XI.

"Item, In virtue of this prefent writing, I John Shakspear do likewife moft willingly and with all humility conftitute and ordaine my good Angel, for Defender and Protectour of my foul in the dreadfull day of Judgement, when the finall sentance of eternall life or death fhall be difcuffed and given; beseeching him, that, as my foule was appointed to his cuftody and protection when I lived, even fo he will vouchsafe to defend the fame at that houre, and conduct it to eternall blifs.

XII.

Item, I John Shakspear do in like manner pray and befeech all my dear friends, parents, and kinffolks, by the bowels of our Saviour jefus Chrift, that fince it is uncertain what lot will befall me, for fear notwithstanding leaft by reafon of my finnes I be to pass and stay a long while in purgatory, they will vouchfafe to affift and fuccour me with their holy prayers and fatisfactory workes, especially with the holy facrifice of the maffe, as being the moft effectuall meanes to deliver foules from their torments and paines; from the which, if I fhall by gods gracious goodneffe and by their vertuous workes be delivered, I do promise that I will not be ungratefull unto them, for fo great a benefitt.

XIII.

"Item, I John Shakspear doe by this my last will and teftament bequeath my foul, as foon as it fhall be delivered and loofened from the prison of this my body, to be entombed in the fweet and amorous coffin of the fide of jefus Chrift; and that in this life-giveing fepulcher it may reft and

live, perpetually inclofed in that eternall habitation of repose, there to bleffe for ever and ever that direfull iron of the launce, which, like a charge in a cenfore, formes fo fweet and pleasant a monument within the facred breaft of my lord and faviour. XIV.

"Item, laftly I John Shakspear doe proteft, that I will willingly accept of death in what manner foever it may befall me, conforming my will unto the will of god; accepting of the fame in fatisfaction for my finnes, and giveing thanks unto his divine majefty for the life he hath bestowed upon me. And if it please him to prolong or fhorten the fame, bleffed be he also a thousand thousand times; into whose most holy hands I commend my foul and body, my life and death: and I beseech him above all things, that he never permit any change to be made by me John Shakspear of this my aforefaid will and teftament. Amen.

"I John Shakspear have made this prefent writing of proteftation, confeffion, and charter, in prefence of the bleffed virgin mary, my Angell guardian, and all the Celestiall Court, as witnesses hereunto the which my meaning is, that it be of full value now prefently and for ever, with the force and vertue of teftament, codicill, and donation in cause of death; confirming it anew, being in perfect health of foul and body, and signed with mine own hand; carrying alfo the fame about me; and for the better declaration hereof, my will and intention is that it be finally buried with me after my death. "Pater nofter, Ave maria, Credo.

jefu, fon of David, have mercy on me. Amen."

Since my remarks on the epitaph faid to have been made by Shakspeare on John o'Comb, were printed, it occurred to me, that the manufcript papers of Mr. Aubrey, preserved in the Afhmolean Museum at Oxford, might throw fome light on that fubject. Mr. Aubrey was born in the year 1625. or 1626. and in 1642 was entered a gentlemen commoner of Trinity college in Oxford. Four years afterwards he was admitted a member of the Inner Temple, and in 1662 elected a member of the Royal Society. He died about the year 1700. It is acknowledged, that his literary attainments. were confiderable; that he was a man of good parts, of much learning and great application; a good Latin poet, an excellent naturalift, and, what is more material to our prefent object, a great lover of and indefatigable searcher into antiquities. That the greater part of his life was devoted to literary purfuits, is afcertained by the works which he has published, the correfpondence which he held with many eminent men, and the collections which he left in manuscript, and which are now repofited in the Afhmolean Museum.. Among these collections is a curious account of our English poets and many other writers. While Wood was preparing his Athena Oxonienfes, this manufcript was lent to him, as appears from many queries in his handwriting in the margin; and his account of Milton, with whom Aubrey was intimately acquainted, is (as has been observed by Mr. Warton) literally tranfcribed from thence. Wood afterwards quarreled with Mr. Aubrey, whom in the fecond volume of his Fafti, p. 262. he calls his friend,

and on whom in his Hiftory of the University of Oxford he beftows the highest encomium; and, after their quarrel, with his ufual warmth, and in his loofe diction, he represented Aubrey as pretender to antiquities, roving, magottie-headed, and little better than crafed." To Wood every lover of antiquity and literary history has very high obligations; and in all matters of fact he may be fafely relied on; but his opinion of men and things is of little value. According to his reprefentation, Dr. Ralph Bathurft, a man highly efteemed by all his contemporaries, was "a moft vile perfon," and the celebrated John Locke, "a prating, clamorous, turbulent fellow." The virtuous and learned Dr. John Wallis, if we are to believe Wood, was a man who could at any time make black white, and white black, for his own ends, and who had a ready knack at fophiftical evafion. How little his judgment of his contemporaries is to be trusted, is also evinced by his account of the ingenious Dr. South, whom, being offended by one of his witticisms, he has grofsly reviled. ' Whatever

66

3

"Tranfmiffum autem nobis eft illud epitaphium a viro perhumano, Johanne Alberico, vulgo Aubrey, Armigero, hujus collegii olim generofo commenfali, jam vero é Regia Societate, Londini; viro inquam, tam bono, tam benigno, ut publico folum commodo, nec fibi omnino, natus effe videatur." Hift. & Antiq. Univ. Oxon. 1. ii. p. 297.

Letter from Wood to Aubrey, dated Jan. 16. 1689-90. MSS. Aubrey. No. 15. in Muf. Afhmol. Oxon. - Yet in the preface to his Hiftory of the University of Oxford, he defcribes Dr. Wallis as a man- "eruditione pariter & hu manitate præftans."

3 "Wood's account of South (fays Mr. Warton) is full of malicious reflections and abufive ftories: the occafion

Wood in a peevish humour may have thought or faid of Mr. Aubrey, by whofe labours he highly profited, or however fantaftical Aubrey may have been on the fubject of chemistry and gholts, his character for ve: acity has never been impeached; and as a very diligent antiquarian, his teftimony is worthy of attention. Mr. Toland, who was well acquainted with him, and certainly a better judge of men than Wood, gives this character of him: Though he was extremely fuperftitious, or feemed to be fo, yet HE WAS A VERY HONEST MAN, AND

66

MOST ACCURATE IN HIS ACCOUNT OF MATTERS OF

FACT. But the facts he knew, not the reflections he made, were what I wanted."+ I do not wifh

to maintain that all his accounts of our English writers are on thefe grounds to be implicitly adopted; but it feems to me much more reasonable to queftion such parts of them as feem objectionable, than to reject them altogether, because he may fometimes have been mistaken.

He was acquainted with many of the players, and lived in great intimacy with the poets and other celebrated writers of the laft age; from whom undoubtedly many of his anecdotes were collected.

of which was this. Wood, on a vifit to Dr. South, was complaining of a very painful and dangerous fuppreffion of urine; upon which South in his witty manner, told him, that, if he could not make water, he must make earth.” Wood was fo provoked at this unfeasonable and unexpected jeft, that he went home in a paffion, and wrote South's Life." Life of Ralph Bathurft, p. 184. Compare Wood's Athen. Oxon. II. 1041.

4

Specimen of a critical hiftory of the Celtick religion, &c,

p. 122.