Brief Lives, Vol. 1
by John Aubrey · English · Gutenberg #47787 · 906,533 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Brief Lives, Vol. 1
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Brief Lives, Vol. 1
Author: John Aubrey
Editor: Andrew Clark
Release date: December 26, 2014 [eBook #47787]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47787
Credits: Produced by Richard Tonsing, Malcolm Farmer and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRIEF LIVES, VOL. 1 ***
AUBREY'S 'BRIEF LIVES'
_ANDREW CLARK_
VOL. I.
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
[Illustration]
LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK
[Illustration: JOHN AUBREY: AETAT. 40
_From a pen-and-ink drawing in the Bodleian_]
_'Brief Lives,' chiefly of Contemporaries,
set down by
John Aubrey, between
the Years 1669 & 1696_
EDITED FROM THE AUTHOR'S MSS.
BY
ANDREW CLARK
M.A., LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD; M.A. AND LL.D., ST. ANDREWS
_WITH FACSIMILES_
VOLUME I. (A-H)
Oxford
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1898
[Illustration: Oxford]
PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
BY HORACE HART, M.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
PREFACE
The rules laid down for this edition have been fully stated in
the Introduction. It need only be said here that these have been
scrupulously followed.
I may take this opportunity of saying that the text gives Aubrey's
quotations, English and Latin alike, in the form in which they are
found in his MSS. They are plainly cited from memory, not from book:
they frequently do not scan, and at times do not even construe. A few
are incorrect cementings of odd half lines.
The necessary excisions have not been numerous. They suggest two
reflections. The turbulence attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh seems to
have made his name in the next age the centre of aggregation of quite
a number of coarse stories. In the same way, Aubrey is generally nasty
when he mentions the noble house of Herbert, earl of Pembroke, and
the allied family of Sydney. There may be personal pique in this, for
Aubrey thinks he had a narrow escape from assassination by a Herbert
(i. 48); perhaps also there may be the after-glow of a Wiltshire 'feud'
(i. 316).
The Index gives all references to persons mentioned in the text, except
to a few found only in pedigrees, or otherwise quite insignificant;
also to all places of which anything distinctive is said.
ANDREW CLARK.
_January 4, 1898._
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
FRONTISPIECE: JOHN AUBREY, AETAT. 40.
PAGE
SYNOPSIS OF THE LIVES ix-xv
INTRODUCTION 1-23
LIVES:--=Abbot= TO =Hyde= 24-427
VOLUME II
FRONTISPIECE: AUBREY'S BOOK-PLATE.
LIVES:--=Ingelbert= TO =York= 1-316
APPENDIX I:--AUBREY'S NOTES OF ANTIQUITIES 317-332
APPENDIX II:--AUBREY'S COMEDY _The Countrey Revell_ 333-339
INDEX 341-370
FACSIMILES _At end._
I. Castle Mound, Oxford. Riding at the Quintin.
II. Verulam House.
III. Horoscope and cottage of Thomas Hobbes.
IV. Plans of Malmsbury and district.
V. Horoscope and arms of Sir William Petty.
VI. Wolsey's Chapel at Christ Church.
SYNOPSIS OF THE 'LIVES'
In the text the Lives have been given in alphabetical order of the
names. This was necessary, not only on account of their number--more
than 400--but because Aubrey, in compiling them, followed more than one
principle of selection, writing, first, lives of authors, then, lives
of mathematicians, but bringing in also lives of statesmen, soldiers,
people of fashion, and personal friends.
The following synopsis of the lives may serve to show (i) the heads
under which they naturally fall, (ii) their chronological sequence.
The mark † indicates the year or approximate year of death; ‡ denotes a
life which Aubrey said he would write, but which has not been found; §
is attached to the few names of foreigners.
BEFORE HENRY VIII.
WRITERS.
_Poets._
Geoffrey Chaucer (†1400).
John Gower (†1408).
_Prose._
Sir John Mandeville (†1372).
MATHEMATICS.
John Holywood (†1256).
Roger Bacon (†1294).
John Ashindon (†13..).
ALCHEMY.
George Ripley (†1490).
CHURCH AND STATE.
S. Dunstan (†988).
S. Edmund Rich (†1240).
Owen Glendower (†1415).
William Canynges (†1474).
John Morton (†1500).
HENRY VIII--MARY (†1558).
WRITERS.
Sir Thomas More (†1535).
§Desiderius Erasmus (†1536).
MATHEMATICS.
Richard Benese (†1546).
Robert Record (†1558).
CHURCH AND STATE.
John Colet (†1519).
Thomas Wolsey (†1530).
John Innocent (†1545).
Sir Thomas Pope (†1559).
Edmund Bonner (†1569).
* * * * *
Sir Erasmus Dryden (†1632).
ELIZABETH (†1603).
WRITERS.
_Poets._
Thomas Tusser (†1580).
Edmund Spenser (†1599).
Sir Edward Dyer (†1607).
William Shakespear (†1616).
_Prose._
§‡ Petrus Ramus (†1572).
John Twyne (†1581).
Sir Philip Sydney (†1586).
John Foxe (†1587).
Robert Glover (†1588).
Thomas Cooper (†1594).
Thomas Stapleton (†1598).
Thomas North (†1601).
William Watson (†1603).
John Stowe (†1605).
Thomas Brightman (†1607).
John David Rhese (†1609).
Nicholas Hill (†1610).
MATHEMATICS.
James Peele (†15..).
Leonard Digges (†1571).
Thomas Digges (†1595).
John Securis (†...).
Evans Lloyd (†...).
Cyprian Lucar (†...).
Thomas Hoode (†...).
‡ Thomas Blundeville (†16..).
Henry Billingsley (†1606).
§ Ludolph van Keulen (†1610).
John Blagrave (†1611).
Edward Wright (†1615).
Thomas Hariot (†1621).
Sir Henry Savile (†1622).
CHEMISTRY.
Adrian Gilbert (†...).
ZOOLOGY.
Thomas Mouffet (†1604).
ALCHEMY AND ASTROLOGY.
Thomas Charnocke (†1581).
John Dee (†1608).
Arthur Dee (†1651).
STATE.
William Herbert, 1st earl of Pembroke (†1570).
William Cecil, lord Burghley (†1598).
Robert Devereux, earl of Essex (†1601).
Sir Charles Danvers (†1601).
George Clifford, earl of Cumberland (†1605).
Thomas Sackville, earl of Dorset (†1608).
? Sir Thomas Penruddock (†...).
LAW.
Sir William Fleetwood (†1594).
William Aubrey (†1595).
Sir John Popham (†1607).
COMMERCE, ETC.
Sir Thomas Gresham (†1579).
John Davys, capt. (†1605).
Richard Staper (†1608).
SOCIETY.
? ... Robartes (†...).
Elizabeth Danvers (†...).
Sir John Danvers (†1594).
Richard Herbert (†1596).
Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford (†1604).
Sir Henry Lee (†1611).
Silvanus Scory (†1617).
Mary Herbert, countess of Pembroke (†1621).
JAMES I (†1625).
WRITERS.
_Poets._
Francis Beaumont (†1616).
John Fletcher (†1625).
Arthur Gorges (†1625).
MATHEMATICS.
Edward Brerewood (†1613).
John Norden (†1625).
Edmund Gunter (†1626).
Thomas Allen (†1632).
Robert Hues (†1632).
John Speidell (†16..).
‡Thomas Fale (†16..).
‡Thomas Lydiat (†1646).
ASTROLOGY.
Dr. Richard Napier (†1634).
CHURCH.
Richard Bancroft (†1610).
John Overall (†1619).
Lancelot Andrewes (†1626).
George Abbot (†1633).
John Davenant (†1641).
STATE.
Everard Digby (†1606).
Thomas Overbury (†1613).
‡James I (†1625).
William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke (†1630).
LAW.
Sir Thomas Egerton, lord Ellesmere (†1617).
Richard Martin (†1618).
MEDICINE.
... Jaquinto (†16..).
William Butler (†1618).
Francis Anthony (†1623).
COMMERCE, ETC.
Thomas Sutton (†1611).
John Guy (†1628).
John Whitson (†1629).
Sir Hugh Middleton (†1631).
William de Visscher (†16..).
Edward Davenant (†16..).
INVENTORS.
William Lee (†1610).
... Gregory (†16..).
... Ingelbert (†16..).
... Robson (†16..).
SEAMEN.
Walter Raleigh (†1617).
‡Thomas Stump (†16..).
Roger North (†1652).
SCHOOLMASTERS.
Alexander Gill (†1635).
Martin Billingsley (†16..).
MISCELLANEOUS.
Charles Hoskyns (†1609).
Richard Sackville, 3rd earl of Dorset (†1624).
Sir Henry Lee (†1631).
Simon Furbisher (†16..).
Fulk Greville, lord Brooke (†1628).
Michael Drayton (†1631).
George Chapman (†1634).
Ben Jonson (†1637).
George Feriby (†16..).
‡Benjamin Ruddyer (†16..).
_Prose._
Henry Lyte (†1607).
Richard Knolles (†1610).
‡Richard White (†1612).
Thomas Twyne (†1613).
Thomas Coryat (†1617).
Sir Walter Raleigh (†1618).
John Barclay (†1621).
William Camden (†1623).
Nicholas Fuller (†1624).
John Florio (†1625).
Francis Bacon (†1626).
John Speed (†1629).
Thomas Archer (†1630).
John Rider (†1632).
Isaac Wake (†1632).
William Sutton (†1632).
Philemon Holland (†1637).
John Willis (†16..).
CHARLES I (†1649).
WRITERS.
_Poets._
Hugh Holland (†1633).
George Herbert (†1633).
Richard Corbet (†1635).
Thomas Randolph (†1635).
John Sherburne (†1635).
Sir Robert Aiton (†1638).
John Hoskyns (†1638).
Philip Massinger (†1640).
Charles Aleyn (†1640).
Sir John Suckling (†1641).
William Cartwright (†1643).
Henry Clifford, earl of Cumberland (†1643).
George Sandys (†1644).
Francis Quarles (†1644).
William Browne (†1645).
Thomas Goodwyn (†16..).
William Habington (†1654).
John Taylor (†1654).
Sir Robert Harley (†1656).
Richard Lovelace (†1658).
John Cleveland (†1658).
Gideon de Laune (†1659).
James Shirley (†1666).
_Prose._
Gervase Markham (†1637).
Robert Burton (†1640).
Sir Henry Spelman (†1641).
W. Chillingworth (†1644).
Rob. Stafford (†1644).
William Twisse (†1646).
Degory Wheare (†1647).
Edward, lord Herbert of Chirbury (†1648).
§Joh. Ger. Vossius (†1649).
Abraham Wheloc (†16..).
Theoph. Wodenote, sen. (†16..).
§René des Cartes (†1651).
... Gerard (†16..).
‡Samuel Collins (†1651).
§Jean L. de Balzac (†1655).
John Hales (†1656).
James Usher (†1656).
Joseph Hall (†1656).
William Harvey (†1657).
Robert Sanderson (†1663).
Sir Kenelm Digby (†1665).
MATHEMATICS.
Henry Briggs (†1631).
William Bedwell (†1632).
Nathaniel Torporley (†1632).
Henry Gellibrand (†1637).
Walter Warner (†1640).
William Gascoigne (†1644).
Charles Cavendish (†1652).
Henry Isaacson (†1654).
Edmund Wingate (†1656).
William Oughtred (†1660).
Franciscus Linus (†16..).
John Tap (†16..).
John Wells (†16..).
CHURCH.
Richard Neile (†1640).
George Webb (†1641).
STATE.
George Villiers, duke of Buckingham (†1628).
Sir Edward Coke (†1633).
William Noy (†1634).
Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Cork (†1643).
Lucius Cary, earl of Falkland (†1643).
Henry Danvers, earl of Danby (†1644).
Robert Dalzell, earl of Carnwarth (†1654).
LAW.
Sir Henry Martin (†1641).
David Jenkins (†1663).
MEDICINE.
Sir Matthew Lister (†1656).
ART.
Inigo Jones (†1652).
SOLDIERS.
Charles Cavendish (†1643).
Sir James Long (†1659).
Sir Robert Harley (†1673).
Sir William Neale (†1691).
SCHOOL AND COLLEGE.
Alexander Gill (†1642).
Ralph Kettell (†1643).
Hannibal Potter (†1664).
Thomas Batchcroft (†1670).
SOCIETY.
Elizabeth Broughton (†16..).
Venetia Digby (†1633).
MISCELLANEOUS.
Elize Hele (†1633).
John Clavell (†1642).
? ... Cradock (†16..).
COMMONWEALTH.
WRITERS.
_Poets._
Thomas May (†1650).
Katherine Philips (†1664).
George Withers (†1667).
John Milton (†1674).
Andrew Marvell (†1678).
_Prose._
Clement Walker (†1651).
John Selden (†1654).
Walter Rumsey (†1660).
Thomas Fuller (†1661).
William Prynne (†1669).
MATHEMATICS.
Richard Billingsley (†16..).
Samuel Foster (†1652).
Lawrence Rooke (†1662).
SCIENCE.
John Wilkins (†1672).
ASTROLOGY.
Nicholas Fiske (†16..).
STATE.
Sir John Danvers (†1655).
Thomas Chaloner (†1661).
Sir William Platers (†16..).
James Harrington (†1677).
Henry Martin (†1680).
Sir Henry Blount (†1682).
SOLDIERS AND SAILORS.
Robert Grevill, lord Brooke (†1643).
Robert Blake (†1657).
George Monk (†1671).
Thomas, lord Fairfax (†1671).
LAW.
Henry Rolle (†1656).
MEDICINE.
Jonathan Goddard (†1675).
SCHOOL.
Thomas Triplett (†1670).
CHARLES II (†1685) AND JAMES II.
WRITERS.
_Poets._
Alexander Brome (†1666).
Abraham Cowley (†1667).
Sir William Davenant (†1668).
Sir John Denham (†1669).
Samuel Butler (†1680).
John Wilmot, earl of Rochester (†1680).
John Lacy (†1681).
Martin Lluelyn (†1682).
Edmund Waller (†1687).
Thomas Flatman (†1688).
‡Sir George Etherege (†16..).
Henry Vaughan (†1695).
John Dryden (†1700).
_Prose._
Peter Heylyn (†1662).
James Heath (†1664).
Sir Robert Poyntz (†1665).
Thomas Vaughan (†1667).
George Bate (†1668).
John Davenport (†1670).
Vavasor Powell (†1670).
Samuel Hartlib (†1670).
Edward Bagshawe (†1671).
Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon (†1674).
Sir William Saunderson (†1676).
John Ogilby (†1676).
John Tombes (†1676).
Thomas Whyte (†1676).
Silas Taylor (†1678).
Thomas Stanley (†1678).
John Cecil, 4th earl of Exeter (†1678).
Thomas Hobbes (†1679).
... Barrow (†168.).
... Munday (†16..).
Joseph Glanville (†1680).
Thomas Jones (†1682).
William Stafford (†1684).
Edward Lane (†1685).
Thomas Pigot (†1686).
Richard Head (†1686?).
Sir William Dugdale (†1686).
Isaac Vossius (†1688).
Robert Barclay (†1690).
John Rushworth (†1690).
Fabian Philips (†1690).
Samuel Pordage (†1691).
Elias Ashmole (†1692).
Anthony Wood (†1695).
Henry Birkhead (†1696).
John Aubrey (†1697).
William Holder (†1698).
Richard Blackburne (†17..?).
Thomas Gale (†1702).
‡Sir Edward Sherburne (†1702).
John Evelyn (†1706).
John Philips (†1706).
John Hawles (†1716).
William Penn (†1718).
MATHEMATICS.
Christopher Brookes (†1665).
William Neile (†1670).
Lancelot Morehouse (†1672).
Richard Norwood (†1675).
Isaac Barrow (†1677).
John Newton (†1678).
Francis Potter (†1678).
Sir Jonas Moore (†1679).
‡Richard Alcorne (†16..).
‡Henry Bond (†16..).
Michael Dary (†1679).
William, lord Brereton (†1680).
Edward Davenant (†1680).
Richard Stokes (†1681).
Sir George Wharton (†1681).
Thomas Merry (†1682).
John Collins (†1683).
William, lord Brouncker (†1684).
John Pell (†1685).
Nicholas Mercator (†1687).
Thomas Street (†1689).
Seth Ward (†1689).
John Kersey (†1690).
John Wallis (†1703).
‡John Flamsted (†1719).
‡Isaac Newton (†1727).
Edmund Halley (†1742).
SCIENCE.
John Willis (†16..).
John Graunt (†1674).
Robert Boyle (†1691).
Sir Edward Harley (†1700).
Robert Hooke (†1703).
Sir John Hoskyns (†1705).
ASTROLOGY.
John Heydon (†166.).
John Booker (†1667).
William Lilly (†1681).
Henry Coley (†1695).
Charles Snell (†16..).
John Gadbury (†1704).
John Partridge (†1715).
CHURCH.
Herbert Thorndyke (†1672).
William Outram (†1679).
Peter Gunning (†1684).
Thomas Pittis (†1687).
STATE.
Sir Robert Moray (†1673).
Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey (†1678).
Sir Thomas Morgan (†1679).
John Birkenhead (†1679).
William Harcourt (†1679).
Robert Pugh (†1679).
§Jean Baptiste Colbert (†1683).
Anthony Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury (†1683).
Sir Leoline Jenkins (†1685).
‡James, duke of Monmouth (†1685).
Sir William Petty (†1687).
Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (†1712).
LAW.
Sir Matthew Hale (†1676).
George Johnson (†1683).
MEDICINE.
Thomas Willis (†1675).
Baldwin Hamey (†1676).
Sir Richard Napier (†1676).
Henry Stubbe (†1676).
Thomas Shirley (†1678).
Sir Edward Greaves (†1680).
Sir Robert Talbot (†1681).
William Croone (†1684).
Daniel Whistler (†1684).
Christopher Merret (†1695).
Walter Charleton (†1707).
ART.
Samuel Cooper (†1672).
Wenceslaus Hollar (†1677).
Sir Christopher Wren (†1723).
SCHOOL.
... Webb (†16..).
Thomas Stephens (†16..).
Arthur Brett (†1677).
Ezerel Tonge (†1680).
COMMERCE, ETC.
Sir Edward Ford (†1670).
Thomas Bushell (†1674).
William Marshall (†16..).
Robert Murray (†1725).
James Bovey (†....).
SOCIETY, ETC.
Lucy Walters (†16..).
Sir Walter Raleigh (†1663).
Eleanor Ratcliffe, countess of Sussex (†1666).
... Berkeley (†16..).
... Curtin (†16..).
Dorothy Selby (†16..).
Anne, duchess of York (†1671).
Cecil Calvert, lord Baltimore (†1675).
Sir Thomas Billingsley (†167.).
Richard Sackville, 5th earl of Dorset (†1677).
Charles Pamphlin (†1678).
Sir Francis Stuart (†16..).
‡... Aldsworth (†16..).
Sir Robert Henley (†1680).
Sir Thomas Badd (†1683).
... Ralphson (†1684).
Charles Howard (†17..).
Willoughby Bertie (†1760).
AUBREY'S PERSONAL FRIENDS.
I. OF THE OLD SCHOOL.
Isaac Lyte (1577-†1660).
Thomas Tyndale (1588-†1671/2).
James Whitney (1593-†166.).
William Beeston (....-†1682).
Deborah Aubrey (1610-†1685/6).
Edmund Wyld (1616-†16..).
II. CONTEMPORARIES.
Anthony Ettrick (1622-†1703).
William Morgan (1622-†....).
Ralph Sheldon (1623-†1684).
William Radford (1623-†1673).
Theophilus Wodenoth (1625-....).
George Ent (....-†1679).
John Sloper (....-†....).
Richard Kitson (....-†....).
Sir John Dunstable (....-†....).
Thomas Gore (1632-†1684).
Jane Smyth (1639-†16..).
Thomas Deere (1639-†16..).
... Gwyn (....-†....).
... Yarrington (....-†1684).
AUBREY'S 'BRIEF LIVES'
INTRODUCTION
I. ORIGIN OF THE 'LIVES.'
Aubrey sought and obtained an introduction to Anthony Wood in August
1667. He was keenly interested in antiquarian studies, and had the
warmest love for Oxford; he had been a contemporary in Trinity College
with Wood's brother, Edward; and so was drawn to Wood on hearing that
he was busy with researches into the History of the University of
Oxford.
Aubrey was one of those eminently good-natured men, who are very
slothful in their own affairs, but spare no pains to work for a friend.
He offered his help to Wood; and, when it was decided to include in
Wood's book short notices of writers connected with Oxford, that help
proved most valuable. Aubrey, through his family and family-connexions,
and by reason of his restless goings-to-and-fro, had a wide circle of
acquaintance among squires and parsons, lawyers and doctors, merchants
and politicians, men of letters and persons of quality, both in town
and country. He had been, until his estate was squandered, an extensive
and curious buyer of books and MSS. And above all, being a good gossip,
he had used to the utmost those opportunities of inquiry about men and
things which had been afforded him by societies grave, like the Royal
Society, and frivolous, as coffee-house gatherings and tavern clubs.
The scanty excerpts, given in these volumes, from letters written by
him between 1668 and 1673, supply a hint of how deeply Wood's _Historia
et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis_, published in 1674, was
indebted to the multifarious memory and unwearying inquiries of the
enthusiastic Aubrey.
Dean Fell's request that Wood should notice Oxford writers and bishops
in his _Historia_ had suggested to Wood the plan of, and set him to
work upon, the larger and happier scheme of the _Athenae Oxonienses_,
an 'exact history of all the writers and bishops that have had their
education in ... Oxford' since 1500. He engaged his friend Aubrey
to help him in his undertaking, by committing to writing in a more
systematic way, for Wood's benefit, his multitudinous recollections of
men and books. He was dexterous enough to supply the additional motive,
that, after serving his friend's turn, Aubrey's collections might be
gathered together, preserved for a while in some safe and secret place,
and, when personal feelings were saved by lapse of time, be published
and secure their writer a niche in the Temple of Fame.
It was now by no means easy for Aubrey to undertake any extensive,
and especially any connected work. Being by this time bankrupt, and a
hanger-on at the tables of kindred and acquaintances, he had to fall in
with his patrons' habits, at the houses where he visited; to sit with
them till they wearied of their carousings in the small hours of the
morning; and to do his writing next forenoon, before they had slept off
their wine.
Still, his interest in the subject, and his desire to help his friend
prevailed; and we soon find him thanking Wood for setting him to work.
March 27, 1680[1]:--''Twill be a pretty thing, and I am glad you putt
me on it. I doe it playingly. This morning being up by 10, I writt two
<lives>: one was Sir John Suckling[2], of whom I wrote a leafe and
1/2 in folio.' May 22, 1680[3]:--'My memoires of lives' <is now> 'a
booke of 2 quires, close written: and after I had began it, I had such
an impulse on my spirit that I could not be at quiet till I had donne
it.' Sept. 8, 1680[4]:--'My booke of lives ... they will be in all
about six-score, and I beleeve never any in England were delivered so
faithfully and with so good authority.'
Aubrey, therefore, began these lives[5] on the suggestion of, and with
a desire to help Anthony Wood.
Among the lives so written were several of mathematicians and men
of science. And another friend of Aubrey's, Dr. Richard Blackburne,
advised him to collect these by themselves, and add others to them,
with a view to a biographical history of mathematical studies in
England. To this suggestion Aubrey was predisposed through his pride
at being 'Fellow of the Royal Society,' and for some time he busied
himself in that direction[6].
