friend of Sir Thomas Browne, M.D., who told me that Sir William
Boswell, the Dutch ambassador, had all John Dee's MSS.: quaere his
executors for his papers. He[797] lived then somewhere in Kent.
Memorandum:--Sir William Boswell's widowe lives at Bradburne, neer
Swynoke, in Kent. Memorandum:--Mr. Hake, of the Physitians' Colledge,
hath a MS. of Mr. John Dee's, which see or gett.
Quaere A. Wood for the MSS. in the Bodlean library of Doctor Gwyn,
wherein[798] are severall letters between him and John Dee, and Doctor
Davies, of chymistrey and of magicall secrets, which my worthy friend
Mr. Meredith Lloyd hath seen and read: and he tells me that he haz been
told that Dr. Barlowe gave it to the Prince of Tuscany[799].
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.
[LVIII.] Vide Almanac, about the poole in Brecon.
His picture in a wooden cutt is at the end of Billingsley's Euclid,
but Mr. Elias Ashmole hath a very good painted copie of him from his
sonne Arthur. He had a very fair, clear[800] complexione (as Sir Henry
Savile); a long beard as white as milke. A very handsome man.
Investigatio cinerum △
Old goodwife Faldo[DR] (a natif of Mortlak in Surrey), 80+ aetatis
(1672[801]), did know Dr. Dee, and told me he dyed at his howse in
Mortlack, next to the howse where the tapistry hangings are made, viz.
west of that howse; and that he dyed about 60+, 8 or 9 yeares since
(January, 1672), and lies buried in the chancell, and had a stone
(marble) upon him. Her mother tended him in his sicknesse. She told me
that he did entertain the Polonian ambassador at his howse in Mortlak,
and dyed not long after; and that he shewed the eclipse with a darke
roome to the said ambassador[LIX.]. She beleeves that he was eightie
years old when he dyed. She sayd, he kept a great many stilles goeing.
That he layd the storme Sir Everard Digby. That the children dreaded
him because he was accounted a conjurer. He recovered the basket
of cloathes stollen, when she and his daughter (both girles) were
negligent: she knew this.
[LIX.] A Brief History of Muscovia, by Mr. John Milton, Lond. 1682,
pag. 100, scil. 1588. 'Dr. Giles Fletcher went ambassador from the
Queen to Pheodor then emperour; whose relations, being judicious and
exact, are best read entirely by themselves. This emperour, upon report
of the great learning <of> the mathematician, invited him to Mosco,
with offer of two thousand pound a-yeare, and from Prince Boris one
thousand markes; to have his provision from the emperor's table, to be
honourably recieved, and accounted as one of the chief men in the land.
All which Dee accepted not.'
He is buried (upon the matter) in the middest of the chancell, a little
towards the south side. She sayd, he lies buried in the chancell
between Mr. Holt and Mr. Miles, both servants to queen Elizabeth, and
both have brasse inscriptions on their marble, and that there was on
him a marble, but without any inscription, which marble is removed; on
which old marble is signe of two or three brasse pinnes. A daughter of
his (I thinke, Sarah) maried to a flax-dresser, in Southwarke: quaere
nomen.
He dyed within a yeare, if not shortly, after the king of Denmark
was here: vide Sir Richard Baker's _Chronicle_ and Capt. Wharton's
_Almanac_.
[802]He built the gallery in the church at Mortlak. Goody Faldo's
father was the carpenter that work't it.
A stone was on his grave, which is since removed. At the upper end
of the chancell then were steppes, which in Oliver's dayes were layd
plaine by the minister, and then 'twas removed. The children when they
played in the church would runne to Dr. Dee's grave-stone. She told me
that he forewarned Q. Elizabeth of Dr. Lopez attempt against her (the
Dr. bewrayed, ---- himselfe).
He used to distill egge-shells, and 'twas from hence that Ben Johnson
had his hint of the alkimist, whom he meant.
He was a great peace-maker; if any of the neighbours fell out, he would
never lett them alone till he had made them friends.
He was tall and slender. He wore a gowne like an artist's gowne, with
hanging sleeves, and a slitt.
A mighty good man he was.
He was sent ambassador for Queen Elizabeth (shee thinkes) into Poland.
Memorandum:--his regayning of the plate for ...'s butler, who comeing
from London by water with a basket of plate, mistooke another basket
that was like his. Mr. J. Dee bid them goe by water such a day, and
looke about, and he should see the man that had his basket, and he
did so; but he would not gett the lost horses, though he was offered
severall angells. He told a woman (his neighbour) that she laboured
under the evill tongue of an ill neighbour (another woman), which came
to her howse, who he sayd was a witch.
