4 Aubrey's Wiltshire Collections and the Saturday Review. 



August, 1862, exactly six months after the Aubrey volume had been printed 

 and circulated. It bears at the end of the Preface, if the Reviewer had only 

 read so far, the date of February, 1862. I need therefore say no more than that it 

 was simply impossible for me to be defying in February an explanation which I 

 did not hear until August following. The Reviewer's statement is accordingly 

 a pure falsehood. 



So far from ever wishing to act in such a manner as this insolent Reviewer 

 attributes to me, I was the very person who, immediately after the Meeting at 

 Malmesbury asked Mr. Freeman to allow his explanation to be printed in the 

 "Wiltshire Magazine ; which was accordingly done. 



Now, Mr. E. A. Freeman is himself, I believe, an occasional writer in the 

 Saturday Review. Perhaps if this statement should meet his eye, he will have 

 the goodness to tell his colleague in that establishment, (the writer who slanders 

 me,) that I look upon his conduct as very mean and cowardly. It is only the 

 bully that hides his face and stabs in the dark. If the Reviewer ever again 

 has occasion to find fault with me for anything I have written about the County 

 of Wilts, let him put his name to what he writes, and then perhaps he will be 

 more careful in his writing, and not be doing his best to hurt the reputation of 

 others by downright falsehoods. 



As to the rest of this Review of Aubrey's Wiltshire, it is really such a com- 

 plete misunderstanding of the real character of the Book itself, and of me its 

 Editor, that I am quite at ease as to the reception it will meet with in the County 

 of Wilts. He may depend upon it, that if there is any "thorough mistake" in 

 the matter, it is he who has made it, and not your humble servant, 



J. E. JACKSON. 



London, October 20th, 1864. 



H. BULL, Printer and Publisher, Devizes. 



