The book
has come to light since his time, having been discovered among the
important collections bequeathed by Dr. William Hunter to the University
of Glasgow; it was published by Mr. W. J. Thoms about the year 1862 in
_Notes and Queries_, and was afterwards printed by him in a volume
containing a diary and other 'choice notes' by Oldys and an interesting
memoir of his life. 'In his own departments of learning,' says Mr. Thoms,
'Oldys exhausted all the ordinary sources of information,' and adds that
'his copious and characteristic accounts of men and books have endeared
his memory to every lover of English literature.'
Oldys had some special advantages as a collector of old English poetry.
He knew, as no one else at that time knew, the value of the plays and
pamphlets that encumbered the stalls; he had no competitor to fear 'clad
in the invulnerable mail of the purse.' Oldys was born in 1696; he became
involved, while quite a young man, in the disaster of the South Sea
Bubble; and in 1724 he was obliged to leave London for a residence of
some years in Yorkshire. Among the books that he abandoned was the first
of his annotated copies of _Langbaine_, which he found afterwards in the
hands of a miserly fellow, begrudging him even a sight of the notes.
'When I returned,' he writes, 'I understood that my books had been
dispersed; and afterwards, becoming acquainted with Mr. Thomas Coxeter, I
found that he had bought my _Langbaine_ of a bookseller who was a great
collector of plays and poetical books.
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