John Aubrey

“ Then were the churches open all day long, men and women going daily in and out hourly, to and from their devotions. Then were the consciences of the people kept in so great awe by confession, that just dealing and virtue was habitual. Sir Edwyn Sandys observed, in his travels in the Catholic countries, so great use of confession as aforesaid, that though a severe enemy to the Church of Rome, he doth heartily wish it had never been left out by the Church of England, perceiving the great good it does beyond sea. ”

“ If that age be compared and contrasted with the present, the difference cannot fail to make us exult in living, breathing, and acting in a region of intellect and freedom, which is all sunshine and happiness, opposed to the gloom and illiteracy which darkened the days of Aubrey. Even Harvey, Wren, Flamsteed, and Newton, his contemporaries and friends, were slaves and victims to the superstition and fanaticism of their age. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At which time such abundance of bloud issued from his veines that shewed he had stock of nature enough left to have continued him many yeares in life though now above 3-score yeares old, if it had not been taken away by the hand of violence. And this was the end of the great Sir Walter Raleigh, great sometimes in the favour of queen Elizabeth, and (next to Sir Francis Drake) the great scourge and hate of the Spaniard ”

“ Cyrus was herewith extreamly pleased; and when upon his offering to touch her breast, she rose up, and would have run away, Cyrus much taken with her native ingenuity which was not like the Persians, turning to him that brought them, "This maid only saith he, of those which you have brought me is free and pure; the rest are adulterate in face, but much more in behaviour." Hereupon Cyrus loved her above all the women he ever had. ”

“ Woemen in fraile beauty trust,
Only seeme you kind to me,
Still be truly kind and just
For that can't dissembled bee.
4. Deare, afford me then your sight,
That surveighing all your lookes
Endlesse volumnes I may write
And fill the world with envyed bookes.
5. Which when after ages view
All shall wonder and despayre,
Women, to find a man so true,
And men, a woeman halfe so faire—
made by Robert, earl of Essex, that was beheaded. ”

“ Sir Charles Scarborough, M.D. (then an ingeniose young student, and fellowe—quaere—of Caius Colledge in Cambridge) , was his great acquaintance; both students in mathematiques; which the better to perfect, they went to Mr. Willam Oughtred, at Albury in Surrey, to be enformed by him in his Clavis Mathematica, which was then a booke of aenigmata. Mr. Oughtred treated them with exceeding humanity, being pleased at his heart when an ingeniose young man came to him that would ply his Algebra hard. ”

“ The rough stone about Chippenham (especially at Cockleborough) is full of petrified cockles. But all about the countrey between that and Tedbury, and about Malmesbury hundred, the rough stones are full of small shells like little cockles, about the bigness of a halfpenny. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For this reason the wild Irish mortally hate these birds, to this day, calling them the Devil's servants, and killing them wherever they catch them; they teach their Children to thrust them full of thorns: you will see sometimes on holidays, a whole parish running like mad men from hedge to hedge a wren-hunting. ”

“ At Compton Basset is a quarrie of soft white stone betwixt chalke and freestone: it endures fire admirably well, and would be good for reverbatory furnaces: it is much used for ovens and hearth-stones: it is as white as chalke. At my Lord Stowell's house at Aubury is a chimney piece carved of it in figures; but it doth not endure the weather, and therefore it ought not to be exposed to sun and raine.
At Yatton Keynel, in Longdean, is a freestone quarrie, but it doth not endure the weather well.
In Alderton-field is a freestone quarrie, discovered a little before the civill-warres broke forth. ”

“ Thomas Farnaby, London, 1629, pag. 8.—'Huc elegantem viri clarissimi domini Verulamii *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? ”

“ As he is the pattern of humility and courtesie, so he knowes when to be severe and austere; and he is not one to be trampled or worked upon. He is a batchelour, and of a most magnificent and munificent mind. ”

“ It is strange, that as one walks the streets sometimes one shall meet with an aspect (of male or female) that pleases our souls; and whose natural sweetness of nature, we could boldly rely upon. One never saw the other before, and so could neither oblige or disoblige each other. ”

“ It is certain that no county of England had greater variety of game, &c. than Wiltshire, and our county hounds were as good, or rather the best of England; but within this last century the breed is much mix't with northern hounds. Sir Charles Snell, of Kington St. Michael, who was my honoured friend and neighbour, had till the civill warrs as good hounds for the hare as any were in England, for handsomenesse and mouth (deep-mouthed) and goodnesse, and suited one another admirably well. But it was the Right Hon. Philip I. Earle of Pembroke, that was the great hunter. ”

“ That incomparable man for goodnes and universality of learning, Sir Matthew Hales, Lord Chief Justice of England, hath writt the description of Gloucestershire, an elaborate piece, and ready for the presse. ”

“ I have heard Mr. Lacy, the player, say that he was wont to weare a coate like a coach-man's coate, with slitts under the arme-pitts. He would many times exceed in drinke (Canarie was his beloved liquour) : then he would tumble home to bed, and, when he had thoroughly perspired, then to studie. I have seen his studyeing chaire, which was of strawe, such as old woemen used, and as Aulus Gellius is drawen in.
When I was in Oxon, bishop Skinner (of Oxford) , who lay at our College, was wont to say that he understood an author as well as any man in England. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Snailes are everywhere; but upon our downes, and so in Dorset, and I believe in Hampshire, at such degree east and west, in the summer time are abundance of very small snailes on the grasse and come, not much bigger, or no bigger than small pinnes heads. Though this is no strange thing among us, yet they are not to be found in the north part of Wilts, nor on any northern wolds. When I had the honour to waite on King Charles I.* and the Duke of York to the top of Silbury hill, his Royal Highnesse happened to cast his eye on some of these small snailes on the turfe of the hill. ”

“ The game being done, down stairs she came to the apparition, to know her business; "madam," says the ghost, (turning up her veil, and her face appearing full of the small- pox) "You know very well, that you and I, loved entirely; and your not coming to see me, I took it so ill at your hands, that I could not rest till I had seen you, and now I am come to tell you, that you have not long to live, therefore prepare to die; and when you are at a feast, and make the thirteenth person in number, then remember my words" and so the apparition vanished. ”

“ He was a boy of a pregnant witt, and when the bishop and his father were discoursing, he would be by and hearken, and now and then putt in, and sometimes beyond expectation, or his yeares.
He was of a middle stature; strong sett [961] ; curled haire; a very working head, in so much that, walking and meditating before dinner, he would eate-up a penny loafe, not knowing that he did it. His naturall memorie was very great, to which he had added the art of memorie: he would repeate to you forwards and backwards all the signes from Ludgate to Charing-crosse. ”

“ CONSIDERING the distance of place where I now write, London, and the distance of time that I lived in this county, I am not able to give a satisfactorie account of the husbandry thereof. I will only say of our husbandmen, as Sir Thom. Overbury does of the Oxford scholars, that they goe after the fashion; that is, when the fashion is almost out they take it up: so our countrey-men are very late and very unwilling to learne or be brought to new improvements. ”