80 



Lost Volume of Aubrey's MS 8. 



tho last of his own family, and without children, died four years 

 afterwards in 1707, and was buried on 29th October, at Kington 

 St. Michael, Wilts. Mr. Lluyd, the Librarian, died in 1709. 



William Aubrey died intestate. His circumstances appear to 

 have been straitened, for his " principal creditor, Thomas Stokes," 

 took out Administration of his goods and chattels on the 24th of 

 November following his death. Mr. Stokes was at that time a 

 landowner at Kington St. Michael : and as all books and papers of 

 William Aubrey's would necessarily fall into his hands, the first 

 step was to trace the family of Mr. Stokes and make enquiry of 

 them. This has been done; the descendants of Mr. Stokes of 

 Kington St. Michael have since resided at Stanshawe's Court, 

 near Yate. Co. Glouc : but the present representative, after making 

 every reference in his power is unable to find any thing to shew 

 that the MS. was ever in the possession of his ancestors. 



After so long an interval as 150 years inquiry may be thought 

 hopeless. That it is in any of our Public Libraries is hardly to be 

 supposed, manuscripts of this character in those repositories being 

 generally well known. But it is not impossible, perhaps not im- 

 probable, that it may be still in existence somewhere, and most 

 likely in the county of Wilts. If on a shelf, and labelled " Hy- 

 pomnemata Antiquaria," it may have been passed over many times 

 without the slightest conception that it contained a History of 

 Wiltshire. At all events, merely as a literary fact, it should be 

 known that such an additional volume of Aubrey's work did once 

 exist. 



Leigh-Delamere Rectory, J. E. JACKSON. 



Chippenham, January 1st, 1860. 



P.S. Since the above was in type, my attention has been called to an im- 

 portant Note in Rev. Thos. Warton' s History of Kiddington 4to. 1783, p. 44 ; 

 in which Mr. Warton is speaking of Alderton House in Wilts, then the seat of 

 George Montagu, Esq. ; but formerly belonging to Thos. Grore, Esq., a friend of 

 Aubrey's. He says, " In Aubrey's time many old escocheons of painted glass 

 were remaining in the great Hall of the Manor House, which he (Aubrey) has 

 drawn in his Manuscript History of Wiltshire, now (i.e. 1783) partly pre- 

 served in the Library there (i.e. at Alderton), and partly in the Ashmolean 

 Museum." From this it would appear that Mr. Warton had personally con- 

 sulted in the Library at Alderton, in the year 1783, a Volume of Aubrey's MSS: 

 which must surely have been the "Volume now enquired for. The Alderton 

 Library was dispersed by Sale about the year 1815. 



