which Shakspeare has put into his mouth at her grave. "O treble woe," &c. Hamlet enters, and the quarrel takes place as in the original, Act V. Sc. I. but somewhat shortened, and then follows the conclusion of the play. The king interferes with this speech: King. We will not bear this insult to our presence. First feel mine. Hamlet. [Stabs him. [King falls and dies. Queen. Mercy! Mercy, Heaven! Save me from my son. [She runs out. Laertes. What, treason, ho! Thus then do I My father, sister, and my king. revenge [They fight: Hamlet is wounded by Laertes, and falls. Horatio. And I my prince, and friend. [Draws. Hamlet. Hold, good Horatio: 'tis the hand of Heaven Administers by him, this precious balm For all my wounds. [Enter Messenger.] Speak! speak! Messenger. Struck with the horror of the scene, she fled; Hamlet. O my Horatio, watch the wretched queen, Laertes. Heav'n make thee free of it. Hamlet. I die, I die, Horatio.-Come thou near, [To Laertes. Take this hand from me. Unite your virtues. [Joins Horatio's hand to Laertes. To calm this troubled land-I can no more, Nor have I more to ask-But mercy, Heav'n. [Dies. Horatio. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this Becomes the field-but here shows much amiss. Mr. Aubrey was born in the year 1625, or 1626; and in 1642 was entered a gentleman commoner of Trinity college in Oxford. Four years afterwards he was admitted a member of the Inner Temple, and in 1662 elected a member of the Royal Society. He died about the year 1700. It is acknowledged, that his literary attainments were considerable; that he was a man of good parts, of much learning and great application; a good Latin poet, an excellent naturalist, and, what is more material to our present object, a great lover of and indefatigable searcher into antiquities. That the greater part of his life was devoted to literary pursuits, is ascertained by the works which he has published, the correspondence which he held with many eminent men, and the collections which he left in manuscript, and which are now reposited in the Ashmolean Museum. Among these collections is a curious account of our English poets and many other writers. While Wood was preparing his Athenæ Oxonienses, this manuscript was lent to him, as appears from many queries in his handwriting in the margin; and his account of Milton, with whom Aubrey was intimately acquainted, is (as has been observed by Mr. Warton) literally transcribed from thence. Wood afterwards quar 2 [This writer has been so often referred to in these pages, that it would have been an act of injustice not to have preserved Mr. Malone's testimony in his favour. BOSWELL.] relled with Mr. Aubrey, whom in the second volume of his Fasti, p. 262, he calls his friend, and on whom in his History of the University of Oxford he bestows the highest encomium2; and, after their quarrel, with his usual warmth, and in his loose diction, he represented Aubrey as "a pretender to antiquities, roving, magottieheaded, and little better than crased." To Wood every lover of antiquity and literary history has very high obligations; and in all matters of fact he may be safely relied on; but his opinion of men and things is of little value. According to his representation, Dr. Ralph Bathurst, a man highly esteemed by all his contemporaries, was “a most vile person," and the celebrated John Locke, "a prating, clamorous, turbulent fellow." The virtuous and learned Dr. John Wallis, if we are to believe Wood, was a man who could "at any time make black white, and white black, for his own ends, and who had a ready knack at sophistical evasion 3." How little his judgment of his contemporaries is to be trusted, is also evinced by his account of the ingenious Dr. South, whom, being offended by one of his witticisms, he has grossly reviled . What 2 "Transmissum autem nobis est illud epitaphium a viro perhumano, Johanne Alberico, vulgo Aubrey, Armigero, hujus collegii olim generoso commensali, jam vero è Regio Societate Londini; viro inquam, tam bono, tam benigno, ut publico solum commodo, nec sibi omnino, natus esse videatur." Hist. et Antiq. Univ. Oxon. 1. ii. p. 297. 3 Letter from Wood to Aubrey, dated Jan. 16, 1689-90. MSS. Aubrey. No. 15, in Mus. Ashmol. Oxon.-Yet in the preface to his History of the University of Oxford, he describes Dr. Wallis as a man—“ eruditione pariter et humanitate præstans." Wood's account of South (says Mr. Warton) is full of malicious reflections and abusive stories: the occasion of which was this. Wood, on a visit to Dr. South, was complaining of a very painful and dangerous suppression of urine; upon which South in his witty manner, told him, that, if he could not make water he must make earth.' Wood was so provoked at this unseason ever Wood in a peevish humour may have thought or said of Mr. Aubrey, by whose labours he highly profited, or however fantastical Aubrey may have been on the subject of chemistry and ghosts, his character for veracity has never been impeached; and as a very diligent antiquarian, his testimony is worthy of attention. Mr. Toland, who was well acquainted with him, and certainly a better judge of men than Wood, gives this character of him: "Though he was extremely superstitious, or seemed to be so, yet he was a very honest man, and most accurate in his account of matters of fact. But the facts he knew, not the reflections he made, were what I wanted 5." I do not wish to maintain that all his accounts of our English writers are on these grounds to be implicitly adopted; but it seems to me much more reasonable to question such parts of them as appear objectionable, than to reject them altogether, because he may sometimes have been mistaken. He was acquainted with many of the players, and lived in great intimacy with the poets and other celebrated writers of the last age; from whom undoubtedly many of his anecdotes were collected. Among his friends and acquaintances we find Hobbes, Milton, Dryden, Butler, Ray, Evelyn, Ashmole, Sir William Dugdale, Dr. Bathurst, Bishop Skinner, Dr. Gale, Sir William D'Avenant, Mr. Hook, Sir William Petty, Sir John Denham, Sir Bennet Hoskyns, (son of John Hoskyns, who was able and unexpected jest, that he went home in a passion, and wrote South's Life." Life of Ralph Bathurst, p. 184. Compare Wood's Athen. Oxon. ii. 1041. 5 Specimen of a Critical History of the Celtick Religion, &c. p. 122. 6" With incredible satisfaction I have perused your Natural History of the county of Surrey, and greatly admire both your industry in undertaking so profitable a work, and your judgment in the several observations you have made." Letter from John Evelyn, Esq. to Mr. Aubrey, prefixed to his Antiquities of Surrey. well acquainted with the poets of Shakspeare's time), Mr. Josiah Howe, Toland, and many more 7. The anecdotes concerning D'Avenant in Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, which have been printed in a former page, were, like the copious and accurate account of Milton, transcribed literally from Aubrey's papers. A person who enjoyed the intimacy and esteem of so many distinguished persons, must certainly have borne a very different character from that which has been given of him by Wood, who was remarkable for the violence of his temper and his strong prejudices. 7 Hobbes, whose life Aubrey wrote, was born in 1588, Milton in 1608, Dryden in 1630, Ray in 1628, Evelyn in 1621, Ashmole in 1616, Sir W. Dugdale in 1606, Dr. Bathurst in 1620, Bishop Skinner in 1591, Dr. Gale about 1630, Sir William D'Avenant in 1606; Sir John Denham in 1615, Sir Bennet Hoskyns (the son of John Hoskyns, Ben Jonson's poetical father, who was born in 1566,) about 1600, and Mr. Jos. Howe in 1611. Gr TM UNIVA ་ ་་ ་ C. Baldwin, Printer, New Bridge-street, London. END OF VOL. II. |