examined books and consulted manuscripts for herself; having heard high praises of Lydgate, she ‘gave a considerable Price for his Works, and waded thro’ a large Folio,’ only to be disappointed by the industrious monk. She has the courage of her opinions; William Warner, she says, is ‘an Author only unhappy in the Choice of his Subject, and Measure of his Verse.’ Her book was never completed; it was printed for Osborne, who some years later employed Johnson and Oldys as fellow-labourers in the compilation of the Harleian Miscellany.
The other antiquary, Thomas Coxeter, who was of Aubrey’s college in Oxford, devoted the whole of his busy life (1689–1747) to collecting the works of forgotten poets and amassing historical material. His books were dispersed at his death, but some of his material fell into the hands of Griffiths, Goldsmith’s employer, who asserted that it was the basis for the last biographical collection that I shall discuss—The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the Time of Dean Swift. By Mr. Cibber (1753). 5 vols. This important compilation, which probably suggested Johnson’s great work, has had very little justice done to it in literary history. It is seldom mentioned save in connexion with the dispute about its authorship. There is no reason to distrust the categorical statements of Johnson, who must have been well informed. ‘It was not written,’ says Johnson, ‘nor, I believe, ever seen, by either of the Gibbers; but was the work of Robert Shiels, a native of Scotland, a man of very acute understanding, though with little scholastic education, who, not long after the publication of his book, died in London of a consumption. His