In J. David Rhesus' _British Grammar_, p. 60:--'Juxta Crucis
amnem (_Nant y groes_), in agro _Maessyuetiano_, apud
Cambro-brytannos, erat olim illustris quaedam _Nigrorum_
familia, unde _Joan Du_, id est, _Johannes_ ille cognomento
_Niger_, Londinensis, sui generis ortum traxit: vir certe
ornatissimus et doctissimus, et omnium hac nostra aetate tum
Philosophorum tum Mathematicorum facile princeps: monadis
illius Hieroglyphicae et Propaedeumatum aphoristicorum de
praestantioribus quibusdam Naturae virtutibus, aliorumque non
paucorum operum insignium autor eximius. Vir praeterea ob tam
multam experientiam frequenti sua in tot transmarinas regiones
peregrinatione comparatam, rerum quamplurimarum et abditarum
peritissimus.'
_Notes._
[DO] In MS. Aubr. 6, fol. 36, Aubrey gives the horoscope, with
astrological notes, e.g. that there is 'a reception between Saturn and
Luna,' that 'Jupiter is in his exaltation and lord of the ascendant,'
etc.
[DP] In MS. Aubr. 7, fol. 6, Aubrey notes:--'vide the new additions in
John Dee's life.' This perhaps refers to MS. Aubr. 6, foll. 36-38, as
being additional to the paper which he here says he left with Ashmole.
[DQ] In MS. Aubr. 6, fol. 37, Aubrey gives in colours the coat,
'gules, a lion rampant within a bordure indented or,' adding the
note:--'Memorandum in the scutcheon at the beginning of his preface the
bordure is engrailed: I believe that is the truest, for 'twas donne
with care--sed quaere.'
In MS. Aubr. 6, fol. 36ᵛ, he gives in trick the coat for Dee's match
'1578, Febr. 5,' with Jane Fromundz, viz.:--'in the 1 and 6, gules, a
lion rampant within a bordure engrailed or [Dee]; in the 2, or, a lion
rampant gules [ ...]; in the 3, ..., a lion rampant crowned sable [
...]; in the 4, azure, a lion rampant ... [Dun]; in the 5, argent, on
2 bends gules 6 cross crosslets or [ ...],' as the coat of John Dee;
impaling 'per chevron ermines and gules, a chevron between 3 fleur de
lys or' [Fromundz], for Jane Fromundz. The motto is 'A Domino factum
est istud.'
[DR] Aubrey's conversation with 'goodwife Faldo,' written down at the
time (Oct. 22, 1672), is found in a letter to Anthony Wood, in MS. Wood
F. 39, fol. 192.
=Thomas Deere= (1639/40-16..).
[803]Thomas Deere, natus March 15º, 1639, 15ʰ 7´ P.M., at New
Sarum--John Gadbury's advice, 1 April, 1676.
[804]Thomas Deare's letter:--
'From Stackton in parochia de Fordingbridge, die Jovis[805], 9
Martii, 1675/6, 2ʰ 30´ P.M.
The Accydents of the native, etc.
In November 1655, aged 15 yeare 8 moneths, went to London, to a
master, a clerke in the Kinge's Bench.
In November followinge, aged 16 yeare 8 moneths, had the small
pox.
In February and March 1658, an ague and feavor.
At the same tyme an uncle (the mother's brother) dyed, which
gave the native a good legacy.
In 1661, purchased an estate.
In August 1662, hee marryed, which was one of the worst acts
that etc.
In July 1663, hee had a sonn born, etc.
In June 1667, another sone.
In the same yeare in September, his father dyed etc., aged 70
etc.
In 1666, a very great feavor; in <16>67, another; in '68, a
surfeite which caused another <fever>, etc.
In May '71, another sunn which lived but a fortnight, etc.
Many other accidents there are and remarkeable, but I suppose
3 or 4 or but 2 of these may doe well enough[806] etc. Yet
as to preferrment, etc.--In Aug. 1667, I was courted by the
old earle of Pembrook[807] to be his chiefe steward; but, hee
always vexed with false informations against me, I left his
ymployment.'
[808]Memorandum:--Mr. Th. Deer is now (Jan. 1677/8) in prison at
Fisherton-Anger.
=Gideon de Laune= (1565?-1659).
[809]... De Laune:--he was apothecary to Mary the queen mother: came
into England....
