Museum. 4to. 1821-1838.]

† [He was then in his 71st year.]

A chapter of the "Natural History" (being "Fatalities of Families
and Places"), was at this time detached from the original manuscript
to furnish materials for the remarks on "Local Fatality," in the
"Miscellanies."

John Aubrey died suddenly in the first week in June 1697, and was
buried in the church of St. Mary Magdalen at Oxford, and from the time
of his decease the original draught of his Wiltshire History has been
carefully preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, as the fair
copy of 1690 has also in the Library of the Royal Society in London.

Until the "Natural History of Wiltshire" was briefly described in my
own "Memoir" of its author, very little was known of it beyond the
mere fact of the existence of the two manuscripts. Copying from the
original at Oxford, Dr. Rawlinson printed the Preface and Dedication,
together with Ray's letter of the 27th October, 1691, as addenda to
his edition of Aubrey's "History of Surrey," (1719.) The same
manuscript was also noticed by Thomas Warton and William Huddesford in
a list of the author's works in the Ashmolean Museum.‡ Horace Walpole
referred to the Royal Society's copy in his Anecdotes of Painting
(1762); but though his reference seems to have excited the curiosity
of Gough, the latter contented himself with stating that he could not
find the work mentioned in Mr. Robertson's catalogue of the Society's
library.

‡ [This list forms a note to the "Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Wood"