In the same way, although the bulky life of Thomas Hobbes[7] was
partly undertaken in fulfilment of a promise to Hobbes himself, an old
personal friend, the motive which induced Aubrey to go on with it was
a desire to supply Dr. Blackburne with material for a Latin biography,
_Vitae Hobbianae Auctarium_, published in 1681.
These matters will be found more fully explained in the notices
which Aubrey has prefixed to the several MSS. of his biographical
collections, as described below.
II. CONDITION OF THE TEXT OF THE 'LIVES.'
Few of the 'Lives' are found in a fair copy[8]. Again and again, in his
letters to Anthony Wood, Aubrey makes confession of the deficiencies of
his copy, but puts off the heavy task of reducing it to shape.
His method of composition was as follows. He had a folio MS. book,
and wrote at the top of a page here and there the name of a poet, or
statesman, or the like, whose life he thought of committing to paper.
Then, selecting a page and a name, he wrote down hastily, without notes
or books, his recollections of the man, his personal appearance, his
friendships, his actions or his books. If a date, a name, a title of a
book, did not occur to him on the spur of the moment, he just left a
blank, or put a mark of omission (generally, ... or----), and went on.
If the matter which came to him was too much for the page, he made an
effort to get it in somehow, in the margins (top, bottom, or sides),
between the paragraphs, or on the opposite page.
When he read over what he had written in the first glow of composition,
he erased, wrote alternatives to words and phrases, marked words,
sentences, and paragraphs for transposition, inserted queries:
unsettled everything.
If later on, from books or persons, he got further information, he
was reckless as to how he put in the new matter: sometimes he put it
in the margin, sometimes at a wrong place in the text, or on a wrong
leaf, or in the middle even of another life, and often, of course, in a
different volume.
And there, as has been said, the copy was left. Very seldom was a
revised copy made.
To the confusions unavoidable in composing after this fashion, must be
added the unsteadiness consequent on writing in the midst of morning
sickness after a night's debauch. One passage, in which he describes
his difficulties in composing, explains, in a way nothing else
could, the frequent erasures, repetitions, half-made or inconsistent
corrections, and dropping of letters, syllables, and words, which
abound in his MSS. March 19, 1680/1[9]; 'if I had but either one
to come to me in a morning with a good scourge, or did not sitt-up
till one or two with Mr. <Edmund> Wyld, I could doe a great deal of
businesse.'
III. AIM OF THIS EDITION.
In presenting a text of Aubrey's 'Lives,' an editor, on more than one
important point, has to decide between alternatives.
1. Shall all, or some only, of the lives be given?
It is plain, from a glance over the MSS., that many of the
lives are of little interest; in some cases, because they
contain more marks of omission than statements of fact; in
other cases, because they give mainly excerpts from prefaces of
books; and so on. A much more interesting, as well as handier,
book would be produced, if the editor were to reject all lives
in which Aubrey has nothing of intrinsic value to show.
2. In the lives selected, shall the whole, or parts only, of
what Aubrey has written be given?
Many sentences occur, which declare only Aubrey's ignorance of
a date, or a place, or the title of a book. In other cases,
dull and imperfect catalogues of writings are given. The
omission of these would be a service to the whole, like the
cutting of dead branches out of a shrub.
3. In constituting the text, how much, or how little, notice is
to be taken of the imperfections of Aubrey's copy?
The simplest, and, from some points of view, the most
effective, course would be to treat Aubrey's rough draft as if
it were one's own, rejecting (without comment) one or other
of two alternatives, supplying (without mark) a missing word
or date, omitting a second version (though having some minor
peculiarities) of a statement, and so on. In this way, with
a minimum of trouble to the editor, a smooth text would be
produced, which would spare the reader much irritation.
4. How far is the text to be annotated, the editor supplying
Aubrey's abundant omissions, and correcting his many mistakes?
In respect of all these questions, the aim of the present edition, and
the reasons for the decision taken in each case, can be stated very
briefly and decidedly.
1, and 2. This edition seeks to give in full all that Aubrey
has written in his four chief MSS. of biographies, MSS. Aubrey
6, 7, 8, and 9.
The entire contents of these MSS. will thus be placed beyond
that risk of perishing, to which they must have remained liable
so long as they were found only in MS., and they will, for what
they are worth, henceforth be accessible to all.
Some things in Aubrey's writing offend not merely against our
present canons of good taste, but against good morals. The
conversation of the people among whom Aubrey moved, although
they were gentry both in position and in education, was often
vulgar, and occasionally foul, as judged by us. I have dealt
with these lives as historical documents, leaving them, with a
very few excisions, to bear, unchecked, their testimony as to
the manners and morals of Restoration England.
3. This edition seeks to present faithfully Aubrey's text as he
wrote it, neglecting only absolute minutiae.
(_a_) A plain text is given of what Aubrey wrote, taking,
as seemed most convenient, sometimes his first version of
a sentence or a word, sometimes his alternative version.
The rejected alternatives are given in the textual notes,
as 'duplicate with'; and occasionally the erasures, as
'substituted for.' Many of these notes are very trivial; but
their presence, which after all gives little trouble, provides
a complete view of the MS. text. I believe also that in this
way I have preserved for the collector of words some quaint
forms and expressions for which he will thank me, and provided
the student of English style with some apt instances of the way
in which terse native words have been replaced in our written
language by feebler Latinisms.
(_b_) I have been careful to give, in every case, Aubrey's own
spelling, with or without final or medial 'e,' with single or
double letters, 'ie' or other diphthong where we write 'ei,'
and the like. The English of Aubrey's age is so like our own
that it is not unimportant to mark even its minor differences.
All merely artificial tricks of writing (wᶜʰ for which, and the
like) have been neglected.
(_c_) Where a date, a word, or a name has been inserted, the
insertion is enclosed in angular brackets < >. Where it seemed
requisite to mark that a word or phrase was added at a later
date, or by another hand, square brackets have been used [].
The use of these symbols, borrowed from Vahlen's edition of
Aristotle's _Poetics_, has been censured as pedantic, but I
know of no clearer or shorter way of making plain in a printed
text just what is, and what is not, in the MS. text.
(_d_) Punctuation is generally absent in Aubrey's text,
as might be expected, and where it is found, it is often
misleading. The points and marks in this edition are therefore
such as seemed to make the meaning clear to myself, and
therefore, I hope, to others.
(_e_) As regards the order of the paragraphs, Aubrey's text
has been given, where convenient, sentence by sentence, and
page by page. But I have taken full liberty to bring into their
proper place _marginalia_, interlinear notes, _addenda_ on
opposite pages, &c. In some cases, indeed, to give in print the
MS. text sentence by sentence is to do it injustice. In the
MS., the difference of inks between earlier and later notes,
the difference of pen-strokes (on one day with a firm pen, on
another with a scratchy quill), and similar nuances, impress
the eye with a sequence of paragraphs which in print can be
shown only by redistribution. For example, I claim that the
life of Milton, in this edition, is, from its bolder treatment,
truer to the MS., than the servile version in the old edition.
4. As regards notes and explanations. Aubrey's lives supply
an inviting field for comment, correction, and addition. But,
even so treated, they will never be a biographical dictionary.
Their value lies not in statement of bibliographical or other
facts, but in their remarkably vivid personal touches, in what
Aubrey had seen himself and what his friends had told him. The
notes therefore seek to supply no more than indications of
outstanding features of the text, identifications of Aubrey's
informants, or necessary parallels from his letters.
IV. DESCRIPTION OF THE MSS.
=MS. Aubr. 6=: a volume chiefly of folio leaves; written mostly in
February 1679/80; now marked as containing 122 leaves (some pages
blank), but having also a few unfoliated slips. Aubrey's own short
title to it was:--
'Σχεδιάσματα. Brief Lives, part i.,'
and, in his pagination, it contained eighty-six leaves. A rough index
of its contents, by him, is found as foll. 8-10: and there he gives
the names of several persons whose lives he intended to write, but
has not included in this volume. Some of these are found elsewhere,
especially in MS. Aubrey 8; but a few[10] are not discoverable in any
MS. of his biographical collections--e.g., Richard Alcorne; <Samuel>
Collins, D.D.; Richard Blackbourne, M.D.; <John> Flamsted[11]; Sir John
Hoskins; James Rex; James, duke of Monmouth[12]; Peter Ramus; Benjamin
Ruddier; captain <Edward> Sherburne; captaine Thomas Stump[13]; Richard
White. Possibly Aubrey never wrote the missing lives; but it must be
remembered (1) that he cut some leaves out of his MS. himself (see in a
note to the life of Richard Boyle, earl of Cork); (2) that Anthony Wood
cut out of MS. Aubr. 7 forty pages at least, containing matters 'to
cut Aubrey's throat,' i.e. reflections on politics, where the lives of
James R. and Monmouth may well have been.
One point about this MS. which deserves mention is that, in these
lives, Aubrey, in his hope to supply data for crucial instances in
astrology, is careful to give the exact nativity wherever he can. His
rule is thus laid down by himself in MS. Aubr. 6, fol. 12ᵛ, in a note
attached to the nativity of his friend Sir William Petty:--
'Italian proverb--
"E astrologia, ma non é Astrologo,"
i.e. we have not that science yet perfect; 'tis one of the
_desiderata_. The way to make it perfect is to gett a supellex of
true genitures; in order wherunto I have with much care collected
these ensuing[14], which the astrologers may rely on, for I have sett
doune none on randome, or doubtfull, information, but _from their owne
mouthes_: quod N. B.'
Another point is, that Aubrey very frequently gives the coat of arms,
in trick or colour. In some cases, no doubt, he did this from having
seen the arms actually borne in some way by the person he is writing
about; but in other cases he merely looked up the name in a 'Dictionary
of Arms,' and took the coat from thence, thus nullifying his testimony
as to the actual pretensions to arms of those he writes about. All
coats he mentions have, however, been given in the text or notes.
Prefixed to the volume[15] are two notes in which Aubrey explains its
origin and destination.
(A)--MS. Aubr. 6, fol.[16] 2:--
'_Tanquam tabulata naufragii_,
Sum Johannis Aubrii, R.S.S.
Febr. 24, 1679/80.
My will and humble desire is that these minutes, which I have hastily
and scriblingly here sett downe, be delivered carefully to my deare and
honoured friend Mr. Anthony à Wood, antiquary, of Oxford.--
Ita obnixe obtestor,
JO. AUBREY.
Ascenscione Domini,
correptus lipothymiâ, circiter 3 P.M.
1680.'
(B)--MS. Aubr. 6, fol. 12:--
'To my worthy friend Mr. ANTHONIE à WOOD,
Antiquarie of Oxford.
SIR!
I have, according to your desire, putt in writing these minutes of
lives tumultuarily, as they occurr'd to my thoughts or as occasionally
I had information of them. They may easily be reduced into order at
your leisure by numbring them with red figures, according to time and
place, &c. 'Tis a taske that I never thought to have undertaken till
you imposed it upon me, sayeing that I was fitt for it by reason of my
generall acquaintance, having now not only lived above halfe a centurie
of yeares in the world, but have also been much tumbled up and downe in
it which hath made me much[17] knowne; besides the moderne advantage of
coffee-howses in this great citie, before which men knew not how to be
acquainted, but with their owne relations, or societies. I might add
that I come of a longaevous race, by which meanes I have imped some
feathers of the wings of time, for severall generations; which does
reach high. When I first began, I did not thinke I could have drawne it
out to so long a thread.
I here lay-downe to you (out of the conjunct friendship[18] between
us) the trueth, and, as neer as I can and that religiously as a
poenitent to his confessor, nothing but the trueth: the naked and
plaine trueth, which is here exposed so bare that the very _pudenda_
are not covered[19], and affords many passages that would raise a blush
in a young virgin's[20] cheeke. So that after your perusall, I must
desire you to make a castration (as Raderus[21] to Martial) and to
sowe-on some figge-leaves--i.e., to be my _Index expurgatorius_.
What uncertainty doe we find in printed histories? they either
treading too neer on the heeles of trueth that they dare not speake
plaine, or els for want of intelligence (things being antiquated)
become too obscure and darke! I doe not here repeat any thing already
published (to the best of my remembrance) and I fancy my selfe all
along discourseing with you; alledgeing those of my relations and
acquaintance (as either you knew or have heerd of) _ad faciendam
fidem_: so that you make me to renew my acquaintance with my old and
deceased friends, and to _rejuvenescere_ (as it were) which is the
pleasure of old men. 'Tis pitty that such minutes had not been taken
100 yeares since or more: for want wherof many worthy men's names and
notions[22] are swallowd-up in oblivion; as much of these also would
[have[23] been], had it not been through your instigation: and perhaps
this is one of the usefullest pieces[24] that I have scribbeld.
I remember one sayeing of generall Lambert's, that "the best of men
are but men at the best": of this, you will meet with divers examples
in this rude and hastie collection. Now these _arcana_ are not fitt to
lett flie abroad, till about 30 yeares hence; for the author and the
persons (like medlars) ought to be first rotten. But in whose hands
must they be deposited in the mean time? advise me, who am,
Sir,
Your very affectionate friend
to serve you,
JOHN AUBREY.
London,
June 15,
1680.'
=MS. Aubr. 7=: a folio volume of twenty-one leaves (several pages
blank), of which two[25] only belong to the original MS.
The original title may be conjectured to have been:
'Σχεδιάσματα. Brief Lives, part ii.,'
and it possibly contained some letters, like those in the preceding
volume, which made Wood think it was given to him.
On fol. 1, is a note describing the make-up of the volume:--
'Aubrey's Lives: fragments of part ii.--These scattered fragments
collected and arranged by E. M. Sep. 1792.' A note (in Dr. Philip
Bliss's hand?) says that E. M. is Edmund Malone.
In this, as in the other Aubrey MSS., Dr. Bliss has made several slight
notes, both in pencil and ink, with a view to his edition.
The mutilation of the MS. was the crime of Anthony Wood, to whom it had
been sent. Two conjectures may be hazarded--either that Wood did this
in order to paste the cuttings into his rough copy of his projected
_Athenae_, and so save transcription; or, more probably, that he was
so thoroughly alarmed by the threat of Lord Clarendon's prosecution of
himself (Clark's Wood's _Life and Times_, iv. 1-46), that he destroyed
the papers containing Aubrey's sharp reflections on various prominent
personages[26]. But whatever the pretext, Aubrey was, naturally, very
grieved at his unjustifiable conduct. In a letter to Wood, dated Sept.
2, 1694 (MS. Ballard 14, fol. 155), he writes:--
'You have cutt out a matter of 40 pages out of one of my volumnes,
as also the index. Was ever any body so unkind?--And I remember you
told me comeing from Hedington that there were some things in it that
"would cutt my throat." I thought you so deare a friend that I might
have entrusted my life in your hands and now your unkindnes doth almost
break my heart.'
When Aubrey had the volume back in his own hands, he wrote in it[27]
the following censure:--
'Ingratitude! This _part the second_ Mr. Wood haz gelded from
page 1 to page 44 and other pages[28] too are wanting wherein are
contained trueths, but such as I entrusted nobody with the sight of
but himselfe (whom I thought I might have entrusted with my life).
There are severall papers that may cutt my throate. I find too late
_Memento diffidere_ was a saying worthy one of the sages. He hath also
embezill'd the index of it--quod N. B. It was stitch't up when I sent
it to him.
Novemb. 29, 1692.'
=MS. Aubr. 8=: a folio volume, containing 105 leaves: it contains two
distinct MSS., bound together.
The first part of the MS. (foll. 1-68 in the present marking) might
have been entitled:--
'Σχεδιασματα. Brief Lives, part iii.'
On fol. 1 and fol. 3, the short title actually written by Aubrey is:--
ʻ♄
Pars iiiᵗⁱᵃ
1681
ᴊᴬʼ
i.e. the symbol for Saturn, the patron of antiquarian studies, and
Aubrey's monogram. On fol. 4 Aubrey has a very elaborate title, showing
the destination of the MS.:--
'Auctarium vitarum a ᴊᴬ collectarum, anno Domini 1681.
_Tanquam tabulata naufragii._
John Aubrey, R.S.S.
Le mal est que la vive voix meurt en naissant et ne laisse rien
qui reste apres elle, ni formant point de corps qui subsiste en
l'air. Les paroles ont des aisles; vous scavez l'epithete[29]
qu'Homère leur donne, et un poëte Syrien en a fait un espece
parmy les oiseaux; de sorte que, si on n'arreste pas ces
fugitives par l'ecriture, elles eschappent fort vistement à la
memoire.
_Les Oeuvres diverses du sieur de Balzac_, page 43.
Ornari res ipsa nolit contenta doceri.--HORAT
For Mr. Anthony Wood
at
Oxford.'
A slip by Anthony Wood, pasted here, shows that Aubrey recalled the
MS., probably to make additions to it:--
'Mr. AUBREY,
I beseech you as you have been civill in giving this book to me at Oxon
in Sept. 1681, so I hope when you have done with it you'l returne every
part of it againe to your servant,
ANT. WOOD.'
As originally made up, this 'Auctarium' contained four leaves at the
beginning (for an index[30]), and leaves foliated 1-38 (of which 12 and
13 are now[31] missing).
The second part[32] of the MS. extends over foll. 69-103 in the present
marking.
Aubrey, on fol. 69, writes the title:--
'An Apparatus for the lives
of our English mathematical writers
by
Mr. John Aubrey, R.S.S.
March 25, 1690.'
As originally made up, this treatise consisted of one leaf (for an
index[33]) and pages marked 1-46 (of which pp. 31-38 are now missing).
The history of this treatise is fully set out by Aubrey in some notes
in it and in the other MSS.:--
1. It was suggested by Richard Blackburne.
MS. Aubr. 7, fol. 8ᵛ:--'Dr. <Richard> Blackbourn would have me putt out
in print the lives of our English mathematicians together.'
2. It had been partly anticipated by Selden and Sherburne.
MS. Aubr. 8, fol. 70:--'My purpose is, if God give me life, to make an
_apparatus_, for[34] the lives of our English Mathematicians; which
when I have ended, I would then desire Mr. Anthony Wood to find out one
that is master of a good Latin stile, and to adde what is[35] already
in his printed booke[36] to these following[37] minutes.
'I will not meddle with our own writers[38] in the mathematicks before
the reigne of king Henry VIII, but prefix those excellent verses of
Mr. John Selden (with a learned commentary to them) which are printed
before a booke intituled <Arthur> Hopton's _Concordance of yeares_[39]
scilicet:--
* * * * *'
MS. Aubr. 8, fol. 69:--'Sir Edward Shirbourn, somewhere in his
translation and notes upon Manilius, has enumerated our English
mathematicians, and hath given short touches of their lives--which see.'
3. The first step towards it would be to pick out the mathematicians
from the lives already written by Aubrey.
MS. Aubr. 6, fol. 51ᵛ:--'I would have the lives of John Dee, Sir Henry
Billingsley, the two Digges (father and sonne), Mr. Thomas Hariot, Mr.
<Walter> Warner, Mr. <Henry> Brigges, and Dr. <John> Pell's, to be
putt together.--As to the account of Mr. Hariot, Mr. Warner, and Mr.
Brigges, I recieved it from Dr. Pell.'
=MS. Aubr. 9=: a folio, containing fifty-five leaves, and in addition
several printed papers.
The title is found on fol. 28 (as now marked) of the MS.:--
'Supplementum vitae Thomae Hobbes,
Malmesburiensis,
1679/80
* * * * *
HOBBI[40] jucunda senectus,
Cujus erant mores qualis facundia, mite
Ingenium.--
JUVENAL, _Sat._ IV. v. 81.
Extinctus amabitur.--
HORAT. _Epist._ I. lib. 2.
I. A.'
I. A. = Aubrey's initials.
The reason for this title was that Aubrey intended his Collections to
be a sort of commentary on Hobbes' short Latin autobiography, which was
in the press in Febr. 1679/80, and was published in Nov. 1680 (Clark's
Wood's _Life and Times_, ii. 480, 500).
But Anthony Wood (MS. Aubr. 9, fol. 28) objected:--'What need you say
Supplimentum?' _sic_ 'pray say the life of Thomas Hobbs.' And Aubrey,
in obedience to this, changed the short title on fol. 30 (see the
beginning of the life); and on the parchment cover of the MS. (now fol.
1) wrote:--
'The life of
Mr. Thomas Hobbes,
of Malmsbury,
by
Mr. John Aubrey,
Fellow of the Royall Societie,
1679/80.'
Aubrey set about this Life of Hobbes immediately after Hobbes' death,
partly as a tribute of respect to his friend's memory, but apparently
also in fulfilment of a promise to the deceased. The preface[41] is as
follows:--
'LECTORI.
'Tis religion to performe the will of the dead; which I here[42]
dischardge, with my promise (1667) to my old friend Mr. T<homas>
H<obbes>, in publishing[43] his life and performing the last office to
my old[44] friend Mr. Thomas Hobbes, whom I have had the honour to know
<from> my child-hood[45], being his countreyman and borne in Malmesbury
hundred and taught my grammar by his schoolmaster[46].
Since nobody knew so many particulars of his life as myselfe, he was
willing[47] that if I survived him, it should be handed to posterity by
my hands, which I declare and avow to do ingenuously and impartially,
to prevent misreports and undecieve those who are scandalized by....
One sayes[48] that when a learned man dyes, a great deal of
learning dyes with him. _He_ was 'flumen ingenii,' never dry. The
_recrementa_[49] of so learned a person are[50] valueable[I.]. Amongst
innumerable observables of him which had deserved to be sett downe,
these few (that have not scap't[51] my memory) I humbly offer[52]
to the present age and posterity, _tanquam tabulam naufragii_[II.],
and as plankes and lighter things swimme, and are preserved, where
the more weighty sinke and are lost. And[53] as with the light
after sun-sett--at which time, clear[54]; by and by[55], comes the
_crepusculum_; then, totall darkenes--in like manner is it with matters
of antiquitie. Men thinke, because every body remembers a memorable
accident shortly after 'tis donne, 'twill never be forgotten, which
for want of registring[56], at last is drowned in oblivion. Which[57]
reflection haz been a hint, that by my meanes many antiquities have
been reskued[58], and preserved (I myselfe now inclining[59] to be
ancient[60])--or els utterly lost and forgotten.
[I.] We read that an earthen lamp of a philosopher (quaere nomen) hath
been sold for....
[II.] Vide Erasmi _Adagia_ and quaere Dr. <Richard> Bl<ackburne>.
For that I am so minute, I declare I never intended it, but setting
downe in my first[61] draught every particular[62], (with purpose, upon
review, to retrench[63] what was superfluous and triviall), I shewed
it to some friends of mine (who also were of Mr. Hobbes's acquaintance)
whose judgments I much value, who gave their opinion: and 'twas clearly
their judgement[64], to let _all_ stand; for though to soome at present
it might appeare too triviall; yet hereafter 'twould not be scorned[65]
but passe[66] for antiquity.
And besides I have precedents of reverend writers to plead, who have in
some lives[III.] recited things as triviall[67], nay, the sayings and
actions of good woemen.
[III.] Dean Fell hath recorded his mother's jejune sayings and actions
and triviall remarques of Dr. Hammond in his life, written by him.
I am also to beg pardon of the reader for two long digressions, viz.
Malmesbury and Gorambery; but this also was advised, as the only way
to preserve them, and which I have donne for the sake of the lovers of
antiquity. I hope its novelty and pleasantness will make compensation
for its length.
Yours[68],
I. A.'
In MS. Aubr. 9, fol. 28ᵛ are two letters by Aubrey, asking advice in
connexion with this life.
i. _Aubrey to Anthony Wood._
'To his honoured friend Mr. Anthony à Wood, Master of Arts, at Merton
College in Oxon.
