King had come to his own again." The tastes of an antiquary
combined, with the natural reaction against Puritanism, to make
Antony Wood a High Churchman, and not averse to Rome, while he had
sufficient breadth of mind to admire Thomas Hobbes, the patriarch of
English learning. But Wood had little room in his heart or mind for
any learning save that connected with the University. Oxford, the
city, and the colleges, the remains of the old religious art, the
customs, the dresses--these things he adored with a loverlike
devotion, which was utterly unrewarded. He owed no office to the
University, and he was even expelled (1693) for having written
sharply against Clarendon. This did not abate his zeal, nor prevent
him from passing all his days, and much of his nights, in the study
and compilation of University history.

The author of Wood's biography has left a picture of his sombre and
laborious old age. He rose at four o'clock every morning. He
scarcely tasted food till supper-time. At the hour of the college
dinner he visited the booksellers' shops, where he was sure not to be
disturbed by the gossip of dons, young and old. After supper he
would smoke his pipe and drink his pot of ale in a tavern. It was
while he took this modest refreshment, before old age came upon him,
that Antony once fell in, and fell out, with Dick Peers. This Dick
was one of the men employed by Dr. Fell, the Dean of Ch. Ch., to
translate Wood's History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford
into Latin. The translation gave rise to a number of literary
quarrels. As Dean of Ch. Ch., Dr. Fell yielded to the besetting sin
of deans, and fancied himself the absolute master of the University,
if not something superior to mortal kind. An autocrat of this sort
had no scruples about changing Wood's copy whenever he differed from
Wood in political or religious opinion. Now Antony, as we said, had