Familiar Epistles, &c.—­Mr. Oldham was tall of stature, the make of his body very thin, his face long, his nose prominent, his aspect unpromising, and satire was in his eye.  His constitution was very tender, inclined to a consumption, and it was not a little injured by his study and application to learned authors, with whom he was greatly conversant, as appears from his satires against the Jesuits, in which there is discovered as much learning as wit.  In the second volume of the great historical, geographical, and poetical Dictionary, he is stiled the Darling of the Muses, a pithy, sententious, elegant, and smooth writer:  “His translations exceed the original, and his invention seems matchless.  His satire against the Jesuits is of special note; he may be justly said to have excelled all the satirists of the age.”  Tho’ this compliment in favour of Oldham is certainly too hyperbolical, yet he was undoubtedly a very great genius; he had treasured in his mind an infinite deal of knowledge, which, had his life been prolonged, he might have produced with advantage, for his natural endowments seem to have been very great:  But he is not more to be reverenced as a Poet, than for that gallant spirit of Independence he discovered, and that magnaninity [sic] which scorned to stoop to any servile submissions for patronage:  He had many admirers among his contemporaries, of whom Mr. Dryden professed himself one, and has done justice to his memory by some excellent verses, with which we shall close this account.

  Farewel too little, and too lately known,
  Whom I began to think, and call my own;
  For sure our souls were near allied, and thine
  Cast in the same poetic mould with mine. 
  One common note on either lyre did strike,
  And knaves and tools were both abhorred alike. 
  To the same goal did both our studies drive,
  The last set out, the soonest did arrive,
  Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place,
  While his young friend perform’d and won the race. 
  O early ripe! to thy abundant store,
  What could advancing age have added more? 
  It might, what nature never gives the young,
  Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue. 
  But satire needs not those, and wit will shine,
  Thro’ the harsh cadence of a rugged line: 
  A noble error, and but seldom made,
  When poets are by too much force betray’d. 
  Thy gen’rous fruits, tho’ gather’d e’er their prime, }
  Still shewed a quickness; and maturing time }
  But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhime. }
  Once more, hail and farewel:  Farewel thou young,
  But ah! too short, Marcellus of our tongue;
  Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound,
  But fate, and gloomy night encompass thee around.

Footnote: 
1.  Life of Mr. Oldham, prefixed to his works, vol. i. edit.  Lond.
   1722.

* * * * *