Deare friend!
I have hastily writt this third draught, which I hope is legible: I
have not time to read it over. Pray peruse it as soon as you can, for
time drawes on. Dr. Blackburne and I will be diligent in it and will
doe _you_ all the right[69] your heart can wish. I thought together
with this to have sent you the transcript of Mr. Hobbes' life revised
by himselfe but am prevented by hast, and 'tis the last day of the
terme. I will send it suddenly.
My service to Mr. Pigot. I am, Sir, your affectionate friend and
servant,
JO. AUBREY.
London Feb. 12,
1679/80.
Why might not his two sheetes _Of heresie_ be bound up with this to
preserve it and propagate trueth?
I know here be severall tautologies; but I putt them downe thus here,
that upon reviewe I should judge where such or such a thing would most
aptly stand.
Why should not Dr. Blackbourne in the life of Mr. H. written by him
selfe quote that of A. Wood in the margent for a blindation, because
there are in great part the very same words?'
ii. _Aubrey to Richard Blackburne._
'Dr. Blackbourne!
Pray advise me whether 'twould not shew handsomest to begin with a
description of Malmesbury, and then to place Mr. H. pedigre?
But, with all, should not
"Thomas Hobbes was borne at Malmesbury, Apr. ... 1588[70]"
be the initiall and, as it were, textuall, line?
Shall I in the first place putt Mr. H. life donne by himselfe? (If so,
whether in Latin, or English, or both?) Or else, shall I intersperse it
with these animadversions?
I could begin with a pleasant description of Malmesbury, etc., (all new
and untoucht) 14 leaves in 8vo, which his verses will lead me to, and
which Ant. Wood seemes to desire.
Pray be my Aristarchus, and correct and marke what you thinke fitt.
First draughts[71] ought to be rude as those of paynters, for he that
in his first essay will be curious in refining will certainly be
unhappy in inventing.
Doctor, I am your affectionate and humble servant.
J. A.
I will speake to Fleetwood Shepherd to engage the earl of Dorset to
write in the old gentleman's praise.
Should mine be in Latin or English or both? (And by whome the Latin, if
so?) Is my English style well enough[72]?'
=Other MSS.= A few additional lives, and portions of lives, of persons
mentioned in these four biographical volumes, have been brought in from
letters by Aubrey in MS. Ballard 14 and in MS. Wood F 39 and F 49.
Three lives, in fair copy, by Aubrey, are found in MS. Rawlinson D.
727, foll. 93-96, and have been given here. They were formerly in
Anthony Wood's hands: see Clark's Wood's _Life and Times_, iv. 192,
note.
MS. Aubr. 21, a volume made up in the Ashmolean library from
siftings out of Aubrey MSS. and papers; MS. Aubr. 22, a collection
of grammatical tracts, brought together by Aubrey with a view to a
treatise on education; MS. Aubr. 23, a volume of 125 leaves, dated on
fol. 8 as 'Collectio geniturarum, made London May 29, 1674,' but on
the title as '1677: for the <Ashmolean> Musaeum'; MS. Aubr. 26,'Faber
fortunae,' i.e. projects for retrieving Aubrey's fortunes----have
yielded additional matter.
V. THE OLD EDITION.
The pith of these lives was extracted by Anthony Wood, and incorporated
in his _Athenae_, vol. i. in 1691, vol. ii. in 1692, and the 'appendix'
left in MS. at his death (published in the second edition of the
_Athenae_ in 1721).
The MSS. of Aubrey's 'Lives' were placed in the library of the
Ashmolean Museum, in the personal custody of the Keeper, Edward Lhwyd,
in 1693. Aubrey, writing[73] to Thomas Tanner, intimates that his MSS.
will show how greatly Wood's _Athenae_ was indebted to his help, and
makes a special request that Wood shall not know that they have been
placed in the Museum.
Beginning[74] on Sept. 16, 1792, Edmund Malone made a transcript of
174 lives from the three MSS. (MS. Aubr. 6, 7, 8), with notes, with a
view to publication. The first volume of this contained folios 1-152,
forty-four lives of poets and sixty-eight of prose writers. It is now
in the Bodleian, by the gift of C. E. Doble, Esq.; but mutilated,
folios 126-152 having been torn off from the end of the volume. The
second volume, containing folios 153-385, sixty-two lives, was MS. 9405
in Sir Thomas Phillipps' library, was mentioned in _Notes and Queries_
(8 S. vii. 375), and has recently been bought by the Bodleian.
Some years later, James Caulfield, of London, publisher, arranged
for the issue of a select number of biographies from Aubrey's MSS.,
illustrated by engravings from originals in the Ashmolean and
elsewhere. They were to appear under the title of 'The Oxford Cabinet';
and one part, 32 pp., a very pretty book, was published at London in
1797. This part contains the lives of William Aubrey, Francis Bacon,
John Barclay, and Francis Beaumont, with engravings (inter alia) of
Aubrey's drawings of Verulam House, and Bacon's fishponds. At this
point the Keeper of the Ashmolean, at Malone's instance, withdrew
the permission which had been granted to Curtis to transcribe for
Caulfield. The reason given was that Curtis had taken away papers and
title-pages from Oxford libraries, and was not to be trusted in the
Ashmolean--see Macray's _Annals of the Bodleian_, p. 273.
The dates, however, suggest that Malone's action may have been in part
inspired by a wish to keep the course clear for his own project. The
transcription made for Caulfield, although not always accurate in point
of spelling, is by no means badly done: certainly it is much better
than that which was made for the later issue.
In 1813 appeared '_Letters written by Eminent Persons ... and Lives
of Eminent Men by John Aubrey, Esq. ..._ from the originals in the
Bodleian Library and Ashmolean Museum: in two volumes.' The editors are
said to have been Dr. Philip Bliss and the Rev. John Walker, Fellow of
New College.
The _Lives_ by Aubrey occupy pp. 197-637 of Volume II.
Dr. Bliss's interests were bibliographical, and he was not careful[75]
to collate with original MSS. either the printed text of earlier
editions or transcripts made for himself. As a result, that issue of
Aubrey's Lives, although making accessible the greater portion of what
is interesting in the originals, is marred by many grave blunders and
arbitrary omissions.
A comparison of a few pages of Dr. Bliss's edition with Aubrey's MS.
copy suggests a troublesome question in English textual criticism. If
two eminent Oxford scholars in the beginning of the nineteenth century
could thus pervert their author's meaning, can we have trust in the
earlier redaction of greater texts, such as Shakespeare?
THE 'LIVES'
=George Abbot= (1562-1633).
[76]Archbishop Abbot was borne in the howse of old Flemish building,
timber and brick, now an alehouse, the signe 'Three Mariners,' by
the river's side by the bridge on the north side of the street in
St. Nicholas parish on the right hand as you goe out of the towne
northwards.
[77]Old Nightingale was his servant, and weepes when he talkes of him.
Every one that knew, loved him. He was sometimes cholerique.
He was borne the first howse over the bridge on the right hand in St.
Nicholas parish <Guildford>. He was the sonne of a sherman[78]. His
mother, with child of him, longed for a jack, and dream't that if shee
could eate a jack, her son should be a great man. The next morning,
goeing to the river, which runs by the howse (which is by the bridge),
with her payle, to take up some water, a good jack came into her payle.
Which shee eat up, all, her selfe. This is generally recieved for a
trueth.
His godfather and godmothers sent him to the University, his father not
being able.
=Sir Robert Aiton= (1570-1638).
[A] Sir Robert Aiton[79], knight;--he lies buried in the south aisle of
the choire of Westminster abbey, where there is erected to his memory
an elegant marble and copper monument and inscription--viz.
_This long inscription is in copper:--_
M. S.
Clarissimi, omnigenaque virtute et eruditione (presertim
poesi) ornatissimi equitis, Domini Roberti Aitoni, ex antiqua
et illustri gente Aitona ad Castrum Kinnadinum apud Scotos
oriundi: qui a serenissimo rege Jacobo in cubicula interiora
admissus; in Germaniam ad imperatorem imperiique principes,
cum libello regio regiae authoritatis vindice, legatus; ac
primum Annae, demum Mariae, serenissimis Britanniarum reginis,
ab epistolis, consiliis, et libellis supplicibus; necnon
Xenodochio S'ᵃᵉ Catharinae praefectus; anima Creatori reddita,
hic, depositis mortalibus exuviis, secundum redemptoris
adventum expectat.
_Carolum_ linquens, repetit _Parentem_;
Et valedicens _Mariae_, revisit
_Annam_; et _Aulaei_ decus alto _Olympi_
Mutat honore.
Obiit coelebs in Regiâ Albaulâ, non sine maximo bonorum omnium
luctu et moerore:
Aetat. suae LXVIII, Salut. humanae MDCXXXVIII.
Hoc devoti gratique animi testimonium optimo patruo, Jo.
Aitonus, M.L.P.
_In white marble at the bottome of the monument:--_
Musarum decus hîc, patriaeque, aulaeque, domique
Et foris exemplar, sed non imitabile, honesti.
His bust is of copper, curiously cast, with a laurell held over it by
two figures of white marble.
That Sir Robert was one of the best poets of his time--Mr. John Dreyden
sayes he has seen verses of his, some of the best of that age, printed
with some other verses--quaere.
He was acquainted with all the witts of his time in England. He was a
great acquaintance of Mr. Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, whom Mr. Hobbes
told me he made use of (together with Ben Johnson) for an Aristarchus,
when he made his Epistle Dedicatory to his translation of Thucydides. I
have been told (I think by Sir John himself) that he was eldest brother
to Sir John Ayton, Master of the Black Rod, who was also an excellent
scholar.
_Note._
[A] Aubrey gives in trick the coat:--'..., on a cross engrailed between
4 crescents a rose,' with the motto
'Et decerpta dabunt odorem.'
He encircles the coat of arms with a laurel wreath, as is his custom
when it is a poet whose life he is writing.
=Aldsworth.=
[80]... Aldsworth, mathematical boyes.
[81]Memorandum:--the patent for the mathematicall blew-coate boyes at
Christ Church in London was dated '19th August in the 25th yeare of the
reigne of king Charles the second' <1673>.
=Thomas Allen= (1542-1632).
[82]Thomas Allen, Trin. Coll. Oxon.--Elias Ashmole, esqr., <has> the
MSS. of Thomas Allen's commentary on the second and third bookes of
Ptolomey's Quadripartite[83].
[84]Thomas Allen--vide Anthony Wood's _<Hist. et> Antiq. <Univ.> Oxon._
Mr. Thomas Allen[B] was borne in Staffordshire.
Mr. Theodore Haak, a German, Regiae Societatis Socius, was of Glocester
Hall, 1626, and knew this learned worthy old gentleman, whom he takes
to have been about ninety-six yeares old when he dyed, which was about
1630 (vide).
The learned <Edmund> Reynolds, who was turned Catholique[IV.] by his
brother the learned Dr. <John> Reynolds, President of Corpus Xti
Colledge, was of Glocester Hall then too. They were both neer of an
age, and they dyed both within 12 monethes one of th'other[C]. He was
at both their funeralls. Mr. Allen came into the hall to commons, but
Mr. Reynolds had his brought to his chamber.
[IV.] Memorandum the Latin verses made on their mutual
conversions--which insert.
Bella inter ... plusquam civilia fratres.
He sayes that Mr. Allen was a very cheerfull, facetious man, and that
every body loved his company, and every howse on their _Gaudie-dayes_
were wont to invite him.
His picture was drawne at the request of Dr. Ralph Kettle, and hangs in
the dining roome of the President of Trin. Coll. Oxon. (of which house
he first was, and had his education there) by which it appeares that he
was a handsome sanguine man, and of an excellent habit of bodie.
There is mention of him in _Leicester's Commonwealth_[85] that
the great Dudley, earle of Leicester, made use of him for casting
nativities, for he was the best astrologer of his time. He hath written
a large and learned commentary, in folio, on the Quadripartite of
Ptolemie, which Elias Ashmole hath in MS. fairly written, and I hope
will one day be printed.
In those darke times astrologer, mathematician, and conjurer, were
accounted the same things; and the vulgar did verily beleeve him to be
a conjurer. He had a great many mathematicall instruments and glasses
in his chamber, which did also confirme the ignorant in their opinion,
and his servitor (to impose on freshmen and simple people) would tell
them that sometimes he should meet the spirits comeing up his staires
like bees. One[V.] of our parish[VI.] was of Glocester Hall about
70 yeares and more since, and told me this from his servitor. Now
there is to some men a great lechery in lying, and imposing on the
understandings of beleeving people, and he thought it for his credit to
serve such a master.
[V.] J. Power[D].
[VI.] Kington <S. Michael, Wilts>.
He was generally acquainted, and every long vacation, he rode into
the countrey to visitt his old acquaintance and patrones, to whom
his great learning, mixt with much sweetnes of humour, rendred him
very welcome. One time being at Hom Lacy[86] in Herefordshire, at Mr.
John Scudamore's (grandfather to the lord Scudamor), he happened
to leave[87] his watch in the chamber windowe--(watches were then
rarities)--The maydes came in to make the bed, and hearing a thing in
a case cry _Tick, Tick, Tick_, presently concluded that that was his
Devill, and tooke it by the string with the tongues[88], and threw it
out of the windowe into the mote (to[89] drowne the Devill.) It so
happened that the string hung on a sprig of an elder that grew out of
the mote, and this confirmed them that 'twas the Devill. So the good
old gentleman gott his watch again.
Sir Kenelm Digby loved him much (vide Sir K. Digby's Life <p.>
69[90]), and bought his excellent library of him, which he gave to the
University. I have a Stifelius' Arithmetique that was his, which I find
he had much perused, and no doubt mastered. He was interred in Trinity
College Chapell, (quaere where: as I take it, the outer Chapell.)
George Bathurst[E] B.D. made his funerall oration in Latin, which was
printed. 'Tis pitty there had not been his name on a[91] stone over him.
[92]Thomas Allen ... left the house[93] because he would not take
orders.
Queen Elizabeth sent for him to have his advice about the new star that
appeared in the Swan or Cassiopeia (but I think the Swan), to which he
gave his judgment very learnedly.
He was great-uncle to Mr. <Henry> Dudley, the minister of Broadhinton
in Wilts <1665>.
_Notes._
[B] Thomas Allen, of Staffordshire, aged 17, was elected Scholar of
Trinity, June 4, 1561, and Fellow, June 19, 1564. His retirement to
Gloucester Hall was no doubt to avoid the Oath of Supremacy imposed
by Elizabeth on members on the foundation of the Colleges. Edmund
Reynolds, in the same way, retired to Gloucester Hall, vacating his
fellowship in Corpus Christi College.
[C] Edmund Reynolds died Nov. 21, 1630; Thomas Allen died Sept. 30,
1632.
[D] This will serve to show how imperfectly the names in the
Matriculation-register represent those who actually studied in Oxford.
The Matric. register gives '_Zachary Power_, e com. Wilts.,' as
matriculating at Gloucester Hall, Nov. 3, 1609: but omits his elder
brother John Power (mentioned in MS. Aubr. 3, fol. 48, as being 40 in
1624, when Zachary was 32).
[E] George Bathurst, of Ga<r>sington, Oxon, aged 16, was elected
Scholar of Trinity June 6, 1626, and Fellow June 8, 1631; B. D. 1640.
His _Oratio funebris_ on Allen was publ. London 1632.
=Charles Alleyn= (obiit 1640?).
[94]Charles Alleyn, who wrote the Battailes of Agencourt, Poitiers, and
Crescy, was usher to Mr. Thomas Farnaby.
=Lancelot Andrewes= (1555-1626).
[95]Lancelot Andrewes[F], lord bishop of Winton, was borne in London;
went to schoole at Merchant Taylors schoole. Mr. Mulcaster[G] was his
schoolemaster, whose picture he hung in his studie (as Mr. Thomas
Fuller, _Holy State_).
Old Mr. Sutton, a very learned man of those dayes, of Blandford St.
Maries, Dorset, was his school fellowe, and sayd that Lancelot Andrewes
was a great long boy of 18 yeares old at least before he went to the
university.
He was a fellowe[96] of Pembroke-hall, in Cambridge (called _Collegium
Episcoporum_, for that, at one time, in those dayes, there were of that
house ... bishops).
The Puritan faction did begin to increase in those dayes, and
especially at Emanuel College. That party had a great mind to drawe in
this learned young man, whom if they could make theirs, they knew would
be a great honour to them. They carried themselves outwardly with great
sanctity and strictnesse, so that 'twas very hard matter to----as to
their lives. They preached up very strict keeping and observing the
Lord's day; made, upon the matter, damnation to breake it, and that
'twas lesse sin to kill a man then.... Yet these hypocrites did bowle
in a private green at their colledge every Sunday after sermon; and
one of the colledge (a loving friend to Mr. L. Andrewes) to satisfie
him one time lent him the key of a private back dore to the bowling
green, on a Sunday evening, which he opening, discovered these zealous
preachers, with their gownes off, earnest at play. But they were
strangely surprized to see the entrey of one that was not of _the
brotherhood_.
There was then at Cambridge a good fatt alderman that was wont to sleep
at church, which the alderman endeavoured to prevent but could not.
Well! this was preached against as a signe of _reprobation_. The good
man was exceedingly troubled at it, and went to Andrewes his chamber
to be satisfied in point of conscience. Mr. Andrewes told him that
<it> was an ill habit of body not of mind, and that it was against his
will; advised him on Sundays to make a more sparing meale and to mend
it at supper. The alderman did so, but sleepe comes upon <him> again
for all that, and was preached at. <He> comes againe to be resolved,
with tears in his eies; Andrewes then told him he would have him make
a good heartie meale as he was wont to doe, and presently take out
his full sleep. He did so[97]; came to St. Marie's[98], where the
preacher was prepared with a sermon to damne all who slept at sermon,
a certaine signe of _reprobation_. The good alderman having taken his
full nap before, lookes on the preacher all sermon time, and spoyled
the designe.--But I should have sayd that Andrewes was most extremely
spoken against and preached against for offering to assoile or excuse
a sleeper in sermon time. But he had learning and witt enough to[99]
defend himselfe.
His great learning quickly made him known in the university, and also
to King James, who much valued him for it, and advanced him, and at
last[100] made him bishop of Winchester, which bishoprick he ordered
with great prudence as to government of the parsons, preferring
of ingeniose persons that were staked to poore livings and did
_delitescere_. He made it his enquiry to find out such men. Amongst
severall others (whose names have escaped my memorie) Nicholas Fuller
(he wrote _Critica Sacra_), minister of Allington neer Amesbury in
Wilts, was one. The bishop sent for him, and the poor man was afrayd
and knew not what hurt he had donne. <He> makes him sitt downe to
dinner; and, after the desert, was brought in in a dish his institution
and induction, or the donation, of a prebend: which was his way. He
chose out alwayes able men to his chaplaines, whom he advanced. Among
others, <Christopher> Wren, of St. John's in Oxon, was his chaplaine,
a good generall scholar and good orator, afterwards deane of Winsore,
from whom (by his son in lawe, Dr. William Holder) I have taken this
exact account of that excellent prelate.
His Life is before his Sermons, and also his epitaph, which see. He
dyed at Winchester house, in Southwark, and lies buried in a chapell
at St. Mary Overies, where his executors ... Salmon M. D. and Mr. John
Saintlowe, merchant of London, have erected (but I beleeve according to
his lordship's will, els they would not have layed out 1000 _li._) a
sumptuose monument for him.
He had not that smooth way of oratory as now. It was a shrewd and
severe animadversion of a Scotish lord, who, when king James asked him
how he liked bp. A.'s sermon, sayd that he was learned, but he did play
with his text, as a Jack-an-apes does, who takes up a thing and tosses
and playes with it, and then he takes up another, and playes a little
with it. Here's a pretty thing, and there's a pretty thing!
[101]Bishop Andrews: vide the inscription before his _Sermons_.
_Notes._
[F] Aubrey gives the coat:--'See of Winchester; impaling ..., 3 mullets
on a bend engrailed and cottised ...,' ensigned with a mitre or, and
encircled by the Garter motto.
[G] Richard Mulcaster, Head Master of Merchant Taylors' School,
1561-1586.
=Francis Anthony= (1550-1623).
[102]Dr. [Francis[103]] Anthony, the chymist, Londinensis, natus 16
Aprilis, 1550, 1ʰ. P.M., Virgo 0° 3´ ascend.
Quaere A<nthony> W<ood> if of Oxon or Cambridge[104].
Scripsit 2 libros, viz.:--_Aurum potabile_, and his _Defense_ against
Dr. <Matthew> Gwyn (who wrote a booke called _Aurum non Aurum_). This
is all that Mr. Littlebury, bookeseller, remembers.
He lived in St. Bartholomew's close, London, where he dyed, and is, I
suppose, buried there, about 30 yeares since[H], scil. 1652.
Vide his nativity in Catalogue[I].
He had a sonne who wrote something, I thinke (quaere Mr. Littlebury);
and a daughter maried to ... Montague, a bookeseller in Duck-lane, who
in Oliver's time was a soldier in Scotland.
_Notes._
[H] Wood notes here 'so that by this reckoning,' i.e. if born in 1550
_ut supra_, 'he was 102.'
[I] i.e., I suppose, in MS. Aubrey 23 (Aubrey's _Collectio
Geniturarum_), where at fol. 121, among nativities from Dr. Richard
Napier's papers, is:--'Dr. Anthony, Londinensis, who made _aurum
potabile_ at London, natus 16 April, 1550, 1ʰ P.M.'
=Thomas Archer= (1554-1630?).
[105]Mr. Archer, rector of Houghton Conquest, was a good scholar in
King James's (the 1st) dayes, and one <of> his majestie's chaplains.
He had two thick 4to MSS. of his own collection; one, _joci_ and tales
etc., and discourses at dinners; the other, of the weather. I have
desired parson Poynter[106], his successor, to enquire after them, but
I find him slow in it. No doubt there are delicate things to be found
there.
=John Ashindon= (obiit 13--?).
[107]Johannes Escuidus[108], Merton College:--Elias Ashmole, esq., hath
the corrected booke by the originall MSS. of Merton College library,
now lost, which is mentioned in Mr. William Lilly's almanack 1674, a
folio.
Amongst many other rarities he haz a thin folio MS. of Alkindus in
Latin.
[109]Johannes Escuidus:--Summa astrologiae judicialis, in folio,
Venetiis, 1489.--It is miserably printed, he sayes there; and that he
was a student of Merton College Oxford.--Mr. Elias Ashmole has the
booke.
=Elias Ashmole= (1617-1692).
[110]Memorandum--the lives of John Dee, Dr. <Richard> Nepier, Sir
William Dugdale, William Lilly, Elias Ashmole[111], esq.,--Mr. Ashmole
haz and will doe those himselfe: as[112] he told me formerly but nowe
he seemes to faile.
=Deborah Aubrey= (1609/10-1685/6).
[113]Mris. Deborah Aubrey, my honoured mother, was borne at
Yatton-Kaynes, _vulgo_ West-Yatton, in the parish of Yatton-Keynel in
com. Wilts., January 29ᵗʰ 1609[114], mane.
In a letter from my mother, dated Febru. 3ᵈ, 1679/80, she tells me she
was seaventie yeares old the last Thursday [29 Januarii]--quod N. B.
_Her accidents._
My mother was maried at 15 yeares old.
She fell sick of a burning feaver at Langford, Somerset.
She was taken on the 6ᵗʰ June 1675; feaver there againe in July 1675.
She was borne Jan. 29ᵗʰ, morning, scil. the day before the
anniversary-day of the king's decollation. She was 15 yeares old and as
much as from January to June when she was maried.
