John Oldham (poet)

John Oldham (1653-1683), from the Biographical Mirrour, Vol. 1 (1795). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

John Oldham (9 August 1653 - 9 December 1683) was a satirical English poet and translator.

Life

Youth

Oldham was born at Shipton-Moyne, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire. John Oldham, his grandfather, was rector of Nuneaton. John Oldham, his father, after residing as a nonconformist minister at Shipton, and at Newton in Wiltshire, where he was "silenced" in 1662, served a small congregation at Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire, and survived in honourable repute till about 1725.

After receiving his earlier education from his father, and at Tetbury grammar school, where he is stated to have begun his career as a private tutor by assisting the son of a Bristol alderman, Oldham entered St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, in 1670. Although his ability and attainments are said to have found recognition here, he left the university after earning a B.A. in May 1674, and afterwards resided for some months in his father's house.

In the following year he suffered the loss of his school and college friend, Charles Morwent, the son of a lawyer at Tetbury, to whose memory he dedicated the most elaborate of his poems. Soon after this he began life in the humble position of usher in Archbishop Whitgift's free school (since the parish school) at Croydon, where he remained about 3 years. In one of his satires, "To a Friend about to leave the University," he gave vent to his hatred of the position occupied by him at this "Grammar-Bridewell":

A Dancing-Master shall be better paid,

Tho' he instructs the Heels, and you the Head.

During Oldham's residence at Croydon he is said to have received a visit from Rochester, Dorset, Sir Charles Sedley, and some other fine gentlemen and wits, who, in the first instance, mistook for him the aged headmaster of the school. But though Oldham had enough wit and enough inclination to the obscene to please his polite visitors, there is nothing to show that his meeting with them had any direct effect upon his career.

Career

According to Oldham's biographer, Thompson, "his person was tall and thin, which was much owing to a consumptive complaint, but was greatly increased by study ; his face was long, his nose prominent, his aspect unpromising, but satire was in his eye." Bliss mentions a portrait of him, in flowing locks and a long loose handkerchief round his head, engraved by Vandergucht, which was prefixed to the 1704 edition of his Works. Another portrait, painted by W. Dobson and engraved by Scheneker, is in Harding's Biographical Mirrour, 1792.

He left Croydon in 1678, and seems in the same year, on the recommendation of a barrister, Harman Atwood, whose death shortly afterwards he celebrated in a panegyrical ode, to have accepted the post of tutor to the grandsons of Sir Edward Thurland, a retired judge, residing near Reigate. Here he remained till 1681.

In 1679 had been printed, according to Wood without the author's consent, the first of Oldham's Satires upon the Jesuits (an expression of the popular panic at the time of the "Popish plot") and the so-called Satire against Virtue, a production likewise in its way open to the charge of sensationalism, and reprinted accordingly in 1680 in an edition of Rochester's Poems. The whole of the Satires upon the Jesuits, together with the Satire against Virtue and other pieces, were published, no doubt with Oldham's authority, in 1681; and in the same year appeared a volume containing a number of paraphrases and original pieces which seemed to him likely to catch the ear of the town.

But Oldham was convinced of the folly of depending upon poetry (i.e. literary work) as the staff of life. Before this year (1681) was out, Oldham became tutor to the son of Sir William Hickes, at his residence near London. Through him he became acquainted with the celebrated physician Dr. Richard Lower, by whose advice he is said to have betaken himself to the study of medicine. This he is asserted to have carried on for a year; but he makes no specific mention of medicine among the "thriving arts" for which he subsequently declined to abandon his muse. He is further said to have refused an offer of Sir William Hickes to accompany his son on an Italian tour.

In his last days he became personally known to Dryden and other wits of the town. He was much befriended by the Earl of Kingston (William Pierrepont, who succeeded to the title in 1682), and is even said to have been invited by him to become his domestic chaplain. But he was unwilling either to take orders or to essay an experience which he has graphically satirised in some of his best known lines ("Some think themselves exalted to the Sky," &c., in A Satire to a Friend about to leave the University). It was at Lord Kingston's seat, Holme-Pierrepointy near Nottingham, that Oldham died of the small-pox.

