After his history of the order of the Garter, his principal work is his diary, which briefly but amusingly records the vicissitudes of his generally prosperous life; his gain of estate and loss of quiet by his second marriage; his acquaintance with old Mr. Backhouse, the Rosicrucian, 'who told me, in syllables, the true matter of the philosopher's stone;' his prosperity under Charles II. as Windsor herald and holder of several other offices; his third marriage, with the daughter of his friend Dugdale; above all, his acquisition of the Tradescant antiquities, which formed the nucleus of the Ashmolean Museum. This and his collection of manuscripts were bequeathed to the University of Oxford; the catalogue of the latter forms a goodly volume. [Sidenote: John Aubrey (1626-1697).] Of far less importance than Dugdale or Ashmole as an antiquary, John Aubrey is better remembered as an author. His strictly literary qualifications are few; setting aside his collections for local history, his writings consist of little else than detached memoranda. Their merit lies partly in the interest of their themes, but still more in their artless simplicity and the transparent revelation of the amiable if not dignified character of one who might have sat to Addison for Will Wimble. Aubrey remarks concerning himself that he might have succeeded in life if he had been a painter. Of his artistic powers we cannot judge, but the simple, cheerful, social temper that befits the itinerant landscape painter was his beyond question. For all more serious careers he was totally unfit. He had lost money and estate before middle life, and spent the remainder of his days with much more satisfaction to himself in visiting, or, when pressed by pecuniary difficulties, 'delitescing' at the mansions of country friends, a welcome and innocent parasite. The guiding spirit of his literary work is charmingly expressed by himself: 'Methinks it shows a kind of gratitude and good nature to revive the memories and memorials of the pious and charitable benefactors long since dead and gone.' In the same spirit, after relating how he had seen Venetia Digby's bust 'standing at a stall at the Golden Crosse, a brasier's shop,' he exclaims, 'How these curiosities would be quite forgot, did not such idle fellows as I am put them down!' He has hence retrieved from oblivion a number of highly curious and interesting particulars about men of letters from Shakespeare downwards, and a most entertaining collection of stories of apparitions, warnings, prophecies, and similar matters. Much of the charm consists in the credulity and simplicity of the narrator, who is nevertheless by no means incapable of just and penetrating reflections on occasion, as when he says of Shakespeare: 'His comedies will remain wit as long as the English tongue is understood, for that he handles _mores hominum_; now our present writers reflect so much upon particular