JOHN AUBREY.
As the biographer and editor of that amiable and zealous antiquary JOHN AUBREY, I noticed with peculiar interest the statement of your correspondent, that the date of your first publication coincided with the anniversary of his birthday; but, unhappily, the coincidence is imaginary. Your correspondent has, on that point, adopted a careless reading of the first chapter of Aubrey's Miscellanies, whereby the 3rd of November, the birthday of the Duke of York, afterwards James the Second, has been frequently stated as that of the antiquary himself. See my Memoir of Aubrey, 4to. 1845, p. 123. In the same volume, p. 13, will be found an engraving of the horoscope of his nativity, from a sketch in his own hand. So far as his authority is of any value, that curious sketch proves incontestably that "the Native" was born at 14 minutes and 49 seconds past 17 o'clock (astronomical time) on the 11th of March, 1625-6; that is, at 14 minutes and 49 seconds past 5 o'clock A.M. on the 12th of March, instead of the 3rd of November.
Few things can be more mortifying to a biographer, or an antiquary, than the perpetuation of an error which he has successfully laboured to correct. It is an evil, however, to which he is often subjected, and which your valuable publication will go far to remedy. In the present case it is, doubtless, to be ascribed to the peculiar nature of my Memoir of Aubrey, of which but a limited number of copies were printed for the Wiltshire Topographical Society. The time and labour which I bestowed upon the work, the interesting character of its contents, and the approbation of able and impartial public critics, justify me in saying that it deserves a far more extensive circulation.
After this allusion to John Aubrey, I think I cannot better evince my sympathy with your exertions than by requesting the insertion of a Query respecting one of his manuscripts. I allude to his Monumenta Brittanica, in four folio volumes--a dissertation on Avebury, Stonehenge, and other stone circles, barrows, and similar Druidical monuments--which has disappeared within the last thirty years. Fortunately a large portion of its contents has been preserved, in extracts made by Mr. Hutchins, the historian of Dorsetshire, and by the late Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Bart.; but the manuscript certainly contained much more of great local interest, and some matters which were worthy of publication. In the Memoir already mentioned, p. 87, the history of the manuscript down to the time of its disappearance is fully traced. Referring such of your readers as may feel interested in the subject to that volume, and reserving for the future numbers a long list of other interesting Queries which are now before me, it will gratify me to obtain, through your medium, any information respecting the MS. referred to. I remain, Sir, yours truly,
JOHN BRITTON.
[Our modesty has compelled us to omit from this letter a warm eulogium on our undertaking, well as we know the value of Mr. Britton's testimony to our usefulness, and much as we esteem it.]