John Aubrey

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pride of senators for life is insufferable; and they were able to grind any one they owed ill will to to powder; they were hated by the armie and their countrey they represented, and their name and memorie stinkes—'twas worse then tyranny. Now this modell upon rotation was:—that the third part of the Senate [1091] should rote out by ballot every yeare, so that every ninth yeare the Howse would be wholly alterd; no magistrate to continue above 3 yeares, and all to be chosen by ballot, then which manner of choice, nothing can be invented more faire and impartiall. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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] . ”

“ As he is of prodigious inventive head, so is a person of great vertue and goodnes. Now when I have sayd his inventive faculty is so great, you cannot imagine his memory to be excellent, for they are like two bucketts, as one goes up, the other goes downe. He is certainly the greatest mechanick this day in the world. His head lies much more to Geometry then to Arithmetique. He is (1680) a batchelour, and, I beleeve, will never marie. His elder brother left one faire daughter [GB] , which is his heire. ”

“ Sir Everard Digby was a most gallant gentleman and one of the handsomest men of his time. He writt something in Latin de methodo, which I did light upon 23 yeares ago at a country man's howse in Herefordshire; and Mr. Francis Potter told me he writt de arte natandi.
'Twas his ill fate to suffer in the powder-plott. When [Pg 224] his heart was pluct out by the executioner (who, secundum formam, cryed 'Here is the heart of a traytor!') , it is credibly reported, he replied, 'Thou liest!' This my lord Bacon speakes of, but not mentioning his name, in his Historia vitae et mortis. ”

“ 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 [] . ”

“ She is a woman primitively good, and deserves to be remembred. I wish I had her Christian name. Her husband has an inscription on a gravestone in Eaton College chapel towards the south wall.
She has a handsome darke old-fashioned howse. The hall, after the old fashion, above the wainscot, painted cloath, with godly sentences out of the Psalmes, etc., according to the pious custome of old times; a convenient garden and orchard. She has been handsome: a good understanding, and cleanlie. ”

“ I will first speake of the father, for he was a rare [752] man in his time, and deserves to be remembred. He was of a healthy complexion [753] , rose at 4 or 5 in the morning, so [Pg 199] that he followed his studies till 6 or 7, the time that other merchants goe about their businesse; so that, stealing so much and so quiet time in the morning, he studied as much as most men. He understood Greeke and Latin perfectly, and was a better Grecian then the bishop. He writt a rare Greeke character as ever I sawe. He was a great mathematician, and understood as much of it as was knowen in his time. ”

“ To see, Sir John, how much you are mistaken; he that marries a widdowe makes himself cuckold. Exempli gratia, to speake experimentally and in my trade, if a good bitch is first warded with a curre, let her ever after be warded with a dog of a good straine and yet she will bring curres as at first, her wombe being first infected with a curre. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Memorandum:—Mr. Davenant, merchant in London, eldest brother of John Davenant, bishop of Sarum, broke (the seas being crosse to him) ; but being a person of great estimation with the merchants, they favoured him, and he went into Ireland. He did set up the trade of pilchard fishing at Wythy Island [750] there, where he was a Justice of Peace, and in 20 yeares he gott there about ten thousand pounds, payd his debts, and left his family well. This account I had from my worthy and intimate friend, Mr. John Davenant, grandsonne to him. ”

“ Robert Latimer, a young man of about nineteen or twenty, newly come from the University, who then kept a private schoole in Westport, where the broad place (quaere nomen) is, next dore north from the smyth's shop, opposite to the Three Cuppes [1262] (as I take it) . He was a batchelour and delighted in his scholar, T. H.'s company, and used to instruct him, and two or three ingeniose youths more, in the evening till nine a clock. Here T. H. so well profited in his learning, that at fourteen yeares of age, he went away a good schoole-scholar to Magdalen-hall, in Oxford. ”

“ Meredith Lloyd sayes that John Dee's printed booke of Spirits, is not above the third part of what was writt, which were in Sir Robert Cotton's library; many whereof were much perished by being buryed, and Sir Robert Cotton bought the field to digge after it.
Memorandum:—he told me of John Dee, etc., conjuring at a poole [LVIII.] in Brecknockshire, and that they found a wedge of gold; and that they were troubled and indicted as conjurers at the assizes; that a mighty storme and tempest was raysed in harvest time, the countrey people had not knowen the like. ”

“ When he did drinke, he would drinke to excesse to have the benefitt of vomiting, which he did easily; by which benefit neither his witt was disturbt longer then he was spuing nor his stomach oppressed; but he never was, nor could not endure to be, habitually a good fellow, i.e. to drinke every day wine with company, which, though not to drunkennesse, spoiles the braine.
For his last 30+ yeares, his dyet, etc., was very moderate and regular. After sixty he dranke no wine, his stomach grew weak, and he did eate most fish, especially whitings, for he sayd he digested fish better then flesh. ”

“ He was to his dyeing day of great diligence in study, well versed in all kinds of learning, but his genius did most strongly encline him to the mathematiques, wherin he has written (in a hand as legible as print) MSS. in 4to a foot high at least. I have often heard him say (jestingly) that he would have a man knockt in the head that should write any thing in mathematiques that had been written of before. I have heard Sir Christopher Wren say that he does beleeve he was the best mathematician in the world about 30 or 35 + yeares agoe. ”

“ 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 300li.
At every meale, according to the season of the yeare, [Pg 71] he had his table strewed with sweet herbes and flowers, which he sayd did refresh his spirits and memorie. ”

“ Thomas Hobbes, whom I have had the honour to know 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 [Pg 18] 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. ”

“ Wallis his learning is no where esteemed but in the Universities by such as have engaged themselves in the defence of his geometry and are now ashamed to recant it. And I wonder not if Dr. Wallis, or any other, that have studyed mathematicks onely to gaine preferment, when his ignorance is discovered, convert his study to jugling and to the gaining of a reputation of conjuring, decyphering, and such arts [1625] as are in the booke [1626] you sent me.
As for the matter it selfe, I meane the teaching of a man borne deafe and dumbe to speake, I thinke it impossible. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He had read much, if one considers his long life; but [1444] his contemplation was much more then his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men, he [1445] should have knowne no more then other men. ”

“ He that understands the natures of the circular pendulum and circular motion, will easily understand the whole ground of this principle, and will know where to find direction in nature for the true stating thereof. ”

“ When he was a student at Christ Church, it fell to his lott to preach the Passion sermon, which some old divines that I knew did heare, but they sayd that 'twas sayd of him then in the University that our Saviour never suffered so much since his passion as in that sermon, it was such a lamentable one—
Non omnia possumus omnes.
The world is much beholding to him for what he hath donne well. ”

“ He told me that when he was a schoole-boy he tooke a delight in draweing of mapps; which draughts he kept, and they were pretty. He was designed by his father to have been a lawyer, and was putt to that profession [1704] , when his father's troubles, together with the warres, forced him to leave his countrey. So that what he did for his delight and recreation only when a boy, proved to be his livelyhood when a man. ”