Volume Iii Part 45 (1/2)
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 Northamptons.h.i.+re? to three of whose daughters, who all married n.o.bility, 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 between which years the entry stands--1623 and 1626.
Sir Clement Cottrell's book about Spenser.
Captain Power, to know if he has heard from Capt. Spenser about my letter of inquiries relating to Edward Spenser.
Of Whiston, to examine if my remarks on Spenser are complete as to the press--Yes.
Remember, when I see Mr. W. Thompson, to inquire whether he has printed in any of his works any other character of our old poets than those of Spenser and Shakspeare;[353] and to get the liberty of a visit at Kentish Town, to see his _Collection of Robert Greene's Works_, in about _four large volumes quarto_. He commonly published a pamphlet every term, as his acquaintance Tom Nash informs us.
Two or three other memorials may excite a smile at his peculiar habits of study, and unceasing vigilance to draw from original sources of information.
_Dryden's Dream_, at Lord Exeter's, at Burleigh, while he was translating Virgil, as Signior Verrio, then painting there, related it to the Yorks.h.i.+re painter, of whom I had it, lies in _the parchment book in quarto_, designed for his life.
At a subsequent period Oldys inserts, ”Now entered therein.” Malone quotes this very memorandum, which he discovered in _Oldys's Langbaine_, to show Dryden had some confidence in Oneirocriticism, and supposed that future events were sometimes prognosticated by dreams. Malone adds, ”Where either the _loose_ prophetic _leaf_ or the _parchment book_ now is, I know not.”[354]
Unquestionably we have incurred a great loss in Oldys's collections for Dryden's Life, which are very extensive; such a ma.s.s of literary history cannot have perished unless by accident; and I suspect that many of _Oldys's ma.n.u.scripts_ are in the possession of individuals who are not acquainted with his hand-writing, which may be easily verified.
To search the old papers in one of my large deal boxes for Dryden's letter of thanks to my father, for some communication relating to Plutarch, while they and others were publis.h.i.+ng a translation of Plutarch's Lives, in five volumes 8vo. 1683. It is copied in _the yellow book for Dryden's Life_, in which there are about 150 transcriptions, in prose and verse, relating to the life, character, and writings of Dryden.--Is England's Remembrancer extracted out of my _obit._ (obituary) into my remarks on him in the _poetical bag_?
My extracts in the _parchment budget_ about Denham's seat and family in Surrey.
My _white vellum pocket-book_, bordered with gold, for the extract from ”Groans of Great Britain” about Butler.
See my account of the great yews in Tankersley's park, while Sir R.
Fanshaw was prisoner in the lodge there; especially Talbot's yew, which a man on horseback might turn about in, in my _botanical budget_.
This Donald Lupton I have mentioned in my _catalogue_ of all the books and pamphlets relative to London in folio, begun anno 1740, and in which I have now, 1740, entered between 300 and 400 articles, besides remarks, &c. Now, in June, 1748, between 400 and 500 articles. Now, in October, 1750, six hundred and thirty-six.[355]
There remains to be told an anecdote which shows that Pope greatly regarded our literary antiquary. ”Oldys,” says my friend, ”was one of the librarians of the Earl of Oxford, and he used to tell a story of the credit which he obtained as a scholar, by setting Pope right in a Latin quotation which he made at the earl's table. He did not, however, as I remember, boast of having been admitted as a guest at the table, but as happening to be in the room.” Why might not Oldys, however, have been seated, at least below the salt? It would do no honour to either party to suppose that Oldys stood among the menials. The truth is, there appears to have existed a confidential intercourse between Pope and Oldys; of this I shall give a remarkable proof. In those fragments of Oldys, preserved as ”additional anecdotes of Shakspeare,” in Steevens's and Malone's editions, Oldys mentions a story of Davenant, which, he adds, ”Mr. Pope told me at the Earl of Oxford's table!” And further relates a conversation which pa.s.sed between them. Nor is this all; for in Oldys's Langbaine he put down this memorandum in the article of _Shakspeare_--”Remember what I observed to my Lord Oxford for Mr. Pope's use out of Cowley's preface.” Malone appears to have discovered this observation of Cowley's, which is curious enough, and very ungrateful to that commentator's ideas: it is ”to prune and lop away the old withered branches” in the new editions of Shakspeare and other ancient poets!
”Pope adopted,” says Malone, ”this very unwarrantable idea; Oldys was the person who suggested to Pope the singular course he pursued in his edition of Shakspeare.” Without touching on the felicity or the danger of this new system of republis.h.i.+ng Shakspeare, one may say that if many pa.s.sages were struck out, Shakspeare would not be injured, for many of them were never composed by that great bard! There not only existed a literary intimacy between Oldys and Pope, but our poet adopting his suggestions on so important an occasion, evinces how highly he esteemed his judgment; and unquestionably Pope had often been delighted by Oldys with the history of his predecessors, and the curiosities of English poetry.
I have now introduced the reader to Oldys sitting amidst his ”poetical bags,” his ”parchment biographical budgets,” his ”catalogues,” and his ”diaries,” often venting a solitary groan, or active in some fresh inquiry. Such is the _Silhouette_ of this prodigy of literary curiosity!
The very existence of Oldys's ma.n.u.scripts continues to be of an ambiguous nature; referred to, quoted, and transcribed, we can but seldom turn to the originals. These ma.s.ses of curious knowledge, dispersed or lost, have enriched an after-race, who have often picked up the spoil and claimed the victory, but it was Oldys who had fought the battle!
Oldys affords one more example how life is often closed amidst discoveries and acquisitions. The literary antiquary, when he has attempted to embody his multiplied inquiries, and to finish his scattered designs, has found that the LABOR ABSQUE LABORE, ”the labour void of labour,” as the inscription on the library of Florence finely describes the researches of literature, has dissolved his days in the voluptuousness of his curiosity; and that too often, like the hunter in the heat of the chase, while he disdained the prey which lay before him, he was still stretching onwards to catch the fugitive!
_Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat._
At the close of every century, in this growing world of books, may an Oldys be the reader for the nation! Should he be endowed with a philosophical spirit, and combine the genius of his own times with that of the preceding, he will hold in his hand the chain of human thoughts, and, like another Bayle, become the historian of the human mind!
FOOTNOTES:
[338] His intention was to publish a general cla.s.sified biography of all the Italian authors.