2 The Last Will of Thomas Gore, the Antiquary. 



Mr. Thomas Gore was a very precise and accurate person : but 

 he carried his accuracy to such excess as to become ludicrously formal 

 in trifling matters. The original name of his parish was Aldrington, 

 corrupted into Alderton. So tenacious was he of the right spelling, 

 that upon such very common occasions as giving a receipt for a few 

 pounds paid by a tenant on his own estate^ he would invariably 

 use the older name " Aldrington/^ but not unfrequently carefully 

 identifies it as " Aldrington^ alias Alderton/-' He devoted a great 

 deal of time and pains to the compilation of a Family Register (a 

 kind of record, by the way, of the greatest utility, in all families), 

 in which he not only duly enters all such events as births, deaths, 

 and marriages, and the times and places thereof, but distends the 

 entries by adding at full length the names, titles, description, re- 

 sidence as to place and county, of all the godfathers, godmothers, 

 &c., till what might have occupied a couple of lines is made to fill 

 up half a page. In the same MS. volume, which is most beautiftdly 

 executed, both as to hand writing and Heraldic illustrations, all 

 done by himself, he sets forth at full length, all the purchases of 

 land made by his family, with the title deeds at full length — ^that 

 length being fortunately much less than is thought necessary now- 

 a-days. When he comes down to his own period, and has to describe, 

 one of the most important events of his life, viz., his appointment, 

 to the office of High Sheriff of Wilts in 1680-1, nothing can ex- 

 ceed the ludicrous emphasis he lays upon the ordinary proceedings 

 of the appointment, including an elaborate account of his setting 

 forth from his own door at " Aldrington alias Alderton," his ride to 

 Salisbury Assizes, all that was done there, and the journey back. 

 Garter King at Arms could not have recorded with more official 

 particularity the coronation or progress of a Sovereign. 



A " Last Will and Testament " being of course a document that 

 requires to be couched in as precise terms as possible, the reader will 

 see that good Thomas Gore who drew up his own, (certainly at least 

 BO far as concerns the description of his favourite valuables) was by 

 HO means inattentive to the demands of so solemn an occasion. 

 Although the family chattels and curiosities therein described have 

 long since shared the usual fate of dispersion, one or two of his 