She fell from her horse and brake her ... arme the last day of Aprill
(1649 or 50) when I was a suitor to Mris Jane Codrington.
Lettre, Aug. 8, 1681:--she was lately ill three weekes and now her eies
are a little sore.
Memorandum: 6 Januarie 1682/3, my mother writes to me that she is 73
yeares of age.
_Note._
She died at Chalk in Jan. 1685/6, and was buried at Kingston S.
Michael; so in a letter by Aubrey to Anthony Wood, May 11, 1686, in MS.
Ballard 14, fol. 139.
=John Aubrey= (1626-1697).
<These autobiographical jottings are found in MS. Aubr. 7,
fol. 3-5. They have been printed, with a few slips and slight
omissions, in John Britton's _Memoir of J. Aubrey_, London,
1845, pp. 12-17. Aubrey (fol. 3) directs that the paper is 'to
be interposed as a sheet of wast paper only in the binding of a
booke'; and appends to this direction the motto:--
'I presse not to the choire[115] ...
Thus devout penitents of old were wont,
Some without dore, and some beneath the font.
Mr. Thomas Carew.'
Aubrey gives (fol. 3) an (incomplete) drawing of his own
horoscope, on the scheme:--
'ᴊᴬ natus 1625/6, March 11th, 17ʰ 14´ 44˝ P.M. ...[116] (tempus
verum), sub latitudine 51° 30´.'
In MS. Aubr. 21, fol. 110, is Charles Snell's calculation of
Aubrey's nativity, on the scheme
'Sunday, 12 Martii 1626, 5ʰ 13´ 40˝ A.M., natus Johannes
Aubreius, armiger, sub polo 51° 06´. The astrologers of the
time used sometimes the English, and sometimes the Italian,
enumeration of the hours.>
[117]I. A[118].
His life[119] is more remarqueable in an astrologicall respect[J] then
for any advancement of learning[K], having[120] from his birth (till
of late yeares) been labouring under a crowd of ill directions: for
his escapes of many dangers[L], in journeys both by land and water, 40
yeares.
He was borne (longaevous, healthy kindred[M]) at Easton Pierse[N],
a hamlet in the parish of Kington Saint Michael in the hundred of
Malmesbury in the countie of Wilts, his mother's[O] (daughter and heir
of Mr. Isaac Lyte) inheritance, March the 12 (St. Gregorie's day[P]),
A.D. 1625[121], about sun-riseing, being very weake and like to dye
that he was christned before morning prayer.
I gott not strength till I was 11 or 12 yeares old; but had
sicknesse[122] of vomiting[Q], for 12 houres every fortnight for ...
yeares, then about monethly, then quarterly, and at last once in halfe
a yeare. About 12 it ceased.
When a boy, bred at Eston, an[123] eremiticall solitude. Was[124] very
curious; his greatest delight to be continually with the artificers
that came there (e.g. joyners, carpenters, coupers, masons), and
understood their trades.
1634[125], was entred in his Latin grammar by Mr. R<obert> Latimer[R],
rector of Leigh de-la-mere, a mile's fine walke, who had an easie
way of teaching: and every time we askt leave to _goe forth_, we had
a Latin word from him which at our returne we were[126] to tell him
again--which in a little while amounted to a good number of words.
'Twas my unhappinesse in half a yeare to loose this good enformer
by his death, and afterwards was under severall dull ignorant
rest[127]-in[127]-house teachers[S] till 1638 (12[128]), at which
time I was sent to Blandford schole in Dorset (William Sutton[129],
B.D., who was ill-natured).
Here I recovered my health, and gott my Latin and Greeke, best of any
of my contemporaries. The[130] usher[131] had (by chance) a Cowper's
Dictionary, which I had never seen before. I was then in Terence.
Percieving his method, I read all in the booke where Terence was, and
then Cicero--which was the way[132] by which I gott my Latin. 'Twas a
wonderfull helpe to my phansie, my reading of Ovid's _Metamorphy_ in
English by Sandys, which made me understand the Latin the better. Also,
I mett accidentally a booke of my mother's, Lord Bacon's _Essaies_,
which first opened my understanding as to moralls (for Tullie's
_Offices_ was too crabbed for my young yeares) and the excellence[133]
of the style, or hints and transitions.
I[134] was alwayes enquiring[T] of my grandfather[135] of the old time,
the rood-loft, etc., ceremonies, of the priory, etc. At 8, I was a kind
of engineer; and I fell then to drawing, beginning first with plaine
outlines, e.g. in draughts of curtaines. Then at 9 (crossed herein
by father and schoolmaster), to colours, having no body to instruct
me[136]; copied pictures in the parlour in a table booke----like[U].
Blandfordiae, horis vacuis, I drew and painted Bates's ... (quaere
nomen libri[V]).
I was wont (I remember) much to lament with my selfe that I lived not
in a city, e.g. Bristoll, where I might have accesse to watchmakers,
locksmiths, etc. <I did> not very much care for grammar. <I had>
apprehension enough, but my memorie not tenacious. So that then[137]
was a promising morne enough of an inventive and philosophicall
head. <I had a> musicall head, inventive, <wrote> blanke verse,
<had> a strong and early impulse to antiquitie (strong impulse to
♄[138]). <My> witt was alwaies working, but not adroict for verse.
<I was> ex<ceeding[139]> mild of spirit; migh<tily> susceptible of
fascination.[140] My idea very cleer[141]; phansie like[142] a mirrour,
pure chrystal water which the least wind does disorder and unsmooth--so
noise or etc. would[143].
[144]My uncle Anthony Browne's bay nag threw me dangerously the Monday
after Easter[145], 1639. Just before it I had an impulse of the briar
under which I rode, which tickled him, at the gap at the upper end of
Berylane. Deo gratias!
[146]1642, May 2ᵈ, I went[W] to Oxford.
Peace[147].
Lookt through Logique and some Ethiques.
1642, _Religio Medici_ printed, which first opened my understanding,
which I carryed to Eston, with Sir K. D.[148]
But now[149] Bellona thundered, and as a cleare skie is sometimes
suddenly overstretch<ed> with a dismall[150] cloud and thunder, so was
this serene peace[151] by the civill warres through the factions of
those times; vide Homer's Odyssey.
In August[152] following my father sent for me home, for feare.
In February ... following, with much adoe[153] I gott my father to lett
me to beloved Oxon againe, then a garrison pro rege.
I gott Mr. Hesketh, Mr. Dobson's man, a priest, to drawe the ruines of
Osney 2 or 3 wayes before 'twas pulld downe[X]. Now the very foundation
is digged-up.
In Aprill I fell sick of the small pox at Trinity College; and when
I recovered, after Trinity weeke[154], my father sent for me into
the country again: where I conversed[155] with none but servants and
rustiques and soldiers quartred, to my great griefe (_Odi prophanum
vulgus et arceo_), for in those dayes fathers were not acquainted with
their children. It was a most sad life to me, then in the prime of
my youth, not to have the benefitt of an ingeniose conversation and
scarce any good bookes--almost a consumption. This sad life I did lead
in the country till 1646, at which time I gott (with much adoe) leave
of my father to lett me goe to the Middle Temple, April the 6ᵗʰ 1646;
admitted....
24 June following, Oxon was surrendred, and then came to London many of
the king's party, with whom I[156] grew acquainted (many of them I knew
before). I loved not debauches[157], but their martiall conversation
was not so fitt for the muses.
Novemb. 6, I returned to Trinity College in Oxon again to my great
joy; was much made of by the fellowes; had their learned conversation,
lookt on bookes, musique. Here and at Middle Temple (off and on) I
(for the most part) enjoyd the greatest felicity of my life (ingeniose
youths, as[158] rosebudds, imbibe the morning dew[159]) till Dec. 1648
(Christmas Eve's eve) I was sent for from Oxon home again to my sick
father, who never recovered. Where I was engaged to looke after his
country businesse and solicite a lawe-suite.
Anno 165-, Octob. ..., my father dyed, leaving me debts 1800 _li._ and
bro<thers'> portions 1000 _li._
Quid digni feci, hîc process. viam? Truly nothing; only umbrages, sc.
Osney abbey ruines, etc., antiquities. _Cos_, a wheatstone, _exors
ipse secandi_, e.g. <my> universall character[160] <: that> which was
neglected and quite forgott and had sunk had not I engaged[161] in the
worke, to carry on the worke--name them[162].
He began to enter into pocket memorandum bookes philosophicall and
antiquarian remarques, Anno Domini 1654, at Llantrithid.
Anno 16--I began my lawe-suite on the entaile in Brecon[Y], which
lasted till ..., and it cost me 1200 _li._
Anno ---- I was to have maried Mris K. Ryves, who died when to be
maried, 2000 _li._ +[163], besides counting care of her brother, 1000
_li._ per annum.
Anno ---- I made my will[Z] and settled my estate on trustees,
intending to have seen the antiquities of Rome and Italy for ...
<years>, and then to have returned and maried, but--
Diis aliter visum est superis,
my mother, to my inexpressible griefe and ruine, hindred this[164]
designe, which was[165] my ruine.
[166]My estate (was of) value 100 _li. fere_ + Brecon.
Then debts and lawe-suites, _opus et usus_, borrowing of money and
perpetuall riding. To my prayse, <I had> wonderfull credit in the
countrey for money. Anno ... sold manor of Bushelton in Herefordshire
to Dr. T<homas> Willis. Anno ... sold the manor of Stratford in the
same county to Herbert <Croft> lord bishop of Hereford.
Then anno 1664, June 11, went into France. Oct. ... returned. Then Joan
Sumner.
[167]Memorandum. J. Aubrey in the yeare 1666, wayting then upon Joane
Sumner to her brother at Seen in Wilts, there made a discovery of a
chalybiate waters and those more impregnated than any waters yet heard
of in England. I sent some bottles to the Royal Society in June 1667,
which were tryed with galles before a great assembly there. It turnes
so black that you may write legibly with it, and did there, after so
long a carriage, turne as deepe as a deepe claret. The physitians were
wonderfully surprized at it, and spake to me to recommend it to the
doctors of the Bath (from whence it is but about 10 miles) for that in
some cases 'tis best to begin with such waters and end with the Bath,
and in some _vice versâ_. I wrote severall times, but to no purpose,
for at last I found that, though they were satisfied of the excellency
of the waters and what the London doctors sayd was true, they did not
care to have company goe from the Bath. So I inserted it last yeare in
Mr. Lilly's almanac, and towards the later end of summer there came so
much company that the village could not containe them, and they are now
preparing for building of houses against the next summer. Jo<hn> Sumner
sayth (whose well is the best) that it will be worth to him 200 _li._
per annum. Dr. <Nehemiah> Grew in his History of the Repository of the
Royal Society mentions this discovery, as also of the iron oare there
not taken notice of before----'tis in part iii, cap. 2, pag. 331.
[168]Then lawe-suite with her[169]. Then sold Easton-Peirse[AA], and
the farme at Broad Chalke. Lost 500 _li._ (Fr. H.) + 200 _li._ + goods
+ timber. Absconded as a banishd man.
Then
In monte Dei videbitur[170].
I was in as much affliction as a mortall could bee, and never quiet
till all was gone, <and I> wholly[171] cast myselfe on God's providence.
Monastery[172].
I wished monastrys had not been putt downe, that the reformers would
have been more moderate as to that point. Nay, the Turkes have
monasteries. Why should our reformers be so severe? Convenience
of religious houses--Sir Christopher Wren--fitt there should be
receptacles and provision for contemplative men; if of 500, but one
or two[173]. 'Tis compensated[174]. What a pleasure 'twould have been
to have travelled from monastery to monastery. The reformers in the
Lutheran countrys were more prudent then to destroy them (e.g. in
Holsatia, etc.); <they> only altered the religion.
But notwithstanding all these embarasments I did _pian piano_ (as they
occur'd) take[175] notes of antiquity; and having a quick draught, have
drawne landskips on horseback symbolically, e.g. <on my> journey to
Ireland in July, Anno Domini 166-.
<The> earl of Thanet[176] <gave me> _otium_ at Hethefield.
<I[177] had> never quiett, nor anything of happinesse till[178]
divested of all, 1670, 1671[AB]: at what time providence raysed me
(unexpectedly) good friends--the right honourable Nicholas, earl of
Thanet, with whom I was delitescent at Hethfield in Kent[AC] neer a
yeare, and then was invited ...; anno ..., Sarney; Sir Christopher
Wren; Mr. Ogilby; then Edmund Wyld, esq., R<egiae> S<ocietatis>
S<ocius>, of Glasely-hall, Salop (sed in margine), tooke me into his
armes, with whom I most commonly take my diet and sweet _otium's_.
Anno 1671, having sold all and disappointed as aforesaid of moneys I
received, I had so strong[179] an impulse[180] to (in good part) finish
my[181] _Description of Wilts_, two volumes in folio, that I could not
be quiet till I had donne it, and that with danger enough, tanquam
canis e Nilo, for feare of the crocodiles, i.e. catchpolls.----And
indeed all that I have donne and that little that I have studied have
been just after that fashion, so that had I not lived long my want of
leisure would have afforded but a slender harvest of....
A man's spirit rises and falls with his[182] ⦻: makes me lethargique.
[183]<My> stomach <was> so tender that I could not drinke claret
without sugar, nor white wine, but would disgorge. <It was> not well
ordered till 1670.
☞ A strange fate that I have laboured under never[184] in my life to
enjoy one entire monethe[VII.] or 6 weekes _otium_ for contemplation.
[VII.] Once at Chalke in my absconding Oct. anno ...; at Weston[185]
anno....
My studies (geometry) were on horse back[VIII.], and <in> the house of
office: (my father discouraged me). My head was alwaies working; never
idle, and even travelling (which from 1649 till 1670 was never off my
horsback) did gleane som observations, of which I have a collection
in folio of 2 quiers of paper + a dust basket, some wherof are to be
valued.
[VIII.] So I got my Algebra, Oughtred in my pocket, with some[186]
information from Edward Davenant, D.D., of Gillingham, Dorset.
His[187] chiefe vertue, gratitude.
Tacit. lib. IV § xx:--Cneus Lentulus[188], outre l' honneur du consulat
et le triumphes de Getules, avoit la gloire d'avoir vescu sans reproche
dans sa pauverté, et sans orgueil dans son opulence où il estoit
parvenu de puis par de voyes legitimes.
<I was> never riotous or prodigall; but (as Sir E. Leech said) sloath
and carelesnesse[189] <are> equivalent to all other vices.
My fancy lay most to geometrie. If ever I had been good for anything,
'twould have been a painter, I could fancy a thing so strongly and had
so cleare an idaea of it.
When a boy, he did ever love to converse with old men, as living
histories. He cared not for play, but on play-dayes[190] he gave
himselfe to drawing and painting. At 9, a pourtraiter[191]; and soon
was....
Reall character, <things[192] that> lay dead, I caused to revive by
engaging 6 or 7 ... _fungor vice cotis_, etc.
Wheras very sickly in youth; Deo gratias, healthy from 16.
_Amici._
A<nthony> Ettrick, Trin. Coll.
M. T.[193]--John Lydall.
Fr<ancis> Potter, of 666[194], C lettres[195].
Sir J<ohn> Hoskyns, baronet.
Ed<mund> Wyld, esq. of Glasley Hall, quem summae gratitudinis ergo nomino.
Mr. Robert Hooke, Gresham College.
Mr. <Thomas> Hobbes, 165-.
A<nthony> Wood, 1665.
☞ Sir William Petty, my singular friend.
Sir James Long, baronet, of Draycot, χρονογραφία etc.
Mr. Ch<arles> Seymour, father[196] of the d<uke> of S<omerset>.
Sir Jo<hn> Stawell, M. T.[197]
Bishop of Sarum <Seth Ward>.
Dr. W<illiam> Holder.
_Scripsit[198]._
'The[199] Naturall History of Wiltshire.'
These 'Lives' (pro AW[200], 1679/80).
'Idea[201] of education of the noblesse,' in Mr. Ashmole's hands.
_item_, 'Remaynders of Gentilisme,' being observations on Ovid's _Fastorum_.
_memorandum_, '_Villare Anglicanum_ interpreted.'
item, _Faber Fortunae_ (for his own private use).
I. A. lived most at Broad-chalke in com. Wilts; sometimes at Easton
Piers; at London every terme. Much of his time spent in journeying
to South Wales (entaile[202]) and Hereff<ordshire>. I now indulge my
genius with my friends and pray for the young _angels_. Rest at Mris
More's neer Gresham College (Mrs More's in Hammond Alley in Bishopgate
Street farthest house[203]☍ old Jairer (?) taverne).
<I> expect preferment <through> Sir Ll. Jenkins[204].
[205]It was I. A. that did putt Mr. Hobbes upon writing his treatise
_De Legibus_, which is bound up with his _Rhetorique_ that one cannot
find it but by chance; no mention of it in the first title.
[206]I have writt '_an Idea of the education of the Noblesse_ from the
age of 10 (or 11) till 18': left with Elias Ashmole, esquire.
[207]1673[208], die Jovis[209], 5ᵗᵒ Martii, 9ʰ 15´ + P.M. J. A.
arrested <by> ... Gardiner, serjeant, a lusty faire-haired solar
fellow, prowd, insolent, et omnia id genus.
[210]March 25, 1675, my nose bled at the left nostrill about 4ʰ. P.M. I
doe not remember any event[AD].
[211]July 31, 1677, I sold my bokes to Mr. Littlebury, _scilicet_ when
my impostume in my heade did breake.
About 50 annos <aetatis> <I had> impostume in capite.
[212]Captain ... Poyntz (for service that I did him to the earle of
Pembroke and the earl of Abingdon[AE]) did very kindly make me a grant
of a thousand acres of land in the island of Tobago, anno Domini
1685/6, Febr. 2ᵈ. He advised me to send over people to plant[AF] and to
gett subscribers to come in for a share of these 1000 acres, for 200
acres he sayes would be enough for me. In this delicate island is _lac
lunae_ (the mother of silver).
William Penn, Lord Proprietor of Pennsylvania, did, ex mero motu et
ex gratia speciali, give me, (16--) a graunt, under his seale, of six
hundred acres in Pennsylvania[AG], without my seeking or dreaming of
it. He adviseth me to plant it with French protestants for seaven
yeares _gratis_ and afterwards <they are> to pay such a rent. Also he
tells me, for 200 acres ten pounds per annum rent for ever, after three
yeares.
[213]John Aubrey[AH], March 20, 1692/3, about 11 at night robbed and 15
wounds in my head.
January 5ᵗʰ, 1693/4, an apoplectick fitt, circiter 4ʰ. P.M.
[214]_Accidents of John Aubrey[AI]._
Borne at Easton-Piers, March 12, 1625/6, about sun-rising: very weake
and like to dye, and therfore Christned that morning before Prayer. I
thinke I have heard my mother say I had an ague shortly after I was
borne.
1629: about 3 or 4 yeares old, I had a grievous ague.
I can remember it. I gott not health till 11, or 12: but had sicknesse
of vomiting for 12 howres every fortnight for ... yeares; then, it came
monethly for ...; then, quarterly; and then, halfe-yearly; the last was
in June 1642. This sicknesse nipt my strength in the bud.
1633: 8 yeares old, I had an issue (naturall) in the coronall suture of
my head, which continued running till 21.
1634: October[215]: I had a violent fever that was like to have carried
me off. 'Twas the most dangerous sicknesse that ever I had.
About 1639 (or 1640) I had the measills, but that was nothing: I was
hardly sick.
1639: Monday after Easter weeke my uncle's nag ranne away with me, and
gave a very dangerous fall.
1642: May 3, entred at Trinity College, Oxon.
1643: April and May, the small-pox at Oxon; and shortly after, left
that ingeniouse place; and for three yeares led a sad life in the
countrey.
1646: April ----, admitted of the Middle Temple. But my father's
sicknesse, and businesse, never permitted me to make any settlement to
my studie.
1651: about the 16 or 18 of April, I sawe that incomparable good
conditioned gentlewoman, Mris M. Wiseman, with whom at first sight I
was in love--haeret lateri[216].
1652: October 21: my father died.
1655: (I thinke) June 14, I had a fall at Epsam, and brake one of my
ribbes and was afrayd it might cause an apostumation.
1656: September 1655, or rather (I thinke) 1656, I began my chargeable
and taedious lawe-suite about the entaile in Brecknockshire and
Monmouthshire.
This yeare, and the last, was a strange year to me, and[217] of
contradictions;--scilicet love M. W.[218] and lawe-suites.
1656: December: Veneris morbus.
[219]1657: Novemb. 27, obiit domina Katherina Ryves, with whom I was to
marry; to my great losse.
1658: ...[220]
1659: March or Aprill, like to breake my neck in Ely minster, and the
next day, riding a gallop there, my horse tumbled over and over, and
yet (I thanke God) no hurt.
1660: July, August, I accompanied A. Ettrick into Ireland for a moneth;
and returning were like to be ship-wrackt at Holy-head, but no hurt
donne.
1661, 1662, 1663: about these yeares I sold my estate in Herefordshire.
...[221]: Janu., had the honour to be elected fellow of the Royal
Society.
1664: June 11, landed at Calais. In August following, had a terrible
fit of the spleen, and piles, at Orleans. I returned in October.
1664, or 1665: Munday after Christmas, was in danger to be spoiled by
my horse, and the same day received laesio in testiculo which was like
to have been fatall. Quaere R. Wiseman quando--I beleeve 1664.
1665: November 1; I made my first addresse (in an ill howre) to Joane
Sumner.
1666: this yeare all my businesses and affaires ran kim kam. Nothing
tooke effect, as if I had been under an ill tongue. Treacheries and
enmities in abundance against me.
1667: December --: arrested in Chancery lane, at Mrs. Sumner's suite.
<1667/8>: Febr. 24, A.M. about 8 or 9, triall with her at Sarum.
Victory and 600 _li._ dammage, though divelish opposition against me.
1668: July 6, was arrested by Peter Gale's malicious contrivance, the
day before I was to goe to Winton for my second triall, but it did not
retain me above two howres; but did not then goe to triall.
1669[222]: March 5, was my triall at Winton, from 8 to 9, the judge
being exceedingly made against me, by my lady Hungerford. But 4 of the
Venue (?) appearing, and with much adoe, gott the moëity of Sarum,
verdict viz. 300 _li._
1669 and 1670: I sold all my estate in Wilts.
From 1670, to this very day (I thanke God), I have enjoyed a happy
delitescency.
1671: danger of arrests.
1677: later end of June, an imposthume brake in my head.
Laus Deo.
[223]Memorandum:--St. John's night, 1673, in danger of being run
through with a sword by a young ...[224] at Mr. Burges' chamber in the
Middle Temple.
Quaere the yeare[225] that I lay at Mris Neve's; for that time I was
in great danger of being killed by a drunkard in the street opposite
Grayes-Inne gate--a gentleman whom I never sawe before, but (Deo
gratias) one of his companions hindred his thrust. (Memorandum:
horoscope....[226])
Danger of being killed by William, earl of Pembroke, then lord Herbert,
at the election of Sir William Salkeld for New Sarum.
I see Mars in ...[226] threatnes danger to me from falls.
I have been twice in danger of drowning.
_Notes._
[J] This beginning of Aubrey's autobiography is explained by Henry
Coley's judgment on his nativity, found in MS. Aubr. 23, fol. 104,
on the scheme 'J. A. natus 1625/6, March 11th, 17ʰ 14´ 44˝ P.M., sub
latitudine 51° 30´.'
