Anthony Wood, called Anthony à Wood. Born at Oxford, England, Dec. 17, 1632: died there, Nov. 28, 1695. An English antiquary. He was educated at Oxford. He wrote “Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis” (written in English and translated into Latin for the University Press in 1674). He was dissatisfied with the translation, and afterward rewrote his English MS., and it was published after his death in two volumes—the first as “The History and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls of the University of Oxford, with a Continuation to the Present Time by John Gutch,” with “Fasti (Annals) Oxoniensis” (1786–90); the second as “The History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford” (1792–1796). He also wrote “Athenæ Oxoniensis: an Exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the University of Oxford from 1500 to 1690,” with “Fasti.” Two volumes of this were printed (1691–92) before his death; the third he prepared, and it appeared in the second edition 1721; third enlarged edition by Bliss 1813–20. He also wrote “Modus Salium: a Collection of Pieces of Humour” (1751), and “The Ancient and Present State of the City of Oxford” (1773).
Personal
Mr. Anthony à Wood, M.A., antiquarius, in his lettre to me, Palm Sunday March 23, 1672, writes thus, viz. “My nativity I cannot yet retrive; but by talking with an ancient servant of my father’s I find I was borne on the 17 of Decemb., but the year when I am not certain: ’twas possibly about 1647.—John Selden was borne the 16 of December and Sir Symonds Dews the 17. But of these matters I shall tell you more when my trouble is over.”
Immediately sent to a very good man, his confident, to pray with him, appointing his hours; received the Sacrament the next morning very devoutly; made his Will; went into his study with his two friends, Mr. Bisse and Mr. Tanner, to sort that vast multitude of Papers, Notes, Letters:—about two bushels full he ordered for the fire to be lighted as he was expiring, which was accordingly done, he expressing both his knowledge and his approbation of what was done by throwing out his hands.
Mr. Powell told me, Ant. à Wood used sometimes to call at his house, on purpose to inquire of him about antiquities. Old Ralph Sheldon, of Beoly, esq. (commonly called Great Sheldon), was Ant. à Wood’s great friend, and Anthony used sometimes to go and lye at his house. When he was there one time, some young ladies there, having a mind to make sport with Anthony, put some antimony and something else into his liquor, which made him so sick, that it was thought he would have died; at which Mr. Sheldon was confounded angry with the ladies, who did it out of a frolick, Anthony being looked upon by them as a quere fellow.
He was known to all Oxford as a large-boned man, of crabbed temper and surly habits, whose recreations, amid his hard antiquarian labours, were ale and tobacco in moderation and music to any extent. No man had more heartily welcomed the Restoration, with the deliverance it brought from those he called “the Presbyterians and Phanatics.”
Of the man himself but little outside testimony exists, and what does, certainly tends to present him in the light of an eccentric, censorious, and sour-minded recluse. Indeed, his own nephew speaks of him as “a wonderful pryer,” who “wore his hat over his eyes, seemed to take notice of nothing, and to know nothing, and yet he took notice of everything and knew everything;” while Wood himself more than once complains of having been called “a listener at key-holes,” and it is regretable to find him “expelled the com on room, and his company avoyded as an observing person, and not fit to be present where matters of moment were discussed.” These characteristics agree but ill with the dignity proper to the carriage of the historian of Oxford University; though they are qualities not altogether unserviceable in the case of a diarist.
The disagreeable side of Wood’s nature now [1670–74] became predominant. The severity of his studies had given him exaggerated ideas of his own importance; his increasing deafness cut him off from social intercourse, and he became ill-natured, foolishly obstinate in his own opinion, and violently jealous of his own dignity. He quarrelled with his own family; he quarrelled with the fellows of Merton. He quarrelled with his good friend Bathurst, with his patron Fell, with every one who sought either to help him or to shun him. It was said of him, not untruly, that he “never spake well of any man.” Of John Aubrey, the chief contributor to his fame, whose biographical notes he annexed page by page, his language is ungenerous and most ungrateful. He shut himself up more and more in his study, very busy but very unhappy, the antitype of the alchemists’ dragon, killing itself in its prison by its own venom.
General
The truth is, his books are little more than a medley of notes and such informations as were sent in from his several correspondents; without being digested into any other method than the throwing them under that particular author’s name to which they chiefly related. It is no blemish on his memory to observe that he had his share of that peevishness and austerity, both in his style and manners, which is commonly incident to antiquaries; and thus much we ought gratefully to acknowledge, that he has furnished us with a larger stock of useful material than perhaps any one man of this age has collected. If he was too sullen among courtiers, he paid sufficiently for all the liberty he took, [he was expelled from Oxford for some strictures on the late Earl of Clarendon;] and it is illegal to object to a crime for which a suitable penance has been already enjoined and performed.
Hard was the fate of honest Anthony Wood, when Dr. Fell undertook to have his history of Oxford translated into Latin; the translator, a sullen dogged fellow, when he observed that Wood was enraged at seeing the perpetual alterations of his copy made to please Dr. Fell, delighted to alter it the more; while the greater executioner supervising the printed sheets, “by correcting, altering, or dashing out what he pleased,” compelled the writer publicly to disavow his own work!
The dulness of Michael de Marolles and Anthony Wood acquires some value from the faithful representation of men and manners.
The indefatigable though tasteless Anthony Wood…. That tasteless though useful drudge.
“The Ostade of Literary History.” A name given to Anthony Wood, the English antiquary, on account of his ability to surprise our judgment into admiration, his dry humor of honesty, and the breadth of his knowledge.
He collects a world of “surfaces,” impressions that well portray himself. He is a newsletter also. Monstrous births, escapes, blazing stars, scandals among the venerable, hangings, suicides, and all manner of deaths: ballads and all processions royal and funereal—all pageantries and dignified masquerades—are meat and drink to him; nor ever fails he narrowly to scrutinise the hatchments on coffins and tombs, and mete sarcasm to false displays of arms. Meanwhile he is daily dredging and ravaging college archives, with fierce tenacity, for fifty years. The mind had therefore no leisure strongly to react on the vast material amassed, and this failure is reflected in his style…. His style has no pretensions to form, and presents few notable features. Throughout it is more or less disjointed by scrappy treatment, and marred by the jerkiness of the habitual notetaker, and lengthy passages of continuous prose seldom occur. He is hampered by a painful accuracy which loads the unpremeditated sentence with parentheses. In the “Athenæ” it is most continuous, and on the whole the best, becoming less full of cumbrous gravity as he approaches the writers of his own generation.
