Memoir of John Aubrey, F.R.S.; embracing his autobiographical sketches, a brief review of his personal and literary merits, and an account of his works, with extracts from his correspondence, anecdotes of some of his contemporaries, and of the times in which he lived / By John Britton ... Published by the Wiltshire Topographical Society [with its 5th Annual Report, 1845].

John Britton

Date:: 1845

Credit: Memoir of John Aubrey, F.R.S.; embracing his autobiographical sketches, a brief review of his personal and literary merits, and an account of his works, with extracts from his correspondence, anecdotes of some of his contemporaries, and of the times in which he lived / By John Britton ... Published by the Wiltshire Topographical Society [with its 5th Annual Report, 1845]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$Though Aubrey appears to have resided chiefly in London, he was frequently in Wiltshire and at Oxford, and travelled into South Wales, Surrey, Herefordshire, and other parts of England, and once visited the continent. With a naturally curious and inquiring mind, he lost no opportunity in these excursions of obtaining tradi- tionary and personal information. So early as the days of Hearne this peculiarity had procured for him the character of a “foolish gossip ;” indeed Ray, the dis- tinguished naturalist, in one of his letters to Aubrey, cautions him against a too easy credulity. Influenced by a querulous passage in Anthony 4 Wood’s Diary, some recent writers have regarded him as a mere idle tale-bearer ; but it is hoped that the present memoir will correct this erroneous impression. The following are passages in Ray’s letter to Aubrey, and in Hearne’s works, respecting him : “T think,” says Ray, “ (if you can give me leave to be free with you,) that you are a little inclinable to credit strange relations. I have found men that are not skilfull in the history of nature very credulous, and apt to impose upon themselves and others, and therefore dare not give a firm assent to anything they report upon their own authority, but are ever suspicious that they may either be deceived them_ selves, or delight to teratologize, (pardon y® word,) and to make shew of knowing strange things.” * Hearne, in his MS. Collections for the year 1710,+ says, “‘ Mr. Aubrey gave An- thony 4 Wood abundance of informations; and Anthony used to say of him, when he was at the same time in company, ‘ Look, yonder goes such a one, who can tell such and such stories ; and I’le warrant Mr. Aubrey will break his neck down stairs rather than miss him.’” The same writer thus mentions him more fully in his Account of some Antiquities in and about Oxford:{ “Before the destruction made in the late horrid rebellion (against King Charles the First,) the tower of the church [of Oseney Abbey, near Oxford] and divers other parts were standing, as may be seen in the second volume of the Monasticon Anglicanum (page 136), where they are delineated by the care and at the charge of the late Mr. John Aubrey, who * ‘Original, Ray to Aubrey; dated Black Notley, 8°. 27, (16)91, in vol. ii. of a collection of Letters to Aubrey, in the Ashmolean Museum. . oi) + Vol. xxvi. p. 39 (as quoted by Dr. Bliss in his edition of Wood’s Athene Oxonienses, i. clxix). t Printed at the end of vol. ii. of Leland’s Itinerary.$

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