Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850

Transcriber's Note: This text contains Greek κυων and Hebrew ל characters. You may want to change fonts if these characters render as ? or boxes on your monitor.

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.
When found, make a note of. —Captain Cuttle.
CONTENTS.
Page
Not less remarkable and interesting than the publication of Dr. Whichcote's Sermons by the noble author of the Characteristics , is a posthumous volume (though never designed for the press) under the following title:—
Several Letters written by a Noble Lord to a Young Man at the University. Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem Testa diu.— Hor. Epist. ii. 1. Printed for J. Roberts, near the Oxford Arms, in Warwick Lane, 1716. 8vo.
The young man was Michael Aynsworth, of University College, Oxford, afterwards vicar of Cornhampton, in Hampshire, and master of the Free School there. He was a native of Dorsetshire; his father, who was in narrow circumstances, living near Wimborne St. Giles's, the seat of Lord Shaftesbury, by whom the son seems to have been nobly patronised, on account of his inclination to learning and virtuous disposition.
The published letters are only ten in number; but I have an accurate manuscript transcript of fifteen , made from the originals by R. Flexman (who had been a pupil of Aynsworth) in 1768. The transcriber's account is as follows:—
After Mr. Aynsworth's death, these letters remained in the possession of his daughter, and at her decease passed into the the hands of the Rev. Mr. Upton, the then vicar of Cornhampton; by him they were lent to my brother John Baker, of Grove Place, in Hampshire, who lent them to me. It will be perceived that the ten printed letters are not given as they were written, every thing of a private nature being omitted, and passages only given of other letters, just as the editor judged proper.
R. Flexman has made some remarks illustrative of the letters at the end of his transcript, and added some particulars relating to Lord Shaftesbury. He justly says,—