'The nativity,' Coley says, 'is a most remarkable opposition, and 'tis
much pitty the starres were not more favourable to the native.' Coley
goes on to state that the stars 'threaten ruin to land and estate; give
superlative vexations in matters relating to marriag, and wondrous
contests in law-suits--of all which vexations I suppose the native hath
had a greater portion than ever was desired.' Aubrey must have been
only too glad to have authority for attributing his failure in life to
the stars, and not to his own ill-conduct.
[K] In MS. Aubr. 7, fol. 3, in jottings at the side of his horoscope,
Aubrey suggests that his failure in this respect was due to defects of
his upbringing, not of natural ability.
Ἐὰν ᾖς φιλομαθής, ἔσῃ πολυμαθής. By _pian piano_ I might have <attained
to learning>; though <my> memory <was> not tenacious, <yet I had> zeale
to learning, and ...[227] extraordinary, ... ...[228]; <but I was> bred
ignorant at Eston.'
[L] Henry Coley, in his 'Observations upon the geniture' of Aubrey,
MS. Aubr. 23, fol. 105ᵛ, finds that the stars show that he 'will be in
great danger between the years of 40 and 50.'--On this Aubrey remarks:--
'Much about that time the native was several times in danger of
expiration, as,
first, by the e<arl> of P<embroke>;
2, a bruise of the left side;
3, a narrow escape of falling downe stayres; and,
lastly, as dangerous a fall from a horse;
besides the accident of sowneing, cum multis aliis.
1668: the native was in no small trouble, at least received
disparagement, by an arrest, and other untoward transactions.'
[M] In MS. Aubr. 3, fol. 62 sqq., is a notice of Aubrey's family and of
Kington St. Michael.
The pedigree is:--
William Aubrey, LL.D.
|
|
John Aubrey (3rd son)
|
|
Richard Aubrey _m._ Deborah,
(only son) | daughter of
| Isaac Lyte
|
+-------------+-------------+
| | |
| | |
John William Thomas
(our author)
See in 'Wiltshire: the Topographical Collections of John Aubrey,
corrected and enlarged by John Edward Jackson,' Devizes, 1862.
In MS. Aubr. 23, on a slip at fol. 47, Aubrey notes his father's
christening:--'Richard Aubrey, July 26, St. Anne's day, christened A.D.
1603.'
MS. Aubr. 23, fol. 83, notices Aubrey's brother William:--'My brother
William Aubrey's scheme by Henry Coley.--Natus Mr. W. A. March 20,
1642/3, at 11ʰ 30´ P.M.'
MS. Aubr. 23, fol. 119ᵛ, is the back of an envelope (seal, a pelican
feeding her young) addressed to Aubrey's third brother:--'to his very
loving freind Mr. Thomas Awbrey at Broad Chalke give these.'
[N] In MS. Aubr. 8, fol. 8, Aubrey notes:--
'John Aubrey <was> borne in the chamber where are on the chimney
painted the armes of Isaac Lyte and Israel Browne.'
MS. Aubr. 17 contains several of Aubrey's drawings, in pencil and
water-colours, of the house and grounds at Easton-Piers.
In MS. Aubr. 3 (his 'Hypomnemata Antiquaria'), fol. 55 sqq., is
Aubrey's description of Easton-Piers. It is printed in J. E. Jackson's
Aubrey's _Wiltshire Collections_ (Devizes, 1862), pp. 235 sqq.
[O] In MS. Aubr. 23, fol. 8, Aubrey notes:--'_ex registro Kington
St. Michael in com. Wilts_: June 15, Richard Aubrey and Debora Lyght
maried, 1625.'
[P] Aubrey in a marginal note seeks to bring his birth-day into
connexion with the Roman Quinquatria (March 19). The note is:
'Quinquatria: feast dedicated to Minerva' <dupl. with 'Pallas'>.
[Q] In MS. Aubr. 23 (his 'Collectio geniturarum'), fol. 116, 117, are
letters from Charles Snell about Aubrey's nativity and accidents. Snell
there enumerates Aubrey's:--
'Sicknesse att birth; ague and vomittings aboute 5 or 6 yeares old;
issue in his head; small-pox; amours with madam Wiseman[229]; selling
away the mannor of Stratford, etc.; haesitating in his speech.'
Snell gives this advice:--
'If the haesitation in your speech doth hinder, gett a parsonage of
4 or 500 _li._ per annum, and give a curat 100 _li._ per annum to
officiate for you.'
The letter is dated from 'Fordingbridge; 12 August, 1676.'
Aubrey, in his letters to Anthony Wood, several times touches on the
idea of his taking Orders. MS. Ballard 14, fol. 98:--'I am like to
be spirited away to Jamaica by my lord <John> Vaughan, who is newly
made governor there, and mighty earnest to have me goe with him and
will looke out some employment worthy a gentleman for me. Fough! the
cassock stinkes: it would be ridiculous.'--April 9, 1674. MS. Ballard
14, fol. 119:--'I am stormed by my chiefest friends afresh, viz. Baron
Bertie[230], Sir William Petty, Sir John Hoskyns, bishop of Sarum[231],
etc., to turne ecclesiastique; "but the king of France growes stronger
and stronger, and what if the Roman religion should come-in againe?"
"Why then!" say they, "_cannot you turne too?_" You, I say, know well
that I am no puritan, nor an enimy to the old gentleman on the other
side of the Alpes. Truly, if I had a good parsonage of 2 or 300 _li._
per annum, (as you told me) it would be a shrewd temptation.'--Aug. 29,
1676.
[R] Aubrey notes in the margin, (1) 'T. H.' (in a monogram), i.e.
that this Latimer had been schoolmaster to Thomas Hobbes, and (2),
'delicate little horse,' to indicate that he did not walk the mile
to Leigh-de-la-mere like a poor boy, but rode his pony there like a
fine gentleman. John Britton has mis-read the note, and made it a
description of Mr. Latimer's appearance, 'delicate little _person_.'
In MS. Aubr. 3, fol. 109, Aubrey gives this inscription as on a stone
'under the communion-table' in the church of Leigh-de-la-mere:--
'Here lieth Mr. Robert Latymer, sometime rector and pastor of
this church, who deceased this life the second day of November,
anno domini 1634.'
And then Aubrey notes:--
'This Mr. Latimer was schoolmaster at Malmsbury[232] to Mr. Thomas
Hobbes. He afterwards taught children here[233]. He entred me into my
accedence. Before Mr. Latimer, one Mr. Taverner was rector here, who
was the parson that maried my grand-father and grandmother Lyte.'
[S] In a marginal note (MS. Aubr. 7, fol. 3), Aubrey excuses his
father's neglect of his education on the plea that he himself grew up
illiterate. The note is:--
'My grandfather A<ubrey> dyed, leaving my father, who was not educated
to learning, but to hawking.' See in the life of Alderman John Whitson.
[T] In the margin Aubrey notes:--
'♄: strong impulse to ♄.' This means I suppose that the position of
Saturn at his nativity gave him a bias to the study of antiquities.
[U] This means, I suppose, that the copies he made sufficiently
resembled the pictures on the parlour wall. A note in MS. Aubr. 8, fol.
6ᵛ, perhaps refers to his own skill in drawing, 'As Mr. Walter Waller's
picture drawne after his death; è contra, I have done severall by the
life.' Walter Waller was vicar of Chalk, where Aubrey lived: see in the
life of Edmund Waller.
[V] Possibly "The mysteries of nature and art, viz.... drawing,
colouring ...," by J[ohn] B[ate], Lond. 1634, 4to.
[W] Here (fol. 3ᵛ) in the margin is written:--'Vide Pond,' referring
perhaps to a pocket almanac, in which Aubrey had marked the date of his
going up to Oxford. See Clark's Wood's _Life and Times_, i. 11, 12. In
a letter from Aubrey to Anthony Wood, of date Feb. 21, 1679/80, in MS.
Ballard 14, fol. 127, is this interesting note:--'At Trinity College we
writt our names in the Buttery-booke, when we were entred.'
Aubrey cites in the margin (MS. Aubr. 7, fol. 3ᵛ):--'HORAT. _Epist._
2ᵈ.' <i.e. _Epist._ ii. 2. 45>:--
'Atque inter sylvas Academi quaerere verum.
Dura sed emovere loco me tempora grato.'
[X] In MS. Wood F. 39, fol. 183, Aubrey, writing on Oct. 19, 1672,
tells Anthony Wood, 'you must not forgett that I have 3 other faces or
prospects of Osney abbey, as good as that now in the Monasticon. They
are in my trunke yet at Easton Piers.' Ibid., fol. 190ᵛ, on Oct. 22,
1672, he says, 'I will bring you about March my two other draughts of
Osney ruines, one by Mr. Dobson himselfe, the other by his man, one Mr.
Hesketh, but was a priest.'
Note that in MS. Wood F. 39, fol. 200, is a drawing (from memory) by
Aubrey of the stone-work which crowned the great earth-mound of Oxford
Castle.
[Y] In a slip at the end of MS. Aubr. 26 (Aubrey's _Faber Fortunae_, in
which he entered schemes by which he hoped to 'make his fortune'), is
this note:--
'I have the deed of entaile of the lands in South Wales, Brecon, and
Monmouthshire, by my grandfather, William Aubrey LL.D., which lands now
of right belong to me. Memorandum:--Mr. David Powell, who liveth at ...
(neer Llanverarbrin neer Llandvery, as I remember), can helpe me to the
counterpart of this deed of entaile in Wales--quod N. B.'
[Z] In MS. Aubr. 21, at fol. 75 is part of a draft of a will by Aubrey,
probably the one mentioned here (Ralph Bathurst became 'Dr.' in 1654):--
'Item, my will is that my executors buy for Trinity Colledge in Oxon
a colledge pott of the value of ten pounds, with my armes theron
inscribed; and ten pounds which I shall desire my honoured friends Mr.
Ralph Bathurst of Trinity College and Mr. John Lydall to lay out upon
mathematicall and philosophicall books.
Item, I give to the library of Jesus Colledge in Oxon my Greeke
_Crysostomus_, Bede's 2 tomes, and all the rest of my bookes that are
fitt for a library, as Mr. Anthony Ettrick[234] or Mr. John Lydall
shall think fitt, excepting those bookes that were my father's which I
bequeath to my heire.
Item, I bequeath to John Davenant of the Middle Temple, esq., a ring of
the value of 50_s._, with a stone in it.
Item, to Mr. William Hawes[235] of Trinity College aforsaid a ring of
the like value.
Item, to Mr. John Lydall[236] of the Colledge aforesaid a ring of the
like value.
Item, to Mr. Ralf Bathurst[237] of Trinity College aforesaid a ring of
the like value.
Item, to Mris Mary Wiseman of Westminster, my best diamond ring.'
[AA] On a slip at fol. 101 of MS. Aubr. 23 is the
jotting:--'Eston-pierse: possession given, 25 March, 1671, P.M.'
[AB] In his retirement during this year at Chalk, Aubrey tried his hand
at play-making. Writing to Anthony Wood on Oct. 26, 1671, MS. Wood, F.
39, fol. 141ᵛ, he says:--
'I am writing a comedy for Thomas Shadwell, which I have now almost
finished since I came here, et quorum pars magna fui. And I shall fit
him with another, _The Countrey Revell_, both humours untoucht, but
of this, mum! for 'tis very satyricall against some of my mischievous
enemies which I in my tumbling up and downe have collected.'
Of the first of these comedies, the autobiographical one, I have found
no trace: of the second, satirizing the men and manners of Wiltshire, a
very rude draft is found in MS. Aubr. 21.
[AC] In MS. Aubr. 23, fol. 113 is a note (dated 1672/3) from Henry
Coley, addressed:--
'For his much honoured friend Mr. John Aubrey, at the right honourable
the earle of Thanet's house at Hethfield in Kent, these present.'
The letter states that the writer has forwarded letters to and from
Aubrey; and concludes: 'you are much wanted at London, and dayly
expected, and therefore I hope you will not be long absent. Interest
calls for your appearance.'
[AD] i.e. which followed after this bleeding. Bleeding at the nose was
thought ominous: see Clark's Wood's _Life and Times_, iii. 289, note 1.
[AE] In MS. Aubr. 26, p. 17 is this note:--'The earle of Abington
to buy of Captain Poyntz the propriety of the island of Tobago, now
regnante Gulielmo III.'
[AF] Aubrey before this time had planned to retrieve his ruined
fortunes by colonial schemes: e.g., MS. Aubr. 26, p. 46:--'1676: from
Sir William Petty--<in> Jamaica 500 _li._ gives 100 per annum: take a
chymist with me, for brandy, suger, etc., and goe halfe with him.'
[AG] In consequence of this grant, Aubrey seriously thought of
emigrating. MS. Aubr. 26, p. 14:--
'Mr. Robert Welsted, goldsmith and banquier, saies that Mr. John
Evelyn's bookes are the most proper for a plantation. Also Markham's
husbandry and huswifry, etc. This is in order for Mr. W. Penn and
myselfe.--Also let him carry with him Mr. Haines booke of Cydar
Royall, which method will likewise serve for other fruites--it is by
distillation. Quaere of Mr. Tyndale's at Bunhill, who makes severall
sorts of English wines and cydars. Memorandum the great knack and
criticism is to know when it comes to its sowrenesse; it must not be
vinegar for then nothing will come--quod N. B.'
[AH] This is noticed on a slip (fragment of a letter, '8 March, 1692/3'
from Edward Harley) at fol. 113 of MS. Aubr. 23:--'J. A. vulneratus die
20 Martii inter 10 et 11 horas Londini. Deo gratias.'
[AI] This paper was acquired by Rawlinson in July ... 1746 (ibid. fol.
31ᵛ). There is an inaccurate copy of it in MS. Ballard 14, foll. 158,
159, which has the note:--'1754, June 11, transcribed from a MS. in Mr.
Aubrey's own writing in the possession of Dr. Richard Rawlinson.'
=William Aubrey= (1529-1595).
[238]William Aubrey[AJ], Doctor of Lawes:--extracted from a MS.[AK] of
funeralls, and other good notes, in the hands of Sir Henry St. George,
...[239], marked thus ♡. I guesse it to be the hand-writing of Sir
Daniel Dun, knight, LL. Dr., who maried Joane, third daughter of Dr.
William Aubrey:--
William Aubrey (the second son of Thomas Aubrey, the 4th son of
Hopkin Aubrey, of Abercunvrig in the countie of Brecon, esqre) in
the 66th yeare of his age or thereabouts, and on the 25th of June,
in the yeare of our Lord 1595, departed this life, and was buried in
the Cathedrall-church of St. Paul in London, on the north side of
the chancell, over against the tombe of Sir John Mason, knight, at
the base or foot of a great pillar standing upon the highest step of
certain degrees or staires rising into the quire eastward from the
same pillar towards the tombe of the right honble the lord William,
earle of Pembroke, and his funeralls were performed the 23d of July,
1595. This gentleman in his tender yeares learned the first grounds of
grammar in the College of Brecon, in Brecknock towne, and from thence
about his age of fourteen yeares he was sent by his parents to the
University of Oxford, where, under the tuition and instruction of one
Mr. Morgan, a great learned man, in a few yeares he so much profited in
humanity and other recommendable knowledge, especially in Rhetorique
and Histories, as that he was found to be fitt for the studie of the
Civill Law, and thereupon was also elected into the fellowship[240] of
All-soules Colledge in Oxford (where the same Lawe[241] hath alwayes
much flourished). In which Colledge he ernestly studied and diligently
applied himselfe to the lectures and exercise of the house, as that he
there attained the degree of a Doctor of the Law Civill at his age of
25 yeares, and immediately after, he had bestowed on him the Queen's
Publique Lecture of Law in the university, the which he read with so
great a commendation as that his fame for learning and knowledge was
spred far abroad and he also esteemed worthy to be called to action in
the commonwealth. Wherefor, shortly after, he was made Judge Marshall
of the Queen's armies at St. Quintins in France. Which warrs finished,
he returned into England, and determining with himselfe, in more
peaceable manner and according to his former education, to passe on the
course of his life in the exercise of law, he became an advocate of the
Arches, and so rested many yeares, but with such fame and credit as
well for his rare skill and science in the[242] law, as also for his
sound judgment and good experience therein, as that, of men of best
judgment, he was generally accounted peerlesse in that facultie.
Wherupon, as occasion fell out for imployment of a civilian, his
service was often used as well within the realme as in forrein
countries. In which imployments, he alwaies used such care and
diligence and good circumspection, as that his valour and vertues dayly
more appearing ministred means to his further advancement. In soe
much that he was preferred to be one of the Councell of the Marches
of Wales, and shortly after placed Master of the Chancery, and the
appointed Judge of the Audience, and constituted Vicar Generall to the
Lord Archbishop of <Canterbury> through the whole province, and last,
by the especiall grace of the queene's most excellent majestie, queen
Elizabeth, he was taken to her highnesse nearer service and made one of
the Masters of Request in ordinarie. All which titles and offices (the
Mastership of Chancery, which seemed not competible with the office of
Master of Requestes, only excepted) he by her princely favour possessed
and enjoyed untill the time of his death. Besides the great learning
and wisdome that this gentleman was plentifully endowed withall, Nature
had also framed him so courteous of disposition and affable of speech,
so sweet of conversation and amiable behaviour, that there was never
any in his place better beloved all his life, nor he himselfe more
especially favoured of her majestie and the greatest personages in
the realme in any part of his life then he was when he drew nearest
his death. He was of stature not taull, nor yet over-low, not grosse
in bodie, and yet of good habit; somewhat inclining to fatnesse of
visage in his youth; round, well favoured, well coloured and lovely;
and albeit in his latter yeares sicknesse had much[243] impaired his
strength and the freshnesse of his hew, yet there remained there still
to the last in his countenance such comely and decent gravity, as that
the change rather added unto them then ought diminished his former
dignitie. He left behind him when he died, by a vertuouse gentlewoman
Wilgiford his wife (the first daughter of Mr. John Williams of Tainton
in the countie of Oxford, whom he maried very young a maiden, and
enjoyed to his death, that both having lived together in great love and
kindnesse by the space of 40 yeares) three sons and six daughters, all
of them maried, and having issue, as followeth[IX.].
[IX.] Vide pedegre.
His eldest son Edward, maried unto Joane, daughter and one of the
heires of William Havard, in the countie of Brecon, esqre.
His second son Thomas maried Mary the daughter and heire of Anthony
Maunsell of Llantrithed, in the com. of Glamorgan, esqre.
His 3d son John,[X.] being then of the age of 18 yeares (or much
thereabouts), was maried to Rachel, one of the daughters of Richard
Danvers of Tockenham, in com. Wilts, esqre.
[X.] John Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury, was his guardian, and
the doctor's great friend. I have heard my grandmother say that her
husband told her that his grace kept a noble house, and that with
admirable order and oeconomie; and that there was not one woman in the
family.--Vide the archbishop of Canterbury's case in Sir Edward Cooke's
_Reportes_ where he is mentioned.
His eldest daughter Elizabeth, maried to Thomas Norton of Norwood in
the countie of Kent, esqre.
His 2d daughter Mary maried William Herbert of Krickhowell, in the
countie of Brecknock, esqre.
His 3d daughter Joane maried with Sir Daniel Dun, knight, and Doctor of
the Civill Lawe.
His 4th daughter Wilgiford maried to Rise Kemis of Llanvay, in the
county of Monmouth, esqre.
His 5th daughter Lucie maried to Hugh Powell, gent.
His 6th and youngest daughter Anne, maried to John Partridge, of
Wishanger, in the countie of Glocester, esqre.
Of every of the which since his death there hath proceeded a plentifull
issue.
_Additions by Aubrey._
Memorandum:--he was one of the delegates (together with Dr. Dale, &c.)
for the tryall of Mary, queen of Scots, and was a great stickler for
the saving of her life, which kindnesse was remembred by King James att
his comeing-in to England, who asked after[244] him, and probably[245]
would have made him Lord Keeper, but he dyed, as appeares, a
little[246] before that good opportunity happened. His majestie sent
for his sonnes[247], and knighted the two eldest, and invited them
to court, which they modestly and perhaps prudently, declined. They
preferred a country life.
You may find him mentioned in the History of Mary, queen of Scotts,
8vo, written, I thinke, by <John> Hayward; as also in Thuanus's
_Annales_, which be pleased to see[AL] and insert his words here in
honour to the Doctor's _Manes_. Dr. ... Zouch mentions him with respect
in his _De Jure Faeciali_, pag....; and as I remember, he is quoted
by Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, in his
Reports, about the legitimacy of the earle of Hertford.[XI.] Quaere if
it was Edward the father[AM], or els his son William, about the mariage
with the ladie Arbella Stuart?
[XI.] Memorandum: Mr. Shuter, the proctor, told me that the Doctor
appealed to Rome about the earle of Hartford's suite, tempore reginae
Elizabethae.
[248][Johannes[249] David Rhesus M.D. makes an honourable mention of
him in his Welsh grammar in folio, pag....; as also in his preface.]
[250][_Linguae Cymraecae institutiones accuratae_, J. David Rhoesus,
folio, London, 1592, pag. 182 (quaere if he is not mentioned in the
Welsh preface):--
Caeterum nunc et propter eorum authoritatem et quod huic
loco inter alia maxime quadrent, non pigebit antiquissima
Taliessini[AN] Cambrobrytannica carmina subjungere, furtim
(quae mea est audacia) et eo nesciente, a me surrepta, et
clanculum calamo commissa, ex ore, vesperi fortuitò juxta
proprium ignem pro solito in sua cathedra considentis, et haec
una cum aliis carminibus memoriter, et non sine delectatione
quadam decora, proferentis, ornatissimi et doctissimi viri
domini Gulielmi Aubraei, Cambrobrytanni ab illustrissima
Aubraeorum familia oriundi, linguae Cambrobrytannicae
peritissimi eximiique patriae suae decoris et ornamenti, Juris
utriusque Doctoris celeberrimi, ac regiae majestati à Supplicum
Libellis constituti Domini, et amici optimi perpetuoque
colendi, nobisque amicis jam strenuas et auxiliatrices manus
porrigentis, qua citius et magis prospere elucubrationes hae ad
nostratium et aliorum utilitatem proelo committebantur.
Carmina vero sunt hujusmodi.]
[251]Memorandum:--old Judge Atkins[252] (the father) told me that the
Portugall ambassador was tryed for his life for killing Mr. Greenway in
the New Exchange (Oliver's time), upon the precedent of the bishop of
Rosse (Scotch) by Dr. W. Aubrey's advice. Memorandum:--Dr. Cruzo[253]
of Doctors Commons hath the MSS. of this bishop's tryall.
[254]_De legati deliquentis judice competente dissertatio_, autore
Richardo Zoucheo, Juris Civilis professore Oxoniae, Oxon 1657, 12ᵐᵒ,
pag. 89:--
Quarto, quod cum episcopus Rossensis, legatus reginae
Scotorum, multa turbulenter in Anglia fecisset ad rebellionem
excitandam et ad Anglos in Belgio profugos ad Angliam
invadendam inducendos, Davidi Lewiso, Valentino Dalo, Gulielmo
Drurio, Gulielmo Awbreio, et Henrico Jones, Juris Caesarei
consultissimis, quaestio proposita fuit _An legatus, qui
rebellionem contra principem ad quem legatus est concitat,
legati privilegiis gaudeat_ et _An, ut hostis, poenae
subjaceat_, eidem responderunt, ejusmodi legatum, jure gentium
et civili Romanorum, omnibus legati privilegiis excidisse et
poenae subjiciendum.
[255]He was a good statesman; and queen Elizabeth loved him and was
wont to call him 'her little Doctor.' Sir Joseph Williamson, Principall
Secretary of Estate (first, under-Secretary), haz told me that in
the Letter-office are a great many letters of his to the queen and
councell[256].
