Oldys

Oldys, WILLIAM, an industrious bibliographer, was a natural son of Dr Oldys, Chancellor of Lincoln, and was born in 1696. The most of his life was spent as bookworm and bookseller's hack. He suffered by the South Sea Bubble, lost the property left by his father, and when he died (April 15, 1761) left hardly enough to decently bury him. For about ten years Oldys acted as librarian to the Earl of Oxford, whose valuable collection of books and MSS. he arranged and catalogued, and by the Duke of Norfolk he was appointed Norroy King-of-arms. His chief works are The British Librarian (1737, anonymously); a Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, prefixed to Raleigh's History of the World (1738); The Harleian Miscellany (8 vols. 1753), besides many miscellaneous literary and bibliographical articles.