By the Rev. J. E. Jackson. 93 



proceedings were taken against him. He was fined and degraded, 

 and the volume containing the alleged libel was publicly burnt. 

 Smarting under this disgrace Wood poured the yial of his wrath 

 upon Aubrey, from one of whose private letters he had adopted 

 this charge against the Chancellor. But he ought rather to have 

 been angry with himself for having been so imprudent as to adopt 

 and print what it was quite in his power to have suppressed. The 

 offensive passage that led to so much trouble occurred in Wood's 

 " Life of Judge Jenkins," in which he said: " After the restoration 

 of King Charles II. t'was expected by all that he (Jenkins) would 

 be made one of the Judges in Westminster Hall, and so he might 

 have been, would he have given money to the then Lord Chan- 

 cellor." The original letter from Aubrey to Wood from which the 

 latter borrowed this statement — almost word for word, is preserved 

 in the Ashmolean Library. It is dated London, January 16, 1671. 

 After other memoranda for the " Life of Judge Jenkins," Aubrey 

 continues thus : " T'was pitty he was not made one of the Judges 

 of Westminster Hall, and he might have been, (he told me,) if he 

 would have given money to the Chancellor: but he scorned it . . . 

 Mr. T. II. Malms'""- " (Thos. Hobbes of Malmesbury) " told him 

 (Jenkins) one day at dinner, that that hereafter would not show 

 well for somcbodie's Honour in History." The story therefore 

 against Clarendon, whether true or false, was Judge Jenkins's own : 

 and if Wood chose to print it, he had no one but himself to blame 

 for the consequences. 



One or two other critics have echoed A. Wood's abuse, and 

 amongst them. Dr. Farmer in his Essay upon the learning 

 of Shakspeare. Aubrey had preserved a few anecdotes (and it is 

 to be wished he had collected more) of the early life of the great 

 Dramatist. These Dr. Farmer scouts, but rather unjustly; for 

 Aubrey only repeated what " ho had been told by some of the 

 neighbours at Stratford." He was a truthful man and no 

 inventor : generally gave his authority for his stories, and 

 though perhaps they may be sometimes such as we are unwil- 

 ling to believe, still they were the current stories of the day. 

 Aubrey was born only nine years after Shakspeare died : near 



