CHAPTER I.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF WILTSHIRE

by JOHN AUBREY, F.R.S.

(written between 1656 and 1691.)

TO

GEORGE POULETT SCROPE, ESQ. M.P.,

&c, &c. &c.

MY DEAR SIR,

By inscribing this Volume to you I am merely discharging a debt of

gratitude and justice. But for you I believe it would not have been

printed; for you not only advocated its publication, but have

generously contributed to diminish the cost of its production to the

“WILTSHIRE TOPOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY”, under whose auspices it is now

submitted to the public.

Though comparatively obsolete as regards its scientific,

archaeological, and philosophical information, AUBREY’S “NATURAL

HISTORY OF WILTSHIRE” is replete with curious and entertaining facts

and suggestions, at once characterising the writer, and the age in

which he lived, and illustrating the history and topography of his

native county. Had this work been revised and printed by its author, as

he wished and intended it to have been, it would have proved as useful

and important as Plot’s “Staffordshire” and “Oxfordshire”; Burton’s

“Leicestershire”; Morton’s “Northamptonshire”; Philipott’s “Kent”; or

any others of its literary predecessors or contemporaries. It could not

have failed to produce useful results to the county it describes; as it

was calculated to promote inquiry, awaken curiosity, and plant seeds

which might have produced a rich and valuable harvest of Topography.

Aubrey justly complained of the apathy which prevailed in his time

amongst Wiltshire men towards such topics; and, notwithstanding the

many improvements that have since been made in general science,

literature, and art, I fear that the gentry and clergy of the county do

not sufficiently appreciate the value and utility of local history;

otherwise the _Wiltshire Topographical Society_ would not linger for

want of adequate and liberal support. Aubrey, Bishop Tanner, Henry

Penruddocke Wyndham, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, and the writer of this

address, have successively appealed to the inhabitants of the county to

produce a history commensurate to its wealth and extent, and also to

the many and varied objects of importance and interest which belong to

it: but, alas! all have failed, and I despair of living to see my

native county amply and satisfactorily elucidated by either one or more

topographers.

By the formation of the Society already mentioned, by writing and

superintending this volume and other preceding publications, and by

various literary exertions during the last half century, I have

endeavoured to promote the cause of Topography in Wiltshire; and in

doing so have often been encouraged by your sympathy and support. For

this I am bound to offer you the expression of my very sincere thanks;

and with an earnest wish that you may speedily complete your projected

“History of Castle Combe,”

I am,

My dear Sir,

Yours very truly,

JOHN BRITTON.

_Burton Street, London._

1_st September_, 1847.

EDITOR’S PREFACE.

In the “Memoir of John Aubrey”, published by the Wiltshire

Topographical Society in 1845, I expressed a wish that the “NATURAL

HISTORY of WILTSHIRE”, the most important of that author’s unpublished

manuscripts, might be printed by the Society, as a companion volume to

that Memoir, which it is especially calculated to illustrate.

The work referred to had been then suggested to the Council of the

Society by George Poulett Scrope, Esq. M.P., as desirable for

publication. They concurred with him in that opinion; and shortly

afterwards, through the kind intervention of the Marquess of

Northampton, an application was made to the Council of the Royal

Society for permission to have a transcript made for publication from

the copy of the “Natural History of Wiltshire” in their possession. The

required permission was readily accorded; and had not the printing been

delayed by my own serious illness during the last winter, and urgent

occupations since, it would have been completed some months ago.

When the present volume was first announced, it was intended to print

the whole of Aubrey’s manuscript; but after mature deliberation it has

been thought more desirable to select only such passages as directly or

indirectly apply to the county of Wilts, or which comprise information

really useful or interesting in itself, or curious as illustrating the

state of literature and science at the time when they were written.

Before the general reader can duly understand and appreciate the

contents of the present volume it is necessary that he should have some

knowledge of the manners, customs, and literature of the age when it

was written, and with the lucubrations of honest, but “magotie-headed”

John Aubrey, as he is termed by Anthony a Wood. Although I have already

endeavoured to portray his mental and personal characteristics, and

have carefully marked many of his merits, eccentricities, and foibles,

I find, from a more careful examination of his “Natural History of

Wiltshire” than I had previously devoted to it, many anecdotes,

peculiarities, opinions, and traits, which, whilst they serve to mark

the character of the man, afford also interesting memorials of his

times. 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.

It has long been customary to regard John Aubrey as a credulous and

gossiping narrator of anecdotes of doubtful authority, and as an

ignorant believer of the most absurd stories. This notion was grounded

chiefly upon the prejudiced testimony of Anthony a Wood, and on the

contents of the only work which Aubrey published during his

lifetime,—an amusing collection of “Miscellanies” relating to dreams,

apparitions, witchcraft, and similar subjects. Though his “History of

Surrey” was of a more creditable character, and elicited the approval

of Manning and Bray, the subsequent historians of that county, an

unfavourable opinion of Aubrey long continued to prevail. The

publication of his “Lives of Eminent Men” tended, however, to raise him

considerably in the estimation of discriminating critics; and in my own

“Memoir” of his personal and literary career, with its accompanying

analysis of his unpublished works, I endeavoured (and I believe

successfully) to vindicate his claims to a distinguished place amongst

the literati of his times.

That he has been unjustly stigmatised amongst his contemporaries as an

especial votary of superstition is obvious, even on a perusal of his

most objectionable work, the “Miscellanies” already mentioned, which

plainly shews that his more scientific contemporaries, including even

some of the most eminent names in our country’s literary annals,

participated in the same delusions. It would be amusing to compare the

“Natural History of Wiltshire” with two similar works on “Oxfordshire”

and “Staffordshire,” by Dr. Robert Plot, which procured for their

author a considerable reputation at the time of their publication, and

which still bear a favourable character amongst the topographical works

of the seventeenth century. It may be sufficient here to state that the

chapters in those publications on the Heavens and Air, Waters, Earths,

Stones, Formed stones, Plants, Beastes, Men and Women, Echoes, Devils

and Witches, and other subjects, are very similar to those of Aubrey.

Indeed the plan of the latter’s work was modelled upon those of Dr.

Plot, and Aubrey states in his Preface that he endeavoured to induce

that gentleman to undertake the arrangement and publication of his

“Natural History of Wiltshire”. On comparing the writings of the two

authors, we cannot hesitate to award superior merits to the Wiltshire

antiquary.

A few passages may be quoted from the latter to shew that he was

greatly in advance of his contemporaries in general knowledge and

liberality of sentiment:—

“I have oftentimes wished for a mappe of England coloured according to

the colours of the earth; with markes of the fossiles and minerals.”

(p. 10.)

“As the motion caused by a stone lett fall into the water is by

circles, so sounds move by spheres in the same manner; which, though

obvious enough, I doe not remember to have seen in any booke.” (p. 18.)

“Phantomes. Though I myselfe never saw any such things, yet I will not

conclude that there is no truth at all in these reports. I believe that

extraordinarily there have been such apparitions; but where one is true

a hundred are figments. There is a lecherie in lyeing and imposing on

the credulous, and the imagination of fearfull people is to

admiration.” [In other words, timid people are disposed to believe

marvellous stories.] (p. 122.)

“Draughts of the Seates and Prospects. If these views were well donn,

they would make a glorious volume by itselfe, and like enough it might

take well in the world. It were an inconsiderable expence to these

persons of qualitie, and it would remaine to posterity when their

families are gonn and their buildings ruined by time or fire, as we

have seen that stupendous fabric of Paul’s Church, not a stone left on

a stone, and lives now only in Mr. Hollar’s Etchings in Sir William

Dugdale’s History of Paul’s. I am not displeased with this thought as a

desideratum, but I doe never expect to see it donn; so few men have the

hearts to doe public good to give 4 or 5 pounds for a copper-plate.” p.

126.)

With regard to the history of the work now first published, it may be

stated that it was the author’s first literary essay; being commenced

in 1656, and evidently taken up from time to time, and pursued “con

amore”. In 1675 it was submitted to the Royal Society, when, as Aubrey

observed in a letter to Anthony á Wood, it “gave them two or three

dayes entertainment which they were pleased to like.” Dr. Plot declined

to prepare it for the press, and in December 1684 strongly urged the

author to “finish and publish it” himself; he accordingly proceeded to

arrange its contents, and in the month of June following (in the

sixtieth year of his age) wrote the Preface, describing its origin and

progress. He states elsewhere that on the 21st of April 1686, he

“finished the last chapter,” and in the same year he had his portrait

painted by “Mr. David Loggan, the graver,” expressly to be engraved for

the intended publication.

On the 18th of August 1686 he wrote the following Will: “Whereas I,

John Aubrey, R.S.S., doe intend shortly to take a journey into the

west; and reflecting on the fate that manuscripts use to have after the

death of the author, I have thought good to signify my last Will (as to

this Naturall History of Wilts): that my will and desire is, that in

case I shall depart this life before my returne to London again, to

finish, if it pleaseth God, this discourse, I say and declare that my

will then is, that I bequeath these papers of the Natural History of

Wilts to my worthy friend Mr. Robert Hooke, of Gresham Colledge and

R.S.S., and I doe also humbly desire him, and my will is, that the

noble buildings and prospects should be engraven by my worthy friend

Mr. David Loggan, who hath drawn my picture already in order to it”

This document* shews at once the dangers and difficulties which

attended travelling in Aubrey’s time, and also that he seriously

contemplated the publication of his favourite work.

* [It has been already printed in my Memoir of Aubrey. A note attached

to it shews that the author intended to incorporate with the present

work some portions of his MS. “Monumenta Britannica”; which was also

dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke.]

Neither his fears of death nor his hopes of publication were however

then realized: probably the political disturbances attending the

Revolution of 1688 interfered with the latter. In the November of the

year following that event Aubrey’s friend and patron Thomas, Earl of

Pembroke, was elected President of the Royal Society, which

distinguished office he held only for one year. During that period the

author dedicated the “Natural History of Wiltshire” to his Lordship;

and there is little reason to doubt that the fair copy, now in the

Society’s Library, was made by the author, and given to it in the year

1690. About the same time he had resolved to present his other

manuscripts, together with some printed books, coins, antiquities, &c.,

to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford; and most of them were accordingly

deposited there. He however appears to have retained his original

manuscript of the “Natural History,” in which he made several

observations in the year 1691; that being the latest date attached by

him to any of the additions.†

† [Some of these additions of 1691 Aubrey afterwards transcribed into

certain blank spaces in the Royal Society’s copy.]

On the 15th of September in the same year Aubrey sent this work to his

learned and scientific friend, John Ray, for his perusal. The latter

made a number of notes upon various parts of the manuscript, which he

retained till the 27th of the ensuing month; when he returned it with

the very judicious letter which will be found printed in this present

publication (p. 7.) He had acknowledged the receipt of the work in a

previous letter, in which he says: “I have read it over with great

pleasure and satisfaction. You doe so mingle “utile dulci” {the useful

with the sweet} that the book cannot but take with all sorts of

readers: and it is pity it should be suppressed; which, though you make

a countenance of, I cannot persuade myself you really intend to do:”

and then proceeds to criticise a few pedantic or “new-coyned” words,

and also the contents of Chapter VIII. (Part I.) It was probably soon

afterwards that Evelyn perused and added some notes to the manuscript;‡

and in February 1694 Aubrey also lent the work to Thomas Tanner

(afterwards Bishop of St Asaph), at his earnest request. He seems to

have become acquainted with his fellow county-man, Tanner, only a short

time before this. The latter, although then only in his twenty-first

year, and pursuing his studies at Oxford, had acquired a reputation for

knowledge of English antiquities, and with the ardour and enthusiasm of

youth evinced much anxiety to promote the publication of this and some

of the other works of his venerable friend. He added several notes to

the manuscript, and whilst in his possession it was no doubt examined

also by Gibson. It is referred to in the notes to the latter’s edition

of Camden’s “Britannia.”

‡ [Perhaps in May 1692; when he is known to have examined another of

Aubrey’s works, “An Idea of Education of Young Gentlemen”.—Evelyn’s

notes to the “Wiltshire” are thus referred to in a memorandum by Aubrey

on a fly-leaf of the manuscript: “Mdm. That ye annotations to which are

prefixed this marke [J. E.] were writt by my worthy friend John Evelyn,

Esq. R.S.S. ’Twas pitty he wrote them in black lead; so that I was

faine to runne them all over againe with inke. I thinke not more than

two words are obliterated.”]

Had Aubrey’s life been spared a few years longer it is very possible

that most of his manuscripts would have been printed, under the

stimulus and with the assistance of his youthful friend. His

“Miscellanies,” which appeared in 1696, seem to have owed their

publication to these influences; and in the Dedication of that work to

his patron the Earl of Abingdon, Aubrey thus expressly mentions

Tanner:— “It was my intention to have finished my Description of

Wiltshire (half finished* already), and to have dedicated it to your

Lordship, but my age is now too far spent for such undertakings.† I

have therefore devolved that task on my countryman Mr. Thomas Tanner,

who hath youth to go through with it, and a genius proper for such an

undertaking.”

* [The work alluded to still remains “half finished,” being a

Description of the “North Division” only of the county. It has been

printed by Sir Thomas Phillipps from the MS. in the Ashmolean Museum.

4to. 1821–1838.]

† [He was then in his 71st year.]

A chapter of the “Natural History” (being “Fatalities of Families and

Places”), was at this time detached from the original manuscript to

furnish materials for the remarks on “Local Fatality,” in the

“Miscellanies.”

John Aubrey died suddenly in the first week in June 1697, and was

buried in the church of St. Mary Magdalen at Oxford, and from the time

of his decease the original draught of his Wiltshire History has been

carefully preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, as the fair copy

of 1690 has also in the Library of the Royal Society in London.

Until the “Natural History of Wiltshire” was briefly described in my

own “Memoir” of its author, very little was known of it beyond the mere

fact of the existence of the two manuscripts. Copying from the original

at Oxford, Dr. Rawlinson printed the Preface and Dedication, together

with Ray’s letter of the 27th October, 1691, as addenda to his edition

of Aubrey’s “History of Surrey,” (1719.) The same manuscript was also

noticed by Thomas Warton and William Huddesford in a list of the

author’s works in the Ashmolean Museum.‡ Horace Walpole referred to the

Royal Society’s copy in his Anecdotes of Painting (1762); but though

his reference seems to have excited the curiosity of Gough, the latter

contented himself with stating that he could not find the work

mentioned in Mr. Robertson’s catalogue of the Society’s library.

‡ [This list forms a note to the “Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Wood”

(8° 1772). Though it includes the “Natural History,” it omits the

“Description of North Wiltshire.” The latter was known previously,

being mentioned by Aubrey himself in his Miscellanies, and also by Dr.

Rawlinson; and hence, Warton and Huddesford’s list being supposed to be

complete, much confusion has arisen respecting these two of Aubrey’s

works, which have been sometimes considered as identical.]

Some years ago Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., contemplated publishing

this “Natural History,” but he appears to have abandoned his design.

A brief description of the present state of the two manuscripts, with

reference to the text of the volume now published, may be desirable.

The Oxford copy, which may be termed the author’s rough draught, is in

two parts or volumes, demy folio, in the original vellum binding.§

Being compiled at various times, during a long series of years, it has

a confused appearance, from the numerous corrections and additions made

in it by Aubrey. A list of the chapters is prefixed to each volume,

whence it appears that Aubrey had intended to include some observations

on “Prices of Corne”, “Weights and Measures”, “Antiquities and Coines”,

and “Forests, Parks, and Chaces”. Most of these topics are adverted to

under other heads, but the author never carried out his intention by

forming them into separate chapters. Besides wanting the “Fatalities of

Families and Places”, taken out by the author in 1696, as already

stated, the Oxford manuscript is deficient also in the chapters on

“Architecture”, “Accidents”, and “Seates”. So far therefore as Aubrey’s

own labours are concerned, the Royal Society’s copy is the most

perfect; but the notes of Ray, Evelyn, and Tanner were written upon the

Oxford manuscript after the fair copy was made, and have never been

transcribed into the latter. The Royal Society’s manuscript is entirely

in Aubrey’s own hand, and is very neatly and carefully written, being

in that respect, as well as in its completeness, much superior to the

original. Of the latter it appears to have been an exact transcript;

but it wants some of the rude sketches and diagrams with which the

original is illustrated. The two parts form only one volume, demy

folio, which is paged consecutively from 1 to 373, and is bound in

modern Russia leather.

§ [The first volume has two title-pages. On one of them, as well as on

the cover, the work is called the “Natural History” of Wiltshire; but

the remaining title designates its contents as “Memoires of Natural

Remarques” in the county.]

As already stated, a copy of the entire work was made for the purposes

of this publication from the Royal Society’s volume. The ownership of

this copy has since been transferred to George Poulett Scrope, Esq.

M.P., of Castle Combe, who has had it collated with the Oxford

manuscript, thus making it unique.

Every care has been taken to preserve the strictest accuracy in the

extracts now published, and with that view, as well as to correspond

with such of Aubrey’s works as have been already printed, the original

orthography has been retained. The order and arrangement of the

chapters, and their division into two parts, are also adhered to. At

the commencement of each chapter I have indicated the nature of the

passages which are omitted in the present volume, and although such

omissions are numerous, it may be stated that all the essential and

useful portions of the work are either here printed, or so referred to

as to render them easily accessible in future to the scientific

student, the antiquary, and the topographer.

With respect to the Notes which I have added, as Editor of the present

volume, in correction or illustration of Aubrey’s observations, I am

alone responsible.* It would have been easy to have increased their

number; for every page of the original text is full of matter

suggestive of reflection and comment. I am aware that a more familiar

acquaintance with the present condition of Wiltshire would have

facilitated my task, and added greatly to the importance of these

notes. On this point indeed I might quote the remarks of Aubrey in his

preface, for they apply with equal force to myself; and, like him, I

cannot but regret that no “ingeniouse and publique-spirited young

Wiltshire man” has undertaken the task which I have thus imperfectly

performed.

* [These are enclosed within brackets [thus], and bear the initials J.

B. Some of the less important are marked by brackets only.]

In closing this address, and also in taking leave of the county of

Wilts, as regards my literary connection with it, I feel it to be at

once a duty and a pleasure to record my acknowledgments and thanks to

those persons who have kindly aided me on the present occasion. When I

commenced this undertaking I did not anticipate the labour it would

involve me in, and the consequent time it would demand, or I must have

declined the task; for I have been compelled to neglect a superior

obligation which I owe to a host of kind and generous friends who have

thought proper to pay me and literature a compliment in my old age, by

subscribing a large sum of money as a PUBLIC TESTIMONIAL. In return for

this, and to reciprocate the compliment, I have undertaken the

laborious and delicate task of writing an AUTO-BIOGRAPHY which will

narrate the chief incidents of my public life, and describe the

literary works which I have produced. It is my intention to present a

copy of this volume to each subscriber, so as to perpetuate the event

in his own library and family, by a receipt or acknowledgment

commemorative of the mutual sympathy and obligation of the donor and

the receiver. Being now relieved from all other engagements and

occupations, it is my intention to prosecute this memoir with zeal and

devotion; and if health and life be awarded to me I hope to accomplish

it in the ensuing winter.*

* [The volume will contain at least fifteen illustrations from steel

copper, wood, and stone, and more than 300 pages of letterpress. A copy

of the work will be presented to each subscriber, proportionate in

value to the amount of the contribution. Hence three different sizes of

the volume will be printed, namely: imperial 4to, with India proofs,

fur subscribers of 10 [pounds}; medium 4to, with proofs, for those of 3

{pounds} and 5 {pounds}; and royal 8vo, with a limited number of

prints, for subscribers of 1{pound} and 2 {pounds}.]

To the MARQUESS OF NORTHAMPTON, a native of Wiltshire, the zealous and

devoted President of the Royal Society, my especial thanks are tendered

for his influence with the Council of that Society, in obtaining their

permission to copy Aubrey’s manuscript; and also to

GEORGE POULETT SCROPE, Esq. M.P., for contributing materially towards

the expense of the copy, and thereby promoting its publication.

To my old and esteemed friend the REV. DR. INGRAM, President of Trinity

College, Oxford, I am obliged for many civilities, and for some

judicious corrections and suggestions. His intimate acquaintance with

Wiltshire, his native county, and his general knowledge of archaeology,

as well as of classical and mediaeval history, eminently qualify him to

give valuable aid in all publications like the present.

To JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS, Esq. F.S.A., both myself and the reader are

under obligations, for carefully revising the proof sheets for the

press, and for several valuable corrections.

To C. R. WELD, Esq. Assistant Secretary to the Royal Society, I am

indebted for affording facilities for copying the manuscript.

Lastly, my obligations and thanks are due to MR. T. E. JONES, for the

accurate transcript which he made from Aubrey’s fair manuscript, for

collating the same with the original at Oxford, for selecting and

arranging the extracts which are now for the first time printed, and

for his scrupulous and persevering assistance throughout the

preparation of the entire volume. But for such essential aid, it would

have been out of my power to produce the work as it is now presented to

the members of the “Wiltshire Topographical Society,” and to the

critical reader.

JOHN BRITTON.

Burton Street, London.

1st September, 1847.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Title-page, with View of the Upper Part of the Tower of Sutton Benger

Church.

DEDICATION to G. P. SCROPE, Esq. M.P.

The EDITOR’S PREFACE; with Historical and Descriptive Particulars of

Aubrey’s Manuscripts

Title-page to the Original Manuscript

DEDICATION, by Aubrey, to THOMAS, EARL of PEMBROKE

The AUTHOR’S Original PREFACE.

Letter from John Ray to Aubrey, with Comments on the Writings of the

latter.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. CHOROGRAPHIA:—Geological Remarks, Local

Influences

List of “THE CHAPTERS”

PART I.

CHAP. I. AIR:—Winds, Mists, Storms, Meteors, Echos, Sounds

CHAP. II. SPRINGS MEDICINAL:—At Chippenham, Kington St. Michael,

Draycot, Seend, Epsom, Melksham, Dundery-hill, Lavington, Devizes,

Minety, Wotton Bassett, &c.; Sir W. Petty’s “Queries for the Tryall of

Minerall Waters”

CHAP. III. RIVERS:—Wily, North Avon, Upper Avon, Nadder, Stour,

Deverill, Kennet, Marden, Thames, &c.; Proposal for a Canal to connect

the Thames and North Avon.

CHAP. IV. SOILS:—Clay, Marl, Fuller’s Earth, Chalk, Gravel, Sand;

Downs, Fairy-rings, Becket’s Path at Winterbourn, Peat, Spontaneous

Vegetation, Hills

CHAP. V. MINERALS AND FOSSILS:—Iron, Silver, Copperas, Umber, Spar,

Lead, Coal.

CHAP. VI. STONES:—Of Haselbury, Chilmark, and Swindon; Lime, Chalk,

Pebbles, Flints; the Grey Wethers

CHAP. VII. FORMED STONES:—Belemnites, Madrepores, Oysters, Astroites,

Cornua Ammonia, Echini, &c.

CHAP. VIII. AN HYPOTHESIS OF THE TERRAQUEOUS GLOBE:—Learned

Speculations on the structure of the Earth.

CHAP. IX. PLANTS:—Herbs, Orcheston Knot-grass, Alhanna, Tobacco, Oak,

Elm, Beech, Hazel, Yew, Box, Holly, Osiers, Elders, Ash, Glastonbury

Thorn, &c.

CHAP. X. BEASTS:—Deer, Hares, Rabbits, Dogs, Cattle

CHAP. XI. FISHES:—Trout, Eels, Umbers or Grayling, Carp, Tench,

Salmon; Fish-ponds, &c.

CHAP. XII. BIRDS:—Larks, Woodpeckers, Bustards, Crows, Pheasants,

Hawks, Sea-gulls, &c.

CHAP. XIII. REPTILES AND INSECTS:—Snakes, Adders, Toads, Snails, Bees;

Recipe to make Metheglyn

CHAP. XIV. MEN AND WOMEN:—Longevity, Remarkable Births, &c..

CHAP. XV. DISEASES AND CURES:—Leprosy, the Plague, Gout, Ricketts,

Pin-and-Web, &c.

CHAP. XVI. OBSERVATIONS ON PARISH REGISTERS:—Population, Poor Rates,

Periodical Diseases

PART II.

CHAP. I. WORTHIES:—Princes, Saints, Prelates, Statesmen, Writers,

Musicians; John Aubrey, Captain Thomas Stump

CHAP. II. THE GRANDEUR OF THE HERBERTS, EARLS OF PEMBROKE:—Description

of Wilton. House; Pictures, Library, Armoury, Gardens, Stables; the

Earl’s Hounds and Hawks, Tilting at Wilton, &c.

CHAP. III. LEARNED MEN WHO HAD PENSIONS GRANTED TO THEM BY THE EARLS

OF PEMBROKE:—With Notices of Mary, Countess of Pembroke, Dr. Mouffet,

William Browne, Philip Massinger, J. Donne, &c.

CHAP. IV. GARDENS:—At Lavington, Chelsea, Wilton, Longleat

CHAP. V. ARTS, LIBERAL AND MECHANICAL:—Learning, Colleges; Trades,

Inventions, Machinery

CHAP. VI. ARCHITECTURE:—Stonehenge, Avebury, Old Sarum, Salisbury

Cathedral, Wardour Castle, Calne Church, Painted Glass, Bradenstoke

Priory, Market Crosses, Paving Tiles, Old Mansions, Church Bells

CHAP. VII. AGRICULTURE:—Manures, Water Meadows, Butter and Cheese,

Malting and Brewing

CHAP. VIII. THE DOWNES:—Pastoral Life, Sydney’s Arcadia; Sheep,

Shepherds, Pastoral Poetry

CHAP. IX. WOOL:—Qualities of Wool; its Growth, and Manufacture

CHAP. X. FALLING OF RENTS in Wiltshire attributed to the reduced price

of Wool

CHAP. XI. HISTORY OF THE CLOTHING TRADE:—Merchants of the Staple;

Introduction of the Cloth Manufacture

CHAP. XII. EMINENT CLOTHIERS or WILTSHIRE:—John Hall, of Salisbury;

William Stump, of Malmsbury; Paul Methuen, of Bradford, &c.

