University of Virginia Library

John Oldmixon and An Impartial Enquiry (1715)
by
Pat Rogers

In the dispute between "physical" or "descriptive" bibliographers, and "compilative" or "enumerative" practitioners, one fact has been neglected. This concerns the descriptive bibliographer's bounden duty to examine with some care the internal content of any book under review. He may not be as anxious as his colleague to bring out the literary merits of the work he describes. But he is at least compelled to look at all parts of the literal object which is the book — not merely the outer dress, such as title-page or list of contents. As a result, he usually notices (if he does not actually mention, under the rubric of "Contents" for instance) substantial facts about the work which the ordinary compiler of checklists often fails to see. Occasionally, the circumstances affected by this consideration may extend even to the attribution of the book. Such is the present case.

In June 1715 James Roberts brought out a work in reply to Mrs Manley's Conduct of the Duke of Ormonde. This was a quarto pamphlet, 48 pages in length, with the following title:

The pamphlet is now in the Bodleian Library, unfortunately shorn of its "plan."[1] The omission is doubly unfortunate, in that no less a draughtsman than Herman Moll was responsible for the mapping.[2] We learn this from the entry in Bernard Lintot's Monthly Catalogue (II, 9) for June: It will be observed that the Catalogue has extrapolated from the bare mention of "Remarks" on the title-page to an outright assumption that Maynwaring was the author of the whole. In this supposition the Catalogue has been followed by other compilations and lists, including W. T. Morgan's well-known Bibliography of works of historical interest.[3] Unfortunately, the real position is quite otherwise: and Lintot's entry is no less misleading for its contemporaneity — an advantage we must learn not to treat with exorbitant respect.

The fact is that Maynwaring had died in 1712. The "Remarks" made by him are confined to the last couple of pages, and they are taken from a work already in print: perhaps twice over in print. This was The French King's Promise to the Pretender, which had appeared anonymously in 1712.[4] At some point in 1715 Oldmixon reprinted this piece in his Life and Works of Maynwaring (pp. 204-223). I do not know if that event predated the publication of the Impartial Enquiry: but it does not matter very much. There is abundant evidence that the last mentioned work was a completely fresh work, alluding in passing to observations of the dead Maynwaring — especially his comments on the map, which Cadogan had brought back in 1712 — and that his presence on the title-page can be explained as a bit of sales promotion.[5] Forgotten though the name may now be, it once held connotations of both authority and glamour.

Indeed we can go much further than that. We can state, as a virtual certainty, that John Oldmixon wrote the Enquiry. I do not think anyone who had read much of Oldmixon, and then came on this pamphlet, would be in any doubt for a moment. However, a number of the major considerations are supplied here, in summary form.

(1) Oldmixon was busy on behalf of Roberts at this time, having written at least half a dozen pieces for the bookseller in the past two years and standing poised to double this tally within the next two years. Incidentally, he had previously been the author of at least twelve books with the imprint of Ann Baldwin, who had been Roberts' predecessor at the shop in Warwick Lane. It is probable that all these numbers considerably underestimate Oldmixon's activity. He was assuredly Roberts' house author, as it were, in 1715.[6]

(2) The author of the Enquiry introduces his citations with the phrase, "Mr Maynwaring asserts this to be true, and I can assure the Reader, that he knew as much of the matter as anyone . . ." (p. 48). No other writer could or would have so assured the public. Oldmixon is in fact the only professional writer of the age (I exclude men of the standing of Addison and Steele) whom we know to have been on terms of friendship

with Maynwaring. He is the only author who champions Maynwaring after his death: and this he does in a succession of works, right up to the time of his own death in 1742. The claim made for Maynwaring's authority could be paralleled again and again in the pages of Oldmixon: nowhere else, so far as I know. Incidentally General Cadogan was one of Oldmixon's dedicatees. Memoirs of Ireland (1716) was addressed to him.

(3) It was observed that Oldmixon reprints The French King's Promise in the Life, as Maynwaring's. This hitherto anonymous pamphlet had attracted no special notice outside that context. It is by no means clear that anyone except Oldmixon knew that it was by Maynwaring.

(4) The entire contents of the pamphlet may be said to cry out "by John Oldmixon." The topics under review are his (the separate peace terms of Torcy and Mesnager: Pettecum's intervention: the merits of Marlborough, the former Captain-General) (pp. 4ff, 21, etc.). The polemical strategies are his: mock-modesty at the start, rhetorical questions, exclamatory phrases ("Here's a Scene . . .": "This upon my Word is Frankness with a Vengeance"), heavy irony ("this honest-hearted Secretary"), sneers at such "Eloquence" as Harley's encomium on Ormonde (pp. 3, 8, 42, 44 etc.). The objects of hatred are his: Mrs Manley, whose pen and person are said to be "equally Common and Mercenary;"[7] Sacheverell; Bolingbroke and Harcourt; "Abel and the Faction" (p. 3, 4, 19, 39-40). There is a thrust at the Tory "libellers," Swift, Foe, Oldsworth [sic] and Roper (p. 48). The terms employed are Oldmixon's: besides mercenary, faction, libellers, we have "Riotous Rabble," "Lewdness and Scandal, Falsities and Invectives" (pp. 3, 4). There is the familiar contumely: "such a Creature" [as Arthur Moore]: there is Oldmixon's pet expression, "Gallicism" (pp. 5, 7, 44).[8] It hardly seems necessary to go on. What we have is a standard example of the pamphleteering craft of Oldmixon. It deals with his familiar topics in his familiar way, with praise (of Maynwaring) and blame (of many more) allotted as it is in a score of such items.[9]

Notes