Burton Street, London.
1st September, 1847.
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
IN the "Memoir of John Aubrey", published by the Wiltshire
Topographical Society in 1845, I expressed a wish that the "NATURAL
HISTORY of WILTSHIRE", the most important of that author's unpublished
manuscripts, might be printed by the Society, as a companion volume to that
Memoir, which it is especially calculated to illustrate.
The work referred to had been then suggested to the Council of the
Society by George Poulett Scrope, Esq. M.P., as desirable for
publication. They concurred with him in that opinion; and shortly
afterwards, through the kind intervention of the Marquess of
Northampton, an application was made to the Council of the Royal
Society for permission to have a transcript made for publication from
the copy of the " Natural History of Wiltshire" in their possession.
The required permission was readily accorded; and had not the printing
been delayed by my own serious illness during the last winter, and urgent
occupations since, it would have been completed some months ago.
When the present volume was first announced, it was intended to print
the whole of Aubrey's manuscript; but after mature deliberation it has
been thought more desirable to select only such passages as directly
or indirectly apply to the county of Wilts, or which comprise
information really useful or interesting in itself, or curious as
illustrating the state of literature and science at the time when they
were written.
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