CHAP. XIII. FAIRS AND MARKETS:—At Castle-Combe, Wilton, Chilmark,

Salisbury, Devizes, Warminster, Marlborough, Lavington, Highworth,

Swindon

CHAP. XIV. HAWKS AND HAWKING:—Extraordinary Flight, Historical Details

CHAP. XV. THE RACE:—Salisbury Races, Famous Race Horses, Stobball-play

CHAP. XVI. NUMBER OF ATTORNEYS IN WILTSHIRE:—Increase of Attorneys the

Cause of Litigation

CHAP. XVII. FATALITIES OF FAMILIES AND PLACES:—Norrington,

Castle-Combe, Stanton St. Quintin, Easton Piers

CHAP. XVIII. ACCIDENTS, OR REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES:—Destruction of

Marlborough by Fire; Cure of the King’s Evil, Pretended Witchcraft,

Mysterious Knockings at North Tidworth, Witches Executed at Salisbury,

Phantoms

CHAP. XIX. SEATS:—Merton, Ivy-church, Littlecot, Longleat, Tottenham

Park, Wardour Castle

CHAP. XX. DRAUGHTS OF THE SEATS AND PROSPECTS:—Aubrey’s Instructions

to the Artists for a Map of the County, with Engravings of the

Principal Buildings and Views

MEMOIRES

OF

NATURALL REMARQUES

IN THE

County of Wilts:

TO WHICH ARE ANNEXED,

OBSERVABLES OF THE SAME KIND

IN THE COUNTY OF SURREY, AND

FLYNTSHIRE.

BY

MR. JOHN AUBREY, R.S.S.

1685.

PSALM 92, v. 5, 6.

“O LORD, HOW GLORIOUS ARE THY WORKES: THY THOUGHTS ARE VERY DEEP. AN

UNWISE MAN DOTH NOT WELL CONSIDER THIS: AND A FOOL DOTH NOT UNDERSTAND

IT.”

PSALM 77, v. 11.

“I WILL REMEMBER THE WORKES OF THE LORD: AND CALL TO MIND THY WONDERS

OF OLD TIME.”

GRATII PALISCI CYNEGETICON.

“O RERUM PRUDENS QUANTUM EXPERIENTIA VULGO

MATERIEM LARGILIA BONI, SI VINCERE CURENT

DESIDIAM, ET GRATOS AGITANDO PREBENDERE FINES!

—————— DEUS AUCTOR, ET IPSA

AREM ALUIT NATURA SUAM.”

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THOMAS, EARLE OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERIE,

LORD HERBERT OF CAERDIFFE, &c.;

ONE OF THE PRIVY COUNCELL TO THEIR MAJESTIES,

AND PRESIDENT OF THE ROYALL SOCIETIE.

[A page is appropriated in the manuscript to the Author’s intended

DEDICATION; the name and titles of his patron only being filled in, as

above.

The nobleman named is particularly mentioned by Aubrey in his Chapter

on “The Worthies of Wiltshire”, printed in a subsequent part of this

volume. He was Earl of Pembroke from 1683 till his death in 1733; and

was distinguished for his love of literature and the fine arts. He

formed the Wilton Collection of marbles, medals, and coins; and

succeeded John, Earl of Carbery, as President of the Royal Society, in

November, 1689.—J. B.]

PREFACE.

Till about the yeare 1649,* ’twas held a strange presumption for a man

to attempt an innovation in learning; and not to be good manners to be

more knowing than his neighbours and forefathers. Even to attempt an

improvement in husbandry, though it succeeded with profit, was look’t

upon with an ill eie. “Quo non Livor abit?”† Their neighbours did

scorne to follow it, though not to do it was to their own detriment.

’Twas held a sinne to make a scrutinie into the waies of nature;

whereas Solomon saieth, “Tradidit mundum disputationibus hominum”: and

it is certainly a profound part of religion to glorify GOD in his

workes.‡

* Experimentall Philosophy was then first cultivated by a club at Oxon.

† Ovid. Fast.

‡ “Deus est maximus in minimis. Prsæsentemque refert quælibet Herba

Deum”.

In those times to have had an inventive and enquiring witt was

accounted resverie [affectation§], which censure the famous Dr. William

Harvey could not escape for his admirable discovery of the circulation

of the blood. He told me himself that upon his publishing that booke he

fell in his practice extremely.

§ [The words inclosed within brackets are inserted in Aubrey’s

manuscript above the preceding words, of which they were intended as

corrections or modifications. If the work had been printed by the

author he would doubtless have adopted those words which he deemed most

expressive of his meaning.—J. B.]

Foreigners say of us that we are “Lyncei foris, Talpœ domi”. There is

no nation abounds with greater varietie of soiles, plants, and

mineralls than ours; and therefore it very well deserves to be

surveyed. Certainly there is no hunting to be compared with “Venatio

Panos”; and to take no notice at all of what is dayly offered before

our eyes is grosse stupidity.

I was from my childhood affected with the view of things rare; which is

the beginning of philosophy: and though I have not had leisure to make

any considerable proficiency in it, yet I was carried on with a strong

[secret] inpulse to undertake this taske: I knew not why, unles for my

owne private [particular] pleasure. Credit there was none; for it getts

the disrespect [contempt] of a man’s neighbours. But I could not rest

[be] quiet till I had obeyed this secret call. Mr. Camden, Dr. Plott,

and Mr. Wood confess the same [like].

I am the first that ever made an essay of this kind for Wiltshire, and,

for ought I know, in the nation; having begun it in An°. 1656. In the

yeare 1675 I became acquainted with Dr. Robert Plott, who had then his

“Naturall Historie of Oxfordshire” upon the loome, which I seeing he

did performe so excellently well, desired him to undertake Wiltshire,

and I would give him all my papers: as I did [he had] also my papers of

Surrey as to the naturall things, and offered him my further

assistance. But he was then invited into Staffordshire to illustrate

that countie; which having finished in December 1684, I importuned him

again to undertake this county: but he replied he was so taken up in

[arranging?] of the Museum Ashmoleanum that he should meddle no more in

that kind, unles it were for his native countie of Kent; and therefore

wished me to finish and publish what I had begun. Considering therefore

that if I should not doe this myselfe, my papers might either perish,

or be sold in an auction, and somebody else, as is not uncommon, put

his name to my paines; and not knowing any one that would undertake

this designe while I live, I have tumultuarily stitch’t up what I have

many yeares since collected; being chiefly but the observations of my

frequent road between South and North Wilts; that is, between Broad

Chalke and Eston Piers. If I had had then leisure, I would willingly

have searched the naturalls of the whole county. It is now fifteen

yeares since I left this country, and have at this distance inserted

such additions as I can call to mind, so that methinks this description

is like a picture that Mr. Edm. Bathurst, B.D. of Trinity Colledge,

Oxon, drew of Dr. Kettle three [some] yeares after his death, by

strength of memory only; he had so strong an idea of him: and it did

well resemble him. I hope hereafter it will be an incitement to some

ingeniouse and publique spirited young Wiltshire man to polish and

compleat what I have here delivered rough-hewen; for I have not leisure

to heighten my style. And it may seem nauseous to some that I have

rak’t up so many western vulgar proverbs, which I confess I do not

disdeigne to quote,* for proverbs are drawn from the experience and

observations of many ages; and are the ancient natural philosophy of

the vulgar, preserved in old English in bad rhythmes, handed downe to

us; and which I set here as “Instantiæ Crucis” for our curious moderne

philosophers to examine and give {Gk: dioti} to their {Gk: hostis}.

* Plinie is not afraide to call them Oracles: (Lib. xviii. Nat. Hist.

cap. iv.) “Ac primum omnium oraculis majore ex parte agemus, qua non in

alio vite genere plura certiorara sunt.”

But before I fly at the marke to make a description of this county, I

will take the boldness to cancelleer, and give a generall description

of what parts of England I have seen, as to the soiles: which I call

Chorographia Super and Sub-terranea (or thinke upon a more fitting

name).

_London, Gresham Coll., June_ 6_th_, 1685.

[The original of the following LETTER from JOHN RAY to AUBREY is

inserted immediately after the Preface, in the MS. at Oxford. It is

not transcribed into the Royal Society’s copy of the work.—J. B.]

FOR MR. JOHN AUBREY.

Sr,

Black Notley, 8br 27, —91.

Your letter of Octob. 22d giving advice of your safe return to London

came to hand, wch as I congratulate with you, so have I observed your

order in remitting your Wiltshire History, wch with this enclosed I

hope you will receive this week. I gave you my opinion concerning this

work in my last, wch I am more confirmed in by a second perusal, and

doe wish that you would speed it to ye presse. It would be convenient

to fill up ye blanks so far as you can; but I am afraid that will be a

work of time, and retard the edition. Whatever you conceive may give

offence may by ye wording of it be so softned and sweetned as to take

off ye edge of it, as pills are gilded to make them lesse ungratefull.

As for the soil or air altering the nature, and influencing the wits of

men, if it be modestly delivered, no man will be offended at it,

because it accrues not to them by their own fault: and yet in such

places as dull men’s wits there are some exceptions to be made. You

know the poet observes that Democritus was an example—

Summos posse viros, et magna exempla daturos

Vervecû in patria, crassoque sub aere nasci.

Neither is yr observation universally true that the sons of labourers

and rusticks are more dull and indocile than those of gentlemen and

tradesmen; for though I doe not pretend to have become of the first

magnitude for wit or docility, yet I think I may without arrogance say

that in our paltry country school here at Braintry—“Ego meis me

minoribus condiscipulis ingenio prælu[si]”: but perchance the advantage

I had of my contemporaries may rather be owing to my industry than

natural parts; so that I should rather say “studio” or “industria

excellui”.

I think (if you can give me leave to be free with you) that you are a

little too inclinable to credit strange relations. I have found men

that are not skilfull in ye history of nature, very credulous, and apt

to impose upon themselves and others, and therefore dare not give a

firm assent to anything they report upon their own autority; but are

ever suspicious that they may either be deceived themselves, or delight

to teratologize (pardon ye word) and to make a shew of knowing strange

things.

You write that the Museum at Oxford was rob’d, but doe not say whether

your noble present was any part of the losse. Your picture done in

miniature by Mr. Cowper is a thing of great value, I remember so long

agoe as I was in Italy, and while he was yet living, any piece of his

was highly esteemed there; and for that kind of painting he was

esteemed the best artist in Europe.

What my present opinion is concerning formed stones, and concerning the

formation of the world, you will see in a discourse that is now gone to

the presse concerning the Dissolution of the World: my present opinion,

I say, for in such things I am not fix’t, but ready to alter upon

better information, saving always ye truth of ye letter of ye

scripture. I thank you for your prayers and good wishes, and rest,

Sr, your very humble servant,

JOHN RAY.

I have seen many pheasants in a little grove by the city of Florence,

but I suppose they might have been brought in thither from some foreign

country by the Great Duke.

Surely you mistook what I wrote about elms. I never to my knowledge

affirmed that the most common elm grows naturally in the north: but

only thought that though it did not grow there, yet it might be native

of England: for that all trees doe not grow in all countreys or parts

of England. The wych-hazel, notwithstanding its name, is nothing akin

to the “corylus” but a true elm.

The story concerning the drawing out the nail driven crosse the

wood-pecker’s hole is without doubt a fable.

Asseveres and vesicates are unusuall words, and I know not whether the

wits will allow them.

[The name of John Ray holds a pre-eminent place amongst the naturalists

of Great Britain. He was the first in this country who attempted a

classification of the vegetable kingdom, and his system possessed many

important and valuable characteristics. Ray was the son of a blacksmith

at Black Notley, near Braintree, in Essex, where he was born, in 1627.

The letter here printed sufficiently indicates his natural shrewdness

and intelligence. One of his works here referred to is entitled “Three

Physico-Theological Discourses concerning Chaos, the Deluge, and the

Dissolution of the World,” 1692. There is a well-written memoir of Ray

in the “Penny CyclopEedia,” Aubrey’s portrait, by the celebrated

miniature-painter Samuel Cooper, alluded to above, is not now extant;

but another portrait of him by Faithorne is preserved in the Ashmolean

Museum, and has been several times engraved. A print from the latter

drawing accompanied the “Memoirs of Aubrey,” published by the Wiltshire

Topographical Society. Cooper died in 1672, and was buried in the old

church of St. Pancras, London. Ray visited Italy between the years 1663

and 1666. J. B.]

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

CHOROGRAPHIA.

[IT has been thought sufficient to print only a few brief extracts from

this Introductory Chapter, which in the original is of considerable

length. Its title (derived from the Greek words {Gk:choros} and {Gk:

grapho}) is analogous to Geography. By far the greater portion of it

has no application to Wiltshire, but, on the contrary, consists of

Aubrey’s notes, chiefly geological and botanical, on every part of

England which he had visited; embracing many of the counties. His

observations shew him to have been a minute observer of natural

appearances and phenomena, and in scientific knowledge not inferior to

many of his contemporaries; but, in the present state of science, some

of his remarks would be justly deemed erroneous and trivial.

It will be seen that he contends strongly for the influence of the soil

and air upon the mental and intellectual faculties or “wits”, of

individuals; on which point some of his remarks are curious. Ray’s

comments on this part of his subject will be found in the letter

already printed (page 7). “The temper of the earth and air”, in the

opinion of Aubrey, caused the variance in “provincial pronunciation”.

The author’s theory of the formation and structure of the earth, which

is here incidentally noticed, will be adverted to in the description of

Chapter VIII.—J. B.]

PETRIFIED SHELLS.—As you ride from Cricklad to Highworth, Wiltsh., you

find frequently roundish stones, as big, or bigger than one’s head,

which (I thinke) they call braine stones, for on the outside they

resemble the ventricles of the braine; they are petrified sea

mushromes. [Fossil Madrepores?—J. B.]

The free-stone of Haselbury [near Box] hath, amongst severall other

shells, perfect petrified scalop-shells. 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.

At Dinton, on the hills on both sides, are perfect petrified shells in

great abundance, something like cockles, but neither striated, nor

invecked, nor any counter-shell to meet, but plaine and with a long

neck of a reddish gray colour, the inside part petrified sand; of which

sort I gave a quantity to the R. Society about twenty yeares since; the

species whereof Mr. Hooke says is now lost.

On Bannes-downe, above Ben-Eston near Bathe, [Banner-downe, near

Bath-Easton.—J. B.] where a battle of king Arthur was fought, are great

stones scattered in the same manner as they are on Durnham-downe, about

Bristow, which was assuredly the work of an earthquake, when these

great cracks and vallies were made.

The like dispersion of great stones is upon the hills by Chedar rocks,

as all about Charter House, [Somersetshire,] and the like at the forest

at Fountain-Bleau, in France; and so in severall parts of England, and

yet visible the remarques of earthquakes and volcanoes; but in time the

husbandmen will cleare their ground of them, as at Durnham-downe they

are exceedingly diminished since my remembrance, by making lime of

them.

The great inequality of the surface of the earth was rendred so by

earthquakes: which when taking fire, they ran in traines severall miles

according to their cavernes; so for instance at Yatton Keynell, Wilts,

a crack beginnes which runnes to Longdeanes, in the parish, and so to

Slaughtonford, where are high steep cliffs of freestone, and opposite

to it at Colern the like cliffs; thence to Bathe, where on the south

side appeare Claverdon, on the north, Lansdon cliffs, both downes of

the same piece; and it may be at the same tune the crack was thus made

at St. Vincent’s rocks near Bristow, as likewise Chedar rocks, like a

street. From Castle Combe runnes a valley or crack to Ford, where it

shootes into that that runnes from Yatton to Bathe.

Edmund Waller, Esq., the poet, made a quaere, I remember, at the Royal

Society, about 1666, whether Salisbury plaines were always plaines?

In Jamaica, and in other plantations of America, e. g. in Virginia, the

natives did burn down great woods, to cultivate the soil with maiz and

potato-rootes, which plaines were there made by firing the woods to

sowe corne. They doe call these plaines Savannas. Who knowes but

Salisbury plaines, &c. might be made long time ago, after this manner,

and for the same reason?

I have oftentimes wished for a mappe of England coloured according to

the colours of the earth; with markes of the fossiles and minerals.

[Geological maps, indicating, by different colours, the formations of

various localities, are now familiar to the scientific student. The

idea of such a map seems to have been first suggested by Dr. Martin

Lister, in a paper on “New Maps of Countries, with Tables of Sands,

Clays, &c.” printed in the Philosophical Transactions, in 1683. The

Board of Agriculture published a few maps in 1794, containing

delineations of soils, &c.; and in 1815 Mr. William Smith produced the

first map of the strata of England and Wales. Since then G. B.

Greenough, Esq. has published a similar map, but greatly improved; and

numerous others, representing different countries and districts, have

subsequently appeared.—J. B.]

The great snailes* on the downes at Albery in Surrey (twice as big as

ours) were brought from Italy by ..... Earle Marshal about 1638.

OF THE INDOLES OF THE IRISH.—Mr. J. Stevens went from, Trinity College

in Oxford, 1647-8, to instruct the Lord Buckhurst in grammar;

afterwards he was schoolmaster of the Free Schoole at Camberwell;

thence he went to be master of Merchant Taylors’ Schoole; next he was

master of the schoole at Charter House; thence he went to the Free

Schoole at Lever Poole, from whence he was invited to be a schoole

master of the great schoole at Dublin, in Ireland; when he left that he

was schoolmaster of Blandford, in Dorset; next of Shaftesbury; from

whence he was invited by the city of Bristoll to be master of the Free

Schoole there; from thence he went to be master of the Free Schoole of

Dorchester in Dorset, and thence he removed to be Rector of Wyley in

Wilts, 1666.

* Bavoli, (i.e.) drivelers.—J. EVELYN.

CHOROGRAPHIA: LOCAL INFLUENCES.

He is my old acquaintance, and I desired him to tell me freely if the

Irish Boyes had as good witte as the English; because some of our

severe witts have ridiculed the Irish understanding. He protested to me

that he could not find but they had as good witts as the English; but

generally speaking he found they had better memories. Dr. James Usher,

Lord Primate of Ireland, had a great memorie: Dr Hayle (Dr. of the

Chaire at Oxford) had a prodigious memorie: Sir Lleonell Jenkins told

me, from him, that he had read over all the Greeke fathers three times,

and never noted them but with his naile. Mr. …. Congreve, an excellent

dramatique poet. Mr. Jo. Dodwell hath also a great memorie, and Mr. ….

Tolet hathe a girle at Dublin, mathematique, who at eleven yeares old

would solve questions in Algebra to admiration. Mr. Tolet told me he

began to instruct her at seven yeares of age. See the Journall of the

R. Society de hoc.

As to singing voyces wee have great diversity in severall counties of

this nation; and any one may observe that generally in the rich vales

they sing clearer than on the hills, where they labour hard and breathe

a sharp ayre. This difference is manifest between the vale of North

Wilts and the South. So in Somersettshire they generally sing well in

the churches, their pipes are smoother. In North Wilts the milkmayds

sing as shrill and cleare as any swallow sitting on a berne:—

“So lowdly she did yerne,

Like any swallow sitting on a berne.”—CHAUCER.

According to the severall sorts of earth in England (and so all the

world over) the Indigense are respectively witty or dull, good or bad.

To write a true account of the severall humours of our own countrey

would be two sarcasticall and offensive: this should be a secret

whisper in the eare of a friend only and I should superscribe here,

“Pinge duos angues—locus est sacer: extra

Mei ite.”—PERSIUS SATYR.

Well then! let these Memoires lye conceal’d as a sacred arcanum.

In North Wiltshire, and like the vale of Gloucestershire (a dirty

clayey country) the Indigense, or Aborigines, speake drawling; they are

phlegmatique, skins pale and livid, slow and dull, heavy of spirit:

hereabout is but little, tillage or hard labour, they only milk the

cowes and make cheese; they feed chiefly on milke meates, which cooles

their braines too much, and hurts their inventions. These circumstances

make them melancholy, contemplative, and malicious; by consequence

whereof come more law suites out of North Wilts, at least double to the

Southern Parts. And by the same reason they are generally more apt to

be fanatiques: their persons are generally plump and feggy: gallipot

eies, and some black: but they are generally handsome enough. It is a

woodsere country, abounding much with sowre and austere plants, as

sorrel, &c. which makes their humours sowre, and fixes their spirits.

In Malmesbury Hundred, &c. (ye wett clayy parts) there have ever been

reputed witches.

On the downes, sc. the south part, where ’tis all upon tillage, and

where the shepherds labour hard, their flesh is hard, their bodies

strong: being weary after hard labour, they have not leisure to read

and contemplate of religion, but goe to bed to their rest, to rise

betime the next morning to their labour.

——“redit labor actus in orbem

Agricolae.”—VIRGIL, ECLOG.

The astrologers and historians write that the ascendant as of Oxford is

Capricornus, whose lord is Saturn, a religious planet, and patron of

religious men. If it be so, surely this influence runnes all along

through North Wilts, the vale of Glocestershire, and Somersetshire. In

all changes of religions they are more zealous than other; where in the

time of the Rome-Catholique religion there were more and better

churches and religious houses founded than any other part of England

could shew, they are now the greatest fanaticks, even to spirituall

madness: e. g. the multitude of enthusiastes. Capt. Stokes, in his

“Wiltshire Rant, “printed about 1650, recites ye strangest

extravagancies of religion that were ever heard of since the time of

the Gnosticks. The rich wett soile makes them hypochondricall.

“Thus wind i’th Hypochondries pent,

Proves but a blast, if downwards sent;

But if it upward chance to flie

Becomes new light and prophecy.”—HUDIBRAS.

[The work above referred to bears the following title: “The Wiltshire

Rant, or a Narrative of the Prophane Actings and Evil Speakings of

Thomas Webbe, Minister of Langley Burrell, &c. By Edward Stokes. “4to.

Lond. 1652.—J. B.]

The Norfolk aire is cleare and fine. Indigente, good clear witts,

subtile, and the most litigious of England: they carry Littleton’s

Tenures at the plough taile. Sir Thorn. Browne, M. D., of Norwich, told

me that their eies in that countrey doe quickly decay; which he imputes

to the clearness and driness (subtileness) of the aire. Wormwood growes

the most plentifully there of any part of England; which the London

apothecaries doe send for.

Memorandum.—That North Wiltshire is very worme-woodish and more

litigious than South Wilts.

[A Table of Contents, or List of the Chapters, is prefixed to each

Part, or Volume, of the Manuscript, as follows:—]

THE CHAPTERS.

PART I.

1. Air.

2. Springs Medicinall.

3. Rivers.

4. Soiles.

5. Mineralls and Fossills.

6. Stones.

7. Formed Stones.

8. An Hypothesis of the Terraqueous Globe: a digression “ad mentem

M{emo}ri”, R. Hook, R.S.S.

9. Plants.

10. Beastes.

11. Fishes.

12. Birds.

13. Insects and Reptils.

14. Men and Woemen.

15. Diseases and Cures.

16. Observations on some Register Books, as also the Poore Rates and

Taxes of the County, “ad mentem D{omi}ni” W. Petty.

PART II.

1. Worthies.

2. The Grandure of the Herberts, Earles of Pembroke. Wilton House and

Garden.

3. Learned Men who received Pensions from the Earles of Pembroke.

4. Gardens—Lavington-garden, Chelsey-garden, &c.

5. Arts—Inventions.

6. Architecture.

7. Agriculture and Improvements.

8. The Downes—Sheep—Shepherds—Pastoralls.

9. Wool.

10. Falling of Rents.

11. History of Cloathing

12. Eminent Cloathiers of this County.

13. Faires and Marketts

14. Hawks and Hawking.

15. The Race.

16. Number of Attorneys in this Countie now and heretofore.

17. Locall Fatality.

18. Accidents.

19. Seates

20. Draughts of the Seates and Prospects [an Appendix].

Memorandum. Anno 1686, ætatis 60.—Mr. David Loggan, the Graver, drew my

picture in black and white, in order to be engraved, which is still in

his hands.

CHAPTER I.

AIR.

[This Chapter contains a variety of matter not apposite to Wiltshire.

Besides the passages here quoted, there are accounts of several

remarkable hurricanes, hail storms, &c., in different parts of England,

as well as in Italy. The damage done by “Oliver’s wind” (the storm said

to have occurred on the death of the Protector Cromwell) is

particularly noticed: though it may be desirable to state on the

authority of Mr. Carlyle, the eloquent editor of “Cromwell’s Letters

and Speeches” (8vo. 1846), that the great tempest which Clarendon

asserts to have raged “for some hours before and after the Protector’s

death”, really occurred four days previous to that event. Aubrey no

doubt readily adopted the general belief upon the subject. He quotes,

without expressly dissenting from it, the opinion of Chief Justice

Hale, that “whirlewinds and all winds of an extraordinary nature are

agitated by the spirits of air”. Lunar rainbows, and meteors of various

kinds, are described in this chapter; together with prognostics of the

seasons from the habits of animals, and some observations made with the

barometer; and under the head of Echoes, “for want of good ones in this

county”, there is a long description by Sir Robert Moray of a

remarkable natural echo at Roseneath, about seventeen miles from

Glasgow. On sounds and echoes there are some curious notes by Evelyn,

but these are irrelevant to the subject of the work.—J. B.]

Before I enter upon the discourse of the AIR of this countie, it would

not be amiss that I gave an account of the winds that most commonly

blow in the western parts of England.

I shall first allege the testimony of Julius Cæsar, who delivers to us

thus: “Corns ventus, qui magnam partem omnis temporis in his locis

flare consuevit”.—(Commentaries, lib. v.) To which I will subjoine this

of Mr. Th. Ax, of Somersetshire, who hath made dayly observations of

the weather for these twenty-five years past, since 1661, and finds

that, one yeare with another, the westerly winds, which doe come from

the Atlantick sea, doe blowe ten moneths of the twelve. Besides, he

hath made observations for thirty years, that the mannours in the

easterne parts of the netherlands of Somersetshire doe yield six or

eight per centum of their value; whereas those in the westerne parts

doe yield but three, seldome four per centum, and in some mannours but

two per centum. Hence he argues that the winds carrying these

unwholesome vapours of the low country from one to the other, doe make

the one more, the other less, healthy.

This shire may be divided as it were into three stories or stages.

Chippenham vale is the lowest. The first elevation, or next storie, is

from the Derry Hill, or Bowdon Lodge, to the hill beyond the Devises,

called Red-hone, which is the limbe or beginning of Salisbury plaines.

From the top of this hill one may discerne Our Lady Church Steeple at

Sarum, like a fine Spanish needle. I would have the height of these

hills, as also Hackpen, and those toward Lambourn, which are the

highest, to he taken with the quicksilver barometer, according to the

method of Mr. Edmund Halley in Philosophical Transactions, No. 181.

Now, although Mindip-hills and Whitesheet, &c., are as a barr and

skreen to keep off from Wiltshire the westerly winds and raines, as

they doe in some measure repel those noxious vapours, yet wee have a

flavour of them; and when autumnal agues raigne, they are more common

on the hills than in the vales of this country.

