Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/19

Rh It is certain, at least, that whatever impression he made upon them, they left him in the situation in which they found him, and that he still continued to drudge at a toil from which his taste revolted, and which yielded him scarcely a bare subsistence. In one of his Satires, evidently alluding to his own case, he deplores the position of a man who is thus compelled to 'beat Greek and Latin for his life,' and whose rewards are inferior to those of a dancing-master:— But who would be to the vile drudgery bound Where there so small encouragement is found? Where you for recompense of all your pains Shall hardly reach a common fiddler's gains? For when you've toiled, and laboured all you can, To dung and cultivate a barren brain, A dancing master shall be better paid, Though he instructs the heels, and you the head. This thankless occupation was relieved by the secret work in which he delighted; and if the unexpected recognition of his talents had no other effect, it seems at all events to have stimulated him to more constant and systematic efforts. He tells us that he could not resist the infatuation of making verses; and that even when he said his prayers, he could scarcely refrain from turning them into rhyme.

After he had passed three years at Croydon, he was fortunate enough, in 1678, to obtain the appointment of tutor to the two grandsons of Sir Edward Thurland, a judge, residing in the neighbourhood of Reigate. This situation was procured for him through the interest of his friend, Mr. Harman Atwood, a barrister, whose death he afterwards lamented in an elaborate ode. It was during this period he composed those famous invectives against the Jesuits, which, appearing at a moment when the discovery of the Popish plot predisposed the public to receive such writings with avidity, at once established his reputation. Oldham remained in Judge Thurland's family till 1680; and afterwards became tutor for a short time to the son of Sir William Hicks, who lived nearer to London. At this gentleman's house he formed an aquaintance with Dr. Richard Lower, a physician and