usually borrowed their plots from classical historians or modern romance-writers have exposed him to needlessly severe censure. Sir Walter Scott writes of 'the malignant assiduity' with which he levelled his charges of plagiarism (Dryden, Works, ed. Scott, ii. 292), and D'Israeli in his 'Calamities Authors' declares that he 'read poetry only to detect plagiarisms.' But Langbaine's methods were scholarly, and betray no malice. A new edition of Langbaine's 'Account,' revised by Charles Gildon [q. v.], appeared in 1699, with the title, 'The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets. First begun by Mr. Langbaine, and continued down to this time by a careful Hand' (London, 8vo).
Langbaine's work attained increased value from the attention bestowed on it by William Oldys [q.v.], who embellished two copies of the 1691 edition with manuscript annotations, embodying much contemporary gossip. Oldys's first copy passed into the hands of Coxeter, and ultimately to Theophilus Cibber [q. v.], who utilised portions of the manuscript notes in his 'Lives of the Poets,' 1753. A second copy, on which Oldys wrote the date 1727, was once the property of Thomas Birch, but is now in the British Museum (C. 28, g. 1). The manuscript notes are written in this copy between the printed lines. Bishop Percy transcribed Oldys's notes in an interleaved copy bound in four volumes, and added comments of his own. The bishop's copy passed through the hands successively of Monck Mason and Halliwell-Phillipps, gathering new additions on its way, and is now in the British Museum (C. 45 d. 14). Joseph Haslewood, E. V. Utterson, George Steevens, Malone, Isaac Reed, and the Rev. Rogers Ruding also made transcripts of Oldys's notes in their copies of Langbaine, at the same time adding original researches of their own. The British Museum possesses Haslewood's, Utterson's, and Steevens's copies; the Bodleian Library possesses Malone's; other copies of Oldys's notes are in private hands. Sir Egerton Brydges, who once owned Steevens's copy, printed a portion of Oldys's remarks in his memoirs of dramatists in his 'Censura Literaria,' but Oldys's notes have not been printed in their entirety (cf. Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. i. 82–3).
Langbaine was elected yeoman bedel in arts at Oxford on 14 Aug. 1690, 'in consideration of his ingenuity and loss of part of his estate,' and on 19 Jan. 1691 was promoted to the post of esquire bedel of law and architypographus. To Richard Peers's 'Catalogue of [Oxford] Graduates,' 1691, he added an appendix of 'Proceeders in Div., Law, and Phys.' from 14 July 1688, 'where Peers left off,' to 6 Aug. 1690. Langbaine died on 23 June 1692, and was buried at Oxford, in the church of St. Peter-in-the-East. According to Wood, the maiden name of his wife was Greenwood (Wood, Life and Times, ed. Clark, Oxf. Hist. Soc., i. 238). A son William, born at Headington just before his father's death, was M.A. of New College, Oxford (1719), and vicar of Portsmouth from 1739.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 364–8; authorities quoted above.]
LANGDAILE or LANGDALE, ALBAN (fl. 1584), Roman catholic divine, a native of Yorkshire, was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1531–2 (Cooper, Athenæ Cantabr. i. 509). On 26 March 1534 he was admitted a fellow of St. John's, and in 1535 he commenced M.A. (Baker, Hist. of St. John's College, ed. Mayor, i. 283). He was one of the proctors of the university in 1539, and proceeded B.D. in 1544. He took a part on the Roman catholic side in the disputations concerning transubstantiation, held in the philosophy schools before the royal commissioners for the visitation of the university and the Marquis of Northampton, in June 1549 (Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, ii. 31). Before 1551 he left the university (Ascham, English Works, ed. Bennet, p. 393). Returning on the accession of Queen Mary, he was created D.D. in 1554, and was incorporated in that degree at Oxford on 14 April the same year, on the occasion of his going thither with other catholic divines to dispute with Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 146). He was rector of Buxted, Sussex, and on 26 May of that year was made prebendary of Ampleforth in the church of York. On 16 April 1555 he was installed archdeacon of Chichester. He refused an offer of the deanery of Chichester.
Anthony Browne, first viscount Montague, to whom he was chaplain, writing to the queen on 17 May 1558, states that he had caused Langdaile to preach in places not well affected to religion (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–1580, p. 102). On 19 Jan. 1558–9 he was collated to the prebend of Alrewas in the church of Lichfield, and in the following month was admitted chancellor of that church (Plowden, Reports, p. 526). He was one of the eight catholic divines appointed to argue against the same number of protestants in the disputation which began at Westminster on 31 March 1559 (Strype, Annals, i. 87, folio). On his refusal to take the oath of supremacy he was soon afterwards deprived of all his preferments.