The downes of Wiltshire are covered with mists, when the vales are

clear from them, and the sky serene; and they are much more often here

than in the lowest story or stage.

The leather covers of bookes, &c. doe mold more and sooner in the hill

countrey than in the vale. The covers of my bookes in my closet at

Chalke would be all over covered with a hoare mouldinesse, that I could

not know of what colour the leather was; when my bookes in my closet at

Easton-Piers (in the vale) were not toucht at all with any mouldiness.

So the roomes at Winterslow, which is seated exceeding high, are very

mouldie and dampish. Mr. Lancelot Moorehouse, Rector of Pertwood, who

was a very learned man, say’d that mists were very frequent there: it

stands very high, neer Hindon, which one would thinke to stand very

healthy: there is no river nor marsh neer it, yet they doe not live

long there.

The wheat hereabout, sc. towards the edge of the downes, is much

subject to be smutty, which they endeavour to prevent by drawing a

cart-rope over the corne after the meldews fall.

Besides that the hill countrey is elevated so high in the air, the

soile doth consist of chalke and mawme, which abounds with nitre, which

craddles the air, and turns it into mists and water.

On the east side of the south downe of the farme of Broad Chalke are

pitts called the Mearn-Pitts*, which, though on a high hill, whereon is

a sea marke towards the Isle of Wight, yet they have alwaies water in

them. How they came to be made no man knowes; perhaps the mortar was

digged there for the building of the church.

* Marne is an old French word for marle.

Having spoken of mists it brings to my remembrance that in December,

1653, being at night in the court at Sr. Charles Snell’s at Kington St.

Michael in this country, there being a very thick mist, we sawe our

shadowes on the fogg as on a wall by the light of the lanternes, sc.

about 30 or 40 foot distance or more. There were several gentlemen

which sawe this; particularly Mr. Stafford Tyndale. I have been

enformed since by some that goe a bird-batting in winter nights that

the like hath been seen: but rarely.

[A similar appearance to that here mentioned by Aubrey is often

witnessed in mountainous countries, and in Germany has given rise to

many supernatural and romantic legends. The “spectre of the Brocken”,

occasionally seen among the Harz mountains in Hanover, is described by

Mr. Brayley in his account of Cumberland, in the Beauties of England

and Wales, to illustrate some analogous appearances, which greatly

astonished the residents near Souterfell, in that county, about a

century ago.—J. B.]

The north part of this county is much influenc’t by the river Severne,

which flowes impetuously from the Atlantick Sea. It is a ventiduct, and

brings rawe gales along with it: the tydes bringing a chilnesse with

them.

On the top of Chalke-downe, 16 or 18 miles from the sea, the oakes are,

as it were, shorne by the south and south-west winds; and do recline

from the sea, as those that grow by the sea-side.

A Wiltshire proverb:-

“When the wind is north-west,

The weather is at the best:

If the raine comes out of east

’Twill raine twice twenty-four howres at the least.”

I remember Sr. Chr. Wren told me, 1667, that winds might alter, as the

apogæum: e.g. no raine in Egypt heretofore; now common: Spaine barren;

Palseston sun-dried, &c. Quaere, Mr. Hook de hoc.

A proverbial rithme observed as infallible by the inhabitants on the

Severne-side:—

“If it raineth when it doth flow,

Then yoke your oxe, and goe to plough;

But if it raineth when it doth ebb,

Then unyoke your oxe, and goe to bed.”

It oftentimes snowes on the hill at Bowden-parke, when no snow falles

at Lacock below it. This hill is higher than Lacock steeple three or

four times, and it is a good place to try experiments. On this parke is

a seate of my worthy friend George Johnson, Esqr., councillor at lawe,

from whence is a large and most delightfull prospect over the vale of

North Wiltshire.

Old Wiltshire country prognosticks of the weather:—

“When the hen doth moult before the cock,

The winter will be as hard as a rock;

But if the cock moults before the hen,

The winter will not wett your shoes seame.”

In South Wiltshire the constant observation is that if droppes doe hang

upon the hedges on Candlemas-day that it will be a good pease yeare. It

is generally agreed on to be matter of fact; the reason perhaps may be

that there may rise certain unctuous vapours which may cause that

fertility. [This is a general observation: we have it in Essex. I

reject as superstitious all prognosticks from the weather on particular

days.—JOHN RAY.]

At Hullavington, about 1649, there happened a strange wind, which did

not onely lay down flatt the corne and grasse as if a huge roller had

been drawn over it, but it flatted also the quickset hedges of two or

three grounds of George Joe, Esq.-It was a hurricane.

Anno 1660, I being then at dinner with Mr. Stokes at Titherton, news

was brought in to us that a whirlewind had carried some of the

hay-cocks over high elmes by the house: which bringes to my mind a

story that is credibly related of one Mr. J. Parsons, a kinsman of

ours, who, being a little child, was sett on a hay-cock, and a

whirlewind took him up with half the hay-cock and carried him over high

elmes, and layd him down safe, without any hurt, in the next ground.

Anno 1581, there fell hail-stones at Dogdeane, near Salisbury, as big

as a child’s fist of three or four yeares old; which is mentioned in

the Preface of an Almanack by John Securis, Maister of Arts and

Physick, dedicated to ….. Lord High Chancellor. He lived at Salisbury.

’Tis pitty such accidents are not recorded in other Almanacks in order

for a history of the weather.

Edward Saintlow, of Knighton, Esq. was buried in the church of Broad

Chalk, May the 6th, 1578, as appeares by the Register booke. The snow

did then lie so thick on the ground that the bearers carried his body

over the gate in Knighton field, and the company went over the hedges,

and they digged a way to the church porch. I knew some ancient people

of the parish that did remember it. On a May day, 1655 or 1656, being

then in Glamorganshire, at Mr. Jo. Aubrey’s at Llanchrechid, I saw the

mountaines of Devonshire all white with snow. There fell but little in

Glamorganshire.

From the private Chronologicall Notes of the learned Edward Davenant,

of Gillingham, D.D.:—“On the 25th of July 1670, there was a rupture in

the steeple of Steeple Ashton by lightning. The steeple was

ninety-three feet high above the tower; which was much about that

height. This being mending, and the last stone goeing to be putt in by

the two master workemen, on the 15th day of October following, a sudden

storme with a clap of thunder tooke up the steeple from the tower, and

killed both the workmen in nictu oculi. The stones fell in and broke

part of the church, but never hurt the font. This account I had from

Mr. Walter Sloper, attorney, of Clement’s Inne, and it is registred on

the church wall.” [The inscription will be found in the Beauties of

Wiltshire, vol. iii. page 205. It fully details the above

circumstances.—J. B.]

Whilst the breaches were mending and the thunder showr arose, one

standing in the church-yard observed a black cloud to come sayling

along towards the steeple, and called to the workman as he was on the

scaffold; and wisht him to beware of it and to make hast. But before he

went off the clowd came to him, and with a terrible crack threw down

the steeple, sc. about the middle, where he was at worke. Immediately

they lookt up and their steeple was lost.

I doe well remember, when I was seaven yeares old, an oake in a ground

called Rydens, in Kington St. Michael Parish, was struck with

lightning, not in a strait but helical line, scil. once about the tree

or once and a half, as a hop twists about the pole; and the stria

remains now as if it had been made with a gouge.

On June 3rd, 1647, (the day that Cornet Joyce did carry King Charles

prisoner to the Isle of Wight from Holdenby,) did appeare this

phenomenon, [referring to a sketch in the margin which represents two

luminous circles, intersecting each other; the sun being seen in the

space formed by their intersection.—J. B.] which continued from about

ten a clock in the morning till xii. It was a very cleare day, and few

took notice of it because it was so near the sunbeams. It was seen at

Broad Chalke by my mother, who espied it going to see what a clock it

was at an horizontal dial, and then all the servants about the house

sawe it Also Mr. Jo. Sloper the vicar here sawe it with his family,

upon the like occasion looking on the diall. Some of Sr. George Vaughan

of Falston’s family who were hunting sawe it. The circles were of a

rainbowe colour: the two filats, that crosse the circle (I presume they

were segments of a third circle) were of a pale colour.

Ignis fatuus, called by the vulgar Kit of the Candlestick, is not very

rare on our downes about Michaelmass. [These ignes fatui, or

Jack-o’-lanthorns, as they are popularly called, are frequently seen in

low boggy grounds. In my boyish days I was often terrified by stories

of their leading travellers astray, and fascinating them.—J. B.]

Biding in the north lane of Broad Chalke in the harvest time in the

twy-light, or scarce that, a point of light, by the hedge, expanded

itselfe into a globe of about three inches diameter, or neer four, as

boies blow bubbles with soape. It continued but while one could say

one, two, three, or four at the most It was about a foot from my

horse’s eie; and it made him turn his head quick aside from it. It was

a pale light as that of a glowe-worme: it may be this is that which

they call a blast or blight in the country.

Colonel John Birch shewed me a letter from his bayliff, 166f, at

Milsham, that advertised that as he was goeing to Warminster market

early in the morning they did see fire fall from the sky, which did

seem as big as a bushell I have forgot the day of the moneth.

From Meteors I will passe to the elevation of the poles. See “An

Almanack, 1580, made for the Meridian of Salisbury, whose longitude is

noted to bee ten degrees, and the latitude of the elevation of the Pole

Arctick 51 degrees 47 minutes. By John Securis, Maister of Art and

Physick”. To which I will annexe the title of another old almanack,

both which were collected by Mr. Will. Lilly. “Almanack, 1580, compiled

and written in the City of Winchester, by Humphrey Norton, Student in

Astronomic, gathered and made for the Pole Arctik of the said city,

where the pole is elevated 51 degrees 42 minutes”.

I come now to speak of ECHOS:-

“Vocalis Nymphe; quæ nec reticere loquenti

Nec prior ipsa loqui didicit, resonabilis Echo.

Ille fugit; fugiensque manus complexibus aufert.”—OVID, METAMORPH. lib.

iii.

But this coy nymph does not onely escape our hands, but our sight, and

wee doe understand her onely by induction and analogic. As the motion

caused by a stone lett fall into the water is by circles, so sounds

move by spheres in the same manner, which, though obvious enough, I doe

not remember to have seen in any booke.

None of our ecchos in this country that I hear of are polysyllabicall.

When the Gospels or Chapters are read over the choire dore of Our Lady

Church in Salisbury, there is a quick and strong monosyllabicall echo,

which comes presently on the reader’s voice: but when the prayers are

read in the choire, there is no echo at all. This reading place is 15

or 16 foot above the levell of the pavement: and the echo does more

especially make its returnes from Our Ladies ChappelL

So in my kitchin-garden at the plain at Chalke is a monosyllabicall

Echo; but it is sullen and mute till you advance …. paces on the easie

ascent, at which place one’s mouth is opposite to the middle of the

heighth of the house at right angles; and then, to use the expression

of the Emperor Nero,-

“— reparabilis adsonat Echo.”-PERSIUS.

Why may I not take the libertie to subject to this discourse of echos

some remarks of SOUNDS? The top of one of the niches in the grot in

Wilton gardens, as one sings there, doth return the note A “re”,

lowder, and clearer, but it doth not the like to the eighth of it. The

diameter is 22 inches. But the first time I happened on this kind of

experiment was when I was a scholar in Oxford, walking and singing

under Merton-Colledge gate, which is a Gothique irregular vaulting, I

perceived that one certain note could be returned with a lowd humme,

which was C. “fa”, “ut”, or D. “sol”, “re”; I doe not now well remember

which. I have often observed in quires that at certain notes of the

organ the deske would have a tremulation under my hand. So will timber;

so will one’s hat, though a spongie thing, as one holds it under one’s

arm at a musique meeting. These accidents doe make me reflect on the

brazen or copper Tympana, mentioned by Vitruvius, for the clearer and

farther conveying the sound of the recitatores and musicians to the

auditors. I am from hence induc’t to be of opinion that these tympana

were made according to such and such proportions, suitable to such and

such notes.

Mersennus, or Kircher, sayes, that one may know what quantity of liquor

is in the vessel by the sound of it, knowing before the empty note. I

have severall times heard great brasse pannes ring by the barking of a

hound; and also by the loud voice of a strong man.-(The voice, if very

strong and sharp, will crack a drinking glass.—J. EVELYN.)

[I have been favoured with a confirmation of this note of Evelyn from

the personal experience of my old friend. Mr. Brayley, who was present

at a party on Ludgate Hill, London, many years ago, when Mr.

Broadhurst, the famed public vocalist, by singing a high note, caused a

wine glass on the table to break, the bowl being separated from the

stem.—J. B.]

After the echos I would have the draught of the house of John Hall, at

Bradford, Esq., which is the best built house for the quality of a

gentleman in Wilts. It was of the best architecture that was commonly

used in King James the First’s raigne. It is built all of freestone,

full of windowes, hath two wings: the top of the house adorned with

railes and baristers. There are two if not three elevations or ascents

to it: the uppermost is adorned with terrasses, on which are railes and

baristers of freestone. It faceth the river Avon, which lies south of

it, about two furlongs distant: on the north side is a high hill. Now,

a priori, I doe conclude that if one were on the south side of the

river opposite to this elegant house, that there must of necessity be a

good echo returned from the house; and probably if one stand east or

west from the house at a due distance, the wings will afford a double

echo.

[Part of this once fine and interesting mansion still remains, but

wofully degraded and mutilated. It is called Kingston House, having

been formerly the residence of a Duke of Kingston. It appears to have

been built by the same architect as the mansion of Longleat, which was

erected between the years 1567 and 1579, and for which, it is believed,

John of Padua was employed to make designs.—J. B.]

CHAPTER II.

SPRINGS MEDICINALL.

[IN Aubrey’s time the mineral waters of Bath, Tonbridge, and other

places, were very extensively resorted to for medical purposes, and

great importance was attached to them in a sanatory point of view. The

extracts which have been selected from this chapter sufficiently shew

the limited extent of the author’s chemical knowledge, in the analysis

of waters; which he appears to have seldom carried beyond precipitation

or evaporation. He mentions several other springs in Wiltshire and

elsewhere, attributing various healing properties to some of them; but

of others merely observing, with great simplicity, whether or not their

water was adapted to wash linen, boil pease, or affect the fermentation

of beer. The chapter comprises a few remarks on droughts; and

particularly mentions a remarkable cure of cancer by an “emplaster” or

“cataplasme” of a kind of unctuous earth found in Bradon forest.—J. B.]

HOLY-WELL, in the parish of Chippenham, near Sheldon, by precipitation

of one-third of a pint with a strong lixivium, by the space of

twenty-four houres I found a sediment of the quantity of neer a small

hazell nut-shell of a kind of nitre; sc. a kind of flower of that

colour (or lime stone inclining to yellow); the particles as big as

grosse sand. Upon evaporation of the sayd water, which was a pottle or

better, I found two sorts of sediment, perhaps by reason of the oblique

hanging of the kettle: viz. one sort of a deep soot colour; the other

of the colour of cullom earth. It changed not colour by infusion of

powder of galles. Try it with syrup of violettes.

Hancock’s well at Luckington is so extremely cold that in summer one

cannot long endure one’s hand in it. It does much good to the eies. It

cures the itch, &c. By precipitation it yields a white sediment,

inclining to yellow; sc. a kind of fine flower. I believe it is much

impregnated with nitre. In the lane that leads from hence to Sapperton

the earth is very nitrous, which proceeds from the rich deep blew

marle, which I discovered in the lane which leads to Sapworth.

Biddle-well lies between Kington St. Michael and Swinley; it turnes

milke. In the well of the mannour house (Mr. Thorn. Stokes) of Kington

St. Michael is found talc, as also at the well at Priory St. Maries, in

this parish; and I thinke common enough in these parts.

In Kington St. Michael parish is a well called Mayden-well, which I

find mentioned in the Legeir-booke of the Lord Abbot of Glaston, called

Secretum Domini [or Secretum Abbatis.] Let it be tryed. Alice Grig

knows where about it is.

In the park at Kington St. Michael is a well called Marian’s-well,

mentioned in the same Legeir-book.

In the parish of North Wraxhall, at the upper end of ye orchard of

Duncomb-mill at ye foot of ye hill ye water petrifies in some degree;

which is the onely petrifying water that I know in this countie. [In

subsequent pages Aubrey refers to other petrifying waters near Calne,

Devizes, and elsewhere.—J. B.]

At Draycott Cerne (the seate of my ever honoured friend Sir James Long,

Baronet, whom I name for honour’s sake) the waters of the wells are

vitriolate, and with powder of galles doe turne of a purple colour.-[I

have a delicate, cleare, and plentifull spring at Upper Deptford, never

dry, and very neer the river Ravens-born; the water famous for ye eyes,

and many other medicinal purposes. Sr Rich. Browne, my father-in-lawe,

immur’d it, wth a chaine and iron dish for travellers to drink, and has

sett up an inscription in white marble.—JOHN EVELYN.]

Stock-well, at Rowd, is in the highway, which is between two gravelly

cliffs, which in warm weather are candied. It changed not colour with

powder of galles; perhaps it may have the effect of Epsham water. The

sediment by precipitation is a perfect white flower, Mice nitre. The

inhabitants told me that it is good for the eies, and that it washes

very well. It is used for the making of medicines.

At Polshutt rises a spring in a ditch neer Sommerham-bridge, at Seenes

townes-end, in a ground of Sir Walter Long, Baronet, which with galles

does presently become a deepe claret colour.

At Polshutt are brackish wells; but especiall that of Rich. Bolwell,

two quarts whereof did yield by evaporation two good spoonfulls heapt

of a very tart salt. Dr. Meret believes it to be vitriolish.

Neer to which is Send (vulgo Seene), a very well built village on a

sandy hill, from whence it has its name; sand being in the old English

called send (for so I find writ in the records of the Tower); as also

Send, in Surrey, is called for the same reason. Underneath this sand

(not very deep), in some place of the highway not above a yard or yard

and a half, I discovered the richest iron oare that ever I sawe or

heard of. Come there on a certain occasion,* it rained at twelve or one

of the clock very impetuously, so that it had washed away the sand from

the oare; and walking out to see the country, about 3 p.m., the sun

shining bright reflected itself from the oare to my eies. Being

surprised at so many spangles, I took up the stones with a great deale

of admiration. I went to the smyth, Geo. Newton, an ingeniose man, who

from a blacksmith turned clock maker and fiddle maker, and he assured

me that he has melted of this oare in his forge, which the oare of the

forest of Deane, &c. will not doe.

* At the Revell there, An°. D. 1666.

The reader is to be advertised that the forest of Milsham did extende

itselfe to the foot of this hill. It was full of goodly oakes, and so

neer together that they say a squirrill might have leaped from tree to

tree. It was disafforested about 1635, and the oakes were sold for 1s.

or 2s. per boord at the most; and then nobody ever tooke notice of this

iron-oare, which, as I sayd before, every sun-shine day, after a

rousing shower, glistered in their eies. Now there is scarce an oake

left in the whole parish, and oakes are very rare all hereabout, so

that this rich mine cannot be melted and turned to profit. Finding this

plenty of rich iron-oare, I was confident that I should find in the

village some spring or springs impregnated with its vertue; so I sent

my servant to the Devizes for some galles to try it; and first began at

Mr. J. Sumner’s, where I lay, with the water of the draught-well in the

court within his house, which by infusion of a little of the powder of

the galles became immediately as black as inke; that one may write

letters visible with it; sc. as with inke diluted with water, which the

water of Tunbridge will not doe, nor any other iron water that ever I

met with or heard of. I tryed it by evaporation and it did yield an

umberlike sediment: I have forgot the proportion. I gave it to the

Royall Society.

In June 1667,1 sent for three bottles of this well water to London, and

experimented it before the Royall Society at Gresham Colledge, at

which, time there was a frequent assembly, and many of the Physitians

of the Colledge of London. Now, whereas the water of Tunbridge, and

others of that kind, being carried but few miles loose their spirits,

and doe not alter their colour at all with powder of galles, these

bottles, being brought by the carrier eighty odd miles, and in so hot

weather, did turn, upon the infusion of the powder, as deep as the

deepest claret; to the admiration of the physitians then present, who

unanimously declared that this water might doe much good: and Dr. Piers

sayd that in some cases such waters were good to begin with, and to end

with the Bath; and in some “è contra”. This place is but 9 or 10 miles

from Bath.

The Drs. then spake to me, to write to some physitians at Bath, and to

recommend it to them, whom I knew; which I did. But my endeavours were

without effect till August 1684. But they doe so much good that they

now speake aloud their own prayses. They were satisfied (I understood

at last) of ye goodnesse and usefulnesse of these waters, but they did

not desire to have patients to be drawn from ye Bath. Now, whereas one

person is grieved with aches, or bruises, or dead palseys, for which

diseases the Bath is chiefly proper, ten or more are ill of chronicall

diseases and obstructions, for the curing whereof these chalybiate

waters are the most soveraigne remedie.

This advertisement I desired Dr. Rich. Blackburne to word. He is one of

the College of Physitians, and practiseth yearly at Tunbridge-wells. It

was printed in an Almanack of Hen. Coley about 1681, but it tooke no

effect.

“Advertisement.—At Seen (neer ye Devizes in Wiltshire) are springs

discovered to be of the nature and vertue of those at Tunbridge, and

altogether as good. They are approved of by severall of ye physitians

of the Colledge in London, and have donne great cures, viz.

particularly in the spleen, the reines, and bladder, affected with

heat, stone, or gravell; or restoring hectick persons to health and

strength, and wonderfully conducing in all cases of obstructions.”

I proceeded and tryed other wells, but my ingeniose faithfull servant

Robert Wiseman (Prudhome) tryed all the wells in the village, and found

that all the wells of the south side doe turne with galles more or

lesse, but the wells of the north side turne not with them at all. This

hill lies eastward and westward; quod N.B.

The water of Jo. Sumner’s well was so bad for household use that they

could not brew nor boyle with it, and used it only to wash the house,

&c.; so that they were necessitated to sinke a well in the common,

which is walled, about a bow shott or more from his dwelling house,

where is fresh and wholsome water. Memorandum. Dr. Grew in his

[Catalogue] of the Royall Society has mistaken this well in the common

for the medicinall well of J. Sumner. But, mem., there is another well

that turnes, I thinke, as deep as J. Sumner’s. [On the subject of this

discovery by Aubrey, to which he attached great importance, the reader

is referred to Britton’s “Memoir of Aubrey”, published by the Wiltshire

Topographical Society, p. 17. As there stated, most of the property

about Seend now belongs to W. H. Ludlow Bruges, Esq. M.P., who

preserves the well; but its waters are not resorted to for sanatory

purposes.—J. B.]

Memorandum. That Dudley, Lord North, grandfather to Sir Francis North,

Lord Keeper, and Baron of Guildford, returning from his travells from

the Spaw, &c. making a visit to the Earle of Leicester at Penshurst,

his relation, as he was riding thereabout made observation of the earth

where the water run, the colour whereof gave him an indication of its

vertue. He sent for galles, and tryed it by evaporation, &c. and found

out the vertue, which hath ever since continued and donne much good to

the drinkers, and the inhabitants thereabout* This discovery was this

year (1685), about seventy-five years since, and ’tis pitty it should

be buried in oblivion. My Lord Keeper North told me of this himselfe.

*At Tunbridge and Epsom Wells, where were only wild commons, now are

abundance of well-built houses. [The changes and improvements at

Tunbridge Wells have been very great since Aubrey wrote. In 1832 I

wrote and published an octavo volume—“Descriptive Sketches of Tunbridge

Wells and the Calverley Estate”, with maps and prints. Since that time

the railroad has been opened to that place, which will increase its

popularity. Epsom Wells are now deserted. At Melksham, in the vicinity

of Seend, a pump-room, baths, and lodging-houses were erected about

twenty-five years ago; but fashion has not favoured the place with her

sanction. See Beauties of Wiltshire, vol. iii.—J. B.]

When the springs doe breake in Morecombe-bottom, in the north side of

the parish of Broad Chalke, which is seldome, ’tis observed that it

foretells a deer yeare for corne. It hath discontinued these forty

yeares.

At Crudwell, neer to the mannour house, is a fine spring in the street

called Bery-well. Labourers say it quenches thirst better than the

other waters; as to my tast, it seemed to have aliquantulum aciditatis;

and perhaps is vitriolate. The towne, a mannour of the Lord Lucas, hath

its denomination from this well; perhaps it is called Crudwell from its

turning of milke into cruds.

At Wotton Basset, in the parke, is a petrifying water, which petrifies

very quickly.

At Huntsmill, in this parish, is a well where the water turnes leaves,

&c. of a red colour.

Below the Devises, the water in all the ditches, at the fall of the

leafe, lookes blewish, which I could not but take notice of when I was

a schoole boy.

In the parish of Lydyard-Tregoz is a well called by the country people

Antedocks-well (perhaps here was the cell of some anchorete or

hermite); the water whereof they say was famous heretofore in the old

time for working miracles and curing many diseases.

As I rode from Bristoll to Welles downe Dundery-hill, in the moneth of

June, 1663, walking down the hill on foot, presently after a fine

shower I sawe a little thinne mist arise out of the ditch on the right

hand by the highwayes side. But when I came neer to the place I could

not discern it: so I went back a convenient distance and saw it again;

and then tooke notice of some flower or weed that grew in the ditch

whence the vapour came. I came againe to the marke, and could see

nothing of a mist, as before; but my nose was affected with a smell

which I knew; but immediately it came not to my mind; which was the

smell of the canales that come from the bathes at Bath. By this time my

groom was come to me, who, though of a dull understanding, his senses

were very quick; I asked him if he smelt nothing, and after a sniff or

two, he answered me, he smelt the smell of the Bath. This place is

about two parts of three of the descent of Dundery-hill,

I doe believe the water of the fountaine that serves Lacock abbey is

impregnated with {symbol for mars}[iron]. That at Crokerton, near

Warminster, I thinke not at all inferior to those of Colbec in France.

The best felt hatts are made at both places.

At or near Lavington is a good salt spring. (From ye Earl of

Abingdon.)

The North Wilts horses, and other stranger horses, when they come to

drinke of the water of Chalke-river, they will sniff and snort, it is

so cold and tort I suppose being so much impregnated with {alchemical

sign for nitre} [nitre].

Advise my countrymen to try the rest of the waters as the Sieur Du

Clos, Physitian to his most Christian Majestie, has donne, and hath

directed in his booke called “Observations of the Minerall Waters of

France made in ye Academy of Sciences.”—I did it transient, and full of

businesse, and “aliud agens tanquam canis e Nilo”.