Writing

Oldham's verse lacks finish, a defect specially noticeable in a looseness of rhyme and in what Dryden censured as "The harsh Cadence of a rugged Line." But Oldham's productions deserve more notice than they have received. Their own original power is notable. Pope, and perhaps other of our chief 18th-century poets, were under important literary obligations to their author. The chief of them are here grouped according to form and species.

Whether or not the Pindaric dedicated by Oldham "to the memory of my dear friend, Mr. Charles Morwent," in date of composition preceded his most celebrated Satires, it must be described as the most finished product of his genius, and as entitled to no mean place in English 'In Memoriam' poetry. Cowley is evidently the master followed in this ode. Oldham's other Pindaric, in remembrance of "Mr. Harman Atwood," is a less ambitious and less successful effort of the same kind.

Among his other lyrical pieces may be mentioned his ode "The Praise of Homer," uninteresting except that a passage in it conveys a suggestion of Gray; that "Upon the Works of Ben Jonson," an early piece, but neither inadequate nor hackneyed in its appreciation of Jonson's cardinal qualities; and, by way of a comparison not favourable to Oldham, the ode for an "Anniversary of Music on St. Cecilia's Day," set to music by Dr. John Blow. Some of his paraphrases of classical and Biblical poetry were likewise composed, without particular effectiveness, in the same metre, for which the ode "Upon the Marriage of the Prince of Orange with the Lady Mary" likewise shows him to have been lacking in natural impulse.

The notoriety of the lyric originally known as A Satire against Virtue was chiefly due to the density of a public not accustomed to think for itself. Its irony, of which the vein is not peculiarly fine, was so imperfectly understood that he found himself obliged to explain his "diff'rent taste of wit" in an "Apology" (in heroic couplets), and then to indite a "Counterpart" ode to the Satire against Virtue, commonplace in itself but for the daring άπαζ λεγόμενον in its contemptuous reference to "all the Under-sheriff-alities of Life." Less mistakable is the lyric irony of the "Dithyrambic" (written in August 1677) in praise of drink, purporting to be 'A Drunkard's Speech in a Masque.'

From Oldham's avowal in the "Apology" for the so-called Satire against Virtue that,

Had he a Genius, and Poetic Rage

:Great as the Vices of this guilty Age, he would turn to "noble Satire," it may be concluded that up to this time (1679 or 1680) his only attempt in this direction had been "Garnet's Ghost," surreptitiously published as a broadsheet in 1679. The Satires upon the Jesuits, of which this was in 1681 reprinted as the earliest, together with the prologue, stated to have been written in 1679, "upon Occasion of the Plot," are the best known among his works.

The unrestrained violence of these diatribes may find some sort of palliation in the frenzv which they flattered. But Pope was well within the mark when he spoke of Oldlham as "a very indelicate writer; he has strong rage, but it is too much like Billingsgate." "Satire IV," which Pope singled out from the rest as a most notable production, is a clever adaptation of Horace's 'Satires,' i. viii. ("Olim truncus eram," &c.)

In his biting Satire upon a Woman, who by her Falsehood and Scorn was the Death of my Friend, where full play is given both to his feverish energy and to his prurient fancy, the abruptness of the opening — a favourite device of the author's — should be noticed. But his gift of simulating wrath is perhaps best exemplified in his Satire upon a Printer.

Horace, rather than Juvenal, was his model in the "Letter from the Country to a Friend in Town, giving an Account of the Author's Inclination to Poetry," one of the pleasantest as well as wittiest of his pieces, ending with a spirited rush. Pope's "Epistle to Arbuthnot" may have owed something to this "Letter."

There is more bitterness, but equal vivacity, in his Satire addressed to a Friend about to leave the University and come abroad in the World, which closes with a fable, excellently told. More ambitious, but really inadequate and low in tone, is the Satire in which Edmund Spenser is introduced, "dissuading the Author from the Study of Poetry." The passage referring to the calamities of authors has been often quoted.