He sate many times as Lord Keeper, durante bene placito, and made[257]
many decrees, which Mr. Shuter, etc., told me they had seen.
Vide Anthony Wood's _Hist. et Antiq._: he was principal of New Inne.
Memorandum:--the _Penkenol_, i.e. chiefe of the family, is my cosen
Aubrey of Llannelly in Brecknockshire, of about 60 or 80 _li._ per
annum inheritance; and the Doctor should have given a distinction; for
want of which in a badge on one of his servants' blew-coates, his cosen
William Aubrey[258], also LL. Dr., who was the chiefe, plucked it off.
The learned John Dee was his great friend and kinsman, as I find by
letters between them in the custody of Elias Ashmole, esqre, viz., John
Dee wrote a booke _The Soveraignty of the Sea_, dedicated to queen
Elizabeth, which was printed, in folio. Mr. Ashmole hath it, and also
the originall copie of John Dee's hand writing, and annexed to it is a
lettre of his cosen Dr. William Aubrey[259], whose advise he desired in
his writing on that subject.
He purchased Abercunvrig (the ancient seate of the family) of his cosen
Aubrey. He built the great house at Brecknock, his studie lookes on
the river Uske. He could ride nine miles together in his owne land in
Breconshire. In Wales and England he left 2500 _li._ per annum wherof
there is now none left in the family. He made one Hugh George (his
chiefe clark) his executor, who ran away into Ireland and cosened all
the legatees, and among others my grandfather (his youngest son) for
the addition of whose estate he had contracted with.... for Pembridge
castle in the com. of Hereford, which appeares by his will, and for
which his executor was to have payed. He made a deed of entaile (36
Eliz., 15<94>) which is also mentioned in his will, wherby he entailes
the Brecon estate on the issue male of his eldest son, and in defailer,
to skip the 2d son (for whom he had well provided, and had maried a
great fortune) and to come to the third. Edward the eldest had seaven
sonnes; and his eldest son, Sir William, had also seaven sonnes; and so
I am heire, being the 18th man in remainder, which putts me in mind of
Dr. Donne,
For what doeth it availe
To be the twentieth man in an entaile?
Old Judge Sir <Edward> Atkins remembred Dr. A. when he was a boy; he
lay at his father's house in Glocestershire: he kept his coach, which
was rare in those dayes. The Judge told me they then (vulgarly) called
it a _Quitch_. I have his originall picture. He had a delicate, quick,
lively and piercing black eie, fresh complexion, and a severe eie
browe. The figure in his monument at St. Paules is not like him, it is
too big.
_Heroum filii noxae_: he engrossed all the witt of the family, so that
none descended from him can pretend to any. 'Twas pitty that Dr. Fuller
had not mentioned him amongst his Worthys in that countie.
When he lay dyeing, he desired them to send for a _goodman_; they
thought he meant Dr. Goodman, deane of St. Paules, but he meant a
priest, as I have heard my cosen John Madock say. Capt. Pugh was wont
to say that civilians (as most learned an<d> gent.) naturally incline
to the church of Rome; and the common lawyers, as more ignorant and
clownish, to the church of Geneva.
Wilgiford, his relict, maried ... Browne, of Willey, in com. Surrey.
The inscription on his monument in St. Paul's church:--
Gulielmo Aubreo clara familia in Breconia orto, LL. in Oxonia
Doctori, ac Regio Professori, Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis
causarum Auditori et Vicario in spiritualibus Generali,
Exercitus Regii ad St. Quentin Supremo Juridico, in Limitaneum
Walliae Consilium adscito, Cancellariae Magistro, et Reginae
Elizabethae à supplicum libellis: Viro exquisita eruditione,
singulari prudentia, et moribus suavissimis qui (tribus filiis,
et sex filiabus e Wilgiforda uxore susceptis), aeternam in
Christo vitam expectans, animam Deo xxiii Julii 1595, aetatis
suae 66, placidè reddidit;
Optimo patri Edvardus et Thomas, milites, ac Johannes, armiger,
filii moestissimi, posuerunt.
[260]This Dr. W. Aubrey was related to the first William, earl of
Pembroke, two wayes (as appeares by comparing the old pedegre at Wilton
with that of the Aubreys); by Melin and Philip ap Elider (the Welsh
men are all kinne); and it is exceeding probable that the earle was
instrumentall in his rise. When the earl of Pembroke was generall
at St. Quintins in France, Dr. Aubrey was his judge advocat. In the
Doctor's will is mention of a great piece of silver plate, the bequest
of the right honᵇˡᵉ the earle of Pembroke.
... Stephens, the clarke of St. Benets, Paules Wharfe, tells me that
Dr. W. Aubrey gave xx_s._ per annum for ever to that parish.
[261]Vide the register of St. Benet's, Paule's Wharfe--quaere.
Stephens, the clark, sayeth that he gave xx_s._ per annum to the parish
of St. Benet's, Paule's wharfe, for ever: quaere.
[262]Sir Andrew Joyner of Bigods in Much Dunmow parish in Essex hath
two folios, stitcht, of manuscript letters of state, wherin are two
letters of Dr. William Aubrey's to secretary Walsingham, and also
lettres of queen Elizabeth's owne handwriting to Cecill; also _Liber
Stᵃᵉ Mariae de Reding_, a MS.; and other MSS.,--a long shelfe of
them--one of them writt tempore Henr. IV. This I had from Mr. Andrew
Paschal, rector of Chedzoy, Somerset.
<_Letter by Dr. W. Aubrey: supra, p. 59._>
[263]MY GOOD COOSEN,
I have sente unto you again my yonge coosen[264] inclosede in a bagge,
as my wyffe cariethe yet one of myne; trustinge in God, that shortly
both, in theyr severall kyndes, shall come to lyght and live long, and
your's having _genium_, for ever. I knowe not, for lack of sufficiencie
of witte and learninge, how to judge of it at all. But in that shadowe
of judgemente that I have, truste me beinge vearie farre from meanynge
to yelde any thyng, to your owne eares, of yourselfe. The matter
dothe so strive with the manner of the handlinge that I am in dowpte
whyther I shall preferre the matter for the substance, weyght, and
pythines of the multitude of argumentes and reasones, or the manner
for the methode, order, perspicuitie, and elocution, in that height
and loftynesse that I did nott beleve our tonge (I meane the Englyshe)
to be capable of. Marie, our Brittishe, for the riches of the tonge,
in my affectionate opinion, is more copious and more advawntageable to
utter any thinge by a skillfull artificer. This navie which you aptlie,
accordinge to the nature and meaninge of your platt, call pettie, is so
sette furthe by you, thos principall and royall navies of the Grecianes
and Trojanes described by Homer and Vergill are no more bownde to them,
then it is to you.
You argue or rather thoondre so thicke and so strong for the necessitie
and commoditie of your navie, that you leade or rather drawe me
_obtorto collo_ to be of opinion with you, the benefitte therofe to be
suche as it wilbe a brydle and restreynte for conspiracies of foreyne
nationes, and of owre owne a salfegarde to merchants from infestationes
of pyrates; a readie meane to breed and augmente noombers of skillfull
marryners and sowldiers for the sea, a mayntynawnce in proces of tyme
for multitudes of woorthie men that otherwise wolde be ydle. Who can
denie, as you handle the matter, and as it is in trothe, but that
it will be a terror to all princes for attemptinge of any soodeyne
invasions,[265] and hable readilie to withstande any attempte foreyne
or domesticall by sea? And where this noble realme hath ben long
defamede for suffringe of pyrates disturbers of the common traffyke
upon these seas, yt will, as you trulye prove, utterlie extingwishe the
incorrigible, and occupie the reformed in that honourable service.
The indignitie that this realme hath long borne in the fyshinge rownde
aboute yt, with the intolerable injuries that owre nation hath indurede
and doe still, at strangers handes, besides the greatnes of the
commoditie that they take owte of our mowthes, hath ben, and is suche,
that the same almoste alone were cause sufficiente to furnishe your
navie if it may have that successe and consideration that it deserveth,
it will be a better wache for the securitie of the state than all the
intelligencers or becones that may be devisede: and a stronger wall
and bulwarke than either Calleys was, or a brase of such townes placed
in the most convenient parte of any continente of France, or the
Lowe-countrey. As her majestie of right is _totius orbis Britannici
domina, et lex maris_, whiche is given in the reste of the worlde by
Labro in our learning to Antoninus the Emperor, so she showlde have
the execution and effect therof in our worlde, yf your navie were
as well setled as you have plottede it. But what doe I by this bare
recitall deface your reasones so eloquentlie garnishede by you with the
furniture of so much and so sundrie lernynge? I will of purpose omitt
howe fully and howe substantially you confute the stronge objectiones
and argumentes that you inforce and presse againste your selfe. I wolde
God all men wolde as willinglie beare the light burdynes that you lay
upon them for the supportation of the chardges as you have wiselie and
reasonablie devisede the same. And so the dearthe and scarsitie that
curiouse or covetouse men may pretende to[266] feare, you so sowndlie
satisfie, that it is harde with any probabilitie to replie. As for
the sincere handlinge and govermente it is not to be disperede yf
the charge shall be with good ordinawnces and instructiones placede
carefullie in chosen persones of good credite and integritie. See howe
boldlie upon one soodeyne readinge I powre my opinion to your bosome of
this your notable and strange discowrse. And yet I will make bold to
censure it also as he dyd in the poore slipper when he was nott able
to fynd any faulte in any one parte of the workemanship of the noble
picture of that goddes. I pray you, Sir, seyinge you meane that your
navie shall contynewe in time of peace furnishede with your noombre
of men, what provision or ordre make you, howe they shall occupie and
exercise themselves all the while? Assure your selfe those whelpes of
yours neyther can nor will be ydle, and excepte it may please you
to prescribe unto them some good occupation and exercise, they will
occupie themselves in occupationes of their owne choice, wherof few
shall be to your lykinge or meanynge. Peradventure you meane of purpose
to reserve that to the consideration of the state. And where you in
vearie good proportion, lawierlike, share goodes taken by pyrates
amonge sundrie persones of your navie, and some portion to itselfe,
reservinge the moytie to the prince, you are to remembre that the same
are challenged holly to belong to her highnesse by prerogative. Let me
be also bold to offer to your consideration whether it be expedient
for you so freely to deale with the carryinge of ordinawnces out of
the realme beinge a matter lately pecuted[267] by the knowledge _et
convenientia_ of, etc. You doe, to veary great purpose inserte the
two orationes of Georgius Gemistus Plethon, the one to Emanuel by
fragments, and the other to his sonne Theodore _ad verbum_, for the
worthynes and varietye of many wise and sownd advises given by him to
those princes in a hard tyme, when they were in feare of that Turkish
conquest, that did after followe to the ruine of that empire of
Constantinople. However well doeth he handle the differences and rates
of customes and tributes, the moderate and sober use of apparell _in
ipsis principibus_! How wisely doethe[268] he condemne the takeinge
up of all the newe attires and apparell of strange nations, as though
he had written to us at this tyme, who doe offende as deepely therein
as the Greekes then dyd! How franke is he to his prince in useinge
the comparisone between the Eagle that hath no varietie of colours
of feathers, and yet of a princelie nature and estimation, and the
Peocock, a bird of no regall propertie nor credit yet glisteringe
angelically with varietie of feathers of all lively colours. There is
one sentence in the later oration which I have thought to note because
in apparence it dothe oppugne in a maner your treatise. The wordes are
these, _Prestat longè terrestribus copiis ac militum et ducum virtute,
quàm nautarum et similium hominum vilium arte, fiduciam ponere_.
Good coosen, pardon my boldnes. I doe this bicause you may understande
that I have roone over it. And yet was I abrode all the fowle day
yesterday. I pray you pardon me agayne for nott sendinge of it to you
accordinge to promisse. And for that your man is come, and for that I
have spente all my paper, I will no longer trowble you at this tyme,
savinge with my right heartie commendations to your selfe and to my
coosen your good mother from me and from my woman. From Kewe this
Soonday in the morninge, the 28 of July.
Yours assuredlie at commawndement,
W. AUBREY.
To his verie lovinge coosen and assured
freende Mr. John Dee, at Mortelake.
_Notes._
[AJ] Aubrey gives in trick the coat:--'in the 1 and 6, gules[269], a
chevron between 3 eagles heads erased or [Aubrey]; in the 2, ..., a
lion rampant ...; in the 3, ..., a chevron between 3 (lions'?) paws
...; in the 4, ..., three cocks gules; and in the 5, parted per pale
... and ..., 3 fleur-de-lys counter-changed.' The crest is 'an eagle's
head erased or [Aubrey].'
[AK] In MS. Aubr. 8, fol. 7, is the memorandum:--'Insert ♡ to Liber
B.'--'Liber B.' was a volume of antiquarian notes, collected by Aubrey,
now lost (Macray's _Annals of the Bodleian_, p. 367). Aubrey wanted
to copy into it something from this MS. ♡. Two other memoranda in the
same place are:--(_a_) 'William Aubrey, LL.D.: extract out of _De jure
feciali_, and _De legati deliquentis judice competente_, by Dr. Zouch,'
as is done _supra_, p. 58; (_b_) 'Memorandum the xx _s._ per annum
bread at St. Benet's, Paul's wharf'; see _supra_, p. 61.
Aubrey, in MS. Ballard 14, fol. 119, writing to Anthony Wood on Aug.
29, 1676, says:--'This day accidentally Mr. St. George shewed me
my grandfather, Dr. William Aubrey's, life in their office' <i.e.
the College of Arms>, 'written, I suppose, by Sir Daniel Dun, his
son-in-lawe. He came to Oxon at 14, and was LL. Dr. at 25.'
[AL] Aubrey was very enthusiastic about these notices of his
grandfather. Writing to Anthony Wood, on May 19, 1668 (MS. Wood F.
39, fol. 118), he says:--'My grandfather Dr. William Aubrey--Thuanus
in his _Annales_ makes an honourable mention of him, and also it
is set downe in the life of Mary, queen of Scotts (he being one of
the commissioners) that he was very jealous of her being putt to
death--which the chroniclers mention too I'me sure, and Stow. If you
would be pleased to turne to Thuanus and the life aforesaid you <would>
very much oblige me, and you shall have a payre of gloves, for his
sake.'
[AM] Edward Seymour, created earl of Hertford in 1559, had in 1553
married secretly Katherine, daughter of Henry Grey, duke of Suffolk.
In 1561 Elizabeth sent them prisoners to the Tower, and the marriage
was disputed in the law-courts. William Seymour, his grandson, who
succeeded as 2nd earl in 1621, married in 1610 Arabella Stuart. She was
sent prisoner to the Tower by James I: but Dr. W. Aubrey had died in
1595.
[AN] Aubrey, in MS. Aubr. 8, fol. 6ᵛ, has a note:--'Meredith Lloyd
respondet that Telesinus (Teliessen) was a British priest to whom
Gildas writes.'
=Francis Bacon= (1561-1626).
<_His coat of arms._>
[270]Quarterly, on the 1 and 4, gules on a chief argent two mullets
sable [Bacon], on the 2 and 3, barry of six or and azure, over all
a bend gules [ ...], a crescent on the fesse point for difference;
impaling, sable, a cross engrailed between 4 crescents argent, a
crescent sable on the fesse point [Barnham].
<_Miscellaneous Notes._>
[271]Chancellor Bacon:--The learned and great cardinal Richelieu was a
great admirer of the lord Bacon.
So was Monsieur Balzac: e.g. _les Oeuvres diverses_, dissertation sur
un tragedie, à Monsieur Huygens de Zuylichen, p. 158--'Croyons, pour
l'amour du chancilier Bacon, que toutes les folies des anciens sont
sages et tous leur songes mysteries.'
Quaere if I have inserted[272] his irrigation in the spring showres.
Vide _Court of King James_ by Sir Anthony Welden, where is an account
of his being viceroy here when the king was in Scotland, and gave
audience to ambassadors in the banquetting-house.
[273]Lord Chancellor Bacon:--Memorandum, this Oct. 1681, it rang over
all St. Albans that Sir Harbottle Grimston, Master of the Rolles, had
removed the coffin of this most renowned Lord Chancellour to make roome
for his owne to lye-in in the vault there at St. Michael's church.
[274]Sir Francis Bacon, knight, baron of Verulam and viscount of St.
Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England:--vide his life writt by
Dr. William Rawley before _Baconi Resuscitatio_, in folio.
<_His admirers and acquaintances._>
It appeares by this following inscription that Mr. Jeremiah Betenham of
Graye's Inne was his lordship's intimate and dearely beloved friend.
This inscription is on the freeze of the summer house on the mount in
the upper garden of Grayes Inne, built by the Lord Chancellor Bacon.
The north side of the inscription is now perished[275]. The fane was a
Cupid drawing his bowe.
Franciscus Bacon, Regis Solicitator Generalis, executor
testamenti Jeremie Betenham nuper lectoris hujus hospitii,
viri innocentis et abstinentis et contemplativi, hanc sedem in
memoriam ejusdem Jeremie extruxit, anno Domini, 1609.
In his lordship's prosperity Sir Fulke Grevil, lord Brookes, was his
great friend and acquaintance; but when he was in disgrace and want,
he was so unworthy as to forbid his butler to let him have any more
small beer, which he had often sent for, his stomach being nice, and
the small beere of Grayes Inne not liking his pallet. This has donne
his memorie more dishonour then Sir Philip Sydney's friendship engraven
on his monument hath donne him honour. Vide ... History, and (I thinke)
Sir Anthony Weldon.
... Faucet, of Marybon in the county of Middlesex, esqr., was his
friend and acquaintance, as appeares by this letter which I copied
from his owne handwriting (an elegant Roman hand). 'Tis in the hands
of Walter Charlton, M.D., who begged it not long since of Mr. Faucet's
grandsonne.
* * * * *[276]
[277]Richard[278], earle of Dorset, was a great admirer and friend
of the lord chancellor Bacon, and was wont to have Sir Thomas
Billingsley[279] along with him to remember and to putt-down in writing
my lord's sayings at table.
Edward, lord Herbert of Cherbery.
John Dun[280], dean of Paul's.
George Herbert.
Mr. Ben: Johnson was one of his friends and acquaintance, as doeth
appeare by his excellent verses on his lordship's birth-day in his
second volume, and in his _Underwoods_, where he gives him a character
and concludes that 'about his time, and within his view were borne all
the witts that could honour a nation or help studie.'
[281]Lord Bacon's birth-day: _Underwoods_, p. 222.
Haile, happy genius of this ancient pile,
How comes it all things so about thee smile?
The fire, the wine, the men! and in the midst
Thou stand'st as if some mysterie thou didst!
Pardon, I read it in thy face, the day,
For whose returnes, and many, all these pray:
And so doe I. This is the sixtieth yeare
Since Bacon, and my lord, was borne, and here,
Sonne to the grave wise Keeper of the Seale,
Fame and foundation of the English weale.
What then his father was, that since is he,
Now with a title more to the degree,
England's High Chancellour, the destin'd heir
In his soft cradle of his father's chaire,
Whose even thred the Fates spinne round and full
Out of their choysest and their whitest wooll.
'Tis a brave cause of joy; let it be knowne,
For 'twere a narrow gladnesse, kept thine owne.
Give me a deep-crown'd bowle, that I may sing
In raysing him the wisdome of my king.
_Discoveries_, p. 101.
Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker[XII.] who
was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he
could spare or passe-by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man
ever[282] spake more neatly, more pres<ent>ly, more weightily,
or suffered lesse emptinesse, lesse idlenesse, in what he
utter'd. No member of his speech but consisted of the owne
graces: his hearers could not cough, or looke aside from
him, without losse. He commanded where he spoke; and had his
judges angry, and pleased, at his devotion. No man had their
affections more in his power. The feare of every man that heard
him was lest he should make an end.
[XII.] Dominus Verulanus.
Cicero is sayd to be the only wit that the people of Rome
had, equall'd to their empire, _ingenium par imperio_. We had
many, and in their severall ages (to take in but the former
_seculum_) Sir Thomas Moore, the elder Wiat, Henry, earle of
Surrey, Chaloner, Smith, Eliot, bishop Gardiner, were for
their times admirable; Sir Nicholas Bacon was singular and
almost alone in the beginning of queen Elizabeth's times; Sir
Philip Sydney and Mr. Hooker (in different matter) grew great
masters of wit and language and in whom all vigour of invention
and strength of judgment met; the earle of Essex, noble and
high; and Sir Walter Rawleigh, not to be contemn'd either
for judgement or stile; Sir Henry Savile, grave and truly
letter'd; Sir Edwin Sandys, excellent in both; lord Egerton,
the Chancellour, a grave and great orator, and best when he
was provoked; but his learned and able (though unfortunate)
successor is he who hath fill'd up all numbers, and performed
that in our tongue which may be compar'd or preferr'd either
to insolent Greece or haughty Rome. In short, within his view,
and about his times, were all the wits borne that could honour
a language or helpe study. Now things dayly fall, wits grow
downeward and eloquence growes backward, so that he may be
nam'd and stand as the marke and ἀκμή of our language.
I have ever observ'd it to have been the office of a wise
patriot among the greatest affaires of the state to take care
of the commonwealth of learning[283], for schooles they are
the seminaries of state and nothing is worthier the study of a
statesman then that part of the republick which wee call the
advancement of letters. Witnesse the care of Julius Caesar, who
in the heate of the civill warre writ his bookes of analogie
and dedicated them to Tully. This made the lord St. Albans
entitle his worke _Novum Organum_, which though by the most of
superficiall men who cannot gett beyond the title of nominalls,
it is not penetrated nor understood, it really openeth all
defects of learning whatsoever, and is a booke
Qui longum noto scriptori porriget aevum[284].
My conceit of his person was never increased towards him by
his place or honour, but I have and doe reverence him for the
greatnesse that was only proper to himselfe in that he seem'd
to me ever by his worke one of the greatest men and most worthy
of admiration that have been in many ages. In his adversity I
ever prayed that God would give him strength; for greatnes he
could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable
for him, as knowing no accident could doe harme to vertue but
rather helpe to make it manifest. #/
[285]He came often to Sir John Danvers at Chelsey. Sir John told me
that when his lordship had wrote the _History of Henry 7_, he sent
the manuscript copie to him to desire his opinion of it before 'twas
printed. Qd. Sir John 'Your lordship knowes that I am no scholar.'
''Tis no matter,' said my lord, 'I know what a schollar can say; I
would know what _you_ can[286] say.' Sir John read it, and gave his
opinion what he misliked which Tacitus did not omitt (which I am sorry
I have forgott) which my lord acknowledged to be true, and mended it:
'Why,' said he, 'a scholar would never have told me this.'
Mr. Thomas Hobbes (Malmesburiensis) was beloved by his lordship, who
was wont to have him walke with him in his delicate groves where he
did meditate: and when a notion darted into his mind, Mr. Hobbs was
presently to write it downe, and his lordship was wont to say that he
did it better then any one els about him; for that many times, when he
read their notes he scarce understood what they writt, because they
understood it not clearly themselves.
In short, all that were _great and good_ loved and honoured him.
Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chiefe Justice, alwayes envyed him, and would be
undervalueing his lawe, as you may find in my lord's lettres, and I
knew old lawyers that remembred it.
<_Personal characteristics._>
He was Lord Protector during King James's progresse into Scotland, and
gave audience in great state to ambassadors in the banquetting-house at
Whitehall.
His lordship would many times have musique in the next roome where he
meditated.