The freestone fountaine above Lacock, neer Bowdon, in the rode-way, is

higher than the toppe of Lacock steeple. Sir J. Talbot might have for a

small matter the highest and noblest Jeddeau [jet-d’eau] in England.

It is at the foot of St. Anne’s-hill, or else Martinsoll-hill, {that}

three springs have their source and origen; viz. the south Avon, which

runnes to Sarum, and disembogues at Christes Church in Hants; the river

Kynet, which runnes to Morlebrugh, Hungerford, and disembogues into the

Thames about Reading; and on the foote of the north side arises another

that runnes to Calne, which disembogues into the north Avon about

Titherton, and runnes to Bristowe into the Severne. [See also Chap.

III. Rivers.—J. B.]

In the parish of……. is a spring dedicated to St. Winifred, formerly of

great account for its soveraigne vertues. What they were I cannot

learne; neither can I thinke the spring to be of less vertue now than

in the time of Harry the Eight; in which age I am informed it was of

great esteeme: and I am apt to conjecture that the reason why the

spring grew out of fame was because S*. Winifred grew out of favour.

At the Devizes, on the north side of the castle, there is a rivulet of

water which doth petrifie leafes, sticks, plants, and other things that

grow by it; which doth seem to prove that stones grow not by apposition

only, as the Aristotelians assert, but by susception also; for if the

stick did not suscept some vertue by which it is transmuted we may

admire what doth become of the matter of the stick

At Knahill [Knoyle] is a minerall water, which Dr. Toop and Dr.

Chamberlayn have tryed. It is neer Mr. Willoughby’s house: it workes

very kindly, and without any gripeing; it hath been used ever since

about 1672.

Dr. Guydot sayes the white sediment in the water of North Wiltshire is

powder of freestone; and he also tells me that there is a medicinall

well in the street at Box, near Bathe, which hath been used ever since

about 1670.

Mr. Nich. Mercator told me that water may be found by a divining rod

made of willowe; whiche he hath read somewhere; he thinks in Vitruvius.

Quaere Sir John Hoskins de hoc.

In Poulshott parish the spring was first taken notice of about thirty

yeares since by S. Pierse, M.D. of Bathe, and some few made use of it

Some of the Devises, who dranke thereof, told me that it does good for

the spleen, &c., and that a hectick and emaciated person, by drinking

this water, did in the space of three weekes encrease in flesh, and

gott a quick appetite.

Memorandum. In this village are severall springs, which tast brackish;

which I had not the leisure to try, but onely by præcipitation, and

they yield a great quantity of the white flower-like sediment.

Bitteston.—At the George Inne, the beere that is brewed of the well

there is diuretique. I knew some that were troubled with the stone and

gravell goe often thither for that reason. The woman of the house was

very much troubled with fitts of the mother; and having lived here but

a quarter of a yeare, found herself much mended; as also her mother,

troubled with the same disease. I observed in the bottome of the well

deep blew marle.

[The hysterical paroxysms to which females are peculiarly subject were

in Aubrey’s time commonly termed “the mother”, or “fits of the mother”.

Dr. Edward Jorden published a “Discourse on the Suffocation of the

Mother”, (4to.) in 1603.—J. B.]

Alderton.—Mr. Gore’s well is a hard water, which, when one washes one’s

hands will make them dry, as if it were allume water. I tryed it by

præcipitation, and the sediment was the colour of barme, white and

yellow, and fell in a kind of flakes, as snow sometimes will fall,

whereas all the other sediments were like fine flower or powder.

In Minety Common in Bradon forest, neer the rode which leadeth to

Ashton Caynes, is a boggy place called the Gogges, where is a spring,

or springs, rising up out of fuller’s earth. This puddle in hot and dry

weather is candid like a hoar frost; which to the tast seemes nitrous.

I have seen this salt incrustation, even 14th September, four foot

round the edges. With half a pound of this earth I made a lixivium.

Near half a pint did yield upon evaporation a quarter of an ounce

wanting two graines. Of the remainder of the lixivium, which was more

than a pint, I evaporated almost all to crystallize in a cellar. The

liquor turned very red, and the crystalls being putt on a red hott iron

flew away immediately, like saltpetre, leaving behind a very little

quantity of something that look’d like burnt allum. Now it is certain

that salts doe many times mixe; and Mr. Robert Boyle tells me hee

believes it is sea-salt mix’t with {nitre}, and there is a way to

separate them. After a shower this spring will smoake. The mudd or

earth cleanses and scowres incomparably. A pike of eighteen foot long

will not reach to the bottome.

My Lady Cocks of Dumbleton told me that ladies did send ten miles and

more for water from a spring on Malverne hill in Worcestershire to wash

their faces and make ’em faire. I believe it was such a nitrous spring

as this.

The fuller’s earth which they use at Wilton is brought from Woburne in

Bedfordshire; and sold for ten groates a bushell.

The Baths may have its tinging vertue from the antimonie in Mendip.

Quaere Mr. Kenrick, that when he changed a sixpence holding it in his

hand it turned yellow, and a woman refused it for bad silver. I thinke

he had been making crocus of antimonie. The chymists doe call antimony

Proteus, from its various colouring.

Mr. T. Hanson, of Magd. Coll. Oxon, acquaints me in a letter of May 18,

1691, that he observes that almost all the well-waters about the north

part of Wiltshire were very brackish. At High-worth, Mr. Alhnon,

apothecary, told him he had often seen a quantity of milke coagulated

with it: and yet the common people brew with it, which gives their beer

an ungratefull tast. At Cricklad their water is so very salt that the

whole town are obliged to have recourse to a river hard by for their

necessary uses. At Wootton Basset, at some small distance from the

town, they have a medicinall spring, which a neighbouring divine told

him Dr. Willis had given his judgment of, viz. that it was the same

with that of Astrop. They have also a petrifying spring. At the

Devizes, about a quarter of a mile from the towne, a petrifying spring

shewn me by Dr. Merriweather, a physitian there. At Bagshot, near

Hungerford, is a chalybiate, dranke by some gentlemen with good

successe.

Mdm. In my journey to Oxford, comeing through Bagley-wood, on St.

Mark’s day, 1695,1 discovered two chalybiate springs there, in the

highway; which On May the 10th I tryed with powder of galles, and they

give as black a tincture as ever I saw such waters: one may write with

it as legibly as with black lead.

At the gate at Wotton Common, near Cumnor in Berkshire, is a spring

which I have great reason to believe is such another: and also at the

foot of Shotover-hill, near the upping-stock, I am confident by the

clay, is such another spring. Deo gratias.

Quæres for the Tryall of Minerall Waters; by the Honourable Sir

William Petty, Kt.:-

1. How much heavier ’tis than brandy? 2. How much common water will

extinguish its tast? 3. What quantity of salt upon its evaporation? 4.

How much sugar, allum, vitriol, nitre, will dissolve in a pint of it?

5. Whether any animalcule will breed in it, and in how long time? 6.

Whether fish, viz. trout, eeles, &c. will live in it, and how long? 7.

Whether ’twill hinder or promote the curdling of milk, and

fermentation? 8. Whether soape will mingle with it? 9. Whether ’twill

extract the dissolvable parts of herbes, rootes, seedes, &c. more or

less than other waters; (i. e.) whether it be a more powerful

menstruum? 10. How galles will change its colour? 11. How ’twill change

the colour of syrup of violets? 12. How it differs from other waters in

receiving colours, cochineel, saffron, violets &c.? 13. How it boyles

dry pease? 14. How it colours fresh beefe, or other flesh in boyling?

15. How it washes hands, beards, linnen, SEC.? 16. How it extracts

mault in brewing? 17. How it quenches thirst, with meat or otherwise?

8. Whether it purges; in what quantity, time, and with what symptomes?

19. Whether it promotes urine, sweat, or sleep? 20. In what time it

passeth, and how afterwards? 21. Whether it sharpens or flattens the

appetite to meate? 22. Whether it vomits, causes coughs, &c.? 23.

Whether it swell the belly, legges; and how, in what time, and quantity

&c.? 24. How it affects sucking children, and (if tryed) foetus in the

wombe? 25. Whether it damps or excites venerie? 26. How blood lett

whilest the waters are dranke lookes, and how it changes? 27. In what

degrees it purges, in different degrees of evaporation, and brewed? 28.

Whether it breakes away by eructation and downwards? 29. Whether it

kills the asparagus in the urine? 30. What quantity may be taken of it

in prime? 31. Whether a sprig of mint or willow growes equally as out

of other waters? 32. In what time they putrify and stink?

CHAPTER III.

RIVERS.

[THE following extracts include the whole of this chapter, with the

exception of a few extraneous passages.—J. B.]

I SHALL begin with the river of Wyley-bourn, which gives name to

Wilton, the shire town. The mappe-makers write it Wyley fulvous, and

joiner a British and a Saxon word together: but that is a received

error. I doe believe that the ancient and true name was Twy, as the

river Twy in Herefordshire, which signifies vagary: and so this river

Wye, which is fed with the Deverill springs, in its mandrels winding,

watering the meadows, gives the name to the village called Wyley, as

also Wilton (Wyley-ton); where, meeting with the upper Avon and the

river Adder, it runnes to Downtown and Fording bridge, visiting the New

Forest, and disembogues into the sea at Christ Church in Hampshire. On

Monday morning, the 20th of September, [1669] was begun a well intended

designe for cutting the river [Avon] below Salisbury to make it

navigable to carry boats of burthen to and from Christ Church. This

work was principally encouraged by the Right Reverend Father in God,

Seth, Lord Bishop of Salisbury, his Lordship digging the first spit of

earth, and driving the first wheeled barrow. Col. John Wyndham was also

a generous benefactor and encourager of this undertaking. He gave to

this designe an hundred pounds. He tells me that the Bishop of

Salisbury gave, he thinks, an hundred and fifty pounds: he is sure a

hundred was the least. The engineer was one Mr. Far trey, but it seems

not his craft’s-master; for through want of skill all this charge and

paines came to nothing: but An° Done 16. . .it was more auspiciously

undertaken and perfected; and now boats passe between Salisbury and

Christ Church, and carry wood and corne from the New Forest, the

cartage whereof was very dearer; but as yet they want a haven at Christ

Church, which will require time and charge.

[Of the numerous rivers in Wiltshire only a few are navigable, and

those only for a short distance in the county. This is the consequence

of its inland position and comparative elevation; whence it results

that the principal streams have little more than their sources within

its limits. The project of rendering the Avon navigable from Salisbury

to Christ Church appears to have been first promulgated by John Taylor,

the Water Poet, who, in 1625, made an excursion in his own sherry, with

five companions, from London to Christ Church, and thence up the Avon

to Salisbury. He published an account of his voyage, under the title of

“A Discovery by sea, from London to Salisbury.” Francis Mathew also

suggested the improvement of the navigation of the river in 1655; and

an Act of Parliament for that purpose was obtained in 1664. Bishop Ward

was translated to the see of Salisbury in 1667, but the commencement of

the works, as described by Aubrey, was probably delayed till 1669, in

August of which year the Mayor of Salisbury and others were constituted

a Committee “to consult and treat with such persons as will undertake

to render the Avon navigable.” Two other pamphlets urging the

importance of the project were published in 1672 and 1675 (see Gough’s

Topography, vol. ii. p. 366); and in 1687 a series of regulations was

compiled “for the good and orderly government and usage of the New

Haven and Pier now made near Christchurch, and of the passages made

navigable from thence to the city of New Sarum.” (See Hatcher’s History

of Salisbury, pp. 460, 497.) The works thus made were afterwards

destroyed by a flood, and remained in ruins till 1771. Some repairs

were then executed, but they were inefficient; and the navigation is

now given up, except at the mouth of the river; and even there the bar

of Christchurch is an insurmountable obstacle except at spring

tides.-(Penny Cyclopædia, art. Wiltshire.) As the Bishop dug the first

spitt, or spadeful of earth, and drove the first wheelbarrow, that

necessary process was no doubt made a matter of much ceremony. The

laying the “first stone” of an important building has always been an

event duly celebrated; and the practice of some distinguished

individual “digging the first spitt” of earth has lately been revived

with much pomp and parade, in connection with the great railway

undertakings of the present age.—J. B.]

The river Adder riseth about Motcomb, neer Shaftesbury. In the Legeir

booke of Wilton Abbey it is wrott Noþþre, “a Nodderi fluvii ripa”,

(hodie Adder-bourn, Naþþre}, “serpens, anguis”, Saxonicè, Addar, in

Welsh, signifies a bird.*) This river runnes through the magnificent

garden of the Earle of Pembroke at Wilton, and so beyond to Christ

Church. It hath in it a rare fish, called an umber, which are sent from

Salisbury to London. They are about the bignesse of a trowt, but

preferred before a trowt This kind of fish is in no other river in

England, except the river Humber in Yorkeshire. [The umber is perhaps

more generally known as the grayling. See Chap. XL Fishes.—J. B.]

* [Adar is the plural of Aderyn, a bird, and therefore signifies

birds.—J. B.]

The rivulet that gives the name to Chalke-bourn,† and running through

Chalke, rises at a place called Naule, belonging to the farme of Broad

Chalke, where are a great many springs that issue out of the chalkie

ground. It makes a kind of lake of the quantity of about three acres.

There are not better trouts (two foot long) in the kingdom of England

than here; I was thinking to have made a trout pond of it. The water of

this streame washes well, and is good for brewing. I did putt in

craw-fish, but they would not live here: the water is too cold for

them. This river water is so acrimonious, that strange horses when they

are watered here will snuff and snort, and cannot well drinke of it

till they have been for some time used to it. Methinks this water

should bee admirably good for whitening clothes for cloathiers, because

it is impregnated so much with nitre, which is abstersive.

† Bourna, fluvius. (Vener. Bed. Hist. Eceles.) As in some counties they

say, In such or such a vale or dale; so in South Wilts they say, such

or such a bourn: meaning a valley by such a river.

The river Stour hath its source in Sturton Parke, and gives the name

[Stourhead.—J. B.] to that ancient seat of the Lord Sturtons. Three of

the springs are within the park pale and in Wiltshire; the other three

are without the pale in Somersetshire. The fountaines within the parke

pale are curbed with pierced cylinders of free stone, like tunnes of

chimneys; the diameter of them is eighteen inches. The coate armour of

the Lord Sturton is, Sable, a bend or, between six fountaines; which

doe allude to these springs. Stour is a British word, and signifies a

great water: sc. “dwr” is water; “ysdwr” is a considerable, or great

water: “ys”, is “particula augens”. [The Stour rises near the junction

of the three counties, Wiltshire, Somersetshire, and Dorsetshire. Its

course is chiefly through the last mentioned county, after leaving

which it enters Hampshire, and flows into the South Avon near

Christchurch.—J. B.]

Deverill hath its denomination from the diving of the rill, and its

rising again. Mr. Cambden saieth, In this shire is a small rill called

Deverill, which runneth a mile under ground,* like as also doth the

little river Mole in Surry, and the river Anas [Guadiana?—J. B.] in

Spain, and the Niger in Africk. Polybius speakes the like of the river

Oxus, “which, falling with its force into great ditches, which she

makes hollow, and opens the bottome by the violence of her course, and

by this meanes takes its course under ground for a small space, and

then riseth again.” (lib. x.)

* I am informed by the minister of Deverill Longbridge, and another

gentleman that lived at Maiden Bradley thirty years, that they never

knew or heard of this river Deverall that runs underground.-(BISHOP

TANNER.) [Yet Selden, in his “Notes to Drayton’s Poly-Olbion”, makes

the same statement as Aubrey does respecting the Deverill.—J. B.]

“Sic ubi terreno Lycus est epotus hiatu,

Existit procul hinc, alioq{ue} renascitur ore.

Sic modò combibitur, tecto modò gurgite lapsus

Redditur Argolicis ingens Erasinus in arvis:

Et Mysum capitisq{ue} sui ripaq{ue} prioris

Pœnituisse ferunt, aliò nunc ire, Calcum.”—OVID, METAMORPH. lib. xv.

In Grittleton field is a swallow-hole, where sometimes foxes, &c. doe

take sanctuary; there are severall such in North Wiltshire, made by

flouds, &c.; but neer Deene is a rivulet that runnes into Emmes-poole,

and nobody knowes what becomes of it after it is swallowed by the

earth.

[The reader will find a full account of the remarkable “swallows”, or

“swallow holes”, in the course of the river Mole, in Brayley’s History

of Surrey, vol. i. p. 171-185, with a map, and some geological comments

by Dr. Mantell. The river, or stream designated by Aubrey as the

Deverill, is probably the principal of several streams which rise near

the villages of Longbridge Deverill, Hill Deverill, Brixton Deverill,

Monkton Deverill, and Kingston Deverill (in the south west part of

Wiltshire), and, after running through Maiden Bradley, flow into the

Wyley near Warminster.—J. B.]

At the foot of Martinsoll-hill doe issue forth three springs, which are

the sources of three rivers; they divide like the parting of the haire

on the crowne of the head, and take their courses three severall wayes:

viz. one on the south side of the hill, which is the beginning of the

upper Avon,† which runnes to Salisbury; on the other side springes the

river Kynet, which runnes eastward to Marleborough;‡ from thence

passing by Hungerford, Newbury, &c. it looses itselfe and name in the

river of Thames, near Reading. The third spring is the beginning of the

stream that runnes to Caln, called Marden,§ and driving several mills,

both for corne and fulling, is swallowed up by the North Avon at

Peckingill-meadow near Tytherington. [See also Aubrey’s description of

these three springs, ante, page 24.—J. B.]

† Avon, a river, in the British language. ‡ Cynetium, Marleborough,

hath its name from the river. The Welsh pronounce y as wee doe u. §

Quaere, if it is called Marden, or Marlen? [Marden is the present

name.—J. B.]

The North Avon riseth toward Tedbury in Gloucestershire, and runnes to

Malmesbury, where it takes in a good streame, that comes from

Hankerton, and also a rivulet that comes from Sherston,* which

inriching the meadows as it runnes to Chippenham, Lacock, Bradford,

Bath, Kainsham, and the city of Bristowe, disembogues into the Severne

at Kingrode.

* [The Sheraton rivulet, and not that which rises near Tetbury, is

generally regarded as the source of the North, or Bristol Avon.—J. B.]

The silver Thames takes some part of this county in its journey to

Oxford. The source of it is in Gloucestershire, neer Cubberley (in the

rode from Oxford to Gloucester), where there are severall springs. In

our county it visits Cricklad, a market towne, and gives name to Isey,

a village neer; and with its fertile overflowing makes a most glorious

verdure in the spring season. In the old deeds of lands at and about

Cricklad they find this river by the name of Thamissis fluvius and the

Thames. The towne in Oxfordshire is writt Tame and not Thame; and I

believe that Mr. Cambden’s marriage of Thame and Isis, in his elegant

Latin poem, is but a poeticall fiction: I meane as to the name of

Thamisis, which he would not have till it comes to meet the river Thame

at Dorchester.

[The true source of the river Thames has been much disputed. A spring

which rises near the village of Kemble, at the north-western extremity

of Wiltshire, has been commonly regarded, during the last century, as

the real “Thames head”. It flows thence to Ashton Keynes, and onward to

Cricklade. At the latter place it is joined by the river Churn, which

comes from Coberly, about 20 miles to the northward, in

Gloucestershire. Aubrey refers to the latter stream as the source of

the Thames; and, on the principle of tracing the origin of a river to

its most remote source, the same view has been taken by some other

writers, who consequently dispute the claims of the Kemble spring.—J.

B.]

The river Thames, as it runnes to Cricklad, passes by Ashton Kaynes;†

from whence to Charleton, where the North Avon runnes, is about three

miles. Mr. Henry Brigges (Savilian professor of Geometrie at Oxford)

observing in the mappe the nearnesse of these two streames, and

reflecting on the great use that might accrue if a cutt were made from

the one to the other (of which there are many examples in the Low

Countreys), tooke a journey from Oxford to view it, and found the

ground levell and sappable and was very well pleased with his notion;

for that if these two rivers were maried by a canal between them, then

might goods be brought from London to Bristow by water, which would be

an extraordinary convenience both for safety and to avoid overturning.

This was about the yeare 1626. But there had been a long calme of

peace, and men minded nothing but pleasure and luxury.

“Jam patimur longæ pacis mala, sævior armis

Luxuria incumbit.”—LUCAN.

+ [If Aubrey was right in the preceding paragraph in regarding the

stream which rises at “Cubberley” in Gloucestershire as the source of

the Thames, he is wrong in stating that “the Thames” passes by Ashton

Keynes. It is the other brook, from Kemble, which runs through that

village; and the two streams only become united at Cricklade, which is

some distance lower down, to the eastward of Ashton Keynes.—J. B.]

Knowledge of this kind was not at all in fashion, so that he had no

encouragement to prosecute this noble designe: and no more done but the

meer discovery: and not long after he died, scilicet Anno Domini 1631,

January 31st.; and this ingeniose notion had died too and beene

forgotten, but that Mr. Francis Mathew, (formerly of the county of

Dorset, a captain in his majestie King Charles I. service), who was

acquainted with him, and had the hint from him, and after the wars

ceased revived this designe. Hee tooke much paines about it; went into

the countrey and made a mappe of it, and wrote a treatise of it, and

addressed himselfe to Oliver the Protector, and the Parliament. Oliver

was exceedingly pleased with the designe; and, had he lived but a

little longer, he would have had it perfected: but upon his death it

sank.

After his Majesties restauration, I recommended Captain Mathew to the

Lord Wm. Brouncker, then President of the Royall Societie, who

introduced him to his Majestie; who did much approve of the designe;

but money was wanting, and publick-spirited contributions; and the

Captain had no purse (undonn by the warres), and the heads of the

Parliament and Counsell were filled with other things.—Thus the poor

old gentleman’s project came to nothing.

He died about 1676, and left many good papers behind him concerning

this matter, in the hands of his daughters; of which I acquainted Mr.

John Collins, R.S.S. in An°. 1682, who tooke a journey to Oxford (which

journey cost him his life, by a cold), and first discoursed with the

barge-men there concerning their trade and way: then he went to

Lechlade, and discoursed with the bargemen there; who all approved of

the designe. Then he took a particular view of the ground to be cutt

between Ashton-kaynes and Charleton. From Malmesbury he went to

Bristoll. Then he returned to Malmesbury again and went to Wotton

Bassett, and took a view of that way. Sir Jonas Moore told me he liked

that way, but J. Collins was clearly for the cutt between Ashton-Kayns

and Charleton.

At his return to London I went with him to the daughters of Mr. Mathew,

who shewed him their father’s papers; sc. draughts, modells,

copper-plate of the mappe of the Thames, Acts of Parliament, and Bills

prepared to be enacted, &c.; as many as did fill a big portmantue. He

proposed the buying of them to the R. Societie, and tooke the heads of

them, and gave them an abstract of them. The papers, &c. were

afterwards brought to. the R. Societie; the price demanded for all was

but five pounds (the plate of the mappe did cost 8li.) The R. Societie

liked the designe; but they would neither undertake the businesse nor

buy the papers. So that noble knight, Sir James Shaen, R.S.S., who was

then present, slipt five guineas into J. Collins’s hand to give to the

poor gentlewomen, and so immediately became master of these rarities.

There were at the Societie at the same time three aldermen of the city

of London (Sir Jo. Laurence, Sir Patient Ward, and …. ….), fellows of

the Society, who when they heard that Sir James Shaen had gott the

possession of them were extremely vex’t; and repented (when ’twas too

late) that they had overslipped such an opportunity: then they would

have given 30li. This undertaking had been indeed most proper for the

hon{oura}ble city of London.

Jo. Collins writt a good discourse of this journey, and of the

feazability, and a computation of the chardge. Quaere, whether he left

a copie with the R. Society. Mr. Win, mathematicall instrument maker in

Chancery-lane, had all his papers, and amongst many others is to be

found this.

I have been the more full in this account, because if ever it shall

happen that any publick-spirited men shall arise to carry on such a

usefull work, they may know in whose hands the papers that were so well

considered heretofore are now lodged.

Sir Jonas Moore, Surveyor of the Ordinance, told me that when the Duke

of York sent him to survey the manor of Dauntesey, formerly belonging

to Sir Jo. Danvers, he did then take a survey of this designe, and said

that it is feazable; but his opinion was that the best way would be to

make a cutt by Wotton Bassett, and that the King himselfe should

undertake it, for they must cutt through a hill by Wotton-Basset; and

that in time it might quit cost. As I remember, he told me that forty

thousand pounds would doe it.

But I thinke, Jo. Collins sayes in his papers, that the cutt from

Ashton-Kains to Charleton may bee made for three thousand pounds.

[Some of the above facts are more briefly stated by Aubrey in his

“Description of North Wiltshire” (printed by Sir Thomas Phillipps,

Bart.) They are however sufficiently interesting to be inserted here;

and they clearly shew that, notwithstanding Aubrey’s credulity and love

of theory, he was fully sensible of the beneficial results to be

expected from increased facilities of conveyance and locomotion. On

this point indeed he and his friends, Mr. Mathew and Mr. Collins, were

more than a century in advance of their contemporaries, for it was not

till after the year 1783 that Wiltshire began to profit by the

formation of canals.

Sanctioned by the approval of King Charles the Second, for which, as

above stated, he was indebted to Aubrey, Francis Mathew published an

explanation of his project for the junction of the Thames with the

Bristol Avon. This work, which advocated similar canals in other parts

of the country, bears the following title: “A Mediterranean Passage by

water from London to Bristol, and from Lynn to Yarmouth, and so

consequently to the city of York, for the great advancement of trade.”

(Lond. 1670, 4to.) An extract from this scarce volume is transcribed by

Aubrey into the Royal Society’s MS. of his own work; and a copy of Mr.

Mathew’s map, which illustrated it, is also there inserted.

The liberality of Sir James Shaen in the purchase of Mathew’s papers,

and the apathy of the London aldermen, until too late to secure them,

are amusingly described. Similar instances of civic meanness are not

wanting in the present day; indeed the indifference of corporate

authorities to scientific topics is strikingly illustrated by the fact

that the Royal Society has not at present enrolled upon its list of

Fellows a single member of the corporation of London; whereas in

Aubrey’s time there were no less than three.