He was a very wise man, and as a signe[810] of it left an estate of
80,000 _li._
Sir William Davenant was his great acquaintance and told me of him,
and that after his returne into England he went to visit him, being
then octogenary, and very decrepit with the gowt, but had his sight and
understanding. He had a place made for him in the kitchen chimney; and,
_non obstante_ he was master of such an estate, Sir William sawe him
slighted not only by his daughter-in-lawe, but by the cooke-mayd, which
much affected him--misery of old age.
He wrote a booke of prudentiall advice, in quadrans, 8vo, in English
verse, which I have seen, and there are good things in it.
=Sir John Denham= (1615-1668/9).
[811]Sir John Denham was unpolished with the small-pox: otherwise a
fine complexion.
[812]From Anthony Wood:--in the Matriculation booke he finds it thus
written--'Johannes Denham, Essex, filius Johannis Denham de Horseley
parva in com. praed., militis, aetat. 16, 1631.'
[813]Sir John Denham[DS], Knight of the Bath, was borne at Dublin in
Ireland, anno Domini....
Quaere Dr. Buzby if he was a Westminster schollar--I have forgot. Anno
... he was admitted of Trinity Colledge in Oxford, where he stayed....
His tutor there was.... I have heard Mr. Josias Howe say that he was
the dreamingst young fellow; he never expected such things from him
as he haz left the world. When he was there he would game extremely;
when he had played away all his money he would play away his father's
wrought rich gold cappes.
His father was Sir John Denham, one of the Barons of the Exchequer. He
had been one of the Lords Justices in Ireland: he maried Ellenor[LX.],
one of the daughters of Sir Garret Moore, knight, lord baron of
Mellifont, in the kingdome of Ireland, whom he maried during his
service in Ireland in the place of Chief Justice there.
[LX.] She was a beautifull woman, as appeares by her monument at Egham.
Sir John, they say, did much resemble his father.
From Trinity Colledge he went to Lincolnes-Inne, where (as judge Wadham
Windham[814], who was his contemporary, told me) he was as good a
student as any in the house. Was not suspected to be a witt.
At last, viz. 1640, his play of _The Sophy_ came out, which did take
extremely: Mr. Edmund Waller sayd then of him, that he _broke-out like
the Irish Rebellion[LXI.]--threescore thousand strong_, before any body
was aware[815].
[LXI.] His play came out at that time.
He was much rooked by gamesters, and fell acquainted with that
unsanctified crew, to his ruine. His father had some suspition of it,
and chid him severely, wherupon his son John (only child) wrot a little
essay in 8vo, printed ..., _Against[LXII.] gameing and to shew the
vanities and inconveniences of it_, which he presented to his father to
let him know his detestation of it[DT]. But shortly after his father's
death[LXIII.] (who left 2,000 or 1,500 _li._ in ready money, 2 houses
well furnished, and much plate) the money was played away first, and
next the plate was sold. I remember about 1646 he lost 200 _li._ one
night at New-cutt. Anno ... (I ghesse 1642) he was high-sheriff of the
countie of Surrey.
[LXII.] Vide Justus Turcaeus[816] _de lusu aleae_, where he proves 'tis
a disease and that it proceeds from pride, and that the Spaniards (the
proudest nation) are most[817] addicted to it.
[LXIII.] January 6, 1638[818], sepult. at Egham in Surrey.
At the beginning of the civill warre he was made governor of
Farnham-castle for the king, but he was but a young soldier, and
did not keepe it. In 1642/3, after Edghill fight, his poeme called
_Cowper's Hill_ was printed at Oxford, in a sort of browne paper, for
then they could gett no better.
1646/7 (quaere) he conveyed, or stole away, the two dukes of Yorke
and Glocester from St. James's (from the tuition of the earle of
Northumberland), and conveyed them into France to the Prince of Wales
and Queen-mother. King Charles II sent him and the lord Culpepper
envoyes to the king of Poland,....
Anno 1652, he returned into England, and being in some straights was
kindly entertayned by the earle of Pembroke at Wilton, where I had the
honour to contract an acquaintance with him. Here he translated the
... booke of Vergil's _Æneis_, and also burlesqu't it[LXIV.]: quaere
Mr. Christopher Wase who was then there, tutor to William[819], lord
Herbert. He was, as I remember, a yeare with my lord of Pembroke at
Wilton and London; he had then sold all the lands his father had left
him.
[LXIV.] He burlesqued Virgil, and burnt it, sayeing that 'twas not fitt
that the best poet should be so abused.--From Mr. Christopher Wase.
His first wife was the daughter and heire of ... Cotton, of ... in
Glocestershire, by whom he had 500 _li._ per annum, one son and two
daughters.[820]His son did not _patrem sapere_. He was of Wadham
College[821] in Dr. Wilkins's time: he dyed _sine prole_, I thinke,
there.--One of his daughters is maried to ... Morley, of Sussex, esq.;
the other....
