Note 355 — LIFE AND HABITS OF A LITERARY ANTIQUARY.—OLDYS AND HIS MANUSCRIPTS.

This is one of Oldys’s Manuscripts; a thick folio of titles, which has been made to do its duty, with small thanks from those who did not care to praise the service which they derived from it. It passed from Dr. Berkenhout to George Steevens, who lent it to Gough. It was sold for five guineas. The useful work of ten years of attention given to it! The antiquary Gough alludes to it with his usual discernment. “Among these titles of books and pamphlets about London are many purely historical, and many of too low a kind to rank under the head of topography and history.” Thus the design of Oldys, in forming this elaborate collection, is condemned by trying it by the limited object of the topographer’s view. This catalogue remains a desideratum, were it printed entire as collected by Oldys, not merely for the topography of the metropolis, but for its relation to its manners, domestic annals, events, and persons connected with its history.