leaving a widow and also three daughters by his first marriage. He was buried at Kensal Green cemetery. With the exception of Gleig, he was the last survivor of the brilliant group who wrote for the early numbers of ‘Fraser's Magazine,’ and, though he died in harness, had outlived nearly all the associates of the days when he first achieved fame.
[No biography of Ainsworth has appeared or is likely to be published. When Jerdan published his ‘Autobiography,’ Ainsworth prohibited the publication of his own letters; and though he had preserved a mass of correspondence, it proved, on examination after his death, to have but little biographical or literary importance. Laman Blanchard wrote a brief memoir, which appeared in the ‘Mirror’ in 1842, and was afterwards prefixed to the popular editions of ‘Rookwood.’ In addition to this there is a report of the banquet to him in 1881, which was printed for private circulation, and the ‘Early Life of William Harrison Ainsworth’ by John Evans. Reprinted from the ‘Manchester Quarterly,’ i. 137, Manchester, 1882. This contains a portrait from a drawing taken in 1826. There are also engraved portraits by Pickersgill and Maclise.]
AIO (d. 974), an historian, was a monk in the abbey of Croyland or Crowland in Lincolnshire, and is only mentioned in the ‘History’ of Ingulf, afterwards abbot of the same monastery. From this account we learn that after the death, in 941, of Athelstan, the special patron of Croyland, as well as of the abbot and two of the elder brothers, the monastery seemed likely to fall into decay. There remained in it only five monks, and of these two, Brun and Aio, in despair of the future of Croyland, determined to retire to other religious houses. Brun went to Winchester and Aio to Malmesbury. Croyland was, however, restored to prosperity in 946 by Eadred, who appointed Turketul abbot, and in the same year Brun and Aio were recalled thither. To these two monks was entrusted the task of compiling a history of Croyland, but they did not live to complete their task, both dying in the same year, 974. Ingulf professed to have made use of material collected by them.
[Historia Ingulphi, in Rer. Anglic. Script., ed. Gale, pp. 29 seq., 51.]
AIRAY, CHRISTOPHER (1601–1670), a pioneer in English logic, was born at Clifton in Westmoreland in 1600–1. Wood informs us that he ‘became a student in Queen's College, Oxford.’ The entry in the register of admissions to the college runs thus: ‘In Ter. Nat. 1620[–1], Feb[ruary] 5, was admitted batchelor Christoph. Airaye.’ Going ‘through the servile offices,’ he proceeded Master of Arts. In 1627 he ‘was elected fellow.’ ‘About this time’ he ‘entered into holy orders, according to the statutes of the house,’ and became a preacher. He was created B.D. in 1642. Whilst still at the university he published anonymously his one known book, viz.: ‘Fascicvlvs Præceptorvm Logicorvm in gratiam juventutis academicæ compositus et nunc primum typis donatus. Oxoniæ excudebat Gvlielmvs Tvrner Academiæ Typographus. An. D. 1628. Cum Priuilegio’ (pp. 224). The printer signs the ‘Præfatio.’ The following are the main headings: Lib. 1, De Prædicabilibus; 2, De Anteprædicamentis; 3, De Propositione; 4, De Demonstratione; 5, De Syllogismo Topico; 6, De Syllogismo Sophistico. There is a good deal of neatness in the various formulæ, but logic is ever and anon trespassed on by metaphysic, or thought as against the form of thought. The examplar of ‘Fascicvlvs Præceptorvm Logicorvm’ in the British Museum was one of Bishop Juxon's books (8466a). A second edition did not appear until 1660.
Airay was presented to the living of Milford in Hampshire; he died on St. Luke's day, 1670, and was buried in the chancel of his church. His epitaph is still to be read as follows: ‘Memoriæ sacrum Christopheri Airay, S. T. Bac. olim Coll. Reg. Oxon. socii et hujus ecclesiæ Vicarii vigilantissimi, viri summæ integritatis, judicii acerrimi et ingenii literarum omnium capacis: qui difficillime seculo inter æstuantes rerum fluctus clavum rectum tenuit. Mortalitatem tandem exuit 18 Oct. annos natus 69.’ Anthony à Wood speaks of ‘other things’ by him, but they seem to have disappeared.
[Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iii. 907; information supplied by Dr. Magrath, per Rev. R. L. Clark, M.A., librarian of Queen's College, Oxford.]
AIRAY, HENRY, D.D. (1560?–1616), puritan divine and author of ‘Lectures’ on St. Paul's Epistle to the ‘Philippians,’ originally published in 1618, and recently republished in Nichol's ‘Puritan Commentaries,’ was born ‘about 1559–60,’ at Kentmere, Westmoreland; he was the son of William Airay, the favourite servant of Bernard Gilpin, the apostle of the North. Thus from his birth brought under the vigilant eyes and benignant care of this saintliest of the provincial leaders of the puritans, he was among the first to share the benefits of a school erected and endowed by Gilpin in the parish.
