WILLIAM, a useful bibliographer, was the natural son of Dr. Oldys, chancellor of Lincoln, and was born in 1696. He was an industrious and accurate scholar. Yet as he was a dissolute spendthrift, his whole life, with the exception of ten years, during which he was librarian to the Earl of Oxford, was lent on hire to the London booksellers. His claim to notice rests chiefly on his bibliographical works, such as the British Librarian, 8vo, London, 1737. He indeed wrote, among other works, the lives in the Biographia Britannica which are marked by the signature G.; and a Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, which was prefixed to that author's History of the World. But these productions, though rich collections of rare and important facts, are utterly destitute of that sympathetic appreciation of character, which is a necessary element in all real biographies. The death of Oldys took place in 1761. He left behind a manuscript collection of notes on various bibliographical subjects, and a copy of Langhame's Lives, filled with annotations; both of which are preserved in the British Museum.