Note 343 — LIFE AND HABITS OF A LITERARY ANTIQUARY.—OLDYS AND HIS MANUSCRIPTS.

This anecdote should be given in justice to both parties, and in Grose’s words, who says:—“He was a man of great good-nature, honour, and integrity, particularly in his character of an historian. Nothing, I firmly believe, would ever have biassed him to insert any fact in his writings he did not believe, or to suppress any he did. Of this delicacy he gave an instance at a time when he was in great distress. After his publication of the ‘Life of Sir Walter Raleigh,’ some booksellers thinking his name would sell a piece they were publishing, offered him a considerable sum to father it, which he rejected with the greatest indignation.”