The short canal projected in the seventeenth century to connect the

Thames and Avon has never been executed: subsequent speculators having

found that the wants and necessities of the country could be better

supplied by other and longer lines of water communication. Hence we

have the Thames and Severn Canal, from Lechlade to Stroud, commenced in

1783; the Kennet and Avon Canal, from Newbury to Bath, begun in 1796;

and the Wilts and Berks Canal (1801), from Abingdon to a point on the

last mentioned canal between Devizes and Bradford.—J. B.]

Mdm.-The best and cheapest way of making a canal is by ploughing; which

method ought to be applied for the cheaper making the cutt between the

two rivers of Thames and Avon. The same way serves for making descents

in a garden on the side of a hill.—See …… Castello della Currenti del

Acquo, 4to; which may be of use for this undertaking.

Consider the scheme in Captain Yarrington’s book, entitled “England’s

Improvement”, as to the establishing of granaries at severall townes on

the Thames and Avon; e. g. at Lechlade, Cricklade, &c. See also Plin.

Nat. Hist. lib. vi. c. 11.

At Funthill Episcopi, higher towards Hindon, water riseth and makes a

streame before a dearth of corne, that is to say, without raine; and is

commonly look’t upon by the neighbourhood as a certain presage of a

dearth; as, for example, the dearness of corne in 1678.

So at Morecomb-bottome, in the parish of Broad Chalke, on the north

side of the river, it has been observed time out of mind, that, when

the water breaketh out there, that it foreshewes a deare yeare of

corne; and I remember it did so in the yeare 1648. Plinie saieth (lib.

ii. Nat. Hist.) that the breaking forth of some rivers “annonæ

mutationem significant”.

[At Weston-Birt, in Gloucestershire, near the borders of Wiltshire,

water gushes from the ground in spring and autumn, and at other times,

in many hundred places at once, and continues to flow with great

rapidity for several days, when the whole valley, in which the houses

are placed, is completely filled. The street of the village is provided

with numerous rude bridges, which on these occasions become available

for purposes of communication.—J. B.]

’Tis a saying in the West, that a dry yeare does never cause a dearth.

Anno 1669, at Yatton Keynel, and at Broomfield in that parish, they

went a great way to water their cattle; and about 1640 the springs in

these parts did not breake till neer Christmas.

CHAPTER IV.

SOILES.

[THIS and the three succeeding chapters, on “Mineralls and Fossills,”

“Stones,” and “Formed Stones”, comprise the Geological portions of

Aubrey’s work. In a scientific view, these chapters may be regarded as

of little value; though creditable to their author as a minute

observer, and enthusiastic lover of science. It has been necessary to

omit much which the progress of scientific knowledge has rendered

obsolete; and in the passages quoted, the object has been to select

such as possessed the most general interest, as well as having direct

application to Wiltshire. A good summary of the Geological

characteristics of the county will be found in the article “Wiltshire,”

in the Penny Cyclopædia. Mr. John Provis, of Chippenham, contributed a

similar sketch to the third volume of the Beauties of Wiltshire; and

the geology of Salisbury and its vicinity is described in Hatcher’s

History of Salisbury, by the son of the historian, Mr. W. H.

Hatcher.—J. B.]

This county hath great variety of earth. It is divided, neer about the

middle, from east to west into the dowries; commonly called

Salisbury-plaine, which are the greatest plaines in Europe: and into

the vale; which is the west end of the vale of Whitehorse.

The vale is the northern part; the soile whereof is what wee call a

stone-brash; sc. red earth, full of a kind of tile-stone, in some

places good tiles. It beareth good barley. In the west places of the

soile, wormewood growes very plentifully; whereas in the south part

they plant it in their garden.

The soile of Malmesbury hundred, which is stone-brash and clay, and the

earth vitriolish, produces excellent okes, which seem to delight in a

vitriolate soile, and where iron oare is. The clay and stones doe

hinder the water from sinking down, whereby the surface of the earth

becomes dropsicall, and beares mosse and herbs naturall to such moist

ground. In the ploughed fields is plenty of yarrow; in the pasture

grounds plenty of wood wax; and in many grounds plenty of centaury,

wood sorrell, ladies’ bed-straw, &c., sowre herbes.

I never saw in England so much blew clay as in the northern part of

this county, and it continues from the west part to Oxfordshire. Under

the planke-stones is often found blew marle, which is the best.

In Vernknoll, a ground belonging to Fowles-wick, adjoyning to the lands

of Easton-Pierse, neer the brooke and in it, I bored clay as blew as

ultra-marine, and incomparably fine, without anything of sand, &c.,

which perhaps might be proper for Mr. Dwight for his making of

porcilaine. It is also at other places hereabout, but ’tis rare.

[It is not very clear that “blew clay,” however fine, could be “proper

for the making of porcilane,” the chief characteristic of which is its

transparent whiteness. Apart from this however, Aubrey’s remark is

curious; as it intimates that the manufacture of it was attempted in

this country at an earlier period than is generally believed. The

famous porcelain works at Chelsea were not established till long

afterwards; and according to Dr. Plott, whose “Natural History of

Staffordshire” was published in 1686, the only kinds of pottery then

made in this country were the coarse yellow, red, black, and mottled

wares; and of those the chief sale was to “poor crate-men, who carried

them on their backs all over the country”, I have not found any account

of the Mr. Dwight mentioned by Aubrey, or of his attempts to improve

the art of pottery.—J. B.]

Clay abounds, particularly about Malmesbury, Kington St. Michael,

Allington, Easton Piers (as also a hungry marle), Dracott-Cerne,

Yatton-Keynell, Minty, and Bradon-forest.

At Minty, and at a place called Woburn, in the parish of Hankerton, is

very good fullers’-earth. The fullers’-earth at Minty-common, at the

place called the Gogges, when I tooke it up, was as black as black

polished marble; but, having carryed it in my pocket five or six dayes,

it became gray.

At Hedington, at the foot of the hill, is a kind of white

fullers’-earth which the cloth-workers doe use; and on the north side

of the river at Broad Chalke, by a poole where are fine springs (where

the hermitage is), is a kind of fullers’-earth which the weavers doe

use for their chaines: ’tis good Tripoly, or “lac lunæ”. Lac lunæ is

the mother of silver, and is a cosmetick.

In Boudon-parke, fifteen foot deep under the barren sand, is a great

plenty of blew marle, with which George Johnson, Esq.,

councellor-at-law, hath much improved his estate there. The soile of

the parke was so exceedingly barren, that it did beare a gray mosse,

like that of an old park pale, which skreeks as one walkes on it, and

putts ones teeth on edge. Furzes did peep a little above the ground,

but were dwarfes and did not thrive.

At Bitteston, in the highway, blew marle appears. Mr. Montjoy hath

drawn the water that runnes through it, and is impregnated with its

nitre, into his pasture grounds, by which meanes they are improved from

—— to —— per annum.

In Bradon-forest, and at Ashton Kaynes, is a pottery. There is potters’

clay also at . .. . Deverell, on the common towards Frome, and potts

are made there.

At Clarendon-parke is lately discovered (1684) an earth that cleanseth

better than Woburne earthe in Bedfordshire; and Mr. Cutler, the

cloathier of Wilton, tells me he now makes only use of it. There is at

Burton-hill, juxta Malmesbury, fullers’ earth, as also about Westport,

and elsewhere thereabout, which the cloathiers use.

Tobacco-pipe-clay excellent, or the best in England, at Chittern, of

which the Gauntlet pipes at Amesbury are made, by one of that name.

They are the best tobacco pipes in England. [See a curious paragraph on

the subject of Gauntlet-pipes in Fuller’s Worthies,—Wiltshire.—J. B.]

The earth about Malmesbury hundred and Chippenham hundred, especially

about Pewsham-forest, is vitriolate, or aluminous and vitriolate; which

in hot weather the sun does make manifest on the banks of the ditches.

At Bradfield and Dracot Cerne is such vitriolate earth; which with

galles will make inke. This makes the land so soure, it beares sowre

and austere plants: it is a proper soile for dayries. At summer it

hunger-banes the sheep; and in winter it rotts them.

These clayy and marly lands are wett and dirty; so that to poore

people, who have not change of shoes, the cold is very incommodious,

which hurts their nerves exceedingly. Salts, as the Lord Chancellor

Bacon sayes, doe exert (irradiate) raies of cold. Elias Ashmole, Esq.

got a dangerous cold by sitting by the salt sacks in a salter’s shop,

which was like to have cost him his life. And some salts will corrode

papers, that were three or four inches from it. The same may be sayd of

marble pavements, which have cost some great persons their lives.

The soil of South Wilts is chalke and white marle, which abounds with

nitre; and is inimique to the nerves by the nitre that irradiates from

it. ’Tis that gives the dampishnesse to the flowres and walles of

Salisbury and Chalke, &c. E contra, Herefordshire, Salop,

Montgomeryshire, &c. the soile is clear of any salt; which, besides the

goodnesse of the air, conduces much to their longævitas: e. g., 100

yeares of age in those parts as common as 80 in Wilts, &c.

The walles of the church of Broad Chalke, and of the buttery at the

farme there, doe shoot out, besides nitre, a beautifull red, lighter

than scarlet; an oriental horse-flesh colour.

The soile of Savernake forest is great gravelle: and (as I remember)

pebbley, as on the sea side. At Alderbury, by Ivy Church, is great

plenty of fine gravelle; which is sent for all over the south parts of

the countrey.

At Sutton Benger eastward is a gravelly field called Barrets, which is

sown every year onely with barley: it hath not lain fallow in the

memory of the oldest man’s grandfather there. About 1665 Mr. Leonard

Atkins did sow his part of it with wheat for a triall. It came up

wonderfully thick and high; but it proved but faire strawe, and had

little or nothing in the eare. This land was heretofore the vineyard

belonging to the abbey of Malmesbury; of which there is a recitall in

the grant of this manner by K. Henry VIII. to Sir —— Long. This

fruitfull ground is within a foot or lesse of the gravell.

The soil of Christian Malford, a parish adjoyning to Sutton, is very

rich, and underneath is gravell in many parts.

The first ascent from Chippenham, sc. above the Deny hill, is sandy: e.

g. Bowdon-parke, Spy-parke, Sandy-lane, great clear sand, of which I

believe good glasse might be made; but it is a little too far from a

navigable river. They are ye biggest graines of sand that ever I saw,

and very transparent: some where thereabout is sand quite white.

At Burbidge the soile is an ash-coloured gray sand, and very naturall

for the production of good turnips. They are the best that ever I did

eate, and are sent for far and neere: they are not tough and stringy

like other turnips, but cutt like marmalad.

Quaere, how long the trade of turnips has been here? For it is certain

that all the turnips that were brought to Bristoll eighty years since

[now 1680] were from Wales; and now none come from thence, for they

have found out that the red sand about Bristoll doth breed a better and

a bigger turnip.

Burbidge is also remarqueable for excellent pease.

The turf of our downes, and so east and west, is the best in the world

for gardens and bowling-greens; for more southward it is burnt, and

more north it is course.

Temple downe in Preshut parish, belonging to the right honble Charles

Lord Seymour, worth xxs. per acre, and better, a great quantity of it.

As to the green circles on the downes, vulgarly called faiery circles

(dances), I presume they are generated from the breathing out of a

fertile subterraneous vapour. (The ring-worme on a man’s flesh is

circular. Excogitate a paralolisme between the cordial heat and ye

subterranean heat, to elucidate this phenomenon.) Every tobacco-taker

knowes that ’tis no strange thing for a circle of smoke to be whiff’d

out of the bowle of the pipe; but ’tis donne by chance. If you digge

under the turfe of this circle, you will find at the rootes of the

grasse a hoare or mouldinesse. But as there are fertile steames, so

contrary wise there are noxious ones, which proceed from some

mineralls, iron, &c.; which also as the others, cæteris paribus, appear

in a circular forme.

In the common field of Winterbourn …… is the celebrated path called St.

Thomas Becket’s path. It leads from the village up to Clarendon Parke.

Whether this field be sown or lies fallow, the path is visible to one

that lookes on it from the hill, and it is wonderfull. But I can add

yet farther the testimonies of two that I very well know (one of them

my servant, and of an excellent sight) that will attest that, riding in

the rode from London one morning in a great snow, they did see this

path visible on the snow. St. Thomas Becket, they say, was sometime a

cure priest at Winter-bourn, and did use to goe along this path up to a

chapell in Clarendon Parke, to say masse, and very likely ’tis true:

but I have a conceit that this path is caused by a warme subterraneous

steame from a long crack in the earth, which may cause snow to dissolve

sooner there than elsewhere: and consequently gives the dissolving snow

a darker colour, just as wee see the difference of whites in damask

linnen.

The right reverend father in God, Seth, Lord Bishop of Salisbury,

averres to me that at Silchester in Hampshire, which was a Roman citie,

one may discerne in the corne ground the signe of the streetes; nay,

passages and hearthes: which also Dr. Jo. Wilkins (since Lord Bishop of

Chester) did see with him, and has affirm’d the same thing to me. They

were there, and saw it in the spring.

——— “ita res accendunt lumina rebus”.—LUCRETIUS.

The pastures of the vale of White Horse, sc. the first ascent below the

plaines, are as rich a turfe as any in the kingdom of England: e. g.

the Idovers at Dauntesey, of good note in Smithfield, which sends as

fatt cattle to Smythfield as any place in this nation; as also

Tytherton, Queenfield, Wroughton, Tokenham, Mudgelt, Lydyard Tregoz,

and about Cricklad, are fatting grounds, the garden of Wiltshire.

In a little meadow called Mill-mead, belonging to the farme of Broad

Chalke, is good peate, which in my father’s time was digged and made

use of; and no doubt it is to be found in many other places of this

country, if it were search’t after. But I name it onely to bring in a

discovery that Sr Christopher Wren made of it, sc. that ’tis a

vegetable, which was not known before. One of the pipes at Hampton

Court being stop’t, Sr Christopher commanded to have it opened (I think

he say’d ’twas an earthen pipe), and they found it choak’t with peate,*

which consists of a coagmentation of small fibrous vegetables. These

pipes were layd in Cardinal Wolsey’s time, who built the house.

* I believe that in ye pipes was nothing else but Alga fontalis

trichodes, (C. B.) which is often found in conduit pipes. See my

Synopsis.-[JOHN RAY.]

Earth growing.—In the court of Mrs. Sadler’s, the great house in the

close in Salisbury, the pitched causeway lay neglected in the late

troubles, and not weeded: so at lengthe it became overgrown and lost:

and I remember about 1656, goeing to pave it, they found,…. inches

deep, a good pavement to their hands.

In the court of my honoured friend Edm. Wyld Esq., at Houghton in

Bedfordshire, in twenty-four yeares, viz. from 1656 to 1680, the ground

increased nine inches, only by rotting grasse upon grasse. ’Tis a rich

soile, and reddish; worth xxs. per acre.

The spring after the conflagration at London all the ruines were

overgrown with an herbe or two; but especially one with a yellow

flower: and on the south side of St. Paul’s Church it grew as thick as

could be; nay, on the very top of the tower. The herbalists call it

Ericolevis Neapolitana, small bank cresses of Naples; which plant Tho.

Willis told me he knew before but in one place* about the towne; and

that was at Battle Bridge by the Pindar of Wakefield, and that in no

great quantity. [The Pindar of Wakefield is still a public-house, under

the same sign, in Gray’s Inn Road, in the parish of St. Pancras,

London.—J. B.]

*It growes abundantly by ye waysides between London and Kensington.-

[J. RAY.]

Sir John Danvers, of Chelsey, did assure me to his knowledge that my

Lord Chancellor Bacon was wont to compound severall sorts of earths,

digged up very deep, to produce severall sorts of plants. This he did

in the garden at Yorke House, where he lived when he was Lord

Chancellor. (See Sir Ken. Digby, concerning his composition of earth of

severall places.)

Edmund Wyld, Esq. R.S.S. hath had a pott of composition in his garden

these seven yeares that beares nothing at all, not so much as grasse or

mosse. He makes his challenge, if any man will give him xx li. he will

give him an hundred if it doth not beare wheate spontaneously; and the

party shall keep the key, and he shall sift the earth composition

through a fine sieve, so that he may be sure there are no graines of

wheat in it He hath also a composition for pease; but that he will not

warrant, not having yet tryed it,

Pico’s [Peaks.]—In this county are Clay-hill, near Warminster; the

Castle-hill at Mere, and Knoll-hill, near Kilmanton, which is half in

Wilts, and half in Somersetshire; all which seem to have been raised

(like great blisters) by earthquakes. [Bishop TANNER adds in a note,

“Suthbury hill, neer Collingburn, which I take to be the highest hill

hi Wiltshire”.] That great vertuoso, Mr. Francis Potter, author of the

“Interpretation of 666,”† Rector of Kilmanton, took great delight in

this Knoll-hill. It gives an admirable prospect every way; from hence

one may see the foss-way between Cyrencester and Glocester, which is

fourty miles from this place. You may see the Isle of Wight, Salisbury

steeple, the Severne sea, &c. It would be an admirable station for him

that shall make a geographical description of Wilts, Somersett, &c.

†[The full title of the work referred to is a curiosity in literature.

It exemplifies forcibly the abstruse and mystical researches in which

the literati of the seventeenth century indulged.

“An Interpretation of the Number 666; wherein not only the manner how

this Number ought to be interpreted is clearly proved and demonstrated;

but it is also shewed that this Number is an exquisite and perfect

character, truly, exactly, and essentially describing that state of

government to which all other notes of Antichrist do agree; with all

knowne objections solidly and fully answered that can be materially

made against it”. (Oxford, 1642, 4to.) So general were studies of this

nature at the time, that Potter’s volume was translated into French,

Dutch, and Latin. The author, though somewhat visionary, was a profound

mathematician, and invented several ingenious mechanical instruments.

In Aubrey’s “Lives”, appended to the Letters from the Bodleian, 8vo.

1813, will be found an interesting biographical notice of him.—J. B.]

CHAPTER V.

MINERALLS AND FOSSILLS.

[IN its etymological sense the term fossil signifies that which may be

dug out of the earth. It is strictly applicable therefore, not only to

mineral bodies, and the petrified forms of plants and animals found in

the substance of the earth, but even to antiquities and works of art,

discovered in a similar situation. The chapter of Aubrey’s work now

under consideration mentions only mineralogical subjects; whence it

would appear that he employed the term “mineralls” instead of “metals”,

including such mineral substances as were not metals under the general

term “fossills”.

At present the term fossil is restricted to antediluvian organic

remains; which are considered by Aubrey, in Chapter VII. under the name

of “Formed Stones”.—J. B.]

THIS county cannot boast much of mineralls: it is more celebrated for

superficiall treasure.

At Dracot Cerne and at Easton Piers doe appeare at the surface of the

earth frequently a kind of bastard iron oare, which seems to be a

vancourier of iron oare, but it is in small quantity and course.

At Send, vulgarly called Seen, the hill whereon it stands is iron-oare,

and the richest that ever I saw. (See Chap. II.)

About Hedington fields, Whetham, Bromham, Bowdon Parke, &c. are still

ploughed-up cindres; sc. the scoria of melted iron, which must have

been smelted by the Romans (for the Saxons were no artists), who used

only foot-blasts, and so left the best part of the metall behind. These

cinders would be of great use for the fluxing of the iron-oare at Send.

At Redhill, in the parish of….. (I thinke Calne) they digge plenty of

ruddle; which is a bolus, and with which they drench their sheep and

cattle for ……… and poor people use it with good successe for …… This is

a red sandy hill, tinged by {iron}, and is a soile that bears very good

carrets.

Mr. John Power of Kington St. Michael (an emperick) told me heretofore

that in Pewsham Forest is vitriol; which information he had from his

uncle Mr. …. Perm, who was an ingeniose and learned man in those daies,

and a chymist, which was then rare.

At Dracot Cerne is good quantity of vitriol-oare, which with galles

turnes as black as inke.

About the beginning of the raigne of King James the First, Sir Walter

Long [of Dracot] digged for silver, a deep pitt, through blew clay, and

gott five pounds worth, for sixty pounds charges or more. It was on the

west end of the stable: but I doubt there was a cheat put upon him.

Here are great indications of iron, and it may be of coale; but what

hopes he should have to discover silver does passe my understanding.

There was a great friendship between Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Walter

Long, and they were allied: and the pitt was sunk in Sir W. Raleigh’s

time, so that he must certainly have been consulted with. I have here

annexed Sir James Long’s letter.

“Mr. Aubrey, I cannot obey your commands concerning my grandfather’s

sinking of pitts for metalls here at Draycott, there being no person

alive hereabouts who was born at that time. What I have heard was so

long since, and I then so young, that there is little heed to be taken

of what I can say; but in generall I can say that I doe believe here

are many metalls and mineralls in these parts; particularly silver-oare

of the blew sort, of which there are many stones in the bottome of the

river Avon, which are extremely heavy, and have the hardnesse of a

file, by reason of the many minerall and metalline veines. I have

consulted many bookes treating of minerall matters, and find them suite

exactly with the Hungarian blew silver oare. Some sixteen or eighteen

yeares ago in digging a well neer my house, many stones very weighty

where digged out of the rocks, which also slaked with long lyeing in

the weather. I shewed some to Monsieur Cock, since Baron of

Crownstronie in Sweden, who had travelled ten yeares to all the mines

in North Europe, and was recommended to me by a London merchant, in his

journey to Mindip, and staied with me here about three weekes. He told

me the grains in that oare seemed to be gold rather than copper; they

resembled small pinnes heads. Wee pounded some of it, and tried to melt

the dust unwashed in a crucible; but the sulphur carried the metall

away, if there was any, as he said. He has been in England since, by

the name of Baron Crownstrome, to treat from his master the King of

Sweden, over whose mines he is superintendant, as his father was before

him. The vitriol-oare we find here is like suckwood, which being layd

in a dry place slakes itself into graine of blew vitriol, calcines red,

and with a small quantitie of galles makes our water very black inke.

It is acid tasted as other vitriol, and apt to raise a flux in the

mouth. Sir, yours, &c.

August 12, 1689. J. L”.

“In the parish of Great Badminton, in a field called Twelve Acres, the

husbandmen doe often times plough up and find iron bulletts, as big as

pistoll bulletts; sometimes almost as big as muskett bulletts”. Dr.

Childrey’s Britannia Baconica, p. 80. [“Britannia Baconica, or the

Natural Rarities of England, Scotland, and Wales, historically related,

according to the precepts of Lord Bacon”. By Joshua Childrey, D.D.

1661. 8°.]

These bulletts are Dr. Th. Willises aperitive pills; sc. he putts a

barre of iron into the smith’s forge, and gives it a sparkling heat;

then thrusts it against a roll of brimstone, and the barre will melt

down into these bulletts; of which he made his aperitive pills. In this

region is a great deale of iron, and the Bath waters give sufficient

evidence that there is store of sulphur; so that heretofore when the

earthquakes were hereabouts, store of such bulletts must necessarily be

made and vomited up. [Dr. Willis was one of the most eminent physicians

of his age, and author of numerous Latin works on medical subjects. The

above extract is a curious illustration of the state of professional

knowledge at the time.—J. B.]

Copperas.—Thunder-stones, as the vulgar call them, are a pyrites; their

fibres doe all tend to the centre. They are found at Broad Chalke

frequently, and particularly in the earth pitts belonging to the

parsonage shares, below Bury Hill, next Knighton hedge; but wee are too

fare from a navigable river to make profit by them; but at the Isle of

Wight they are gathered from the chalkie rocks, and carried by boates

to Deptford, to make copperas; where they doe first expose them to the

aire and raine, which makes them slake, and fall to pieces from the

centre, and shoot out a pale blewish salt; and then they boile the salt

with pieces of old rusty iron.

In the chalkie rocks at Lavington is umber, which painters have used,

and Dr. Chr. Meret hath inserted it in his Pinax. [“Pinax Rerum

Naturalium Britannicarum, continens Vegetabilia, Animalia, et Fossilia

in hac Insula reperta”. By Christopher Merret, M.D., 1666, 12mo.]

In the parish of Steeple Ashton, at West Ashton, in the grounds of Mr.

Tho. Beech, is found plenty of a very ponderous marchasite, of which

Prince Rupert made tryall, but without effect. It flieth away in

sulphur, and the fumes are extreme unwholsom: it is full of (as it

were) brasse, and strikes fire very well. It is mundick, or mock-oare.

The Earle of Pembroke hath a way to analyse it: not by fire, but by

corroding waters.

Anno Domini, 1685, in Chilmark, was found by digging of a well a

blewish oare, with brasse-like veines in it; it runnes two foot thick.

I had this oare tryed, and it flew away in sulphur, like that of

Steeple Ashton.

On Flamstone downe (in the parish of Bishopston) neer the Race-way a

quarrie of sparre exerts itselfe to the surface of the turfe. It is the

finest sparre that ever I beheld. I have made as good glasse of this

sparre as the Venice glasse. It is of a bright colour with a very

little tincture of yellow; transparent; and runnes in stirias, like

nitre; it is extraordinary hard till it is broken, and then it breakes

into very minute pieces.

We have no mines of lead; nor can I well suspect where we should find

any: but not far off in Glocestershire, at Sodbury, there is. Capt.

Ralph Greatorex, the mathematical instrument maker, sayes that it is

good lead, and that it was a Roman lead-worke.

Tis some satisfaction to know where a minerall is not. Iron or coale is

not to be look’t for in a chalky country. As yet we have not discovered

any coale in this county; but are supplied with it from Glocestershire

adjoyning, where the forest of Kingswood (near Bristowe) aboundeth most

with coale of any place in the west of England: all that tract under

ground full of this fossill. It is very observable that here are the

most holly trees of any place in the west. It seemes to me that the

holly tree delights in the effluvium of this fossil, which may serve as

a guide to find it. I was curious to be satisfied whether holly trees

were also common about the collieries at Newcastle, and Dr..... , Deane

of Durham, affirmes they are. These indications induce me to thinke it

probable that coale may be found in Dracot Parke. The Earledomes, near

Downton, (woods so called belonging to the Earledome of Pembroke,) for

the same reason, not unlike ground for coale.

They have tryed for coale at Alderbery Common, but was baffled in it.

(I have heard it credibly reported that coale has been found in

Urchfont parish, about fifty or sixty yeares since; but upon account of

the scarcity of workmen, depth of the coale, and the then plenty of

firing out of ye great wood called Crookwood, it did not quit the cost,

and so the mines were stop’d up. There hath been great talk several

times of searching after coale here again. Crookwood, once full of

sturdy oakes, is now destroyed, and all sort of fuel very dear in all

the circumjacent country. It lies very commodious, being situate about

the middle of the whole county; three miles from the populous town of

the Devises, two miles from Lavington, &c.-BISHOP TANNER.)