The aviary at Yorke-house was built by his lordship; it did cost
300_li._
At every meale, according to the season of the yeare, he had his table
strewed with sweet herbes and flowers, which he sayd did refresh his
spirits and memorie.
When his lordship was at his country house at Gorhambery, St. Albans
seemed as if the court were[287] there, so nobly did he live. His
servants had liveries with his crest (a boare ...); his watermen were
more imployed by gentlemen then any other, even the king's.
King James sent a buck to him, and he gave the keeper fifty pounds.
He was wont to say to his servant Hunt, (who was a notable thrifty man,
and loved this world, and the only servant he had that he could never
gett to become bound for him) 'The world was made for man, Hunt; and
not man for the world.' Hunt left an estate of 1000_li._ per annum in
Somerset.
None of his servants durst appeare before him without Spanish leather
bootes: for he would smell the neates-leather, which offended him.
The East India merchants presented his lordship with a cabinet of
jewells, which his page, Mr. Cockaine, recieved, and decieved his lord.
Three of his lordship's servants[XIII.] kept their coaches, and some
kept race-horses--vide Sir Anthony Welden's _Court of King James_.
[XIII.] Sir Thomas Meautys, Mr. <Thomas> Bushell, Mr. ... Idney.
[288]He was[289] a παιδεραστής. His Ganimeds and favourites tooke
bribes; but his lordship alwayes gave judgement _secundum aequum et
bonum_. His decrees in Chancery stand firme, i.e. there are fewer of
his decrees reverst then of any other Chancellor.
His dowager[290] maried her gentleman-usher, Sir (Thomas, I thinke)
Underhill, whom she made deafe and blind with too much of Venus. ☞ She
was living since the beheading of the late King.--Quaere where and when
she died.
He had a delicate[291], lively hazel eie; Dr. Harvey told me it was
like the eie of a viper.
I have now forgott what Mr. Bushell sayd, whether his lordship enjoyed
his Muse best at night, or in the morning.
<_His poems._>
His lordship was a good poet, but conceal'd, as appeares by his
letters. See excellent verses of his lordship's which Mr. Farnaby
translated into Greeke, and printed both[292] in his Ἀνθολογία, scil.
The world's a bubble, and the life of man
Less then a span, etc.
[293]Ἀνθολογία: Florilegium epigrammatum selectorum; Thomas Farnaby,
London, 1629, pag. 8.--'Huc elegantem viri clarissimi domini Verulamii
[293]παρῳδίαν adjicere adlubuit'--opposit to it on the other
page--'quam παρῳδίαν e nostrati bona nos Graecam qualemcunque sic
fecimus, et rhythmice.'
The world's a bubble, and the life of man
Lesse then a span;
In his conception wretched, from the wombe
So to the tombe;
Curst from his cradle, and brought up to yeares
With cares and feares.
Who then to fraile mortality shall trust
But limmes in water or but writes in dust.
Yet since with sorrow here we live opprest,
What life is best?
Courts are but onely superficiall scholes
To dandle fooles;
The rurall parts are turn'd into a den
Of savage men;
And wher's a city from all vice so free,
But may be term'd the worst of all the three?
Domestick cares afflict the husband's bed
Or paines his hed;
Those that live single take it for a curse,
Or doe things[294] worse;
Some would have children; those that have them mone,
Or wish them gone.
What is it then to have, or have no wife,
But single thraldome or a double strife?
Our owne affections still at home to please
Is a disease;
To crosse the sea to any foreine soyle,
Perills and toyle;
Warres with their noise affright us; when they cease
W'are worse in peace.
What then remaines? but that we still should cry
Not to be borne, or, being borne, to dye.
<_His writings._>
[295]His reading of Treason.
His reading of Usurie.
Decrees in Chancery.
Cogitata et Visa: printed in Holland by Sir William Boswell, Resident
there: who also there printed Dr. Gilbert's Magnetique Philosophie.
Speech in Parliament of naturalization of the Scottish nation: printed
1641.
His apothegmes, 8vo.
{ . . . . .
Essaies { . . . . .
{ . . . . .
Advancement of learning.
History of King Henry the 7th.
Novum Organon.--At the end of his _Novum Organon_ Hugh Holland wrote
these verses:--
Hic liber est qualis potuit non scribere Stultus,
Nec voluit Sapiens: sic _cogitavit_ Hugo.
Naturall Historie.
Of ambassadors: published by Francis Thynne out of Sir Robert Cotton's
library, 1650.
Speech touching duells, in the Starre-chamber: in the Bodleian library
at Oxford. Reprint it.
All the rest of his lordship's workes you will find in Dr. William
Rawley's _Resuscitatio_.
A piece of philosophy halfe as thick as the grammar set forth by Dr.
Rawley, 1660.
. . . . .
. . . . , 167--.
[296]_Apothegmata._
His lordship being in Yorke-house garden lookeing on fishers as they
were throwing their nett, asked them what they would take for their
draught; they answered _so much_: his lordship would offer them no more
but _so much_. They drew-up their nett, and <in> it were only 2 or 3
little fishes: his lordship then told them it had been better for them
to have taken his offer. They replied, they hoped to have had a better
draught; '_but_,' sayd his lordship, '_Hope is a good breakfast, but an
ill supper_.'
When his lordship was in dis-favour, his neighbours hearing how much he
was indebted, came to him with a motion to buy Oake-wood of him. His
lordship told them, '_He would not sell his feathers_.'
The earle of Manchester being removed from his place of Lord Chiefe
Justice of the Common Pleas[297] to be Lord President of the Councell,
told my lord (upon his fall) that he was sorry to see him made such an
example. Lord Bacon replied 'It did not trouble him since _he_ was made
_a President_.'
The bishop of London did cutt-downe a noble clowd of trees at Fulham.
The Lord Chancellor told him that he was _a good expounder of darke
places_.
Upon his being in dis-favour his servants suddenly went away; he
compared them to the flying of the vermin when the howse was falling.
One told his Lordship it was now time to looke about him. He replyed,
'I doe not looke _about_ me, I looke _above_ me.'
Sir Julius Cæsar (Master of the Rolles) sent to his lordship in his
necessity a hundred pounds for a present[XIV.]; quaere + de hoc of
Michael Malet.
[XIV.] Most of these enformations I have from Sir John Danvers.
His Lordship would often drinke a good draught of strong beer (March
beer) to-bedwards, to lay his working fancy asleep: which otherwise
would keepe him from sleeping great part of the night.
I remember Sir John Danvers told me, that his lordship much delighted
in his curious[298] garden at Chelsey, and as he was walking there
one time, he fell downe in a dead-sowne. My lady Danvers rubbed his
face, temples, etc. and gave him cordiall water: as soon as he came to
himselfe, sayd he, 'Madam, I am no good _footman_.'
<_His death and burial._>
[299]Mr. Hobbs told me that the cause of his lordship's death was
trying an experiment: viz., as he was taking the aire in a coach with
Dr. Witherborne (a Scotchman, Physitian to the King) towards High-gate,
snow lay on the ground, and it came into my lord's thoughts, why flesh
might not be preserved in snow, as in salt. They were resolved they
would try the experiment presently. They[300] alighted out of the
coach, and went into a poore woman's howse at the bottome of Highgate
hill, and bought a hen, and made the woman exenterate it, and then
stuffed the bodie with snow, and my lord did help to doe it himselfe.
The snow so chilled him, that he immediately fell so extremely ill,
that he could not returne to his lodgings (I suppose then at Graye's
Inne), but went to the earle of Arundell's house at High-gate, where
they putt him into a good bed warmed with a panne, but it was a damp
bed that had not been layn-in in about a yeare before, which gave him
such a cold that in 2 or 3 dayes, as I remember he[301] told me, he
dyed of suffocation.
Mr. George Herbert, Orator of the University of Cambridge, haz made
excellent verses on this great man. So haz Mr. Abraham Cowley in his
Pindariques. Mr. Thomas Randolph of Trin. Coll. in Cambr. haz in his
poems verses on him.
[302]In the north side of the chancell of St. Michael's church (which,
as I remember, is within the walles of Verulam) is the Lord Chancellor
Bacon's monument in white marble in a niech, as big as the life,
sitting in his chaire in his gowne and hatt cock't, leaning his head on
his right hand. Underneath is this inscription which they say was made
by his friend Sir Henry Wotton.
Franciscus Bacon, Baro de Verulam,
Sti Albani Vicecomes, seu, notioribus titulis,
Scientiarum Lumen, Facundiae Lex,
sic sedebat.
Qui postquam omnia Naturalis sapientiae
et Civilis arcana evolvisset,
Naturae decretum explevit
'Composita solvantur,'
Anno Domini MDCXXVI
aetatis LXVI.
Tanti viri
mem.
Thomas Meautys[XV.]
superstitis cultor,
defuncti admirator,
H. P.
[XV.] His lordship's secretarie, who maried a kinswoman (<Anne> Bacon),
who is now the wife of Sir Harbottle Grimston, Master of the Rolles.
<_His relatives._>
[303]He had a uterine[XVI.] brother ANTHONY BACON, who was a very great
statesman and much beyond his brother Francis for the politiques, a
lame man, he was a pensioner to, and lived with ... earle of Essex. And
to him he dedicates the first edition of his Essayes, a little booke
no bigger then a primer, which I have seen in the Bodlyan Library.
[XVI.] His mother was <Anne> Cooke, sister of ... Cooke of Giddy-hall
in Essex, 2nd wife to Sir Nicholas Bacon.
His sisters were ingeniose and well-bred; they well understood the use
of the globes, as you may find in the preface of Mr. Blundevill of the
Sphaere: see if it is not dedicated to them. One of them was maried to
Sir John Cunstable of Yorkshire. To this brother in lawe he dedicates
his second edition of his Essayes, in 8vo; his last, in 4to, to the
duke of Bucks.
[304]Blundevill's _Exercises_, preface:--'I began this
arithmetique more then seven yeares since for that vertuous
gentlewoman Mris Elizabeth Bacon, the daughter of Sir Nicholas
Bacon, knight (a man of most excellent witt and of a most
deep judgement and sometimes Lord Keeper of the great seale
of England), and lately the loving and faithfull wife of my
worshipfull friend Mr. Justice Windham, who for his integrity
of life and for his wisdome and justice dayly shewed in
government and also for his good hospitalitie deserved great
commendation; and though at her request I had made this
arithmetique so plaine and easie as was possible (as to my
seeming) yet her continuall sicknesse would not suffer her to
exercise herself therin.'
<_His residences._>
[305]I will write something of Verulam, and his house at Gorhambery.
At Verulam is to be seen, in some few places, some remaines of the
wall of this citie[XVII.]; which was in compass about ... miles. This
magnanimous Lord Chancellor had a great mind to have made it a citie
again: and he had designed it, to be built with great uniformity: but
Fortune denyed it him, though she proved kinder <to> the great Cardinal
Richelieu, who lived both to designe and finish that specious towne of
Richelieu, where he was borne; before, an obscure and small vilage.
(The ichnographie, etc., of this towne and palais is nobly engraved).
[XVII.] Verolamium, Virolamium, Cassivelani oppidum.
Within the bounds of the walls of this old citie of Verulam (his
lordship's Baronry) was Verulam howse, about 1/2 a mile from St.
Albans; which his Lordship built, the most ingeniosely contrived little
pile[XVIII.], that ever I sawe. No question but his lordship was the
chiefest architect; but he had for his assistant a favourite of his
(a St. Albans man) Mr. ... Dobson (who was his lordship's right hand)
a very ingeniose person (Master of the Alienation Office); but he
spending his estate upon woemen[306], necessity forced his son William
Dobson to be the most excellent painter that England hath yet bred, qui
obiit Oct. 1648; sepult. S. Martin's in the fields[307].
[XVIII.] I am sorry I measured not the front and breadth; but I little
suspected it would be pulled downe for the sale of the materialls.
[308]The view of this howse from the entrance into the gate by the
high-way is thus. The parallel[309] sides answer one another. I doe not
well remember if on the east side were bay windowes, which his lordship
much affected, as may be seen in his essay _Of Building_. Quaere
whether the number of windowes on the east side were 5 or 7: to my best
remembrance but 5. This model I drew by memorie, 1656.
VERULAM HOWSE[310].
This howse did cost nine or ten thousand the building, and was
sold about 1665 or 1666 by Sir Harbottle Grimston, baronet, (now
Master of the Rolles) to two carpenters for fower hundred poundes;
of which they made eight hundred poundes. Memorandum:--there were
good chimney-pieces; the roomes very loftie, and all were very well
wainscotted. Memorandum:--there were two bathing-roomes or stuffes,
whither his Lordship retired afternoons as he sawe cause. All the
tunnells of the chimneys were carried into the middle of the howse,
as in this draught; and round about them were seates. The top of
the howse was well leaded. From the leads was a lovely prospect to
the ponds, which were opposite to the east side of the howse, and
were on the other side of the stately walke of trees that leades to
Gorhambery-howse: and also over that long walke of trees, whose topps
afford a most pleasant[311] variegated verdure, resembling the workes
in Irish-stitch. The kitchin, larder, cellars, &c., are under ground.
In the middle of this howse was a delicate staire-case of wood, which
was curiously carved, and on the posts of every interstice was some
prettie figure, as of a grave divine with his booke and spectacles, a
mendicant friar, &c.--(not one thing twice). Memorandum:--on the dores
of the upper storie on the outside (which were painted darke umber)
were the figures of the gods of the Gentiles (viz. on the south dore,
2d storie, was Apollo; on another, Jupiter with his thunderbolt, etc.)
bigger then the life, and donne by an excellent hand; the heightnings
were of hatchings of gold, which when the sun shone on them made a most
glorious shew.
Memorandum:--the upper part of the uppermost dore, on the east side,
had inserted into it a large looking-glasse, with which the stranger
was very gratefully decieved, for (after he had been entertained a
pretty while, with the prospects of the ponds, walks, and countrey,
which this dore faced) when you were about to returne into the
roome[312], one would have sworn _primo intuitu_, that he had beheld
another prospect through the howse: for, as soon as the stranger was
landed on the balconie, the conserge[313] that shewed the howse would
shutt the dore to putt this fallacy on him with the looking-glasse.
This was his lordship's summer-howse: for he sayes (in his essay) one
should have seates for summer and winter as well as cloathes.
From hence to Gorhambery is about a little mile, the way easily
ascending, hardly so acclive as a deske.
From hence to Gorambury in a straite line leade three parallell walkes:
in the middlemost three coaches may passe abreast: in the wing-walkes
two may. They consist of severall stately trees of the like groweth
and heighth, viz. elme, chesnut, beach, hornebeame, Spanish-ash,
cervice-tree, &c., whose topps (as aforesaid) doe afford from the walke
on the howse the finest shew that I have seen, and I sawe it about
Michaelmas, at which time of the yeare the colour of leaves are most
varied. The manner of the walke is thus:--
u u u u
t t t t
s s s s
r r r r
o o o o
n n n n
m m m m
x x x x
u u u u
t t t t
s s s s
r r r r
o o o o
n n n n
m m m m
x x x x
u u u u
t t t t
s s s s
r r r r
o o o o
n n n n
m m m m
[314]The figures of the ponds were thus: they were pitched at the
bottomes with pebbles of severall colours, which were work't in to
severall figures, as of fishes, &c. which in his lordship's time were
plainly to be seen through the cleare water, now over-grown with
flagges and rushe.
If a poor bodie had brought his lordship halfe a dozen pebbles of a
curious colour, he would give them a shilling, so curious was he in
perfecting his fish-ponds, which I guesse doe containe four acres.
In the middle of the middlemost pond, in the island, is a curious
banquetting-house of Roman architecture, paved with black and white
marble; covered with Cornish slatt, and neatly wainscotted.
(_a_) = cutt hedge about the island.
(_b_) = walke between the hedge and banquetting-howse.
[Illustration]
Memorandum:--about the mid-way from Verolam-house to Gorambery, on the
right hand, on the side of a hill which faces the passer-by, are sett
in artificiall manner the afore-named trees, whose diversity of greens
on the side of the hill are exceeding pleasant. These delicate walkes
and prospects entertaine the eie to Gorambery-howse, which is a large,
well-built Gothique howse, built (I thinke) by Sir Nicholas Bacon,
Lord Keeper, father to this Lord Chancellor, to whom it descended
by the death of Anthony Bacon, his middle brother, who died sans
issue.[315]The Lord Chancellor made an addition of a noble portico,
which fronts the garden to the south: opposite to every arch of this
portico, and as big as the arch, are drawen, by an excellent hand
(but the mischief of it is, in water-colours), curious pictures, all
emblematicall, with mottos under each: for example, one I remember is
a ship tossed in a storme, the motto, _Alter erit tum Tiphys_. Enquire
for the rest.
Over this portico is a stately gallerie, whose glasse-windowes are
all painted; and every pane with severall figures of beast, bird, or
flower: perhaps his lordship might use them as topiques for locall
memory. The windowes looke into the garden, the side opposite to them
no window, but that side is hung all with pictures at length, as of
King James, his lordship, and severall illustrious persons of his time.
At the end you enter is no windowe, but there is a very large picture,
thus:--in the middle on a rock in the sea stands King James in armour,
with his regall ornaments; on his right hand stands (but whither or no
on a rock I have forgott), King Henry 4 of France, in armour; and on
his left hand, the King of Spaine, in like manner. These figures are
(at least) as big as the life, they are donne only with umbre and shell
gold: all the heightning and illuminated part being burnisht gold,
and the shadowed umbre, as in the pictures of the gods on the dores
of Verolam-house. The roofe of this gallerie is semi-cylindrique, and
painted by the same hand and same manner, with heads and busts of Greek
and Roman emperours and heroes.
In the hall (which is of the auncient building) is a large storie very
well painted of the feastes of the gods, where Mars is caught in a
nett by Vulcan. On the wall, over the chimney, is painted an oake with
akornes falling from it; the word, _Nisi quid potius_. And on the wall,
over the table, is painted Ceres teaching the soweing of corne; the
word, _Moniti meliora_.
The garden is large, which was (no doubt) rarely planted and kept in
his lordship's time: vide vitam Peireskii de domino Bacon. Here is a
handsome dore, which opens into Oake-wood; over this dore in golden
letters on blew are these six verses[316].
[317]The oakes of this wood are very great and shadie. His lordship
much delighted himselfe here: under every tree he planted some fine
flower, or flowers, some wherof are there still (1656), viz. paeonies,
tulips,....
From this wood a dore opens into ..., a place as big as an ordinary
parke, the west part wherof is coppice-wood, where are walkes cutt-out
as straight as a line, and broade enoug for a coach, a quarter of
a mile long or better.--Here his lordship much[318] meditated, his
servant Mr. Bushell attending him with his pen and inke horne to
sett downe his present notions.--Mr. Thomas Hobbes told me, that his
lordship would employ him often in this service whilest he was there,
and was better pleased with his _minutes_, or notes sett downe by him,
then by others who did not well understand his lordship. He told me
that he was employed in translating part of the Essayes, viz. three of
them, one wherof was that of the Greatnesse of Cities, the other two I
have now forgott.
The east of this parquet (which extends to Veralam-howse) was
heretofore, in his lordship's prosperitie, a paradise; now is a large
ploughed field. This eastern division consisted of severall parts; some
thicketts of plumme-trees with delicate walkes; some of rasberies. Here
was all manner of fruit-trees that would grow in England; and a great
number of choice forest-trees; as the whitti-tree, sorbe-, cervice-,
etc., eugh[319]. The walke<s>, both in the coppices and other boscages,
were most ingeniosely designed: at severall good viewes[320], were
erected elegant sommer-howses well built of Roman architecture, well
wainscotted and cieled; yet standing, but defaced, so that one would
have thought the Barbarians had made a conquest here. This place in his
lordship's time was a sanctuary for phesants, partridges, etc. birds
of severall kinds and countries, as white, speckled etc., partridges.
In April, and the springtime, his lordship would, when it rayned, take
his coach (open) to recieve the benefit of irrigation, which he was
wont to say was very wholsome because of the nitre in the aire and the
_universall spirit of the world_.
His lordship was wont to say, _I will lay my mannor of Gorambery on't_,
to which Judge ... made a spightfull reply, saying he would not hold a
wager against that, but against _any other_ mannour of his lordship's
he would. Now this illustrious Lord Chancellor had only this mannor of
Gorambery.
=Roger Bacon= (1214-1294).
[321]Roger Bacon, friar ordinis <S. Francisci>:--Memorandum, in Mr.
Selden's learned verses before Hopton's _Concordance of yeares_, he
speakes of friar Bacon, and sayes that he was a Dorsetshire gentleman.
There are yet of that name in that countie, and some of pretty good
estate. I find by ... (which booke I have) that he understood the
making of optique glasses; where he also gives a perfect account of the
making of gunpowder, vide pag ... ejusdem libri.
[322]Friar Roger Bacon:--Dr. Gerard Langbain had a Catalogue[AO] of all
his workes, which Catalogue Dr. <Thomas> Gale, schoolmaster of Paule's,
haz now.
_Note._
[AO] The reference is probably to a list of pieces by Roger Bacon which
were found among Thomas Allen's MSS. Langbaine's draft of it is found
in MS. Langbaine 7, p. 393: see Clark's Wood's _Life and Times_, iv.
253.
=Thomas Badd= (1607-1683).
[323]The ... happinesse a shoemaker haz in drawing on a fair lady's
shoe.... I know one that it was the hight of his ambition to be
prentice to his mris<'s> shoemaker upon that condicion.
Sir Thomas Bad's[324] father, a shoemaker, married the brewer's widow
of Portsmouth, worth 20,000 _li._
=Edward Bagshaw= (1629-1671).
[325]Edward Bagshaw was borne at Broughton in Northamptonshire; 42 when
he dyed--from his widowe[AP].
[326]My old acquaintance, Mr. Edward Bagshawe, B.D., 3rd son of Edward
Bagshawe, esq., a bencher of the Middle Temple, was borne (the day nor
moneth certaine to be knowne) November or December at Broughton in
Northamptonshire, where Mr. Boldon[327], quondam Coll. Aeneinas., was
parson.
He was a king's scholar at Westminster schole, then student of Christ
Church. Scripsit severall treatises.
Obiit on St. Innocents day, 28 Dec., 1671, in Tuttle street,
Westminster, a prisoner to Newgate 22 weekes for running into a
praemunire for refusing to take the oath of allegiance (he boggled at
the word 'willingly' in the oath): aetatis 42. Sepult., Newyeares day,
in the fanatique burying-place by the Artillery-ground in Moorfields,
where his sorrowfull widdowe will place his epitaph.
1500 or 2000 people were at his funerall.
[328]'Here[329] lyes interred | the body of | Mr. Edward Bagshaw |
minister of the Gospell | who recieved from God | faith to embrace it
| courage to defend it | and patience to suffer for it | when by most
despised and by many persecuted | esteeming the advantages of birth,
education, and learning | as things of worth to be accounted losse for
the knowledge | of Christ. | From the reproaches of pretended friends
| and persecutions of professed adversaries | he | took sanctuary | by
the will of God | in eternall rest.'
_Note._
[AP] MS. Aubr. 27:--'A review and conclusion of the Antidote against
Mr. Baxter's palliated cure of Church Divisions,' by Edward Bagshaw,
Lond. 1671, has the note 'donum Margaretae, viduae autoris: Jan. 27,
1671 <i.e. 1/2>, Jo. Awbrey.'
=Jean Louis Guez de Balzac= (1594-1655).
[330]Monsieur de Balzac ended his dayes in a Cappucine's cell, and was
munificent to them: vide _Entretiens de monsieur de Balzac_, printed
above 20 yeares since.
=Richard Bancroft= (1544-1610).
