Home1860 Edition

WOOD

Volume 21 · 272 words · 1860 Edition

or A Wood, Anthony, a well known literary historian, was the son of Thomas Wood, bachelor of arts and of the civil law, and was born at Oxford on the 17th of December 1632. He studied at Merton College, and in 1655 took the degree of master of arts. He wrote The History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford; which was afterwards dully translated into Latin, under the eye of Dr Fell, by Wase and Peers, under the title of Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis, 2 vols. folio; Athenæ Oxonienses; or an exact Account of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their education in the University of Oxford, from the year 1500 to 1600, 2 vols. folio; which was enlarged in a second edition published in 1721 by Bishop Tanner. This work, which is highly valuable as a collection of materials, has been greatly improved by Dr Bliss in 1800 and in 1817. His MSS. in the Bodleian Library were published in the History and Antiquities of Oxford, by John Gutch, 3 vols. 1786-94. The first volume of a new edition of the Athenæ Oxonienses, with a life of Wood, was begun by the Ecclesiastical History Society in 1848. This edition only reached the first volume. Upon the publication of the Athenæ Oxon., the author was attacked by the university in defence of Edward, earl of Clarendon, lord high chancellor of England, and chancellor of the university, and was likewise admired upon by Bishop Burnet; upon which he published a Vindication of the Historiographer of the University of Oxford. He died at Oxford on the 29th of November 1695.