Aubrey’s Brief Lives contains this sad story about the seventeenth Earl of Oxford: This Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 yeares. On his return the Queen welcomed him home and sayd, My Lord, I had forgot the Fart. Farts are quickly delivered and slowly forgotten.