In MS. Aubr. 6, fol. 119ᵛ, is this jotting:--
'Dr. Mat. Skinner. _Resp._ 'tis archbishop Bancroft's
picture--quod N.B., and inscribe.'
This is probably to be interpreted as meaning--'Enquire
whether the portrait,' in a certain place, 'is that of Dr.
Matthew Skinner.' Finding that it is the portrait of Richard
Bancroft, 'see that the name is inscribed on it,' for future
identification.
=John Barclay= (1582-1621).
=Robert Barclay= (1648-1690).
[331]Johannes Barclaius, Scoto-Britannus:--from Sam. Butler--was in
England some time tempore regis Jacobi. He was then an old man, white
beard; and wore a hatt and a feather, which gave some severe people
offence.
Dr. John Pell tells me, that his last employment was Library-Keeper of
the Vatican, and that he was there poysoned.
Memorandum:--this John Barclay haz a sonne[332], now (1688) an old man,
and a learned quaker, who wrote a Systeme of the Quakers' Doctrine in
Latine[333], dedicated to King Charles II, now <to> King James II; now
translated by him into English, in.... The Quakers mightily value him.
The booke is common.
=Isaac Barrow= (1630-1677).
[334]Isaac Barrow, D.D.--from his father, (who was borne Aprill 22,
1600, 1/2 a yeare older then King Charles 1st), May 17, 1682.
His father, Thomas Barrow, was the second son of Isaac Barrow of
Spinney Abbey in the countie of Cambridge, esq., who was a Justice
of the Peace there above fourtie yeares. The father of Thomas never
designed him for a tradesman, but he was so severe to him <that>
he could not endure to live with him and so came to London and was
apprentice to a linnen-draper. He kept shop at the signe of the
White-horse in Forster lane near St. Forster's church in St. Leonard's
parish; and <his son[335]> was christened at St. John Zacharie's in
Forster lane, for at that time St. Leonard's church was pulled downe
to be re-edified. He was borne anno Dni 1630 in October[336] after
King Charles IIⁿᵈ. Dr. Isaac Barrow had the exact day and hower of
his father, which may be found amongst his papers. His father sett it
downe in his English bible, a faire one, which they used at the king's
chapell when he was in France and he could not get it again. His father
travelled with the King, Charles 2ⁿᵈ, where ever he went; he was sealer
to the Lord Chancellor beyond sea, and so when he came into England.
Amongst Dr. Barrowe's papers it may be found. Dr. Tillotson has all his
papers--quaere for it, and for the names of all writings both in print
and MSS.
He went to schoole, first to Mr. Brookes at Charterhouse two yeares.
His father gave to Mr. Brookes 4 _li._ per annum, wheras his pay was
but 2 _li._, to be carefull of him; but Mr. Brokes was negligent
of him, which the captain of the school acquainted his father (his
kinsman) and sayd that he would not have him stay there any longer than
he[337] did, for that he[337] instructed him.
Afterwards to one Mr. Holbitch, about fower years, at Felton[338] in
Essex; from whence he was admitted of Peterhouse College in Cambridge
first, and went to schoole a yeare after. Then he was admitted of
Trinity College in Cambridge at 13 yeares old.
Quaere whose daughter his mother was.
His mother was Anne, daughter of William Buggin of North Cray in Kent,
esq. She died when her sonne Isaac was about fower yeares old.
Anno Domini ... he travelled, and returned, anno Domini....
He wrote.... What MSS.?--quaere Dr. Tillotson, and quaere Mr. Brabazon
Aylmer, bookseller, nere Exchange Alley.
His humour when a boy and after:--merry and cheerfull and beloved where
ever he came. His grandfather kept him till he was 7 years old: his
father was faine to force him away, for there he would have been good
for nothing there.
A good poet, English and Latin. He spake 8 severall languages.
[339]His father dealt in his trade to Ireland where he had a great
losse, neer 1000 _li._; upon which he wrote to Mr. Holbitch, a Puritan,
to be pleased to take a little paines more than ordinary with him,
because the times growing so bad, and such a losse then received, that
he did not knowe how he might be able to provide for him, and so Mr.
Holbitch tooke him away from the howse where he was boarded to his owne
howse, and made him tutor to my lord viscount Fairfax, ward to the lord
viscount Say and Seale, where he continued so long as my lord continued.
This viscount Fairfax[340] died a young man. This viscount Fairfax,
being a schooleboy, maried a gentleman's daughter in the towne there,
who had but a thousand pounds. So leaving the schoole, would needs have
Mr. Isaac Barrow with him, and told him he would maintaine him. But the
lord Say was so cruel to him that he would not allow anything that 'tis
thought he dyed for want. The 1000 _li._ could not serve him long.
During this time old Mr. Thomas Barrow was shutt-up at Oxford and could
not heare of his sonne. But young Isaac's master, Holbitch, found him
out in London and courted him to come to his schoole and that he would
make him his heire. But he did not care to goe to schoole again.
When my lord Fairfax faild and that he sawe he grew heavy upon him,
he went to see one of his schoolfellowes, one Mr. Walpole, a Norfolke
gent., who asked him 'What he would doe?' He replyed he 'knew not
what to doe; he could not goe to his father at Oxford.' Mr. Walpole
then told him 'I am goeing to Cambridge to Trinity College and I
will maintaine you there'; and so he did for halfe a yeare till the
surrender of Oxford; and then his father enquired after him and found
him at Cambridge. And the very next day after old Mr. Barrow came to
Cambridge, Mr. Walpole was leaving the University and (hearing nothing
of Isaac's father) resolved to take Isaac along with him to his howse.
His father then asked him what profession he would be of, a merchant
or etc.? He begd of his father to lett him continue in the University.
His father then asked what would maintain him. He told him 20 _li._
per annum: 'I warrant you,' sayd he, 'I will maintaine myselfe with
it.' His father replyed 'I'le make a shift to allow you that.' So his
father then went to his tutor and acquainted him of, etc. His tutor,
Dr. Duport, told him that he would take nothing for his reading to him,
for that he was likely to make a brave scholar, and he would helpe him
to halfe a chamber for nothing. And the next newes his father heard of
him was that he was chosen in to the howse.[341]Dr. Hill[342] was then
master of the college. He mett Isaac[343] one day and layd his hand
upon his head and sayd 'thou art a good boy; 'tis pitty that thou art a
cavalier.'
He was a strong and a stowt man and feared not any man. He would fight
with the butchers' boyes in St. Nicholas' shambles, and be hard enough
for any of them.
He went to travell 3 or 4 yeares after the king was beheaded, upon the
colledge account[344]. He was a candidate for the Greeke professor's
place, and had the consent of the University but Oliver Cromwell putt
in Dr. Widrington[345]; and then he travelled.
He was abroad 5 yeares[346], viz. in Italie, France, Germany,
Constantinople.
As he went to Constantinople, two men of warre (Turkish shippes)
attacqued the vessell wherin he was. In which engagement he shewed
much valour in defending the vessell; which the men that were in that
engagement often testifye, for he never told his father of it himselfe.
Upon his returne, he came in <a> ship to Venice, which was stowed with
cotton-wooll, and as soon as ever they came on shore the ship fell on
fire, and was utterly consumed, and not a man lost, but not any goods
saved--a wonderfull preservation.
His personall valour--At Constantinople, being in company with the
English merchants, there was a Rhadamontade that would fight with any
man and bragged of his valour, and dared any man there to try him. So
no man accepting his challenge, said Isaac (not then a divine), 'Why,
if none els will try you I will'; and fell upon him and chastised him
handsomely that he vaunted no more amongst them.
After he had been 3 years beyond sea, his correspondent dyed, so that
he had no more supply; yet he was so well beloved that he never wanted.
At Constantinople he wayted on the consul Sir Thomas Bendish, who made
him stay with him and kept him there a yeare and a halfe, whether he
would or no.
At Constantinople, Mr. Dawes (afterwards Sir Jonathan Dawes, who dyed
sherif of London), a Turkey merchant, desired Mr. Barrow to stay but
such a time and he would returne with him, but when that time came
he could not goe, some businesse stayd him. Mr. Barrow could stay no
longer; so Mr. Dawes would have had Mr. Barrow have C[347] pistolles.
'No,' said Mr. Barrow, 'I know not whether I shall be able to pay you.'
''Tis no matter,' said Mr. Dawes. To be short, forced him to take fifty
pistolls, which at his returne he payd him again.
[348]Memorandum, his pill (an opiate, possibly Matthews his pil),
which he was wont to take in Turkey, which was wont to doe him good,
but he tooke it preposterously at Mr. Wilson's, the sadler's, neer
Suffolke-house, where he was wont to lye and where he dyed, and 'twas
the cause of his death--quaere + de hoc there.
As he lay expiring[349] in the agonie of death, the standers-by could
heare him say softly 'I have seen the glories of the world'--<from> Mr.
Wilson.
I have heard Mr. Wilson say that when he was at study, was so intent at
it that when the bed was made, or so, he heeded it not nor perceived
it, was so _totus in hoc_; and would sometimes be goeing out without
his hatt on.
He was by no meanes a spruce man[350], but most negligent in his
dresse. As he was walking one day in St. James's parke, looking ...,
his hatt up, his cloake halfe on and halfe off, a gent. came behind him
and clapt him on the shoulder and sayd 'Well, goe thy wayes for the
veriest scholar that ever I[351] mett with.'
He was a strong man but pale as the candle he studyed by.
His stature was....
The first booke he printed was Euclid's Elements in Latin, printed at
Cambridge, impensis Gulielmi Nealand, bibliopolae, Anno Domini MDCLV.
Euclidis data succincte demonstrata, printed at Cambridge ex officina
Joannis Field, impensis Gulielmi Nealand, bibliopolae, anno Domini 1657.
Euclid's Elements in English.
Euclid's Elements in Latin--in the last impressions of this is an
appendix about the sphaere itselfe, it's segments and their surfaces,
most admirably derived and demonstrated by the doctrine of infinite
arithmetique and indivisibles.
[352]Lectiones XVIII Cantabrigiae in scholis publicis habitae in
quibus opticorum phaenomenωn genuinae rationes investigantur
ac exponuntur. Annexae sunt lectiones aliquot geometricae. Londini,
prostant venales apud Johannem Dunmore et Octavianum Pulleyn. MDCLXIX.
Archimedes.
Apollonius.
Theodosius.
Now printing, 22 initiating lectures about mathematics[353], to which
will be subjoined some lectures that he read about Archimedes, proving
that he was an algebraist, and giving his owne thoughts by what method
Archimedes came to fall on his theoremes.
Bookes writ by the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow and printed for Brabazon
Aylmer at the Three Pidgeons over against the Royall Exchange in
Cornhill:--
12 Sermons preached upon severall occasions; in 8vo, being the first
volume.
10 Sermons against evil speaking; in 8vo, being the second volume.
8 Sermons of the love of God and our neighbour; in 8vo, being the third
volume.
The duty and reward of bounty to the poor, in a sermon, much enlarged,
preached at the Spittall upon Wednesday in Easter weeke anno Domini
1671, in 8vo.
A sermon upon the Passion of our blessed Saviour preached at Guildhall
chapell on Good Fryday the 13th day of April 1677, in 8vo.
A learned treatise of the Pope's supremacy, to which is added a
discourse concerning the unity of the church; in 4to.
The sayd discourse concerning the Unity of the Church is also printed
alone in 8vo.
An exposition of the Lord's Prayer, of the Ten Commandments, of the
doctrine of the Sacraments; in 8vo.
All the sayd books of the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow (except the sermon
of bounty to the poor) are since the author's death published by Dr.
Tillotson, deane of Canterbury.
'The true and lively effigies of Dr. Isaac Barrow' in a large print,
ingraven from the life by the excellent artist D. Loggan; price,
without frame, 6_d._
[354]Thomas Barrow, (father of Isaac, S.T.D.) was brother to Isaac
Barrow late lord bishop of St. Asaph, and sonne of Isaac Barrow of
Spiney Abbey, who was sonne of Philip Barrow[355], who hath in print a
method of Physick, and he had a brother Isaac Barrow, a Dr. of Physick,
who was a benefactor to Trinity Colledge in Cambridge, and was there
tutor to Robert Cecill that was earle of Salisbury and Lord Treasurer.
[356]Isaac Barrow, D.D., (<a> Cambridge <man>, borne in Essex), is
buried in the south crosse aisle of Westminster Abbey with this
inscription[357]:--
Isaacus Barrow
S.T.P. Regi Carolo IIº a sacris
Vir prope divinus et vere magnus si quid magna habent
Pietas, probitas, fides, summa eruditio, par modestia,
Mores sanctissimi undiquaque et suavissimi.
Geometriae professor Londini Greshamensis,
Graecae linguae et Matheseos apud Cantabrigienses suos,
Cathedras omnes, ecclesiam, gentem ornavit.
Collegium SS. Trinitatis praeses illustravit,
Jactis bibliothecae vere regiae fundamentis auxit.
Opes, honores, et universum vitae ambitum,
Ad majora natus, non contempsit sed reliquit seculo.
Deum quem a teneris coluit cum primis imitatus est,
Paucissimis egendo, beneficiendo quam plurimis,
Etiam posteris quibus vel mortuus concionari non desinit.
Caetera et poene majora ex scriptis peti possunt.
Abi lector et aemulare.
Obiit IVto die Maii anno Domini MDCLXXVII
aetatis suae XLVII.
Monumentum hoc Amici posuere.
This epitaph was contrived by Dr. John Mapletoft and perfected by Dr.
<Thomas> Gale.
He was the ... son of ... Barrow, <who> was a brewer at Lambith; a
King's Scholar at Westminster.
Anno 1655 he printed at Cambridge Euclidis Elementorum libri XV
breviter demonstrati.
Anno ..., he travelled; was at Constantinople; sawe part of Graece,
Italie, France.
He was a good poet, of great modestie and humanity, careles of his
dresse.
=... Barrow= (16..-168.).
[358]Dr. ... Barrow, M.D., secretary to the lord generall Monke
in Scotland, and who wrote the life or history of the generall,
was cosen-german to Thomas (father of Isaac, D.D.). He was a very
good-humoured man. He much resembled and spake like Dr. Ezerel Tong.
Obiit 2 yeares since: quaere ubi.
=Thomas Batchcroft= (15..-1670).
[359]Memorandum: in Sir Charles Scarborough's time (he was of Caius
College) Dr. ... (the head of that house) would visit the boyes'
chambers, and see what they were studying; and Charles Scarborough's
genius let him to the mathematics, and he was wont to be reading of
Clavius upon Euclid. The old Dr. had found in the title '... ..., _e
Societate Jesu_,' and was much scandalized at it. Sayd he, 'By all
meanes leave-off this author, and read Protestant mathematicall bookes.'
One sent this Doctor a pidgeon-pye from New-market or thereabout, and
he askt the bearer whither 'twas hott, or cold? He did out-doe Dr.
Kettle.
=George Bate= (1608-1668).
[360]Kingston super Thames; north aisle chap<el>.
Spe resurrectionis felicis
heic juxta sita est
Elizabetha
conjux lectissima
Georgii Bate, M.D.,
Car. 2 medici primarii,
Qui cineres suos adjacere curavit
ut qui unanimes convixerant
quasi unicorpores condormientes
una resurgant.
Mortem obiit 17 Apr., 1667, aet. 46
ex hydro-pulmon.,
funesta Londini conflagratione
acceleratam.
Obiit ille 19 Apr., 1668
aetatis suae 60.
=Francis Beaumont= (1584-1616).
[361]Mr. Francis Beaumont was the son of Judge Beaumont[362]. There
was a wonderfull consimility of phansey[XIX.] between him and Mr. John
Fletcher, which caused that dearnesse of frendship between them.
[XIX.]
Utrumque nostrum[363] incredibili modo
Consentit astrum.
HORACE, lib. 2, ode 17.
I thinke they were both of Queen's College in Cambridge.
I have heard Dr. John Earles (since bishop of Sarum), who knew them,
say that his maine businesse was to correct the overflowings[364] of
Mr. Fletcher's witt.
They lived together on the Banke side, not far from the Play-house,
both batchelors; lay together--from Sir James Hales, etc.; had one
wench in the house between them, which they did so admire; the same
cloathes and cloake, &c., betweene them.
He writt (amongst many other) an admirable elegie on the countesse of
Rutland, which is printed with verses before Sir Thomas Overburie's
_Characters_. John Earles, in his verses on him, speaking of them,
'A monument that will then lasting bee,
When all her marble is more dust then shee.'
Ex registro:--he was buryed at the entrance of St. Benedict's chapell
where <is> the earl of Middlesex' monument, in Westminster Abbey, March
9, 1615/6[XX.].
[XX.] Memorandum:--Isaac Casaubon was buryed at the entrance of the
same chapell. He dyed July 8, 1614.
I searched, severall yeares since, in the Register-booke of St. Mary
Overies, for the obiit of Mr. John Fletcher, which I sent to Mr.
Anthony à Wood.
He hath a very good prefatory letter before Mr. Speght's edition of Sir
Geofrey Chaucer's Workes printed by Adam Islip, 1602, London, where he
haz judicious observations of his writing.
=William Bedwell= (15..-1632).
[365]... Bedwell, professor of ... at Gresham College, translated into
English Pitisci _Trigonometria_. Published _The turnament of Totnam_.
He was an Essex man--from his grand-niece.
=William Beeston= (16..-1682).
[366]Did I tell you that I have mett with old Mr ...[367] who knew all
the old English poets, whose lives I am taking from him: his father
was master of the ... play-house.
[368]The more to be admired, quaere--he was not a company keeper; lived
in Shorditch; would not be debauched; and if invited to court, was in
paine.
_W. Shakespeare_--quaere Mr. Beeston, who knowes most of him from
Mr. Lacy. He lives in Shoreditch at Hoglane within 6 dores north of
Folgate. Quaere etiam for _Ben Jonson_.
[369]Old Mr. Beeston, whom Mr. <John> Dreyden calles 'the chronicle
of the stage,' died at his house in Bishopsgate street without, about
Bartholomew-tyde, 1682. Mr. Shipey in Somerset-house hath his papers.
=Richard Benese= (14..-1546).
[370]I did see, many yeares since, in a countrey-man's house, a little
booke in 8vo in English, called
Arsmetrie, or the Art of numbring:
printed in an old black letter about Henry VIII. The author's name I
doe not remember--quaere in Duck lane.
* * * * *
The next old mathematicall booke in English that I have seen hath this
title, viz:--
This booke sheweth the manner of measuring of all manner of land, as
well of woodland as of lande in the felde, and comptinge the true
nombre of acres of the same.
✠
Newlye invented and compiled by Syr Rycharde Benese, chanon of Marton
Abbay besyde London.
¶ Printed in Southwarke in Saint Thomas hospital by me James Nicolson.
'Tis a quarto.
[371]This Sir Richard Benese was also author of a little booke, in 8vo,
called....
: quaere Absolom Leech for it--'tis about physick.
=Berkeley.=
[372]Mris ... Barckley, sister of the late lord Fitz-Harding[373], was
cosen german to Mr. Sydney Godolphin, and also his mistresse. He loved
her exceedingly. After Mr. Godolphin's death she maried one Mr. Davys
who I thinke is now[374] dead, and she lives at Twicknam--from Philip
Packer, esq.
=Willoughby Bertie=, 3rd earl of Abingdon (1692-1760).
[375]<Willoughby> Bertie, filius primus Jacobi Bertie, 2ⁿᵈⁱ filii
Jacobi, comitis de Abington, natus Westmonast. 28 die Novembris,
2ʰ. P.M. 1692.--The child is yet living, notwithstanding the 8ᵗʰ
house[376]: mend the figure, but the time is right.
[377]I know not how to retreive the fashion or shape of the old engine
of the _battering-ramme_, but from the coate of the Bertyes, which is
'or, 3 battering rammes barrewise,' as in the margent, the timber is
proper, the head azure, the hornes and ironworke gilded.
[Illustration]
[378]Memorandum:--the battering ramme, the armes of Bertie, hung in
equilibrio in an engine they call the triangles--from Mr. Nicolas
Mercator: vide Bertie's coate in primo volumine[379]. See[380] the old
glasse windowes in Aldersgate street--from Mr. <Edward> Bagshawe.
[Illustration]
=Henry Billingsley= (15..-1606).
[381]Sir Henry Billingsley[AQ], knight.--On the north side of the
chancell of St. Katharine Coleman church London at the upper end is
this inscription, viz:--
Here lieth buried the body of Elizabeth, late the wife of Henry
Billingsley, one of the Queene's majestie's customers of her
port of London, who dyed the 29th day of July in the yeare of
our Lord God 1577.
_In obitum ejus._
Stat sua cuique dies atque ultima funeris hora
Cum Deus hinc et mors invidiosa vocant;
Nec tibi nec pietas tua vel forma, Elizabetha,
Praesidium leto[382] ne trahereris erat.
Occidis exactis ternis cum conjuge lustris,
At septem vitae lustra fuere tuae.
Fecerat et proles jam te numerosa parentem,
Filiolae trinae, caetera turba mares.
Undecimo partu cum mors accessit et una
Matrem te et partum sustulit undecimum--
Scilicet ex mundo, terrena ex fece, malisque,
Sustulit; at superis reddidit atque Deo.
Est testis sincera fides, testis tua virtus,
Grata viro virtus, grata fidesque Deo.
* * * * *
Quem posuit tumulum tibi conjux charus, eodem
In tumulo condi mortuus ipse petit.
<Vide> the Register book <of the church>.
Memorandum:--Billingsley (a village) is in the countie of Salop. 'Tis a
Shropshire familie; but the village now is one Mr. Norton's.
This Sir Henry Billingsley was one of the learnedst citizens that
London has bred. This was he that putt forth all Euclid's Elements in
English with learned notes and preface of Mr. John Dee, and learned men
say 'tis the best Euclid. He had been sheriff and Lord Mayor of the
city of London. His howse was the faire howse in Fenchurch street where
now Jacob Luce lives, a merchant, of of whom quaere +. Vide in Fuller's
Worthies and Stowe's Survey. His Euclid was printed at London by John
Day, 1570.
'The Translator to the Reader--Wherfore considering the want and lack
of such good authors hitherto in our English tongue, lamenting also
the negligence and lacke of zeale to their countrey in those of our
nation to whom God hath given both knowledge and also abilitie to
translate into our tongue and to publish abroad such good authors and
bookes: Seeing moreover that many good witts, both of gentlemen and
others of all degrees, much desirous and studious of these artes,--I
have for their sakes with some chardge and great travaile faithfully
translated into our vulgar tounge and set abroad in print this booke
of Euclid wherunto I have added plaine declarations and examples,
manifold additions, scholies, annotations, and inventions which I have
gathered.'--He promises (here) some more translations and sayes that in
religion he hath alreadie don, quaere.
Memorandum P. Ramus in his Scholia's sayes that the reason why
mathematiques did most flourish in Germanie was that the best authors
were rendred into their mother tongue, and that publique lectures of it
were also read in their owne tongue--quod nota bene.
Memorandum when I was a boy, one Sir ... Billingsley had a very
pleasant seate with a faire[383] oake-wood adjoyning to it, about a
mile 1/2[384] east of Bristoll--quaere if[385], etc.
Vide de Sir Thomas Billingsley, pag. <44b>[386]; who was gentleman of
the horse to Richard, earl of Dorset. He managed the great horse best
of any man in England. He taught the Prince Elector and brothers to
ride. Quaere if descended hence.
In those dayes[387] merchants travelled much abroad into Italie,
Spaine, etc. Quaere Mr. Abraham Hill of what company he was. Probably
good memorialls may be there found of his generous and
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/47787