OXLEY, JOSEPH (1715–1776), quaker, eldest son of John Oxley and Ann Peckover of Fakenham, Norfolk, was born at Brigg in Lincolnshire on 4 Nov. 1715. His parents dying before he was eight years old, he was brought up by an uncle, Edmund Peckover. After five years at a school at Sankey in Lancashire, he was apprenticed to a clockmaker at Scarborough. When about twenty-three he took a situation in London. Soon after he attended a large meeting held by George Whitfield [q. v.] on Kennington Common, and, being extremely short in person, was almost crushed to death, until noticed 'by a gentlewoman in a coach, who fanned him.' This event, he says, led to his conversion, and he shortly became a minister of the Society of Friends, making continual visits in that capacity to Scotland, Ireland, and all parts of England.
In 1741 Oxley returned to Fakenham and opened a shop. On 28 June 1744 he married Elizabeth Fenn of Norwich, where he established himself as partner in a prosperous woollen manufacture. In 1753 his wife died, and on 5 Jan. 1757 he married, at Huntingdon, Mary Burr, like himself a minister.
In July 1770 Oxley sailed for America, where he visited the meetings in many states. His letters, published by John Barclay as No. 5 of his 'Select Series,' under the title 'Joseph's Offering to his Children: being Joseph Oxley's Journal of his Life, Travels, and Labours of Love in the Faith and Fellowship of our Lord Jesus Christ,' London, 1837, contain much interesting information about the colonies of Virginia, Maryland, and New England. The work was reprinted in vol. ii. of the 'Friends' Library,' Philadelphia, 1838, &c.
Oxley returned to Norwich in April 1772, and died there suddenly on 22 Oct. 1775. He was buried in the Friends' burial-ground at Norwich.
[Journal mentioned above; Janney's Hist. of Friends, iii. 392; Piety Promoted, pt. ix. 1796, pp. 43-7; Smith's Cat. of Friends' Books.]
OXNEAD, JOHN of (d. 1293?), chronicler. [See Oxenedes.]
OYLEY. [See D'Oyley.]
OZELL, JOHN (d. 1743), translator, son of John Ozell of a Leicestershire family, was educated at the free school of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and subsequently at Christ's Hospital. He chose to enter an accountant's office rather than proceed to Cambridge and enter the church; and this preference, though it excited the derision of Theophilus Cibber and others of his biographers, enabled him 'to escape all those vicissitudes and anxieties in regard to pecuniary circumstances which too frequently attend on men of literary abilities.' He became auditor-general of the city and bridge accounts, and also of St. Paul's Cathedral and St. Thomas's Hospital. Notwithstanding this 'grave attention to business, he still retained an inclination for, and an attention to, even polite literature that could scarcely have been expected.' His attentions to literature took the form of a series of translations from foreign classics which were tolerably accurate and probably useful in their day, though, as Chalmers significantly says, 'it was his misfortune to undertake works of humour and fancy, which were qualities he seemed not to possess himself, and therefore could not do justice to in others.' Among his translations was one of Homer's 'Iliad,' done from the French of Madame Dacier, and dedicated to Richard Steele (5 vols., London, 12mo, 1712; also 1714 and 1734); this was doubtless the cause of Ozell being promoted to a mention in the 'Dunciad,' which provoked the following extraordinary advertisement in the 'Weekly Medley' for 5 Sept. 1729: 'As for my learning, the envious wretch [Pope] knew, and everybody knows, that the whole bench of bishops not long ago were pleased to give me a purse of guineas for discovering the erroneous translations of the Common Prayer in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, &c. As for my genius, let Mr. Cleland show better verses in all Pope's works than Ozell's version of Boileau's "Lutrin" which the late Lord Halifax was so pleased with … Let him show better and truer poetry in the "Rape of the Lock" than in Ozell's "Rape of the Bucket," which because an ingenious author happened to mention in the same breath with Pope's, viz., "Let Ozell sing the Bucket, Pope the Lock," the little gentleman had like to have run mad, and Mr. Toland and Mr. Gildon publicly declared Ozell's translation of Homer to be as it was prior, so likewise superior to Pope's … (signed) John Ozell.' Pope responded in a satire of eight lines, called 'The Translator,' in which Rowe is also gibbeted as one of Ozell's chief sponsors. Swift seems to have shared his friend's opinion of Ozell's merit, as in his sardonic 'Introduction to Polite Conversation,' speaking of 'the footing upon which he stands with the present chief reigning wits,' he remarks: 'I cannot conceal without ingratitude the great assistance I have received from those two illustrious writers, Mr. Ozell and Captain Stevens. These and some others of distinguished eminence in whose company I have passed so many agreeable hours, as they have been the great re-
