The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-17 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

MEMOIR of JOHN AUBREY, F.R.S., embraring
his Auto-h,ographicul Sketches, and an Account of his
Works. By John Britton, F.S.A.
About four years since several noblemen and gentle-
men 3f Wiltshire established the Wiltshire Topographi-
cal Society. The object of this Society is to illustrate
the history of the county of Wilts, by publishing his-
torical and descriptive accounts of places and things in
the county, and biographical memoirs of celebrated men
natives of Wiltshire. To the institution of this Satiety
we are indebted fer the publication of the very inte-
resting memoir now before us, which rescues fi om the
obloquy which has been most uncleservedly thrown upon
it the memory of a man who was an honour to his coun-
try, and who was far in advance of the age in which he
flourished (from 1626 to 1697). Unfortunatel;, how-
ever, for Aubrey's fame, he became acquainted with
Anthony a Wood, whom he permitted to have access to
his manuscripts. Anthony a Wood having in the most
barefaced manner plundered Aubrey, having cut out 44
pages bodily from Aubrey's lives of eminent men, and
appropriated them as his own, turned round upon his
benefactor, and actually had the impudence to brand him
whom he had plundered as " a pretender to antiqui-
ties,a shiftless person, roving and maggottie-headed,
sometimes little better than crazed. The only pub-
lished work at this time of Aubrey's was his miscella-
nies, in which he had been at pains to collect all sorts
of ghost stories and tales of witchcraft, and in which
he avowed his belief in judicial astrology—a belief
which lie held in common with Dryden. Clarendon, the
witty Duke of Buckingham, King Charles 1., and other
eminent men, his contemporaries. As Aubrey, in con-
sequence of this publication, has become the classical
authority on this matter, and as all subsequent authors,
when treating on the subject, have quoted from him, his
name has become inseparably connected with the follies
of that pseudo-science, and posterity treated him as the
crazed and " maggottie-headed," being that Anthony a
Wood maliciously represents him to have been, solely
because he believed in that which was the prevailing
faith of his time, without taking the pains to inquire into
the real character of the man as developed in his mann-
scripts still existing in the Ashmolean Museum, and
which prove him, on many points, to have been far in
advance of his age.

"He may be regarded," says Mr. Britton, " essentially
an archeologist, and the first person in this country who
fairly deserved that name Historians, chroniclers, and topo-
graphers there had been before his time, but he was the first
who devoted his studies and abilities to archeology in its
various ramifications of architecture, genealogy, paleogra-
phy, numismatics, heraldry, &c. No one before him investi-
gated or understood any thing of the vast Celtic temple at
Avebury, and other monuments of the same class; and cer-
tainly no person had preceded him in attempting to distin-
guish the successive changes in style and decoration of
ancient ecclesiastical edifices, or to ascertain, by observing
architectural feature» and details, to what era any particular
building belonged."
His great work on this subject is his " Monumenta
Britannica," abridgments of which are in the Bodleian
Library, at Stourheacl in Wilts, and in Mr. Britton's
collection. The original, however, although known to
have been in existence as late as 1819, in four folio vo-
lumes, of 100 pages each, is now nowhere to be found.
It was then in the library of W. Churchill, Esq., of
flenbury. To Aubrey also is due the honour of having
first demonstrated that Stonehenge was a Druidical mo-
nument, in opposition to the opinion of Inigo Jones, by
whom it was considered as a Roman work. In 'early
life Aubrey, was a member of Harrington's celebrated
Rota Club. He was one of the original members of the
Royal Society, and the intimate friend and associate of
Hobbes of Mulmesbury (of whom he wrote a most
interesting biographical memoir), Hooke, and Sir W.
Petty, and Evelyn. It is not probably that
these men would have admitted into their intimacy " a
maggottie-headed man nearly crazed." But Aubrey
had offended the clergy of the University of Oxford by
a manuscript treatise, entitled " Idea of Education
of Young Gentlemen from Nine to Eighteen," which is
still in existence in the Ashmolean Museum, in which
he not only utterly condemns the beastly practice of
flogging, but proposes that " the education of young
gentlemen should be better conducted and snore inde-
pendently of the priesthood than in any academy or college
then extant" Are we not justified in saying that
Aubrey was in advance of his age. Here is the very
theme of priestless education so recently proposed by
the Government. But Aubrey foresaw that the bigots
would be too strong for him, for he thus concludes his
sf ay:—"But now, methinks, I see a black squadron, led
up by a crosier staff, (Dr. John Fell, Bishop of Oxford),
!marching from Oxford to discomfite this pretty little
flock, and so this my pleasing dream is at an end—
Soli I)eo Glotia." The scheme itself is excellent —there
is one point of it, however, which may create a smile.
He recommends the study of astrology "as the best
guide to direct us to what professions or callings children
are by nature most fit or most inclined to ;" but if the
reader will have the goodness to substitute for astrology,
phrenology,or any other oiogy which may be most in fashion,
as teaching what astrology then professed to teach, he
may perhaps feel inclined to be merciful to poor Aubrey.
The follies of one age bear a marvellous resemblance to
those of its predecessors—the names alone are changed.
The " black squadron" of that day, however, were wiser
in their generation than the black squadrons of the pre-
sent. They contented themselves with attacking the
author as a crazy," maggottie-headed" man, without ven-
turing to attract attention to his plan by raising against
it the cry of a " godless scheme of education." Had
Aubrey lived in our day he would have been honoured
and reverenced, and his name would have appeared as
director of some score of joint, stock companies. lie was
a most ingenious projector. Here are two of Ids
schemes—l. " To get a patent to open the passage for
to make it wider for shippes to come to Bristowe, also to
blow up !he little island in the key at Bristol." A cen-
tury afterwards this was carried into effect, and the
Bristol docks were formed. 2. "To put somebody
upon the marrying the Thames and Avon, and to get a
share in it." This has also since 'been done by the
cutting of the Kennet and Avon Canal. We see it is
the intention of the Topographical Society of Wiltshire
to publish his Natural History of that county ; we shall
look forward with great interest to the appearance of
this very curious work. Mr. Britton has executed his
labour of love—for it has evidently been' a labour of
love with him—in a style which snakes this a model for
future biographers of literary men. His research has
been unwearied, and he has been enabled to enrich his
memoir with several interesting literary anecdotes ; for
instance, when speaking of Aubrey's MS., entitled,
" Memoirs of Naturall Remarques in Wilts," he says—
"ln chapter 17, which illustrates the grandeur of the
Pembroke family, and describes their splendid seat at Wilton
in the following passage, which is here quoted as a matter of
curiosity, throwing a doubt (as it does) upon the authorship
of one of the most celebrated verses of the seventeenth
century: --
" Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister—Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thou kill'st such another,
Fair and wise, and learn'd as she,
Time will throw a dart at thee.'
" These verses were writ by Sir William Browne, who
wrote the Pastoralls,' and they are inserted there.
"The above lines are almost universally attributed to Ben
Jonson ; it is, therefore, essential to observe that Aubrey is
not alone in stating them to be by Browne, the author of the
‘Pastoralls; for, in his note upon the sulject, he left a blank
for the latter's Christian name, William,' which was filled
up by Evelyn, when he perused his manuscript. Indeed,
Evelyn not only filled up such blank, but added, as a further
note—' William, Governor to ye now Earl of Oxford.'"
We are now reluctantly compelled to draw this notice
to a close, but we cannot do so without offering our
hearty congratulations to Mr. Britton on the triumphant
manner in which he has vindicated the fame of one of
Wiltshire's most worthy sons, and at the same time
expressing a hope that other counties will follow the
• example of Wiltshire, by instituting Topographical
Societies for the illustration and preservation of those
historical monuments which have been delivered to us
by our forefathers in trust for posterity:
I 'ae!d-
moat omitted to mention that the memoir is
placehya of his birth.portiraitofkubrey and a viewof Fasten Piers, the

