OLD 
ftantly had by heart. His favourite purfuits were the ma¬ 
thematics, philofophy, aftronomy, geography, hiftory, and 
painting ; in all of which he had made a great proficiency. 
His favourite authors were Locke and Newton ; and his 
retentive faculties were To ftrong, that he never forgot a 
Angle incident with which he had been once acquainted. 
He could relate every circumftance of Grecian, Roman, 
and Englifh, hiftory ; was mailer of aftronomy, and had 
purfued it up to all its recent difcoveries ; had the fineft 
tafte for drawing and painting, and would frequently 
take admirable likeneffes ofperfons who ftruck him, from 
memory. He wrote a hand like copper-plate; and at a 
very early period of his life had made himlelf mafter of 
arithmetic. He was never known to be out of temper; 
and, though he fuffered an illnefs of ten years, which ter¬ 
minated in a dropfy and btirfting of a blood-vefi'el upon 
the lungs, he was never once known to repine, or be im¬ 
patient. JonC.l'S Biog. 
O'LDHAM, a market-town in the county of Lancafter, 
fituated on a branch of the river Medlock, fix miles from 
Manchefter. The ground, upon which the greater por¬ 
tion of the town is built, rifes confiderably above the fur¬ 
rounding level, and has confequently the advantage of 
commanding an extenfive profpeiil. The chief trade is in 
the manufacture of hats and of ftrong fuftians. Some cot¬ 
ton-mills, however, have been eftablifhed ; and, as coals 
are abundant, the machinery is ufually putin motion by 
lteam. The market of Oldham is only of recent conftitu- 
tion, as the town is entirely indebted for its prefent extent 
and importance to its proximity to, and connexion with, 
Manchefter, which may be regarded as the radiating focus 
of the cotton-trade of this country. Oldham is a paro¬ 
chial chapelry, fubordinate to Preftwich ; but has a church 
and a chapel belonging to the eftablifhment, betides feve- 
rai diffenting meeting-houfes. According to the popu¬ 
lation returns of 1B11, this town contains 2843 houfes, 
and 16,930 inhabitants, being an increafe of 4906 perfons 
lince the population-report of 1801 was taken. Beauties of 
Bug-land, vol. ix. 
O'LDHAM (John), an F.nglifti poet, was born in 1653 
at Shipton in Gloucefterlhire, of which parifli his father 
was minifter. He received his grammatical education at 
Tetbury-fchool ; and in 1670 was entered at Edmund’s 
Hall. Oxford. After an abode of four years at the uni- 
verfity, lie became uflier of the free-fehool at Croydon, 
which poft he occupied for three years. The popifli plot, 
which greatly agitated men’s minds at rhat period, incited 
him to write his Four Satires againft the Jefuits; and he 
feems to have thought that it was impoftible <0 be too bit¬ 
ter againft them. Whilft in this humble fituation, he 
was furprifed with a vifit from the earls of Rochefter and 
Dorfet, fir Charles Sedley, and other wits, who had feen 
fome of his performances in manufeript. His removal 
from Croydon foon followed ; and he paffed fome time at 
the feat of fir Edward Thurland, as tutor to his grandfons. 
Fie afterwards undertook the tuition ofaTon of fir William 
Flicks; and, when he had fitted his pupil for foreign 
travel, declining the offer of accompanying him, he went 
to London, in order to cultivate his connexions among 
the poets and men of wit. An introduction to Dryden 
was one of the cor.fequences of his refidence in the metro¬ 
polis ; but a more fubftantial advantage was his acquifi- 
tion of the patronage of William earl of Kingfton. That 
liberal nobleman took him to his featofHolme-Pierrepoint; 
where, in December 1683, he w>as carried off by thefmall- 
pox, at the premature age of thirty. The earl ereCted a 
monument to his memory in the church of that place, 
with an highly-encomiaftic infeription. 
