Aubrey *s Wiltshire Collections and the Saturday Review. 



8 



cannot be aware that though very recently issued to the Public, the volume was 

 printed in 1862, and has been for more than two years widely circulated in the 

 County of Wilts. He does not know that it has been most favourably received, 

 and that instead of being a " thorough mistake," it has been (though I am com- 

 pelled to say so myself) a " thorough success ! " His criticism therefore comes 

 too late, and he will find himself in a glorious minority. Knowing absolutely 

 nothing about the matter, he has, with no little strut and pomposity, commanded 

 the stable-door to be shut, whilst the steed has been out and away over the 

 fields for more than two years ! That I think he will find to be his first blunder 

 from not observing the date of the book. 



2. His second is one of much greater importance as affecting me personally : 

 and much as I wish to controul my feelings, I can with difficulty repress a 

 rising indignation as I approach it. 



In the Saturday Review, which of course has a very wide circulation and lies 

 upon the tables of all literary societies, he, concealing his own name, has taken 

 the extreme liberty of placarding me, as a person not only ignorant, but stupidly 

 and obstinately ignorant. " Crassa ignorantia " is charged upon me: of which 

 his explanation is, that in a certain instance I have gone wilfully out of my way 

 to mislead the public of Wiltshire, after I had received more correct information. 

 A statement more injurious to a man's literary reputation however humble that 

 may be, could not be made. This statement has now gone all over the country : 

 it has gone where I have no means of making known, as I now do to you, that 

 it is a pure unmitigated falsehood. The case is this. 



Leland the Antiquary had mentioned a large square tower as standing at the 

 west end of Malmesbury Abbey Church. In one of my notes upon Aubrey I 

 happened to say that it was not very clear where this tower could have stood, 

 and that perhaps Leland had made some mistake. Most persons who should 

 visit the ruins would probably say the same thing : because there are none of 

 the usual indications of a tower rising, as towers usually do, from the ground. 

 Mr. Britton never detected any. Moffat the historian of Malmesbury does not 

 mention them, nor indeed are there any remains either of piers or other solid 

 masonry such as in ordinary cases supported towers. It was therefore no very 

 remarkable ignorance in me not to have found them, and the doubt I had sug- 

 gested, was after all not very peremptorily expressed. 



But it so happened that at a Meeting of the Wiltshire Archaeological Society 

 held at Malmesbury in 1862, Mr. E. A. Freeman, whose knowledge of Archi- 

 tecture is very superior to my own, pointed out where this Tower had been. 

 There are a few stones high up near the top of the ruined wall, which he ex- 

 plained to have been part of an arch, on which arch the tower had been built : 

 but he added that it was a most audacious and foolhardy experiment, a very 

 singular and exceptional case. This was a further reason why less accomplished 

 antiquarians might well be excused for not having detected it. I certainly was 

 not aware of it until I heard Mr. Freeman give his explanation on the spot. 



But now comes this Reviewer, telling all the world that I, after I had Mr. 

 Freeman's explanation on the spot, persisted in my ignorance, and in defiance 

 of Mr. Freeman's explanation, persisted in wilfully misleading the public of 

 Wiltshire, by continuing to assert that there had been no tower. 



Now then for the facts. The Meeting at Malmesbury was held on the 5th 