He was much beloved by King Charles the First, who much valued him for
his ingenuity. He graunted him the reversion of the surveyor of his
majestie's buildings, after the decease of Mr. Inigo Jones; which
place, after the restauration of King Charles II he enjoyed to his
death, and gott seaven thousand pounds, as Sir Christopher Wren told me
of, to his owne knowledge. Sir Christopher Wren was his deputie.
Anno Domini 166.. he maried his 2d wife, <Margaret> Brookes, a very
beautifull young lady; Sir John was ancient and limping. The duke
of Yorke fell deepely in love with her, though (I have been morally
assured) he never had carnall knowledge of her. This occasioned Sir
John's distemper of madnesse in 166.., which first appeared when he
went from London to see the famous free-stone quarries at Portland in
Dorset, and when he came within a mile of it, turned back to London
again, and did[822] not see it. He went to Hownslowe, and demanded
rents of lands he had sold many yeares before; went to the king, and
told him he was the Holy Ghost. But it pleased God that he was cured
of this distemper, and writt excellent verses (particularly on the
death of Mr. Abraham Cowley) afterwards. His 2d lady had no child; was
poysoned by the hands of Co. of Roc.[823] with chocolatte.
At the coronation of King Charles II he was made Knight of the Bath.
He dyed (vide A. Wood's _Antiq. Oxon._) at the house of his office
(which he built, as also the brick-buildings next the street in
Scotland-yard), and was buried, anno Domini 1668/9, March the 23, in
the south crosse aisle of Westminster Abbey, neer Sir Jeffrey Chaucer's
monument, but hitherto (1680) without any memoriall for him.
Memorandum:--the parsonage-house at Egham (vulgarly called _The Place_)
was built by baron Denham; a house very convenient, not great, but
pretty, and pleasantly scituated, and in which his son, Sir John,
(though he had better seates), did take most delight in. He sold it
to John Thynne, esq. In this parish is a place called Cammomill-hill,
from the cammomill that growes there naturally; as also west of it is
Prune-well-hill (formerly part of Sir John's possessions), where was
a fine tuft of trees, a clear spring, and a pleasant prospect to the
east, over the levell of Middlesex and Surrey. Sir John tooke great
delight in this place, and was wont to say (before the troubles) that
he would build there a retiring-place to entertaine his muses; but
the warres forced him to sell that as well as the rest. He sold it to
Mr. ... Anstey. In this parish W. and by N. (above _Runney Meade_) is
_Cowper's Hill_, from whence is a noble prospect, which is incomparably
well described by that sweet swan, Sir John Denham; printed first at
Oxon shortly after Edghill fight, 1642/3.
Memorandum:--he delighted much in bowles, and did bowle very well.
He was of the tallest, but a little incurvetting at his shoulders, not
very robust. His haire was but thin and flaxen, with a moist curle. His
gate was slow, and was rather a stalking (he had long legges), which
was wont to putt me in mind of Horace, _De Arte Poetica_:--
'Hic, dum sublimes versus ructatur, et errat
Si veluti merulis intentus decidit auceps
In puteum foveamve:'----
His eie was a kind of light goose-gray, not big; but it had a strange
piercingness, not as to shining and glory, but (like a Momus) when he
conversed with you he look't into your very thoughts.
He was generally temperate as to drinking; but one time when he was
a student of Lincolne's-Inne, having been merry at the taverne with
his camerades, late at night, a frolick came into his head, to gett a
playsterer's brush and a pott of inke, and blott out all the signes
between Temple-barre and Charing-crosse, which made a strange confusion
the next day, and 'twas in Terme time. But it happened that they were
discovered, and it cost him and them some moneys. This I had from R.
Estcott[824], esq., that carried the inke-pott.
In the time of the civill warres, George Withers, the poet, begged Sir
John Denham's estate at Egham of the Parliament, in whose cause he was
a captaine of horse. It <happened> that G. W. was taken prisoner, and
was in danger of his life, having written severely against the king,
&c. Sir John Denham went to the king, and desired his majestie not to
hang him, for that whilest G. W. lived he should not be the worst poet
in England.
Scripsit _the Sophy_: _Cowper's Hill_: _Essay against Gameing_: Poems,
8vo, printed anno Domini ...; Cato Major sive De Senectute, translated
into English verse, London, printed by H. Heringman, in the New
Exchange, 1669.
Memorandum:--in the verses against Gondibert, most of them are Sir
John's. He was satyricall when he had a mind to it.
