Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Aufrere, Anthony
AUFRERE, ANTHONY (1756–1833), antiquary, of Old Foulsham Hall, Norfolk, born in 1756, was the eldest son of Anthony Aufrere, of Hoveton Hall, Norfolk, who died in 1814. His mother was Anna, only daughter of John Norris, of Witton, in the same county, and sister to John Norris, founder of the Norrisian professorship at Cambridge. On 19 Feb. 1791 he married Matilda, youngest daughter of General James Lockhart, of Lee and Carnwath, by whom he had a son and daughter, the former marrying the youngest daughter of a Hamburg merchant, named Whertman, and the latter George Barclay, a merchant of New York. To Anthony Aufrere, who had a great taste for literature, the task of editing the 'Lockhart Letters' (1817, 2 vols. 4to) was entrusted by his brother-in-law, Charles Count Lockhart, three years before his death, which took place in August 1802. These letters contain much curious correspondence between the ancestors of the Lockhart family and the confidential supporters of the Pretender, previous to and during the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, the publication of which was delayed for more than half a century, in order that every one concerned in it might be dead before it became public property. In early life Anthony Aufrere showed a great aptitude for learning foreign languages, and among the works he translated was 'A Tribute to the Memory of Ulric von Hütten, from the German of Goethe,' 1789, in the preface to which he pays a graceful tribute to the memory of one who took, he says, 'so distinguished and so useful a part' in the reformation. In 1795 he published a translation of 'Travels through various Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples,' 1789, from the German of Salis; and in 1822 'A Narrative of an Expedition from Tripoli to the Western Frontier of Egypt,' from the Italian of Delia Cella. A small work which excited much attention was his 'Warning to Britons against French Perfidy and Cruelty; or a Short Account of the Treacherous and Inhuman Conduct of the French Officers and Soldiers towards the Peasants of Suabia, during the Invasion of Germany in 1796, selected from well-authenticated German publications, with an address to the people of Great Britain by the translator,' 1798. He was also a frequent contributor to the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' under the pseudonym of ‘Viator A.' He died at Pisa on 29 Nov. 1833, in his seventy-seventh year.
[Gent. Mag. 1816, Ixxxvi. 381, 1834, n, s. i. 555; Annual Register, 1834, lxxvi. 247; Brit. Mus. Cat.; the Lockhart Papers, 1817, Preface; Annual Biography and Obituary, 1835, xix. 386.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.11
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 255 | i | 3-7 | Aufrere, Anthony: for in the preface . . . . in the reformation read (The 'Tribute' was really by Herder, and appeared under the title of 'Denkmal Ulrichs von Hutten' in the 'Teutscher Merkur' for July 1776, being reprinted in a spurious edition of Goethe's works in 1779; see Herder's 'Werke,' ed. Hempl, xv. 355.) |