[Several abortive attempts have been made at different periods to find

coal on Malmesbury Common.—J. B.]

CHAPTER VI.

STONES.

I WILL begin with freestone (lapis arenarius), as the best kind of

stone that this country doth afford.

The quarre at Haselbury [near Box] was most eminent for freestone in

the western parts, before the discovery of the Portland quarrie, which

was but about anno 1600. The church of Portland, which stands by the

sea side upon the quarrie, (which lies not very deep, sc. ten foot), is

of Cane stone, from Normandie. Malmesbury Abbey and the other Wiltshire

religious houses are of Haselbury stone. The old tradition is that St.

Adelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, riding over the ground at Haselbury, did

throw down his glove, and bad them dig there, and they should find

great treasure, meaning the quarre.

AT Chilmarke is a very great quarrie of freestone, whereof the

religious houses of the south part of Wiltshire and Dorset were built.

[The walls, buttresses, and other substantial parts of Salisbury

Cathedral are constructed of the Chilmarke stone.—J. B.]

At Teffont Ewyas is a quarrie of very good white freestone, not long

since discovered.

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.

In Bower Chalke field, in the land that belongs to the farme of Broad

Chalke, is a quarrie of freestone of a dirty greenish colour, very

soft, but endures the weather well. The church and houses there are

built with it, and the barne of the farme, w{hi}ch is of great

antiquity.

The common stone in Malmesbury hundred and thereabout is oftentimes

blewish in the inside, and full of very small cockles, as at Easton

Piers. These stones are dampish and sweate, and doe emitt a cold and

unwholsome dampe, sc. the vitriolate petrified salt in it exerts

itselfe.

I know no where in this county that lime is made, unlesse it be made of

Chalke stones: whereas between Bath and Bristoll all the stone is

lime-stone. If lime were at xs. or xxs. per lib. it would be valued

above all other drugges.

At Swindon is a quarrie of stones, excellent for paveing halls,

staire-cases, &c; it being pretty white and smooth, and of such a

texture as not to be moist or wett in damp weather. It is used at

London in Montagu-house, and in Barkeley-house &c. (and at Cornberry,

Oxon. JOHN EVELYN). This stone is not inferior to Purbac grubbes, but

whiter. It takes a little polish, and is a dry stone. It was discovered

but about 1640, yet it lies not above four or five foot deep. It is

near the towne, and not above [ten] miles from the river of Thames at

Lechlade. [The Wilts and Berks Canal and the Great Western Railway now

pass close to the town of Swindon, and afford great faculties for the

conveyance of this stone, which is now in consequence very extensively

used.—J. B.]

If Chalk may be numbred among stones, we have great plenty of it. I doe

believe that all chalke was once marle; that is, that chalke has

undergone subterraneous bakeings, and is become hard: e. g, as wee make

tobacco-pipes.

Pebbles.—The millers in our country use to putt a black pebble under

the pinne of ye axis of the mill-wheele, to keep the brasse underneath

from wearing; and they doe find by experience, that nothing doth weare

so long as that. The bakers take a certain pebble, which they putt in

the vaulture of their oven, which they call the warning-stone: for when

that is white the oven is hot.

In the river Avon at Lacock are large round pebbles. I have not seen

the like elsewhere. Quaere, if any transparent ones? From Merton,

southward to the sea, is pebbly.

There was a time when all pebbles were liquid. Wee find them all

ovalish. How should this come to passe? As for salts, some shoot

cubicall, some hexagonall. Why might there not be a time, when these

pebbles were making in embryone (in fieri), for such a shooting as

falls into an ovalish figure?

Pebbles doe breake according to the length of the greatest diameter:

but those wee doe find broken in the earth are broken according to

their shortest diameter. I have broken above an hundred of them, to try

to have one broken at the shortest diameter, to save the charge and

paines of grinding them for molers to grind colours for limming; and

they all brake the long way as aforsayd.

Black flints are found in great plenty in the chalkie country. They are

a kind of pyrites, and are as regular; ’tis certain they have been “in

fluore”.

Excellent fire-flints are digged up at Dun’s Pit in Groveley, and

fitted for gunnes by Mr. Th. Sadler of Steeple Langford.

Anno 1655, I desired Dr. W. Harvey to tell me how flints were

generated. He sayd to me that the black of the flint is but a natural

vitrification of the chalke: and added that the medicine of the flint

is excellent for the stone, and I thinke he said for the greene

sicknesse; and that in some flints are found stones in next degree to a

diamond. The doctor had his armes and his wife’s cutt in such a one,

which was bigger than the naile of my middle finger; found at Folkston

in Kent, where he told me he was borne.

In the stone-brash country in North Wilts flints are very rare, and

those that are found are but little. I once found one, when I was a

little boy learning to read, in the west field by Easton Piers, as big

as one’s fist, and of a kind of liver colour. Such coloured flints are

very common in and about Long Lane near Stuston, [Sherston?—J. B.] and

no where else that I ever heard of.

It is reported that at Tydworth a diamond was found in a flint, which

the Countess of Marleborough had set in a ring. I have seen small

fluores in flints (sparkles in the hollow of flints) like diamonds; but

when they are applied to the diamond mill they are so soft that they

come to nothing. But, had he that first found out the way of cutting

transparent pebbles (which was not long before the late civill warres)

kept it a secret, he might have got thousands of pounds by it; for

there is no way to distinguish it from a diamond but by the mill.

I shall conclude with the stones called the Grey Wethers; which lye

scattered all over the downes about Marleborough, and incumber the

ground for at least seven miles diameter; and in many places they are,

as it were, sown so thick, that travellers in the twylight at a

distance take them to be flocks of sheep (wethers) from whence they

have their name. So that this tract of ground looks as if it had been

the scene where the giants had fought with huge stones against the

Gods, as is described by Hesiod in his {Gk: theogonia}.

They are also (far from the rode) commonly called Sarsdens, or Sarsdon

stones. About two or three miles from Andover is a village called

Sersden, i. e. Csars dene, perhaps don: Cæsar’s dene, Cæsar’s plains;

now Salisbury plaine. (So Salisbury, Cæsaris Burgus.) But I have mett

with this kind of stones sometimes as far as from Christian Malford in

Wilts to Abington; and on the downes about Royston, &c. as far as

Huntington, are here and there those Sarsden-stones. They peep above

the ground a yard and more high, bigger and lesser. Those that lie in

the weather are so hard that no toole can touch them. They take a good

polish. As for their colour, some are a kind of dirty red, towards

porphyry; some perfect white; some dusky white; some blew, like deep

blew marle; some of a kind of olive greenish colour; but generally they

are whitish. Many of them are mighty great ones, and particularly those

in Overton Wood. Of these kind of stones are framed the two stupendous

antiquities of Aubury and Stone-heng. I have heard the minister of

Aubury say those huge stones may be broken in what part of them you

please without any great trouble. The manner is thus: they make a fire

on that line of the stone where they would have it to crack; and, after

the stone is well heated, draw over a line with cold water, and

immediately give a smart knock with a smyth’s sledge, and it will

breake like the collets at the glasse-house. [This system of

destruction is still adopted on the downs in the neighbourhood of

Avebury. Many of the upright stones of the great Celtic Temple in that

parish have been thus destroyed in my time.—J. B.]

Sir Christopher Wren sayes they doe pitch (incline) all one way, like

arrowes shot. Quaere de hoc, and if so to what part of the heavens they

point? Sir Christopher thinks they were cast up by a vulcano.

CHAPTER VII.

OF FORMED STONES.

[AUBREY, and other writers of his time, designated by this term the

fossil remains of antediluvian animals and vegetables. This Chapter is

very brief in the manuscript; and the following are the only passages

adapted for this publication.

The numerous excavations which have been made in the county since

Aubrey’s time have led to the discovery of a great abundance of organic

remains; especially in the northern part of the county, from Swindon to

Chippenham and Box. Large collections have been made by Mr. John Provis

and Mr. Lowe, of Chippenham, which it is hoped will be preserved in

some public museum, for the advantage of future geologists.—J. B.]

THE stones at Easton-Piers are full of small cockles no bigger than

silver half-pennies. The stones at Kington St. Michael and Dracot Cerne

are also cockley, but the cockles at Dracot bigger. Cockleborough, near

Chippenham, hath its denomination from the petrified cockles found

there in great plenty, and as big as cockles. Sheldon, in the parish of

Chippenham, hath its denomination from the petrified shells in the

stones there.

At Dracot Cerne there is belemnites, as also at Tytherington Lucas.

They are like hafts of knives, dimly transparent, having a seame on

one side.

West from Highworth, towards Cricklad, are stones as big, or bigger

than one’s head, that lie common even in the highway, which are

petrified sea-mushromes. They looke like honeycombs, but the holes are

not hexagons, but round. They are found from Lydiard Tregoze to Cumnor

in Barkshire, in which field I have also seen them. [See page 9.—J. B.]

At Steeple Ashton are frequently found stones resembling the picture of

the unicorne’s horn, but not tapering. They are about the bignesse of a

cart-rope, and are of a reddish gray colour.

In the vicaridge garden at Bower Chalke are found petrified oyster

shells; which the learned Mr. Lancelot Morehouse, who lived there some

yeares, assured me: and I am informed since that there are also cockle

shells and scalop shells. Also in the parish of Wotton Basset are found

petrified oyster shells; and there are also found cornua ammonis of a

reddish gray, but not very large. About two or three miles from the

Devises are found in a pitt snake-stones (cornua ammonis) no bigger

than a sixpence, of a black colour. Mr. John Beaumont, Junr., of

Somersetshire, a great naturalist, tells me that some-where by

Chilmarke lies in the chalke a bed of stones called “echini marini”. He

also enformes me that, east of Bitteston, in the estate of Mr. Montjoy,

is a spring,-they call it a holy well,-where five-pointed stones doe

bubble up (Astreites) which doe move in vinegar.

At Broad Chalke are sometimes found cornua ammonis of chalke. I doe

believe that they might be heretofore in as great abundance hereabout

as they are about Caynsham and Burnet in Somersetshire; but being soft,

the plough teares them in pieces; and the sun and the frost does slake

them like lime. They are very common about West Lavington, with which

the right honourable James, Earle of Abington, has adorned his grotto’s

there. There are also some of these stones about Calne.

CHAPTER VIII.

AN HYPOTHESIS OF THE TERRAQUEOUS GLOBE. A DIGRESSION.

[THE seventeenth century was peculiarly an age of scientific research

and investigation. The substantial and brilliant discoveries of Newton

induced many of his less gifted contemporaries to pursue inquiries into

the arcana and profound mysteries of science; but where rational

inferences and deductions failed, they too frequently had recourse to

mere unsupported theory and conjectural speculation.

The stratification of the crust of our globe, and the division of its

surface into land and water, was a fertile theme for conjecture; and

many learned and otherwise sagacious writers, assigned imaginary causes

for the results which they attempted to explain.

The chapter of Aubrey’s work which bears the above title is, to some

extent, of this nature. It consists chiefly of speculative opinions

extracted from other works, with a few conjectures of his own, which,

though based upon the clear and judicious views of his friend Robert

Hooke, do not, upon the whole, deserve much consideration; although to

the curious in the history of Geological science they may appear

interesting. Its author had sufficient diffidence as to the merits of

this chapter to describe it as “a digression; ad mentem Mr. R. Hook,

R.S.S.”; and his friend Ray, in a letter already quoted, observes,

after commending other portions of the present work, “I find but one

thing that may give any just offence; and that is, the Hypothesis of

the Terraqueous Globe; wherewith I must confess myself not to be

satisfied: but that is but a digression, and aliene from your subject;

and so may very well be left out”. Ray’s work on “Chaos and Creation”

published in 1692, a year after the date of this letter, was a valuable

contribution to the geological knowledge of the time. Some notes by

Evelyn, on Aubrey’s original MS., shew that he was at least equally

credulous with the author.

Aubrey concludes that the universal occurrence of “petrified fishes’

shells gives clear evidence that the earth hath been all covered over

with water”. He assumes that the irregularities and changes in the

earth’s surface were occasioned by earthquakes; and has inserted in his

manuscript, from the London Gazette, accounts of three earthquakes, in

different parts of Italy, in the years 1688 and 1690. A small 4to

pamphlet, being “A true relation of the terrible Earthquake which

happened at Ragusa, and several other cities in Dalmatia and Albania,

the 6th of April 1667”, is also inserted in the MS. Aubrey observes:

“As the world was torne by earthquakes, as also the vaulture by time

foundred and fell in, so the water subsided and the dry land appeared.

Then, why might not that change alter the center of gravity of the

earth? Before this the pole of the ecliptique perhaps was the pole of

the world”. And in confirmation of these views he quotes several

passages from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, book i. fab. 7. 8. He also cites

the scheme of Father Kircher, of the Society of Jesus, which, in a

section of the globe, represents it as “full of cavities, and

resembling the inside of a pomegranade”, the centre being marked with a

blazing fire, or “ignis centralis”. “But now”, writes Aubrey in 1691,

“Mr. Edmund Halley, R.S.S., hath an hypothesis that the earth is

hollow, about five hundred miles thick; and that a terella moves within

it, which causes the variation of the needle; and in the center a sun”.

Further on he says, “that the centre of this globe is like the heart

that warmes the body, is now the most commonly received opinion”. On

the subject of subterranean heats and fires the author quotes several

pages from Dr. Edward Jorden’s “Discourse of Natural Baths and Mineral

Waters; wherein the original of fountains, the nature and differences

of water, and particularly those of the Bathe, are declared”. (4to.

1632.) He also extracts a passage from Lemery’s “Course of Chymistry”,

(8vo. 1686,) as the foundation of a theory to explain the heat of the

Bath waters.

The difficulty of reconciling the various opinions that were advanced

with the Mosaic account of the Creation, was a great stumbling-block to

the progress of geological science at the time when Aubrey wrote. He

was not however inclined to read the sacred writings too literally on

this subject, for after giving a part of the first chapter of Genesis,

he quotes (from Timothy, ch. iii. v. 15) the words, “from a child thou

hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto

salvation:” upon which he observes, “the Apostle doth not say, to teach

natural philosophy: and see Pere Symond, where he says that the

scriptures in some places may be erroneous as to philosophy, but the

doctrine of the church is right”. It is presumed that the above

passages, which indicate the general nature of Aubrey’s theory, will be

sufficient, without further quotations from this chapter.—J. B.]

CHAPTER IX.

OF PLANTS.

Præsentemq{ue} refert quaelibet herba Deum.—OVID.

[THIS is one of the most copious chapters in Aubrey’s work. Ray has

appended a number of valuable notes to it, several of which are here

printed. Dr. Maton has quoted from this chapter, which he mentions in

terms of commendation, in his “Notices of animals and plants of that

part of the county of Wilts within 10 miles round Salisbury”, appended

to Hatcher’s History of Salisbury, folio, 1843.—J. B.]

IT were to be wish’t that we had a survey or inventory of the plants of

every county in England and Wales, as there is of Cambridgeshire by Mr.

John Ray; that we might know our own store, and whither to repaire for

them for medicinall uses. God Almighty hath furnished us with plants to

cure us, that grow perhaps within five or ten miles of our abodes, and

we know it not.

Experience hath taught us that some plants have wonderful vertues; and

no doubt all have so, if we knew it or could discover it. Homer writes

sublimely, and calls them {Gk: Cheires Theion}, the hands of the gods:

and we ought to reach them religiously, with praise and thanksgiving.

I am no botanist myselfe, and I thinke we have very few in our countrey

that are; the more is the pity. But had Tho. Willisel* lived, and been

in England, I would have employed him in this search.

* THOMAS WILLISEL was a Northamptonshire man (Lancashire—J. RAY), a

very poor fellow, and was a foot soldier in ye army of Oliver Cromwell.

Lying at St. James’s (a garrison then I thinke), he happened to go

along with some simplers. He liked it so well that he desired to goe

with them as often as they went, and tooke such a fancy to it that in a

short time he became a good botanist. He was a lusty fellow, and had an

admirable sight, which is of great use for a simpler; was as hardy as a

Highlander; all the clothes on his back not worth ten groates, an

excellent marksman, and would maintain himselfe with his dog and his

gun, and his fishing-line. The botanists of London did much encourage

him, and employed (sent) him all over England, Scotland, and good part

of Ireland, if not all; where he made brave discoveries, for which his

name will ever be remembred in herballs. If he saw a strange fowle or

bird, or a fish, he would have it and case it. When ye Lord John

Vaughan, now Earle of Carbery, was made Governour of Jamaica, 167-, I

did recommend him to his Excellency, who made him his gardiner there.

He dyed within a yeare after his being there, but had made a fine

collection of plants and shells, which the Earle of Carbery hath by

him; and had he lived he would have given the world an account of the

plants, animals, and fishes of that island. He could write a hand

indifferent legible, and had made himself master of all the Latine

names: he pourtrayed but untowardly. All the profession he had was to

make pegges for shoes.

Sir William Petty surveyed the kingdome of Ireland geographically, by

those that knew not what they did. Why were it impossible to procure a

botanique survey of Wiltshire by apothecaries of severall quarters of

the county? Their profession leadeth them to an acquaintance of herbes,

and the taske being divided, would not be very troublesome; and,

besides the pleasure, would be of great use. The apothecaries of

Highworth, Malmesbury, Calne, and Bath (which is within three miles of

Wilts) might give an account of the northern part of Wiltshire, which

abounds with rare simples: the apothecaries of Warminster, the Devises,

and Marleborough, the midland part; and the apothecaries of Salisbury

the south part, towards the New Forest.

Mr. Hayward, the apothecary of Calne, is an ingenious person and a good

botanist; and there-about is great variety of earths and plants. He is

my friend, and eagerly espouses this designe. He was bred in Salisbury,

and hath an interest with the apothecaries there, and very likely at

Bath also. I had a good interest with two very able apothecaries in

Salisbury: Hen. Denny (Mr. Hayward’s master), and Mr. Eires; but they

are not long since dead. But Mr. Andrewes, on the ditch there, hath

assured a friend of mine, Robt. Good, M.A. that he will preserve the

herbes the herbe-women shall bring him, for my use.

If such an inventory were made it would sett our countrey-men a worke,

to make ’em love this knowledge, and to make additions.

In the meantime, that this necessary topick be not altogether void, I

will sett down such plants as I remember to have seen in my frequent

journeys. ’Twas pleasant to behold how every ten or twenty miles yield

a new entertainment in this kind.

I will begin in the north part, towardes Coteswold in Gloucestershire.

In Bradon Forest growes very plentifully rank wood-wax; and a blew

grasse they call July-flower grasse, which cutts the sheepes mouthes;

except in the spring. (I suppose it is that sort of Cyperus grasse

which some herbarists call “gramen caryophylleu{s}”.—J. RAY.) Wood-wax

growes also plentifully between Easton-Piers and Yatton Keynel; but not

so rank as at Bradon Forest.

At Mintie is an abundance of wild mint, from whence the village is

denominated.

Argentina (wild tansey) growes the most in the fallowes in Coteswold,

and North Wilts adjoyning, that I ever saw. It growes also in the

fallowes in South Wiltshire, but not so much. (Argentina grows for ye

most part in places that are moist underneath, or where water stagnates

in winter time.—J. RAY.)

About Priory St. Maries, and in the Minchin-meadowes* there, but

especially at Brown’s-hill, which is opposite to the house where, in an

unfortunate hour,† I drew my first breath, there is infinite variety of

plants; and it would have tempted me to have been a botanist had I had

leisure, which is a jewell I could be never master of. In the banks of

the rivulet growes abundantly maiden-haire (adiantum capillas veneris),

harts-tongue, phyllitis, brooke-lime (anagallis aquatica), &c. cowslip

(arthritica) and primroses (primula veris) not inferior to Primrose

Hills. In this ground calver-keys, hare-parsely, wild vetch,

maiden’s-honesty, polypodium, fox-gloves, wild-vine, bayle. Here is

wonderfull plenty of wild saffron, carthamus, and many vulnerary

plants, now by me forgott. There growes also adder’s-tongue, plenty—q.

if it is not the same with viper’s-tongue? (We have no true black

mayden-hair growing in England. That which passeth under that name in

our apothecaries’ shops, and is used as its succeedaneum, is

trichomores. Calver-keys, hare’s-parseley, mayden’s-honesty, are

countrey names unknown to me. Carthamus growes no where wild with us.

It may possibly be sown in ye fields, as I have seen it in Germany.—J.

RAY.)

* Minchin is an old word for a nunne.

† Vide my Villa. “Quoque loco primum tibi sum male cognitus infans”.

In Natalem, Ovid. Trist. lib. iii.

This north part of the shire is very naturall for barley. Till the

beginning of the civill warrs wheat was rarely sown hereabout; and the

brown bread was barley: now all the servants and poor people eat

wheaten bread.

Strawberries (fragaria), in Colern woods, exceeding plentifull; the

earth is not above two inches above the free-stone. The poor children

gather them, and sell them to Bathe; but they kill the young ashes, by

barking them to make boxes to put them in.

Strawberries have a most delicious taste, and are so innocent that a

woman in childbed, or one in a feaver, may safely eate them: but I have

heard Sir Christopher Wren affirm, that if one that has a wound in his

head eates them, they are mortall. Methinks ’tis very strange. Quaere,

the learned of this?

About Totnam-well is a world of yellow weed (q. nomen) which the diers

use for the first tinge for scarlet; and afterwards they use

cutchonele.

Bitter-sweet (dulcamara), with a small blew flower, plenty at Box.

(And Market Lavington, in the withy-bed belonging to the

vicarage.-BISHOP TANNER.)

Ferne (filix); the largest and rankest growes in Malmesbury hundred:

but the biggest and tallest that ever I saw is in the parke at Draycot

Cerne, as high almost as a man on horseback, on an ordinary horse.

“The forest of Savernake is of great note for plenty of game, and for a

kind of ferne there that yieldeth a most pleasant savour”.-(Fuller’s

Worthies: Wilts, Hen. Sturmy.)

This ferne is mentioned by Dr. Peter Heylin in his Church History, in

the Pedegre of Seymour. The vicar of Great Bedwin told me that he hath

seen and smelt the ferne, and that it is like other ferne, but not so

big. He knowes not where it growes, but promised to make enquirie. Now

Mr. Perkins sayes that this is sweet cis, and that it is also found in

the New Forest; but me thinkes the word Savernake seems to be a

sweet-oke-ferne:—oke, is oake; verne is ferne; perhaps sa, or sav, is

sweet or savorous.—(Vide Phytologia Britannic., where this fern is

taken notice of. Sweet fern is the vulgar name, for sweet chervill or

cicely; but I never found that plant wild in England.—J. RAY.)

Danes-blood (ebulis) about Slaughtonford is plenty. There was

heretofore (vide J. Milton) a great fight with the Danes, which made

the inhabitants give it that name.

Wormewood exceedingly plentifull in all the wast grounds in and about

Kington St. Michael, Hullavington, and so to Colerne, and great part of

the hundred of Malmesbury.

Horse-taile (equisetum). Watchmakers and fine workers in brasse use it

after smooth filing. They have it from Holland; but about Dracot Cerne

and Kington St. Michael, in the minchin-meadow of Priory St. Maries, is

great quantity of the same. It growes four and five foot high.

Coleworts, or kale, the common western dish, was the Saxon physic. In

the east it is so little esteemed that the poor people will not eate

it.

About Malmesbury “ros solis”, which the strong-water men there doe

distill, and make good quantitys of it. In the woods about the Devises

growes Solomon’s-seale; also goates-rue (gallega); as also that

admirable plant, lilly-convally. Mr. Meverell says the flowers of the

lilly-convally about Mosco are little white flowers.—(Goat’s-rue:—I

suspect this to be a mistake; for I never yet heard that goat’s-rue was

found by any man growing wild in England.—J. RAY.)

The middle part of Wilts.—Naked-boys (q. if not wild saffron) about

Stocton. (Naked-boys is, I suppose, meadow saffron, or colchicum, for I

doe not remember ever to have seen any other sort of saffron growing

wild in England.—J. RAY.)

The watered meadows all along from Marleborough to Hungerford,

Ramesbury, and Littlecot, at the later end of Aprill, are yellow with

butter flowers. When you come to Twyford the floted meadowes there are

all white with little flowers, which I believe are ladysmocks

(cardamine): quaere of some herbalist the right name of that plant.

(Ranunculus aquaticus folio integro et multum diviso, C. Bankini.—J.

RAY.) The graziers told me that the yellow meadowes are by much the

better, and those white flowers are produc’t by a cold hungry water.

South part.—At the east end of Ebbesbourne Wake is a meadowe called

Ebbesbourne, that beareth grasse eighteen foot long. I myself have seen

it of thirteen foot long; it is watered with the washing of the

village. Upon a wager in King James the First’s time, with washing it

more than usuall, the grasse was eighteen foot long. It is so sweet

that the pigges will eate it; it growes no higher than other grasse,

but with knotts and harles, like a skeen of silke (or setts together).

They cannot mowe it with a sythe, but they cutt it with such a hooke as

they bagge pease with.

At Orston [Orcheston] St. Maries is a meadowe of the nature of that at

Ebbesbourne aforesayd, which beares a sort of very long grasse. Of this

grasse there was presented to King James the First some that were

seventeen foot long: here is only one acre and a half of it. In common

yeares it is 12 or 13 foot long. It is a sort of knott grasse, and the

pigges will eate it.

[The “Orcheston Grass” has long been famous as one of the most singular

vegetable products of this country. From the time of Fuller, who

particularly mentions it in his “Worthies of England”, many varying and

exaggerated accounts of it have been published: but in the year 1798

Dr. Maton carefully examined the grass, and fully investigated the

peculiar circumstances of soil and locality which tend to its

production. He contributed the result of his inquiries to the Linnæan

Society, in a paper which is printed in the fifth volume of their

Transactions. Some comments on that paper, and on the subject

generally, by Mr. Davis, of Longleat, will be found in the second

volume of the Beauties of Wiltshire, p. 79. That gentleman states that

“its extraordinary length is produced by the overflowing of the river

on a warm gravelly bed, which disposes the grass to take root and shoot

out from the joints, and then root again, and thus again and again; so

that it is frequently of the length of ten or twelve feet and the

quantity on the land immense, although it does not stand above two feet

high from the ground”. Although the meadow at Orcheston St. Mary in

which this grass grows is only two acres and a half in extent, its

produce in a favourable season, is said to have exceeded twelve tons of

hay. Shakspere, to whom all natural and rural objects were familiar,

alludes to the “hindering knot-grass”, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,

Act iii. sc. 2.

