
apparently in the household of the first Earl of Malton, who built
Wentworth House. There all the collections of the antiquary
Gascoigne, with "seven great chests of manuscripts," some as ancient
as the time of the Conquest, were condemned in one solemn sacrifice
to Vulcan; the ruthless earl being impenetrable to the prayers and
remonstrances of our votary to English History. Oldys left the earl
with little satisfaction, as appears by some severe strictures from
his gentle pen.

[349] This copy was lent by Dr. Birch to the late Bishop of Dromore,
who with his own hand carefully transcribed the notes into an
interleaved copy of "Langbaine," divided into four volumes, which,
as I am informed, narrowly escaped the flames, and was injured by
the water, at a fire at Northumberland House. His lordship, when he
went to Ireland, left this copy with Mr. Nichols, for the use of the
projected editions of the _Tatler_, the _Spectator_, and the
_Guardian_, with notes an