LETTERS OF JUNIUS.—The Inrerness Courier says,
that Sir David Brewster, who is married to a daughter of the
late James Macpherson, Esq., translator of " Ossian's l'oems,'•
has discovered some letters among the papers of his fa'
it t-
in-law which may lead to the discovery of a great seer:l—
-dle authorship of " Junius." The person who, as Sir le,eie
thinks, may be identified as the euthor, is Lachlan Maclean.
the son of an Irish Presbyterian clergyman, but descended
from the ancient Scottish family Of the Macleans of Coil. He
was bred to the study of medicine, but became a political
writer and adventurer in London, and rose to some eminence.
He was once an Under-Secretary of State, in which capacity
he might have become acquainted with State secrets.
Having been sent out to India by Government in 1776. he
was shipwrecked and drowned on the passage—a circum-
stance that may account for the non-revealment of the secret
as to the authorship of " Junius." His papers were all lost
at the same time.
[ADVERTISEMENT.]—Ax EXTRAORDINARY RETURN
OF HEALTH IN A FEW DAYS ET THE USE or Hot.towAr's
PlLLs.—The patient having previously been in an iil.state for
six years, Mr. Benjamin Hawkins, employed in the ironworks,
and well known at the Crown and Cushion, High I3uii
,en,Wed..
nesbury, Staffordshire, had, to use his own phrase,
afflicted creature, and that no one but God .andhimselfi
knew
what he suffered from aches and pains in sad
likewise from a disordered liver and s ,
Holloway's
taolml laneshj oiwntisthansde
enls,
deer themost
spt ri
Pill
ens
g th
restoredsuffietieonhealth ealn) aindividualelraeb oatigAiringiluany
complicated diseases.—Sold by all Druggists, and at Professor
flfoway's Establishment, 244, Strand.
GENERAL POST- OFFICE.—LETTERS FOR, CEYLON.
—The following notice was yesterday issued :—On and
from the let of Nember next, the British packet postage
of one shilling the half-ounce, and co on in proportion, on
letters posted in the United Kingdom, and addressed to the
Island of Ceylon, via Southampton, may be paid in advance
or not, at the option of the sender. Letters not addressed
vial Southampton will be forwarded by the way of Marseilles,
and the postage on them must be paid in advance.
EXTRAORDINARY HIGH sterdav after-
noon there was an unusually high tide. At Bankside,
Lambeth, and Thamesebank, the wharfs and adjacent streets
were flooded ; some poi thins of Battersea-fields were inun-
dated, mid al the meadows and pleasure-grounds on the
Middlesex side, between Battersea and Putney-bridge, were
some feet under water.. At the latter-mentioned bridge the
Kew steam-boatS could not pass through, and were obliged
to await the falling of the tide, much to the inconvenience
of the passengers. At Wamiswerth the tide made free with
the works of the Richmond Railway, en that side of the
line that will pass over the osier-Inds. Here the tide U.SI
about four feet, snseendcd all labour, and floated the timber
about in admirable confusion. The high, tides wili be very
prejudicial to the progress of the viaduct which is to traverse
this pant, and immerse expense must be incurred in the
making of dams before the foundation of the -0 can be

EFFECT or GUANO ON VINES AND ORANGE TREES.
—Mr: Driver, of Iladcira, in February last. used four bags
of Peruvian guano on fur acres of vines, the result of which
is that he had four-fold the quantity cf grapes produced in
former years, which, of course, will yield four times the quan•
tity of wine, unless bad weather occurs between this and the
vintage., Mr. D. also tried it with orange trees, which have
given nearly double the usual number, and are much larger
size. _ . .