Ramsons (allium ursinum, fl. albo): tast like garlick: they grow much

in Cranbourn Chace. A proverb:—

“Eate leekes in Lide,* and ramsins in May,

And all the yeare after physitians may play”.

* March.

[I have seen this old proverb printed, “Eat leekes in Lent, and raisins

in May, &c.”—J. B.]

No wild oates in Wiltshire, or rarely. In Somersetshire, common. (There

is abundance of wild oats in the middle part of Wiltsh., especially in

the west clay of Market Lavington field, when the crop is

barley.—BISHOP TANNER.)

Thorowax beares a pretty little yellow flower, not much unlike the

blowing of a furze that growes so common on the downes, close to the

ground: the bees love it extremely. (There is a mistake in thorowax, or

perfoliata; for that rises to a good stature, and hath no such flower.

I suppose the plant you mean is trifolium corniculatum, or bird’s-foot

trefoil.—J. RAY.)

The right honorable James, Earle of Abingdon, tells me that there are

plenty of morillons about Lavingtons, which he eates, and sends to

London. Methinkes ’tis a kind of ugly mushroom. Morillons we have from

Germany and other places beyond sea, which are sold here at a deare

rate; the outer side is like a honeycombe. I have seen them of nine

inches about They grow near the rootes of elmes.

Poppy (papaver) is common in the corn fields; but the hill above

Harnham, by Salisbury, appeares a most glorious scarlet, it is so thick

there.

“Ilia soporiferum, parvas initura penates,

Colligit agresti lene papaver humo.

Dum legit oblito fertur gustàsse palato,

Longamq{ue} imprudens exsoluisse famem”.—OVID. FAST. lib. iv.

In a ground of mine called Swices (which is a neck of land at the upper

end of the field called Shatcomb) growes abundantly a plant called by

the people hereabout crow-bells, which I never saw any where but there.

“Swice”, in the old English, signifies a neck.

Dwarfe-elder (ebulus) at Box, &c. common enough: at Falston and Stoke

Verdon, in the high waies. The juice of ebulus turnes haire black; and

being mingled with bull’s fatt is Dr. Buller’s remedie for the gowte.

The best way to dye haire browne is to take alhanna in powder, mix’t

with fair water as thick as mustard: lay it on the haire, and so tye it

up in a napkin for twelve houres time. Doe thus for six dayes together,

putting on fresh every day for that time. This will keep the haire

browne for one whole yeares time after it. The alhanna does prepare the

hair and makes it of a darke red or tawny colour. Then they take

“takout”, which is like a small gall, and boyle it in oyle till it hath

drunk up all the oyle; then pulverize it, and mix it with water and

putt it on the haire. Grind a very little of alkohol, which they use in

glazeing of their earthen vessels, in a mortar with the takout, and

this turnes the haire to a perfect black. This receipt I had from my

worthy and obligeing friend Mr. Wyld Clarke, merchant, of London, who

was factour many yeares at S{an}cta-Cruce, in Barberie, and brought

over a quantity of these leaves for his own use and his friends. ’Tis

pity it is not more known. ’Tis leaves of a tree like a berbery leafe.

Mr. Clarke hath yet by him (1690) above half a peck of the alhanna.

Dr. Edw. Brown, M.D. in his Travells, sc. description of Larissa and

Thessalie, speakes of alhanna. Mr. Wyld Clarke assures me that juice of

lemons mixt with alhanna strikes a deeper and more durable colour

either in the hands or nailes.

Tobacco.—We have it onely in gardens for medicine; but in the

neighbouring county of Gloucester it is a great commodity. Mdm.

“Tobacco was first brought into England by Ralph Lane in the eight and

twentieth yeare of Queen Elizabeth’s raigne”.—Sir Richard Baker’s

Chronicle. Rider’s Almanack (1682) sayes since tobacco was first

brought into England by Sir Walter Raleigh, 99 yeares. Mr. Michael

Weekes, of the custome house, assures me that the custom of tobacco is

the greatest of all other, and amounts now (1688) to four hundred

thousand pounds per annum. [Now (1847) about three millions and a

half.—J. B.]

Broome keeps sheep from the rott, and is a medicine not long since

found out by physitians for the dropsy. In some places I knew carefull

husbandmen that quite destroyed their broome (as at Lanford), and

afterwards their sheep died of the rott, from which they were free

before the broom was cutt down; so ever since they doe leave a border

of broome about their grounds for their sheep to browze on, to keep

them sound.

Furzes (genista spinosa).-I never saw taller or more flourishing

English furzes than at Chalke. The Great Duke of Thuscany carried

furzes out of England for a rarity in his magnificent garden. I never

saw such dwarft furzes as at Bowdon parke; they did but just peep above

the ground.

Oakes (the best of trees).-We had great plenty before the

disafforestations. We had in North Wiltshire, and yet have, though not

in the former plenty, as good oakes as any in England. The best that we

have now (1670) are at Okesey Parke, Sir Edward Poole’s, in Malmesbury

hundred; and the oakes at Easton Piers (once mine) were, for the

number, not inferior to them. In my great-grandfather Lite’s time (15—)

one might have driv’n a plough over every oake in the oak-close, which

are now grown stately trees. The great oake by the day-house [dairy

house—J. B.] is the biggest oake now, I believe, in all the countie.

There is a common wealth of rookes there. When I was a boy the two

greatest oakes were, one on the hill at the parke at Dracot Cerne; the

other at Mr. Sadler’s, at Longley Burrell. ’Twas of one of these trees,

I remember, that the trough of the paper mill at Long-deane, in the

parish of Yatton Keynell, anno 1636, was made. In Garsden Parke (now

the Lord Ferrars) is perhaps the finest hollow oake in England; it is

not high, but very capacious, and well wainscotted; with a little

table, which I thinke eight may sitt round. When an oake is felling,

before it falles, it gives a kind of shreikes or groanes, that may be

heard a mile off, as if it were the genius of the oake lamenting. E.

Wyld, Esq. hath heard it severall times. This gave the occasion of that

expression in Ovid’s Metamorph. lib. viii. fab. ii. about Erisichthon’s

felling of the oake sacred to Ceres:—“gemitumq{ue} dedit decidua

quercus”.

In a progresse of K. Charles I. in time of peace, three score and ten

carts stood under the great oake by Woodhouse. It stands in Sir James

Thinne’s land. On this oake Sir Fr. D—— hung up thirteen, after

quarter. Woodhouse was a garrison for the Parliament. He made a sonn

hang his father, or è contra. From the body of this tree to the extreme

branches is nineteen paces of Captain Hamden, who cannot pace less than

a yard. (Of prodigious trees of this kind you will see many instances

in my Sylva, which Mr. Ray has translated and inserted in his

Herbal.—J. EVELYN.)

In the New Forest, within the trenches of the castle of Molwood (a

Roman camp) is an old oake, which is a pollard and short It putteth

forth young leaves on Christmas day, for about a week at that time of

the yeare. Old Mr. Hastings, of Woodlands, was wont to send a basket

full of them every yeare to King Charles I. I have seen of them

severall Christmasses brought to my father.

But Mr. Perkins, who lives in the New Forest, sayes that there are two

other oakes besides that which breed green buddes about Christmas day

(pollards also), but not constantly. One is within two leagges of the

King’s-oake, the other a mile and a halfe off. [Leagges, probably lugs:

a lug being “a measure of land, called otherwise a pole or perch”.

(Bailey’s Dictionary.) The context renders leagues improbable.—J. B.]

Elmes.-I never did see an elme that grew spontaneously in a wood, as

oakes, ashes, beeches, &c.; which consideration made me reflect that

they are exotique; but by whom were they brought into this island? Not

by the Saxons; for upon enquiry I am enformed that there are none in

Saxony, nor in Denmarke, nor yet in France, spontaneous; but in Italy

they are naturall; e. g. in Lombardie, &c. Wherefore I am induced to

believe that they were brought hither out of Italy by the Romans, who

were cultivators of their colonies. The Saxons understood not nor cared

for such improvements, nor had hardly leisure if they would.

Anno 1687 I travelled from London as far as the Bishoprick of Durham.

From Stamford to the bishoprick I sawe not one elme on the roade,

whereas from London to Stamford they are in every hedge almost. In

Yorkshire is plenty of trees, which they call elmes; but they are

wich-hazells, as wee call them in Wilts (in some counties wich-elmes).

I acquainted Mr. Jo. Ray of this, and he told me when he travelled into

the north he minded it not, being chiefly intent on herbes; but he

writes the contrary to what I doe here: but it is matter of fact, and

therefore easily to bee prov’d. [See Ray’s Letter to Aubrey, ante, p.

8.] “Omnesq{ue}, radicum plantis proveniunt”.—Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 17.

In the Villare Anglicanum are a great many towns, called Ash-ton,

Willough-by, &c. but not above three or four Elme-tons.

In the common at Urshfont was a mighty elme, which was blown down by

the great wind when Ol. Cromwell died. I sawe it as it lay along, and I

could but just looke over it. [See note in page 14.—J. B.]

Since the writing this of elmes, Edmund Wyld, Esq. of Houghton Conquest

in Bedfordshire, R.S.S. assures me that in Bedfordshire, in severall

woods, e. g. about Wotton, &c. that elmes doe grow naturally, as ashes,

beeches, &c.; but quaere, what kind of elm it is?

Beeches.-None in Wilts except at Groveley. (In the wood belonging to

Mr. Samwell’s farm at Market Lavington are three very large

beeches.-—BISHOP TANNER.) I have a conceit that long time ago Salisbury

plaines might have woods of them, but that they cut them down as an

incumbrance to the ground, which would turn to better profit by pasture

and arable. The Chiltern of Buckinghamshire is much of the like soile;

and there the neernesse of Bucks to London, with the benefit of the

Thames, makes their woods a very profitable commodity.

About the middle of Groveley Forest was a fair wood of oakes, which was

called Sturton’s Hatt. It appeared a good deale higher than the rest of

the forest (which was most coppice wood), and was seen over all

Salisbury plaines. In the middle of this hatt of trees (it resembled a

hatt) there was a tall beech, which overtopt all the rest. The hatt was

cutt down by Philip II. Earle of Pembroke, 1654; and Thomas, Earle of

Pembroke, disafforested it, an°. 1684.

Birch.—Wee have none in North Wilts, but some (no great plenty) in

South Wilts: most by the New Forest (In the parish of Market Lavington

is a pretty large coppice, which consists for the most part of birch;

and from thence it is well known by the name of the Birchen

coppice.—BISHOP TANNER.)

In the parish of Hilmerton, in the way from Calne, eastward, leaving

Hilmerton on the left hand, grows a red withy on the ditch side by the

gate, 10 feet 6 inches about; and the spreading of the boughs is seaven

yards round from the body of the tree.

Wich-hazel in the hundred of Malmesbury and thereabout, spontaneous.

There are two vast wich-hazel trees in Okesey Parke, not much lesse

than one of the best oakes there.

At Dunhed St. Maries, at the crosse, is a wich-hazell not lesse worthy

of remarque than Magdalene-College oake (mentioned by Dr. Rob. Plott),

for the large circumference of the shadowe that it causeth. When I was

a boy the bowyers did use them to make bowes, and they are next best to

yew.

Hornbeam we have none; neither did I ever see but one in the west of

England, and that at Bathwick, juxta Bath, in the court yard of Hen.

Nevill, Esq.

Yew trees naturally grow in chalkie countrys. The greatest plenty of

them, as I believe, in the west of England is at Nunton Ewetrees.

Between Knighton Ashes and Downton the ground produces them all along;

but at Nunton they are a wood. At Ewridge, in the parish of Colern, in

North Wilts (a stone brash and a free stone), they also grow

indifferently plentifull; and in the parish of Kington St Michael I

remember three or four in the stone brash and red earth.

When I learnt my accidents, 1633, at Yatton Keynel, there was a fair

and spreading ewe-tree in the churchyard, as was common heretofore. The

boyes tooke much delight in its shade, and it furnish’t them with their

scoopes and nutt-crackers. The clarke lop’t it to make money of it to

some bowyer or fletcher, and that lopping kill’d it: the dead trunke

remaines there still. (Eugh-trees grow wild about Winterslow. A great

eugh-tree in North Bradley churchyard, planted, as the tradition goes,

in the time of ye Conquest. Another in …. Cannings churchyard. Leland

(Itinerary) observes that in his time there was thirty-nine vast

eugh-trees in the churchyard belonging to Stratfleur Abbey, in

Wales.-BISHOP TANNER. Abundance of ewgh-trees in Surrey, upon the

downes, heretofore, thô now much diminished.—J. EVELYN.)

Box, a parish so called in North Wilts, neer Bathe, in which parish is

our famous freestone quarre of Haselbery: in all probability tooke its

name from the box-trees which grew there naturally, but now worne out.

Not far off on Coteswold in Gloucestershire is a village called

Boxwell, where is a great wood of it, which once in …. yeares Mr.

Huntley fells, and sells to the combe-makers in London. At Boxley in

Kent, and at Boxhill in Surrey, bothe chalkie soiles, are great box

woods, to which the combe-makers resort.

Holy is indifferently common in Malmesbury hundred, and also on the

borders of the New Forest: it seemes to indicate pitt-coale. In Wardour

Parke are holy-trees that beare yellow berries. I think I have seen the

like in Cranborne Chase.

Hazel.—Wee have two sorts of them. In the south part, and particularly

Cranbourn Chase, the hazells are white and tough; with which there are

made the best hurdles of England. The nutts of the chase are of great

note, and are sold yearly beyond sea. They sell them at Woodbery Hill

Faire, &c.; and the price of them is the price of a buschell of wheate.

The hazell-trees in North Wilts are red, and not so tough, more

brittle.

Coven-tree common about Chalke and Cranbourn Chase: the carters doe

make their whippes of it. It growes no higher than a cherry-tree.

Buckthorne very common in South Wiltshire. The apothecaries make great

use of the berries, and the glovers use it to colour their leather

yellow.

Prick-timber (euonymus).—This tree is common, especially in North

Wilts. The butchers doe make skewers of it, because it doth not taint

the meate as other wood will doe: from whence it hath the name of

prick-timber.

Osiers.—Wee have great plenty of them about Bemarton, &c. near

Salisbury, where the osier beds doe yield four pounds per acre.

Service-trees grow naturally in Grettwood, in the parish of Gretenham,

belonging to George Ayliffe, Esq. In the parke of Kington St. Michel is

onely one. At the foot of Hedington Hill, and also at the bottome of

the hill at Whitesheet, which is the same range of hill, doe growe at

least twenty cervise-trees. They operate as medlars, but less

effectually.

Pliny, lib. xv. c. 21. “De Sorbis. Quartum genus torminale appellatur,

remedio tantum probabile, assiduum proventu minimumq{ue} pomo, arbore

dissimili foliis plane platani”. Lib. xvi. cap. 18.—“Gaudet frigidis

Sorbus sed magis betulla”. Dr. Gale, R.S.S. tells me that

“Sorbiodunum”, now Old Sarum, has its denomination from “sorbes”; but

the ground now below the castle is all turned to arable.

Elders grow every where. At Bradford the side of the high hill which

faces the south, about Mr. Paul Methwin’s house, is covered with them.

I fancy that that pent might be turned to better profit, for it is

situated as well for a vinyard as any place can be, and is on a rocky

gravelly ground. The apothecaries well know the use of the berries, and

so doe the vintners, who buy vast quantities of them in London, and

some doe make no inconsiderable profit by the sale of them.

At the parsonage house at Wyley growes an ash out of the mortar of the

wall of the house, and it flourishes very well and is verdant. It was

nine yeares old in 1686. I doe not insert this as a rarity; but ’tis

strange to consider that it hath its growth and nourishment from the

aire, for from the lime it can receive none. [In August 1847, I

observed a large and venerable ash tree growing out of and united with

the ancient Roman walls of Caistor, near Norwich. The whole of the base

of the trunk was incorporated with bricks, rubble, and mortar; but the

roots no doubt extended many yards into the adjacent soil.—J. B.]

Whitty-tree, or wayfaring-tree, is rare in this country; some few in

Cranbourn Chace, and three or four on the south downe of the farme of

Broad Chalke. In Herefordshire they are not uncommon; and they used,

when I was a boy, to make pinnes for the yoakes of their oxen of them,

believing it had vertue to preserve them from being forespoken, as they

call it; and they use to plant one by their dwelling-house, believing

it to preserve from witches and evill eyes.

Mr. Anthony Hinton, one of the officers of the Earle of Pembroke, did

inoculate, not long before the late civill warres (ten yeares or more),

a bud of Glastonbury Thorne, on a thorne at his farm-house at Wilton,

which blossomes at Christmas as the other did. My mother has had

branches of them for a flower-pott severall Christmasses, which I have

seen. Elias Ashmole, Esq., in his notes upon “Theatrum Chymicum”, saies

that in the churchyard at Glastonbury grew a wallnutt tree that did

putt out young leaves at Christmas, as doth the king’s oake in the New

Forest. In Parham Parke, in Suffolk (Mr. Boutele’s), is a pretty

ancient thorne that blossomes like that at Glastonbury; the people

flock thither to see it on Christmas-day. But in the rode that leades

from Worcester to Droitwiche is a blackthorne hedge at Clayn, halfe a

mile long or more, that blossomes about Christmas-day for a week or

more together. The ground is called Longland. Dr. Ezerel Tong sayd that

about Runnly-marsh, in Kent, [Romney-marsh?] are thornes naturally like

that at Glastonbury. The souldiers did cutt downe that neer

Glastonbury: the stump remaines.

In the parish of Calne, at a pleasant seat of the Blakes, called

Pinhill, was a grove of pines, which gives the name to the seate.

About 1656 there were remaining about four or five: they made fine

shew on the hill.

In the old hedges which are the boundes between the lands of Priory St.

Marie, juxta Kington St. Michael, and the west field, which belonged to

the Lord Abbot of Glastonbury, are yet remaining a great number of

berberry-trees, which I suppose the nunnes made use of for confections,

and they taught the young ladies that were educated there such arts. In

those days there were not schooles for young ladies as now, but they

were educated at religious houses.

CHAPTER X.

BEASTES.

[THIS Chapter, with the three which follow it, on “Fishes”, “Birds”,

and “Reptils and Insects”, constitute a principal branch of the work.

On these topics Aubrey was assisted by his friend Sir James Long, of

Draycot, Bart., whose letters to him are inserted in the original

manuscript. Besides the passages here given, the chapter on “Beastes”

comprises some extracts from Dame Juliana Berners’ famous “Treatyse on

Hawkynge, Hunting, and Fisshynge” (1481); together with a minute

account of a sculptured representation of hunting the wild boar, over a

Norman doorway at Little Langford Church. This bas-relief is engraved

in Hoare’s Modern Wiltshire.—J. B.]

I WILL first begin with beastes of venerie, whereof there hath been

great plenty in this countie, and as good as any in England. Mr. J.

Speed, who wrote the description of Wiltshire, anno Domini [1611],

reckons nine forests, one chace, and twenty-nine parkes.

This whole island was anciently one great forest. A stagge might have

raunged from Bradon Forest to the New Forest; sc. from forest to

forest, and not above four or five miles intervall (sc. from Bradon

Forest to Grettenham and Clockwoods; thence to the forest by

Boughwood-parke, by Calne and Pewsham Forest, Blackmore Forest,

Gillingham Forest, Cranbourn Chase, Holt Forest, to the New Forest.)

Most of those forests were given away by King James the First. Pewsham

Forest was given to the Duke of Buckingham, who gave it, I thinke, to

his brother, the Earle of Anglesey. Upon the disafforesting of it, the

poor people made this rhythme:-

“When Chipnam stood in Pewsham’s wood,

Before it was destroy’d,

A cow might have gone for a groat a yeare-

but now it is denyed”.

The metre is lamentable; but the cry of the poor was more lamentable. I

knew severall that did remember the going of a cowe for 4d. per annum.

The order was, how many they could winter they might summer: and pigges

did cost nothing the going. Now the highwayes are encombred with

cottages, and the travellers with the beggars that dwell in them.

The deer of the forest of Groveley were the largest of fallow deer in

England, but some doe affirm the deer of Cranborne Chase to be larger

than Groveley. Quaere Mr. Francis Wroughton of Wilton concerning the

weight of the deer; as also Jack Harris, now keeper of Bere Forest, can

tell the weight of the best deere of Verneditch and Groveley: he uses

to come to the inne at Sutton. Verneditch is in the parish of Broad

Chalke. ’Tis agreed that Groveley deer were generally the heaviest; but

there was one, a buck, killed at Verneditch about an°. 165-, that

out-weighed Groveley by two pounds. Dr. Randal Caldicot told me that it

was weighed at his house, and it weighed eight score pounds. About the

yeare 1650 there were in Verneditch-walke, which is a part of Cranborne

Chase, a thousand or twelve hundred fallow deere; and now, 1689, there

are not above five hundred. A glover at Tysbury will give sixpence more

for a buckskin of Cranborne Chase than of Groveley; and he saies that

he can afford it.

Clarendon Parke was the best parke in the King’s dominions. Hunt and

Palmer, keepers there, did averre that they knew seven thousand head of

deere in that parke; all fallow deere. This parke was seven miles

about. Here were twenty coppices, and every one a mile round.

Upon these disafforestations the marterns were utterly destroyed in

North Wilts. It is a pretty little beast and of a deep chesnutt colour,

a kind of polecat, lesse than a fox; and the furre is much esteemed:

not much inferior to sables. It is the richest furre of our nation.

Martial saies of it—

“Venator capta marte superbus adest”.—Epigr.

In Cranborn Chase and at Vernditch are some marterns still remaining.

In Wiley river are otters, and perhaps in others. The otter is our

English bever; and Mr. Meredith Lloyd saies that in the river Tivy in

Carmarthenshire there were real bevers heretofore—now extinct. Dr.

Powell, in his History of Wales, speakes of it. They are both alike;

fine furred, and their tayles like a fish. (The otter hath a hairy

round tail, not like the beavers.—J. RAY.)

I come now to warrens. That at Auburn is our famous coney-warren; and

the conies there are the best, sweetest, and fattest of any in England;

a short, thick coney, and exceeding fatt The grasse there is very

short, and burnt up in the hot weather. ’Tis a saying, that conies doe

love rost-meat.

Mr. Wace’s notes, p. 62.—“We have no wild boares in England: yet it may

be thought that heretofore we had, and did not think it convenient to

preserve this game”. But King Charles I. sent for some out of France,

and putt them in the New Forest, where they much encreased, and became

terrible to the travellers. In the civill warres they were destroyed,

but they have tainted all the breed of the pigges of the neighbouring

partes, which are of their colour; a kind of soot colour.

(There were wild boars in a forest in Essex formerly. I sent a Portugal

boar and sow to Wotton in Surrey, which greatly increased; but they

digged the earth so up, and did such spoyle, that the country would not

endure it: but they made incomparable bacon.—J. EVELYN.)

In warrens are found, but rarely, some old stotes, quite white: that

is, they are ermins. My keeper of Vernditch warren hath shewn two or

three of them to me.

At Everley is a great warren for hares; and also in Bishopston parish

neer Wilton is another, where the standing is to see the race; and an°.

1682 the Right Honble James, Earle of Abingdon, made another at West

Lavington.

Having done now with beastes of venerum, I will come to dogges. The

British dogges were in great esteeme in the time of the Romans; as

appeares by Gratius, who lived in Augustus Caesar’s time, and Oppian,

who wrote about two ages after Gratius, in imitation of him. “Gratii

Cynegeticon”, translated by Mr. Chr. Wace, 1654:-

“What if the Belgique current you should view,

And steer your course to Britain’s utmost shore’!

Though not for shape, and much deceiving show,

The British hounds no other blemish know:

When fierce work comes, and courage must he shown,

And Mars to extreme combat leads them on,

Then stout Molossians you will lesse commend;

With Athemaneans these in craft contend.”

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. It was in his lordship’s time, sc. tempore Jacobi I. and

Caroli I. a serene calme of peace, that hunting was at its greatest

heighth that ever was in this nation. The Roman governours had not, I

thinke, that leisure. The Saxons were never at quiet; and the barons’

warres, and those of York and Lancaster, took up the greatest part of

the time since the Conquest: so that the glory of the English hunting

breath’d its last with this Earle, who deceased about 1644, and shortly

after the forests and parkes were sold and converted into arable, &c.

’Twas after his lordship’s decease [1650] that I was a hunter; that is

to say, with the Right Honourable William, Lord Herbert, of Cardiff,

the aforesaid Philip’s grandson. Mr. Chr. Wace then taught him Latin,

and hunted with him; and ’twas then that he translated Gratii

Cynegeticon, and dedicated it to his lordship, which will be a lasting

monument for him. Sir Jo. Denham was at Wilton at that time about a

twelve moneth.

The Wiltshire greyhounds were also the best of England, and are still;

and my father and I have had as good as any were in our times in

Wiltshire. They are generally of a fallow colour, or black; but Mr.

Button’s, of Shirburn in Glocestershire, are some white and some black.

But Gratius, in his Cynegeticon, adviseth:-

“And chuse the grayhound py’d with black and white,

He runs more swift than thought, or winged flight;

But courseth yet in view, not hunts in traile,

In which the quick Petronians never faile.”

We also had in this county as good tumblers as anywhere in the nation.

Martial speakes of the tumblers:-

“Non sibi sed domino venatur vertagus acer,

Illæsum leporem qui tibi dente feret”—

Turnebus, Young, Gerard, Vossius, and Janus Ulitius, all consenting

that the name and dog came together from Gallia Belgica. Dr. Caldicot

told me that in Wilton library there was a Latine poeme (a manuscript),

wrote about Julius Caesar’s time, where was mention of tumblers, and

that they were found no where but in Britaine. I ask’d him if ’twas not

Gratius; he told me no. Quaere, Mr. Chr. Wace, if he remembers any such

thing? The books are now most lost and gonne: perhaps ’twas Martial.

Very good horses for the coach are bought out of the teemes in our

hill-countrey. Warminster market is much used upon this account.

I have not seen so many pied cattle any where as in North Wiltshire.

The country hereabout is much inclined to pied cattle, but commonly the

colour is black or brown, or deep red. Some cow-stealers will make a

hole in a hott lofe newly drawn out of the oven, and putt it on an oxes

horn for a convenient tune, and then they can turn their softned homes

the contrary way, so that the owner cannot swear to his own beast. Not

long before the King’s restauration a fellow was hanged at Tyburn for

this, and say’d that he had never come thither if he had not heard it

spoken of in a sermon. Thought he, I will try this trick.