While in "original" satire Oldham cannot be said to have reached the height to which he was desirous of climbing, he is memorable in our poetic literature as one of the predecessors of Pope in the "imitative" or adapting species of satirical and didactic verse. Boileau (certain of whose imitations were in their turn imitated by Oldham) had revived the popularity of the device of paraphrasing Latin satirical poetry while applying to modern instances its references and allusions.

Oldham's earliest attempt in this direction seems to have been his "Horace's Art of Poetry, imitated in English, addressed by way of Letter to a Friend," 1681. But the same "libertine" way, as he calls it, was more lightly and yet more completely pursued by him in his imitation of Horace's Satires, i. ix. ("Ibam forte via sacra" — "As I was walking in the Mall of late"), and in the other Horatian paraphrases and similar pieces published by him in the same year. Most of these, which include reproductions of Horace, Juvenal, Virgil, Ovid, Catullus, Martial, as well as of Bion and Moschus, the Psalms, and Boileau, are in the heroic couplet; but some of the lyrics are translated in Pindaric, i.e. irregular, metre.

Of prose Oldham left behind him nothing beyond the "Character of a certain Ugly Old Priest," an unpleasing effort in the grotesque, and a sketch entitled "A Sunday Thought in Sickness," which contains certain resemblances, probably unintentional, to the closing scene of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.

An edition of Poems and Translations by Oldham was published in 1683, and a Remains in Verse and Prose, with a series of commendatory verses (including Dryden's), in the following year. Subsequent editions of his works are dated 1685, 1686, 1688, 1703, and 1722; but some of these may be merely made up by booksellers. Those of 1685 and 1686 are identical, except as to the date. The most complete edition is that cited in the text, by the eccentric "half-pay poet" Edward Thompson (The Compositions in Prose and Verse of Mr. John Oldham, to which are added Memoirs of his Life, 3 vols., 12mo, 1770.) It is prefaced by a brief memoir, and a statement of the editors "point of view." The notes are meagre and inaccurate.

Reviews

William Winstanley: "Mr. John Oldham, the delight of the Muses, and glory of those last Times; a Man utterly unknown to me but only by Works, which none can read but with Wonder and Admiration; So Pithy his Strains, so Sententious his Expressions, so Elegant his Oratory, so Swimming his Language, so Smooth his Lines, in Translating out-doing the Original, and in Invention matchless; whose praise my rude Pen is not able to Comprehend."

Wikipedia: "Although regarded as a vigorous and passionate satirst, Oldham is often regarded as having been hampered by a poor ear for rhyme and rhythm. As Robinson (1980) has pointed out, however, 'Oldham chose the rugged style of most of his satires: it was not imposed upon him by incapacity or carelessness.'"

Critical introduction

by Adolphus William Ward

Certain features in the brief life of Oldham, as well as in the verse to which his name owes its celebrity, have very naturally engaged the attention of historical enquirers, while others have attracted the sympathy of literary students. He seems really to have valued that independence of which authors too often only prate; he left it to the leaders of fashionable society and of fashionable literature to seek him out in his obscurity; and when he ventured to publish his poems, he published them without a patron. But if he had a high spirit, he lacked the equally noble possession of an unfettered mind. Even a domestic chaplain in the Restoration days — such as Oldham has painted in one of the following extracts, and such as Macaulay, largely following Oldham, has repainted in a well-known passage of his History — may have in him more of human dignity and freedom than the flatterer of popular fury and the pander to mob-prejudice. Oldham was the laureate of the Popish Plot frenzy; and his laurels are accordingly stained with much mire and with much blood.

To what lengths the fanaticism of excited popular feeling, together with an inborn love of strong language, can carry a bold and facile pen, the second of the following extracts will suffice to show. It illustrates the indignation which inspired Oldham’s most sustained series of efforts, and the unreasoning violence and malignant exuberance of his invective, together with its frequent bad rhymes and occasional bad grammar. He has been repeatedly compared with Dryden, whose earlier and worse manner he imitated in his own earlier efforts, but whom he preceded as a satirist. It is in the latter capacity only that Oldham is memorable among our poets; for his panegyrical and other odes are laboured without being effective; his paraphrases have the flatness too common to their kind; and the rest of his verse, though occasionally pleasing, has no peculiar value.