_Notes._
[DS] Aubrey gives in colours the coat: 'gules, 3 lozenges ermine
[Denham],' surrounded by laurels. He adds the note:--'this coate is
in stone and thus coloured, on the roofe or vaulting of the cathedral
church at Winchester: Sir John told me his family was originally
westerne.' He adds the reference 'vide A. Wood's Hist. Oxon.'
[DT] Aubrey, in MS. Wood F. 39, fol. 193, writing Oct. 22, 1672,
says:--'Sir John Denham wrott an essay against gameing, to shew his
detestation of it to his father, printed by N. Brookes, at the Angel
in Cornhill. I have it, about 3 or 4 sheetes, 8vo. His name is not to
it, but I know 'twas his; and a kinsman of his, that was one of his
father's clarkes, gave the copy to Brookes: and Sir John Denham owned
it to me.'
=René Descartes= (1596-1650/1).
[825]Monsieur Renatus Des Cartes,
'nobilis Gallus, Perroni dominus, summus mathematicus et philosophus;
natus Hagae Turonum pridie Calendas Apriles, 1596; denatus Holmiae
Calendis Februarii, 1650'--this inscription I find under his picture
graved by C. V. Dalen.
How he spent his time in his youth, and by what method he became so
knowing, he tells the world in his treatise entituled Of Method. The
Societie of Jesus glorie in that theyr order had the educating of him.
He lived severall yeares at Egmont (neer the Hague), from whence
he dated severall of his bookes. He was too wise a man to encomber
himselfe with a wife; but as he was a man, he had the desires and
appetites of a man; he therefore kept a good conditioned hansome woman
that he liked, and by whom he had some children (I thinke 2 or 3). 'Tis
pity but comeing from the braine[826] of such a father, they should be
well cultivated. He was so eminently learned that all learned men made
visits to him, and many of them would desire him to shew them his ...
of instruments (in those dayes mathematicall learning lay much in the
knowledge of instruments, and, as Sir H. S.[827] sayd, in doeing of
tricks), he would drawe out a little drawer under his table, and shew
them a paire of compasses with one of the legges broken; and then, for
his ruler, he used a sheet of paper folded double. This from Alexander
Cowper (brother of Samuel), limner to Christina, queen of Sweden, who
was familiarly acquainted there with Des Cartes.
[828]Mr. Hobbes was wont to say that had Des Cartes kept himselfe wholy
to geometrie that he had been the best geometer in the world. He did
very much admire him, but sayd that he could not pardon him for writing
in the defence of transubstantiation which he knew to bee absolutely
against his judgment[829]--quod N. B.
=Robert Devereux=, earl of Essex (1567-1600/1).
[830]Ex registro capellae Turris London, scil. 1600[831], 'Robert,
earle of Essex, beheaded, Febr. 6th.'
From my lady Elizabeth, viscountesse Purbec, repeated by her:--
1. There is none, oh none but you,
Who from me estrange your sight,
Whom mine eyes affect to view
And chained eares heare with delight.
2. Others' beauties others move,
In you I all graces find:
Such are the effects of love
To make them happy that are kind.
3. 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.
[832]The tradition is that the bell of Lincoln's-Inne was brought
from Cales (Cadiz), tempore reginae Elizabethae, plundered in the
expedition[833] under <Robert Devereux>, earl of Essex.
=Sir Everard Digby= (1578-1605/6).
[834]Sir Everard Digby (father of Sir Kenelme) scripsit libellum Latinè
cui titulus:--
Everardi Dygbei de duplici methodo--
in 8vo, in dialogues.
I have heard Mr. John Digby say (his grandsonne) that he was the
handsomest man (accounted) in England.
[835]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 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_.
=Sir Kenelm Digby= (1603-1665).
[836]Sir Kenelm Digby[DU], knight: he was borne at <Gotehurst, Bucks>
on the eleventh of June[DV]: see Ben: Johnson, 2d volumne:--
'Witnesse thy actions done at Scanderoon
Upon _thy_ birthday, the eleaventh of June.'
[Memorandum:--in the first impression in 8vo it is thus; but in the
folio 'tis _my_, instead of _thy_.]
Mr. Elias Ashmole assures me, from two or three nativities by Dr.
<Richard> Nepier, that Ben: Johnson was mistaken and did it for the
ryme-sake.--In Dr. Napier's papers of nativities, with Mr. Ashmole,
I find:--'Sir Kenelme Digby natus July 11, 5ʰ 40´ A.M. 1603, 14
Leo ascending,' and another scheme gives it at '4ʰ A.M., 26 Cancer
ascending'; and there are two others of Cancer and Leo.