Born in Somerset, 1673: died at London, 1742. An English historical writer. He was dull and insipid. He abused Pope in his “Essay on Criticism in Prose” (1728), and was promptly scarified in the “Dunciad” (ii. 283). Among his other works are “The British Empire in America” (1708), “Critical History of England, etc.” (1726), “History of England” (1730–39), “Memoirs of the Press, etc.” (1742), etc.

Personal

  When we meet with the name of Oldmixon, who thinks of the real man, the tiresome old Whig pamphleteer, with his insipid pastorals and his petulant essays? We think of a figure created entirely by Pope; we think of the aged athlete, “in naked majesty,” climbing the side of the stranded lighter, to plunge the deeper into the dreadful sluice of mud. Our interest is quickened, indeed, but not created by the consciousness that there was a real Oldmixon, to whom this figment of Pope’s imagination must have given exquisite pain.

General

  Mr. Oldmixon wrote a history of the Stuarts in folio, and a Critical History of England, in two volumes octavo. The former of these pieces was undertaken to blacken the family of the Stuarts. The most impartial writers and candid critics, on both sides, have held this work in contempt, for in every page there breathes a malevolent spirit, a disposition to rail and calumniate: So far from observing that neutrality and dispassionate evenness of temper, which should be carefully attended to by every historian, he suffers himself to be transported with anger: He reviles, wrests particular passages, and frequently draws forced conclusions. A history written in this spirit has no greater claim to a reader’s faith.

  Oldmixon, who was a Whig historian,—if a violent party-writer ought ever to be dignified by so venerable a title,—unmercifully rigid to all other historians, was himself guilty of the crimes with which he so loudly accused others.

  Oldmixon’s assertion, unsupported by evidence, is of no weight whatever.

  His chief work was a history of the reign of the Stuarts in folio, a production which no doubt suggested to Hume the plan and title of his first two volumes. This work, although highly popular in its own time, has had little success with posterity. It wants fidelity, accuracy of research, a pleasing style and a philosophic tone; and it was no doubt a great encouragement to Hume that he had no more formidable rival than the imperfect volumes of Oldmixon…. A few lines of bitter satire in the Dunciad have done more to preserve the name of John Oldmixon to posterity than all his own labored productions.

  Oldmixon could do nothing but rant and abuse … given to the world the worst history of England that ever was or is ever likely to be written. The student who resorts to his voluminous work for information rises from the perusal with disgust and wonder that a man who lived through a considerable part of the period he professes to pourtray, who was personally acquainted with many of the characters whose actions he undertakes to record, should have contented himself with drawing his materials wholly from party squibs, without contributing one atom of intelligence upon matters which fell under his own observation, or making one comment which is not either extravagantly laudatory or extravagantly abusive.

  John Oldmixon, the pamphleteer, was a waspish person. He was continually attacking somebody, and even ventured to have his fling at Pope, who promptly gibbeted him in “The Dunciad.” As he was universally disliked, his verses were usually kept out of the miscellanies of the time; but from his little volume of poems in the manner of Anacreon, published in 1696, I have chosen some dainty trifles.

  His historical work has little value now, and his main object in writing it was to promote the cause of the party. He never hesitated in attacking those on the other side, whether dead or living.

  Unfortunately, the great Whig historian and essayist sometimes allowed political bias to influence his brilliant literary productions; and he sacrificed accuracy to his love of rhetorical antithesis. Incomparably superior in attainments and character to Oldmixon (1673–1732), one of the heroes of the “Dunciad,” both are remarkable for their overmastering spirit of Whig partisanship, though it is a degradation to Macaulay to imply a comparison in literary style with Oldmixon’s dull, careless, and unveracious compilations.