In the Biographical Memoir of him in the 8th volume of the European Magazine; in NICHOLS’s Anecdotes of Literature and in McCALL’s History of Georgia, his birth is said to have been in 1698; and yet it is asserted by the best authorities, that he bore the military rank of Ensign in 1710, when, according to their date of his nativity, he could have been but twelve years of age; and this before his entering College at Oxford.

Again, some make him Captain Lieutenant in the first troop of the Queen’s Guards in 1714; the same year that others put him to College.  According to such statements, he must on both these military advancements, have been of an age quite too juvenile for military service, and more so for military rank.  And yet, to account for his obtaining such early, and, indeed, immature promotion, the writers suggest that “he withdrew precipitately from the sphere of his education.”  But I see no reason for supposing that he left the University before he had completed the usual term of residence for obtaining a degree; though he did not obtain that of Master of Arts till the 31st of July, 1731.[1]

[Footnote 1:  See Catalogue of Oxford Graduates.]

PRIOR, in The Life of Goldsmith, page 457, expressly says that Oglethorpe, “after being educated at Oxford, served under Prince Eugene against the Turks."[1]

[Footnote 1:  About this time he presented a manuscript French paraphrase of the Bible, in two folio volumes, finely illuminated, to the library of Corpus Christi College in Oxford.  “The gift of James Oglethorpe, Esq., Member of Parliament.”  GUTCH’s Appendix to Wood’s History and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls in the University of Oxford.]

Again, CROKER has a long note upon a passage in Boswell’s Life of Johnson, II. p. 173, to invalidate a narative of Oglethorpe’s respecting a writing of Colonel Sir Thomas Prendergast, who was killed at the battle of Malplaquet, on the 31st of August, 1709, which thus concludes:  “At the battle of Malplaquet, Oglethorpe was only eleven years old.  Is it likely that Oglethorpe, at the age of eleven years, was present at Pope’s interview with Colonel Cecil?  And, even if he were, what credit is to be given to the recollections, after the lapse of sixty-three years, of what a boy of eleven heard?"[1]

[Footnote 1:  CROKER means that the time when Oglethorpe told the story to Dr. Johnson was sixty-three years after the battle of Malplaquet, when the event referred to took place.]