The poems of Oldham confift of fatires, pindarics, oc- 
cafional copies of verfes, and a great many tranflations 
from the cla flics. His fame was chiefly obtained by his 
fatires, the fpirited and indignant vein of which gave him 
the appellation of the Englijh Juvenal. They are coarfe in 
language, and harfli in verfification, but poflefs much vi- 
fcaur.pf ftyle and vivacity of defeription. A paifage de- 
O L D 451 
(bribing the fervitude of a domeftic chaplain at that time, 
has been often quoted. In his other compofiticns he dif- 
plays learning arid imagination ; but his negleCi of polifli, 
and his want of elegance and harmony, have excluded 
his works from the modern collections of approved Eng- 
lifli poetry. If, indeed, Dryden’s panegyrical ftrains could 
be relied on, he gave a promife of excellence which render* 
his early death a fubjeCt of deep regret. That poet thus 
begins a copy of verfes on the death of Oldham : 
Farewell, too little and too lately known, 
Whom I began to think and call my own ; 
For fure our fouls were near allied, and thine 
Caft in the fame poetic mould with mine. 
Of the poems of Oldham, part were publifhed by him- 
felf, and the reft after his death, under the title of hi* 
“ Remains.” An edition of the whole, with the author’s 
life, was given in 2 vols. nmo. 1722. Biog-. Brit. 
O'LDISH, adj. Somewhat old. Sherwood. 
O'LDISLEBEN, a town of the principality of Weimar, 
on a hill near the Unllrutt: twenty-two miles north of 
Weimar. 
O'LDISWORTH (William), a political and mifcella- 
neous writer in the reigns of queen Anne and king 
George I. He was one of the original authors of The 
Examiner, publiilied feveral other works, and died in 1734. 
Jones's Biog. 
O'LDMIXON (John), an Englifli hiftorian and poet, 
(diftinguifhed in the Tatler by the’name of “ the Unborn 
Poet,”) was defeended from an ancient family, originally 
feated at Oldmixon, near Bridgewater, in Somerletftiire, 
and born in 1673. He was a violent party-writer, and a 
very fevereand malevolent critic. In the former light he 
was a ftrong opponent of the Stuart family, whom he 
has, on every occafion, as much as poflible, endeavoured to 
blacken. In the other charabler, he was perpetually af- 
failing, with the molt apparent tokens of envy and ill- 
nature, his feveral contemporaries; particularly Addifon, 
Eufden, and Pope. The laii of thefe, however, whom he 
had attacked in different letters which he wrote in The 
Flying Poft, and repeatedly reflected on in his prole Effays 
on Criticifm, and in his Art of Logic and Rhetoric, writ¬ 
ten in imitation of Bouhours, has condemned him to an 
immortality of infamy, by’giving him a place in his Dun- 
ciad, with fome very diltinguilhing marks of eminence 
among the devotees of Dulnefs; for, in the fecond book 
of that levere poem, where he introduces the dunces con¬ 
tending for the prize of dulnefs, by diving in the mud of 
Fleet-ditch, he reprefents our author as mounting the 
fides of a lighter, in order to enable him to take a more 
efficacious plunge. 
Mr. Oldmixon, though rigid with regard to others, is 
far from unblameable himlelf. One remarkable inftance 
of this kind, it is but juftice to take notice of; and that 
is, his having advanced a particular fa£l, to charge three 
eminent perfons with interpolation in Lord Clarendon’s 
Hiftory, which faft wasdifproved by Dr. Atterbury, the 
only furvivor of them ; and the pretended interpolation, 
after a fpace of almoft ninety years, produced in his lord- 
Ihip’s own hand-writing; and yet this very author him¬ 
lelf, when employed by bifliop Kennet in publilhing the 
hiftorians in his Collection, has made no fcruple of per¬ 
verting Daniel’s Chronicle in numberlefs places. He was 
however, undoubtedly, a man of learning and abilities • 
and, exclufive of his ftrong-biaffed prejudice, and natural 
morolenefs and petulance, far from a bad writer. His 
party-writings procured him a place in the revenue at 
Bridgewater; where he died, at the age of fixty-nine, in 
the year 1742. Befides his fugitive temporary pieces, he 
wrote A Fliftory of the Stuarts, in folio; A Critical Hif¬ 
tory of England, 2 vols. 8vo. a volume of Poems, lome 
dramatic pieces, &c. Biog. Drumutica. 
G'LDNESS, J~. Old age; antiquity; not newnefs ; qwo- 
lity of being old.—We flioukl lerve in newnefs of fpirit 
not in oldnejs of the letter. Horn. vii. 6. 
OT.DNEY, 