But on the roll of our later poetic satirists, which begins with Donne and ends with Gifford, Oldham occupies a far from insignificant place. Both Johnson and Pope may have owed something to him; but by Dryden he was valued and acknowledged as to him the most congenial of his fellow-authors. At the time of Oldham’s death Dryden, though a supporter of the Court, was not yet a Roman Catholic; and there was accordingly no stint in the praise which, with his usual magnanimity, he offered on the early death of his younger predecessor. He had but a single exception to take, and even this he was ready himself to overrule. Had Oldham lived longer, Dryden wrote, advancing age

  ‘might (what Nature never gives the young)
Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue;
But satire needs not these, and wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.’

To us there is much besides defects of form to overlook or forgive in Oldham. His most famous satires have the reek of an essentially grosser flame than that in which the greatest masters of poetic satire, ancient or modern, forged their darts. But he was capable of productions tempered with nicer art if with less expenditure of vigour than those by which he is best known.

His Imitations of Horace, Juvenal, and Boileau are all more or less felicitous; and in a few shorter original pieces of the same cast he shows occasional lightness as well as his habitual strength of touch. It should certainly not be forgotten that he died at thirty-one, and that the species of poetry in which he was chiefly gifted for excelling was one more especially suited to matured powers. And to have been the foremost English writer of satire at a time when Dryden was already famous, though not in this branch of poetry, was to have secured a fair title to remembrance.

Recognition

A monument in the church of Holme-Pierrepointy commemorates the admiration cherished for Oldham by "his patron." The graceful tribute paid to his memory by Edmund Waller (which mentions Burnet among his admirers), and still more the noble lines of Dryden, "To the Memory of Mr. Oldham," show that his loss was felt in the contemporary world of letters. The imputation of malignity to Dryden, on the ground of a perfectly just criticism frankly offered in his lines, is properly rejected by Sir Walter Scott. Tom Brown also addressed a eulogistic poem "to the memory of John Oldham."

His poem "A Quiet Soul" was included in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900.

Publications

Poetry

• Poems and Translations. London: Joseph Hindmarsh, 1683.
• Poetical Works (edited by Robert Bell). London: John W. Parker, 1854
  • also published as Poems. London: Griffin, 1871.
• Selected Poems (edited by K. Robinson). Jesmond, Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 1980.
• Poems (edited by Harold Fletcher Brooks). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press / New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Collected editions

• The Works of Mr. John Oldham: Together with his remains. London: Jo. Hindmarsh, 1684, 1686;
• (facsimile edition), Delmar, NY: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1979.
• The Remains: In prose and verse. London: D. Brown, J. Nicholson, B. Tooke and G. Strahan, 1703.
• The Works of Mr. John Oldham, Together with his Remains. London: Dan. Brown, 1703.
• The Compositions in Prose and Verse (with memoir by Edward Thompson). London: W. Flexney, 1770.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

John Oldham - A Quiet Soul

• List of British poets
• Timeline of British poetry

References

•  Ward, Adolphus William (1895) "Oldham, John" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 42 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 108-110  . Wikisource, Web, Aug. 30, 2016.
• Edward Thompson, The compositions in prose and verse of Mr. John Oldham, to which are added memoirs of his life (in 3 vols, 1770).
• Cibber, Theophilus. The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland : to the time of Dean Swift (Volume 2) (1753) pp. 337-343.

External links

Poems

• "A Quiet Soul".
• Oldham, John 1653-1683) (2 poems) at Representative Poetry Online
• Oldham in The English Poets: An anthology: The Jesuits (from the Second Satire upon them), The Domestic Chaplain (from A Satire addressed to a Friend)
• John Oldham at PoemHunter (3 poems)
• John Oldham info & 4 poems at English Poetry, 1579-1830
• John Oldham at Poetry Nook (130 poems)

Books

• John Oldham at Amazon.com

About

• John Oldham in the Encyclopædia Britannica