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
Licence: Public Domain Mark
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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![UE y° may then have the Lives: I tooke D' Gale’s Life from his owne [mouth] Sele aoe Tc erling’s under his own hand. I should be glad... . . , you shall be heartily welcome, and I will shew ........ booke of this house, in parchment gone-invyH. Gandee 2...) this Estate granted to him by Edw. Confessor.* I want Mr’ Lilly’s Epitaph. I would have you come the next week, for in a fort- night hence S' J. A. goes into Glamorganshire, & will have me with him. I have not been very fitt for riding, but I intend to spend 2 or 3 dayes Sir Jo. goes away. You cannot imagine how much your unkindness vext and dis- composed me. So God bless you. Tuissimus, J. A.” “T would have you come hither as early as you can, because of perusing the MS. and seeing the gardens, for the afternoon will be taken up with good-fellowship.” + There is no evidence amongst the writings of Wood or Aubrey to show that the former ever made the latter any apology or explanation. He died on the 28th November, 1695, in his 63rd, when Aubrey was in his 70th, year. How strongly do the letter and the sentiments above quoted contrast with the splenetic and invidious language used by the author of Athene Oxonienses, who calls his traduced friend ‘“ a mere pretender to antiquities,” and “little better than crazed.” About two years before Wood’s death proceedings were taken against him for a libel on the Earl of Clarendon, for which he was fined and degraded, and the second volume of his Athene Oxonienses, containing the alleged libel, was publicly burnt.t It is stated by Hearne that the offensive passages in that work were inserted by Wood from Aubrey’s notes,§ whence, according to Dr. Bliss, the former was punished for writings of which he was not the author; and it is possible that Wood entertained some such feeling when he stated, in the article so often men- tioned, that Aubrey, “being exceedingly credulous, would stuff his many letters * See a notice of the ancient chartulary here referred to in the note to page 23, ante. Wood had visited Borstall and examined that curious manuscript in 1668. (See his Auto-biography.) + Original, in the Ballard Collection, ui supra. t For a full account of these proceedings see Bliss’s edition of Wood's Athene Oxonienses, vol. i. § MS. Collections for 1710 (quoted by Bliss, ut supra).](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33522169_0091.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
