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AUBREY

Volume 3 · 174 words · 1815 Edition

JOHN, a famous English antiquary, descended from an ancient family in Wiltshire, was born in 1626. He made the history and antiquities of England his peculiar study and delight; and contributed considerable assistance to the famous Monarchicon Anglicanum. He succeeded to several good estates; but law-suits and other misfortunes consumed them all, so that he was reduced to absolute want. In this extremity he found a valuable benefactress in the Lady Long of Draycot in Wilts, who gave him an apartment in her house, and supported him to his death, which happened about the year 1700. He was a man of considerable ability, learning, and application, a good Latin poet, an excellent naturalist, but somewhat credulous, and tinctured with superstition. He left many works behind him. He wrote, 1. Miscellanies. 2. A Perambulation of the county of Surrey, in five volumes, octavo. 3. The Life of Mr Hobbes of Malmesbury. 4. Monumenta Britannica, or a discourse concerning Stonehenge, and Roll Rieb stones in Oxfordshire. 5. Architectonica Sacra; and several other works still in manuscript.