others. Testimonies of this description are generally of little value; but Dryden's lines on this occasion form a remarkable exception in the strict justice of their sentiments, and the reality of their pathos.
The notices that have been preserved of Oldham's personal appearance describe him as having the aspect of a student and a close observer. He was tall and slender, with disagreeable features, a long face, a prominent nose, and a sarcastic expression in his eyes. His constitution betrayed symptoms of consumption; and we gather from numerous passages in his works that the life of London was less congenial to his tastes and habits than the repose and elastic air of the country. Granger says that he was of a very different turn from his father, and that he appears to have been no enemy to the fashionable vices; but this assertion should be received with caution in reference to a writer who literally made a crusade against the licentiousness of the town. If he fell into the excesses of the company with which he mixed during the short term of his residence in London, there is no doubt that he speedily abandoned and renounced them.[1]
We have it on Spence’s authority that Pope considered Oldham a very indelicate writer, admitting, at the same time, that he had strong rage, but that it was too like Billingsgate. The criticism is true; but it is not the whole truth. There were elements better and nobler than Billingsgate in Oldham—masculine vigour, learning, variety and fitness of diction,
- ↑ A letter of Oldham's, preserved in the Bodleian Library, and quoted in the last edition of Croker's Boswell, sufficiently confirms this statement. It is addressed to one of his companions, and runs thus:— ’Thou knowest, Jack, there never was a more unconcerned coxcomb than myself once; but experience and thinking have made me quit that humour. I think virtue and sobriety (bow much so ever the men of wit may turn ’em into ridicule) the only measures to be happy, and believe the feast of a good conscience the best treat that can make a true epicure. I find I retain all the briskness, airiness, and gaiety I had, but purged from the dross and lees of debauchery; and am as merry as ever, though not so mad.’ This passage acquires additional f6rce from the fact that Oldham died at an age when most men give unrestrained indulgence to their love of pleasure, nor are there wanting other evidences of the serious change that passed over his
