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).