FullReads

We may observe the manner of his anxious inquiries about Spenser:–

Ask Sir Peter Thompson if it were improper to try if Lord Effingham Howard would procure the pedigrees in the Herald’s office, to be seen for Edmund Spenser’s parentage or family? or how he was related to Sir John Spenser of Althorpe, in Northamptonshire? to three of whose daughters, who all married nobility, Spenser dedicates three of his poems.

Of Mr. Vertue, to examine Stowe’s memorandum-book. Look more carefully for the year when Spenser’s monument was raised, or between which years the entry stands–1623 and 1626.

Sir Clement Cottrell’s book about Spenser.

Captain Power, to know if he has heard from Capt. Spenser about my letter of inquiries relating to Edward Spenser.

Of Whiston, to examine if my remarks on Spenser are complete as to the press–Yes.

Remember, when I see Mr. W. Thompson, to inquire whether he has printed in any of his works any other character of our old poets than those of Spenser and Shakspeare;[16] and to get the liberty of a visit at Kentish Town, to see his Collection of Robert Greene’s Works, in about four large volumes quarto. He commonly published a pamphlet every term, as his acquaintance Tom Nash informs us.

Two or three other memorials may excite a smile at his peculiar habits of study, and unceasing vigilance to draw from original sources of information.

Dryden’s Dream, at Lord Exeter’s, at Burleigh, while he was translating Virgil, as Signior Verrio, then painting there, related it to the Yorkshire painter, of whom I had it, lies in the parchment book in quarto, designed for his life.

At a subsequent period Oldys inserts, “Now entered therein.” Malone quotes this very memorandum, which he discovered in Oldys’s Langbaine, to show Dryden had some confidence in Oneirocriticism, and supposed that future events were sometimes prognosticated by dreams. Malone adds, “Where either the loose prophetic leaf or the parchment book now is, I know not.”[17]

Unquestionably we have incurred a great loss in Oldys’s collections for Dryden’s Life, which are very extensive; such a mass of literary history cannot have perished unless by accident; and I suspect that many of Oldys’s manuscripts are in the possession of individuals who are not acquainted with his hand-writing, which may be easily verified.

To search the old papers in one of my large deal boxes for Dryden’s letter of thanks to my father, for some communication relating to Plutarch, while they and others were publishing a translation of Plutarch’s Lives, in five volumes 8vo. 1683. It is copied in the yellow book for Dryden’s Life, in which there are about 150 transcriptions, in prose and verse, relating to the life, character, and writings of Dryden.–Is England’s Remembrancer extracted out of my obit. (obituary) into my remarks on him in the poetical bag?

My extracts in the parchment budget about Denham’s seat and family in Surrey.

My white vellum pocket-book, bordered with gold, for the extract from “Groans of Great Britain” about Butler.

See my account of the great yews in Tankersley’s park, while Sir R. Fanshaw was prisoner in the lodge there; especially Talbot’s yew, which a man on horseback might turn about in, in my botanical budget.

This Donald Lupton I have mentioned in my catalogue of all the books and pamphlets relative to London in folio, begun anno 1740, and in which I have now, 1740, entered between 300 and 400 articles, besides remarks, etc. Now, in June, 1748, between 400 and 500 articles. Now, in October, 1750, six hundred and thirty-six. [18]