CHAPTER XI.

FISHES.

HUNGERFORD trowtes are very much celebrated, and there are also good

ones at Marleborough and at Ramesbury. In the gravelly stream at

Slaughtenford are excellent troutes; but, though I say it, there are

none better in England than at Nawle, which is the source of the

streame of Broad Chalke, a mile above it; but half a mile below Chalke,

they are not so good. King Charles I. loved a trout above all fresh

fish; and when he came to Wilton, as he commonly did every summer, the

Earle of Pembroke was wont to send for these trowtes for his majesties

eating.

The eeles at Marleborough are incomparable; silver eeles, truly almost

as good as a trout. In ye last great frost, 168-, when the Thames was

frozen over, there were as many eeles killed by frost at the poole at

the hermitage at Broad Chalke as would fill a coule; and when they were

found dead, they were all curled up like cables. [“Coul, a tub or

vessel with two ears.” Bailey’s Dictionary.—J. B.]

Umbers are in the river Nadder, and so to Christ Church; but the late

improvement of drowning the meadowes hath made them scarce. They are

only in the river Humber besides. [Aubrey’s friend, Sir James Long,

mentions these fish as “graylings, or umbers”. They are best known by

the former name. Dr. Maton states that they are still to be found in

the Avon, at Downton, where Walton speaks of them as being caught in

his time. Mr. Hatcher says that “the umber abounds in the waters

between Wilton and Salisbury”. (History of Salisbury, p. 689.)—J. B.]

Crafish are very plenty at Salisbury; but the chiefest places for them

Hungerford and Newbury: they are also at Ramesbury, and in the Avon at

Chippenham.

“Greeke, carps, turkey-cocks, and beere,

Came into England all in a yeare.”

In the North Avon are sometimes taken carpes which are extraordinary

good. [Besides giving “the best way of dressing a carpe”, Aubrey has

annexed to his original manuscript a piece of paper, within the folds

of which is inclosed a small bone. The paper bears the following

inscription: “1660. The bone found in the head of a carpe. Vide

Schroderi. It is a good medicine for the apoplexie or falling sickness;

I forget whether.” Aubrey’s reference is to “Zoology; or the History of

Animals, as they are useful in Physic and Chirurgery”; by John

Schroderus, M.D. of Francfort Done into English by T. Bateson. London,

1659, 8vo.

When a boy I caught many of these fish in the pond at Kington St.

Michael, both by angling and by baiting three or four hooks at the end

of a piece of string and leaving them in the water all night. In the

morning I have found two, and sometimes three, large fish captured. On

one occasion “Squire White”, the proprietor of the estate, discharged

his gun, apparently at me, to deter me from this act of poaching and

trespassing.—J. B.]

As for ponds, we cannot boast much of them; the biggest is that in

Bradon Forest. There is a fair pond at West Lavington which was made by

Sir John Danvers. At Draycot Cerne the ponds are not great, but the

carpes very good, and free from muddinesse. In Wardour Parke is a

stately pond; at Wilton and Longleat two noble canals and severall

small ponds; and in the parke at Kington St. Michael are several ponds

in traine. [The latter ponds are supplied by two springs in the

immediate vicinity, forming one of the tributaries of the Avon. The

stream abounds with trout, many of which I have caught at the end of

the summer season, by laving out the water from the deeper holes.—J.

B.]

Tenches are common. Loches are in the Upper Avon at Amesbury. Very good

perches in the North Avon, but none in the Upper Avon. Salmons are

sometimes taken in the Upper Avon, rarely, at Harnham Bridge juxta

Sarum. [On the authority of this passage, Dr. Maton includes the salmon

among the Wiltshire fish; but he adds, “I know no person now living who

has ascertained its having ascended the Avon so far as Salisbury.”

Hatcher’s Hist, of Salisbury, p. 689.—J. B.]

Good pikes, roches, and daces in both the Avons. In the river Avon at

Malmesbury are lamprills (resembling lampreis) in knotts: they are

but….. inches long. They use them for baytes; and they squeeze these

knotts together and make little kind of cheeses of them for eating.

CHAPTER XII.

BIRDS.

WE have great plenty of larkes, and very good ones, especially in

Golem-fields and those parts adjoyning to Coteswold. They take them by

alluring them with a dareing-glasse,* which is whirled about in a

sun-shining day, and the larkes are pleased at it, and strike at it, as

at a sheepe’s eye, and at that time the nett is drawn over them. While

he playes with his glasse he whistles with his larke-call of silver, a

tympanum of about the diameter of a threepence. In the south part of

Wiltshire they doe not use dareing-glasses but catch these pretty

ætheriall birds with trammolls.

* [“Let his grace go forward, and dare us with his cap like larks.”

—Shakspere, Henry VIII. Act iii. sc. 2.]

The buntings doe accompany the larkes. Linnets on the downes.

Woodpeckers severall sorts: many in North Wilts.

Sir Bennet Hoskins, Baronet, told me that his keeper at his parke at

Morehampton in Hereford-shire, did, for experiment sake, drive an iron

naile thwert the hole of the woodpecker’s nest, there being a tradition

that the damme will bring some leafe to open it. He layed at the

bottome of the tree a cleane sheet, and before many houres passed the

naile came out, and he found a leafe lying by it on the sheete. Quaere

the shape or figure of the leafe. They say the moone-wort will doe such

things. This experiment may easily be tryed again. As Sir Walter

Raleigh saies, there are stranger things to be seen in the world than

are between London and Stanes. [This is the “story” which Ray, in the

letter printed in page 8, justly describes as, “without doubt, a

fable.”—J. B.]

In Sir James Long’s parke at Draycot Cerne are some wheat-eares; and on

come warrens and downes, but not in great plenty. Sussex doth most

abound with these. It is a great delicacie, and they are little lumps

of fatt.

On Salisbury plaines, especially about Stonehenge, are bustards. They

are also in the fields above Lavington: they doe not often come to

Chalke. (Many about Newmarket, and sometimes cranes. J. EVELYN.) [In

the “Penny Cyclopaedia” are many interesting particulars of the

bustard, and in Hoare’s “Ancient Wiltshire, vol. i. p. 94, there is an

account of two of these birds which were seen near Warminster in the

summer of 1801; since when the bustard has not been seen in the

county.—J. B.]

On Salisbury plaines are gray crowes, as at Royston. [These are now met

with on the Marlborough downs.—J. B.]

“Like Royston crowes, where, as a man may say,

Are friars of both the orders, black and gray.”—J. CLEVELAND’S POEMS.

’Tis certain that the rookes of the Inner Temple did not build their

nests in the garden to breed in the spring before the plague, 1665; but

in the spring following they did.

Feasants were brought Into Europe from about the Caspian sea. There are

no pheasants in Spaine, nor doe I heare of any in Italy. Capt. Hen.

Bertie, the Earle of Abingdon’s brother, when he was in Italy, was at

the great Duke of Tuscany’s court entertained with all the rarities

that the country afforded, but he sawe no pheasants. Mr. Wyld Clarke,

factor fifteen yeares in Barberie, affirmes there are none there. Sir

John Mordaunt, who had a command at Tangier twenty-five yeares, and had

been some time governour there, a great lover of field sports, affirmes

that there are no pheasants in Africa or Spaine. [See Ray’s Letter to

Aubrey, ante, page 8.]

Bitterns in the breaches at Allington, &c. Herons bred heretofore, sc.

about 1580, at Easton-Piers, before the great oakes were felled down

neer the mannour-house; and they doe still breed in Farleigh Parke. An

eirie of sparrow-hawkes at the parke at Kington St. Michael. The

hobbies doe goe away at….. and return at the spring. Quære Sir James

Long, if any other hawkes doe the like?

Ganders are vivacious animals. Farmer Ady of Segary had a gander that

was fifty yeares old, which the soldiers killed. He and his gander were

both of the same age. (A goose is now living, anno 1757, at Hagley hall

in Worcestershire, full fifty yeares old. MS. NOTE.)

Sea-mewes. Plentie of them at Colern-downe; elsewhere in Wiltshire I

doe not remember any. There are presages of weather made by them.

[Instead of “presages of weather,” the writer would have been more

accurate if he had said that when “sea-mewes,” or other birds of the

ocean, are seen so far inland as Colern, at least twenty miles from the

sea, they indicate stormy weather in their natural element.—J.

B.]-Virgil’s Georgics, lib. i. Englished by Mr. T. May:-

“The seas are ill to sailors evermore

When cormorants fly crying to the shore;

From the mid-sea when sea-fowl pastime make

Upon dry land; when herns the ponds forsake,

And, mounted on their wings, doe fly aloft.”

CHAPTER XIII.

REPTILS AND INSECTS.

[THIS Chapter contains several extraordinary recipes for medicines to

be compounded in various ways from insects and reptiles. As a specimen

one of them may he referred to which begins as follows:-“Calcinatio

Bufonum. R. Twenty great fatt toades; in May they are the best; putt

them alive in a pipkin; cover it, make a fire round it to the top; let

them stay on the fire till they make no noise,” &c. &c. Aubrey says

that Dr. Thomas Willis mentions this medicine in his tractat De

Febribus, and describes it as a special remedy for the plague and other

diseases.—J. B.]

No snakes or adders at Chalke, and toades very few: the nitre in the

chalke is inimique to them. No snakes or adders at Harcot-woods

belonging to — Gawen, Esq.; but in the woods of Compton Chamberleyn

adjoyning they are plenty. At South Wraxhall and at Colern Parke, and

so to Mouncton-Farley, are adders.

In Sir James Long’s parke at Draycot-Cerne are grey lizards; and no

question in other places if they were look’t after; but people take

them for newts. They are of that family. About anno 1686 a boy lyeing

asleep in a garden felt something dart down his throat, which killed

him: ’tis probable ’twas a little newt. They are exceeding nimble: they

call them swifts at Newmarket Heath. When I was a boy a young fellow

slept on the grasse: after he awak’t, happening to putt his hand in his

pocket, something bitt him by the top of his finger: he shak’t it

suddenly off so that he could not perfectly discerne it. The biteing

was so venomous that it overcame all help, and he died in a few hours:-

“Virus edax superabat opera: penituaq{ue} receptum

Ossibus, et toto corpore pestis erat.”—OVID. FASTOR.

Sir George Ent, M.D. had a tenant neer Cambridge that was stung with an

adder. He happened not to dye, but was spotted all over. One at Knahill

in Wilts, a neighbour of Dr. Wren’s, was stung, and it turned to a

leprosy. (From Sr. Chr. Wren.)

At Neston Parke (Col. W. Eire’s) in Cosham parish are huge snakes, an

ell long; and about the Devises snakes doe abound.

Toades are plentifull in North Wiltshire: but few in the chalkie

countreys. In sawing of an ash 2 foot + square, of Mr. Saintlowe’s, at

Knighton in Chalke parish, was found a live toade about 1656; the sawe

cutt him asunder, and the bloud came on the under-sawyer’s hand: he

thought at first the upper-sawyer had cutt his hand. Toades are

oftentimes found in the milstones of Darbyshire.

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. He was surprised with the novelty, and

commanded me to pick some up, which I did, about a dozen or more,

immediately; for they are in great abundance. The next morning as he

was abed with his Dutches at Bath he told her of it, and sent Dr.

Charleton to me for them, to shew her as a rarity.

* [This should be “Charles II.” who visited Avebury and Silbury Hill,

in company with his brother, afterwards James II., in the autumn of the

year 1663, when Aubrey attended them by the King’s command. See his

account of the royal visit, in the Memoir of Aubrey, 4to. 1845.—J. B.]

In the peacefull raigne of King James I. the Parliament made an act for

provision of rooke-netts and catching crows to be given in charge of

court-barons, which is by the stewards observed, but I never knew the

execution of it. I have heard knowing countreymen affirme that

rooke-wormes, which the crows and rookes doe devour at sowing time, doe

turne to chafers, which I think are our English locusts: and some

yeares wee have such fearfull armies of them that they devour all

manner of green things; and if the crowes did not destroy these wormes,

it would oftentimes happen. Parliaments are not infallible, and some

thinke they were out in this bill.

Bees. Hampshire has the name for the best honey of England, and also

the worst; sc. the forest honey: but the south part of Wiltshire having

much the like turfe must afford as good, or little inferiour to it.

’Tis pitty these profitable insects should loose their lives for their

industry.

“Flebat Aristæus, quod Apes cum stirpe necatas

Viderat incoeptos destituisse favos.”-OVID. FAST. lib. i.

A plaster of honey effectually helpeth a bruise. (From Mr. Francis

Potter, B. D., of Kilmanton.) It seemes to be a rational medicine: for

honey is the extraction of the choicest medicinal flowers.

Mr. Butler of Basingstoke, in Hampshire, who wrote a booke of Bees, had

a daughter he called his honey-girle; to whom, when she was born, he

gave certain stocks of bees; the product of which when she came to be

married, was 400li. portion. (From — Boreman, of Kingston-upon-Thames,

D.D.)

Mr. Harvey, at Newcastle, gott 80li. per annum by bees. (I thinke Varro

somewhere writes that in Spaine two brothers got almost as much yearly

by them.—J. EVELYN.) Desire of Mr. Hook, R.S.S. a copie of the modelle

of his excellent bee-hive, March 1684-5; better than any yet known. See

Mr. J. Houghton’s Collections, No. 1683, June, where he hath a good

modelle of a bee-hive, pag. 166. Mr. Paschal hath an ingeniouse

contrivance for bees at Chedsey; sc. they are brought into his house.

Bee-hive at Wadham College, Oxon; see Dr. Plott’s Oxfordshire, p. 263.

Heretofore, before our plantations in America, and consequently before

the use of sugar, they sweetened their [drink, &c.] with honey; as wee

doe now with sugar. The name of honey-soppes yet remaines, but the use

is almost worne out. (At Queen’s College, Oxon, the cook treats the

whole hall with honey-sops on Good Friday at dinner.—BISHOP TANNER.)

Now, 1686, since the great increase of planting of sugar-canes in the

Barbados, &c. sugar is but one third of the price it was at thirty

yeares since. In the time of the Roman Catholique religion, when a

world of wax candles were used in the churches, bees-wax was a

considerable commodity.

To make Metheglyn:-(from Mistress Hatchman. This receipt makes good

Metheglyn; I thinke as good as the Devises). Allow to every quart of

honey a gallon of water; and when the honey is dissolved, trie if it

will beare an egg to the breadth of three pence above the liquor; or if

you will have it stronger putt in more honey. Then set it on the fire,

and when the froth comes on the toppe of it, skimme it cleane; then

crack eight or ten hen-egges and putt in the liquor to cleare it: two

or three handfulls of sweet bryar, and so much of muscovie, and sweet

marjoram the like quantity; some doe put sweet cis, or if you please

put in a little of orris root. Boyle all these untill the egges begin

to look black, (these egges may be enough for a hoggeshead,) then

straine it forth through a fine sieve into a vessell to coole; the next

day tunne it up in a barrell, and when it hath workt itself cleare,

which will be in about a weeke’s time, stop it up very close, and if

you make it strong enough, sc. to carry the breadth of a sixpence, it

will keep a yeare. This receipt is something neer that of Mr. Thorn.

Piers of the Devises, the great Metheglyn-maker. Metheglyn is a pretty

considerable manufacture in this towne time out of mind. I doe believe

that a quantity of mountain thyme would be a very proper ingredient;

for it is most wholesome and fragrant [Aubrey also gives another

“receipt to make white metheglyn,” which he obtained “from old Sir

Edward Baynton, 1640.” I have seen this old English beverage made by my

grandmother, as here described.—J. B.]

Mr. Francis Potter, Rector of Kilmanton, did sett a hive of bees in one

of the lances of a paire of scales in a little closet, and found that

in summer dayes they gathered about halfe a pound a day; and one day,

which he conceived was a honey-dew, they gathered three pounds wanting

a quarter. The hive would be something lighter in the morning than at

night. Also he tooke five live bees and putt them in a paper, which he

did cutt like a grate, and weighed them, and in an hower or two they

would wast the weight of three or four wheatcornes. He bids me observe

their thighes in a microscope. (Upon the Brenta river, by Padua in

Italy, they have hives of bees in open boates; the bees goe out to feed

and gather till the honey-dews are spent neer the boate; and then the

bee master rows the boate to a fresh place, and by the sinking of the

boate knows when to take the honey, &c.—J. EVELYN.)

CHAPTER XIV.

OF MEN AND WOEMEN.

[THE following instances of remarkable longevity, monstrous births, &c.

will suffice to shew the nature of this Chapter. It must be admitted

that its contents are unimportant except as matters of curious

speculation, and as connected with the several localities referred

to.—J. B.]

A PROVERB:—

‘Salisbury Plain

Never without a thief or twain.’

As to the temper and complexion of the men and woemen, I have spoken

before in the Prolegomena.

As to longæevity, good aire and water doe conduce to it: but the

inhabitants are also to tread on dry earth; not nitrous or vitriolate,

that hurts the nerves. South and North Wiltshire are wett and dampish

soiles. The stone walles in the vale here doe also cast a great and

unwholsome dampe. Eighty-four or eighty-five is the age the inhabitants

doe rarely exceed. But I have heard my worthy friend George Johnson of

Bowdon, Esq., one of the judges in North Wales, say that he did observe

in his circuit, sc. Montgomery, Flint, and Denbigh, that men lived

there as commonly to an hundred yeares as with us to eighty. Mr.

Meredith Lloyd hath seen at Dolkelly, a great parish in Merionithshire,

an hundred or more of poore people at eighty yeares of age at church in

a morning, who came thither bare-foot and bare-legged a good way. In

the chancell of Winterborn Basset lies interred Mr. Ambrose Brown, who

died 166-,aged 103 yeares. Old goodwife Dew of Broad Chalke died about

1649, aged 103. She told me she was, I thinke, sixteen yeares old when

King Edward the sixth was in this countrie, and that he lost his

courtiers, or his courtiers him, a hunting, and found him again in

Falston-lane. In the parish of Stanton St. Quintin are but twenty-three

houses, and when Mr. Byron was inducted, 167-, here were eight persons

of 80 yeares of age. Mr. Thorn. Lyte of Easton-Piers, my mother’s

grand-father, died 1626, aged 96; and about 1674 died there old William

Kington, a tenant of mine, about 90 yeares of age. A poore woman of

Chippenham died about 1684, aged 108 yeares.

Part of an Epitaph at Colinbourne-Kinston in Wiltshire, communicated to

the Philosophicall Conventus at the Musæum at Oxford, by Mr. Arthur

Charlett, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford:—“Pray for the soule of

Constantine Darrel, Esq. who died Anno Dni. 1400, and……. his wife, who

died A°. Dni. 1495.” See it. I doe believe the dates in the inscription

are in numerical letters. [In this case the former date was probably

left unfinished, when the husband placed the inscription to his wife,

and after his death it was neglected to be filled up, as in many other

instances. The numerals would be in black letter.—J. B.]

In the chancel at Milsham is an inscription of Isaac Self, a wealthy

cloathiers of that place, who died in the 92nd yeare of his age,

leaving behind him a numerous offspring; viz. eighty and three in

number.

Ella, Countesse of Salisbury, daughter to [William] Longespe, was

foundress of Lacock Abbey; where she ended her days, being above a

hundred yeares old; she outlived her understanding. This I found in an

old MS. called Chronicon de Lacock in Bibliotheca Cottoniana. [The

chronicle referred to was destroyed by the fire which so seriously

injured the Cotton MSS. in 1731. The extracts preserved from it do not

confirm Aubrey’s statements, but place the Countess Ela’s death on the

ix kal. Sept. 1261, in the 74th year of her age. See Bowles’s History

of Lacock, Appendix, p. v.—J. B.]

Dame Olave, a daughter and coheire of Sir [Henry] Sharington of Lacock,

being in love with [John] Talbot, a younger brother of the Earle of

Shrewsbury, and her father not consenting that she should marry him;

discoursing with him one night from the battlements of the Abbey

Church, said shee, “I will leap downe to you:” her sweet heart replied

he would catch her then; but he did not believe she would have done it.

She leap’t downe, and the wind, which was then high, came under her

coates and did something breake the fall. Mr. Talbot caught her in his

armes, but she struck him dead: she cried out for help, and he was with

great difficulty brought to life again. Her father told her that since

she had made such a leap she should e’en marrie him. She was my

honoured friend Col. Sharington Talbot’s grandmother, and died at her

house at Lacock about 1651, being about an hundred yeares old. Quaere,

Sir Jo. Talbot?

[This romantic story seems to have escaped the attention of the

venerable historian of Lacock, the Rev. Canon Bowles. The late John

Carter mentions a tradition of which he was informed on visiting Lacock

in 1801, to the effect that “one of the nuns jumped from a gallery on

the top of a turret there into the arms of her lover.” He observes, as

impugning the truth of the story, that the gallery “appears to have

been the work of James or Charles the First’s time.” Aubrey’s anecdote

has an appearance of authenticity. Its heroine, Olave, or Olivia

Sherington, married John Talbot, Esq. of Salwarpe, in the county of

Worcester, fourth in descent from John, second Earl of Shrewsbury. She

inherited the Lacock estate from her father, and it has ever since^

remained the property of that branch of the Talbot family, now

represented by the scientific Henry Fox Talbot, Esq.—J. B.]

The last Lady Prioresse of Priorie St Marie, juxta Kington St. Michael,

was the Lady Mary Dennys, a daughter of the Dennys’s of Pocklechurch in

Gloucestershire; she lived a great while after the dissolution of the

abbeys, and died in Somersetshire about the middle or latter end of the

raigne of King James the first

The last Lady Abbese of Amesbury was a Kirton, who after the

dissolution married to….. Appleton of Hampshire. She had during her

life a pension from King Henry VIII.: she was 140 yeares old when she

dyed. She was great-great-aunt to Mr. Child, Rector of Yatton Keynell;

from whom I had this information. Mr. Child, the eminent banker in

Fleet Street, is Parson Child’s cosen-german. [The name of the last

Abbess of Amesbury was Joan Darell, who surrendered to the King, 4 Dec.

1540. Hoare’s Modern Wiltshire, Amesbury Hundred, p. 73. J. B.]

When King Charles II. was at Salisbury, 1665, a piper of Stratford sub

Castro playd on his tabor and pipe before him, who was a piper in Queen

Elizabeth’s time, and aged then more than 100.

One goodwife Mills of Yatton Keynel, a tenant of my father’s, did

dentire in the 88 yeare of her age, which was about the yeare 1645. The

Lord Chancellour Bacon speakes of the like of the old Countesse of

Desmond, in Ireland.

Mr. William Gauntlett, of Netherhampton, born at Amesbury, told me that

since his remembrance there were digged up in the churchyard at

Amesbury, which is very spacious, a great number of huge bones,

exceeding, as he sayes, the size of those of our dayes. At Highworth,

at the signe of the Bull, at one Hartwells, I have been credibly

enformed is to be seen a scull of-a vast bignesse, scilicet half as big

again as an ordinary one. From Mr. Kich. Brown, Rector of Somerford

Magna, (At Wotton in Surrey, where my brother enlarged the vault in

which our family are buried, digging away the earth for the

foundations, they found a complete skeleton neer nine foot in length,

the skull of an extraordinary size.—J. EVELYN.)

George Johnson Esq. bencher of the Middle Temple, digging for marle at

Bowdon Parke, Ano. 1666, the diggers found the bones of a man under a

quarrie of planke stones: he told me he saw it. He was a serious

person, and “fide dignus”.

At Wishford Magna is the inscription, “Hic jacet Thomas Bonham,

armiger, quondam Patronus istius Ecclesiæ, qui quidem Thomas obiit

vicesimo nono die Maii, Anno Domini MCCCCLXXIII (1473); el Editha uxor

ejus, quæ quidem Editha obiit vicesimo sexto die Aprilis, Anno D’ni

MCCCCLXIX. (1469). Quorum animabus propitietur Deus.—Amen.” They lye

both buried under the great marble stone in the nave of this church,

where is the above said inscription, above which are their

pourtraictures in brasse, and an escucheon now illegible. Beneath this

inscription are the small figures of nine young children in brasse.

This Mr. Bonham’s wife had two children at one birth, the first time:

and he being troubled at it travelled, and was absent seven yeares.

After his returne she was delivered of seven children at one birth. In

this parish is a confident tradition that these seven children were all

baptized at the font in this church, and that they were brought thither

in a kind of chardger, which was dedicated to this church, and hung on

two nailes, which are to be seen there yet, neer the bellfree on the

south side. Some old men are yet living that doe remember the chardger.

This tradition is entred into the register booke there, from whence I

have taken this narrative (1659). [See the extract from the register,

which is signed by “Roger Powell, Curate there,” in Hoare’s Modern

Wilts. (Hundred of Branch and Dole) p. 49.—J. B.]

On Tuesday the 25th day of October, Anno Dni 1664, Mary, the wife of

John Waterman, of Fisherton Anger, neer Salisbury, hostler, fell into

travell, and on Wednesday, between one and two in the morning, was

delivered of a female child, with all its parts duly formed. Aboute

halfe an hour after she was delivered of a monstrous birth, having two

heades, the one opposite to the other; the two shoulders had also

[each] two armes, with the hands bearing respectively each against the

other; two feet, &c. About four o’clock in the afternoon it was

christened by the name of Martha and Mary, having two pretty faces, and

lived till Fryday next. The female child first borne, whose name was

Elselet, lived fourteen days, and died the 9th of November following:

the mother then alive and in good health.

[This narrative is accompanied by a description of the internal

structure of the lusus naturæ, as developed in a post mortem

examination; which “accurate account,” says Aubrey, “was made by my

worthy and learned friend Thorn. Guidot, Dr. of Physick, who did kindly

communicate it to me out of his collection of medicinall observations

in Latin.”]

Dr. Wm. Harvey, author of the Circulation of the Blood, told me that

one Mr. Palmer’s wife in Kent did beare a child every day for five

daies together.

A wench being great with child drowned herself in the river Avon,

where, haveing layn twenty-four houres, she was taken up and brought

into the church at Sutton Benger, and layd upon the board, where the

coroner did his office. Mris. Joane Sumner hath often assured me that

the sayd wench did sweat a cold sweat when she lay dead; and that she

severall times did wipe off the sweat from her body, and it would

quickly returne again: and she would have had her opened, because she

did believe that the child was alive within her and might bee saved.

In September 1661 a grave was digged in the church of Hedington for a

widow, where her husband was buried in 1610. In this grave was a

spring; the coffin was found firme; the bodie not rotten, but black;

and in some places white spotts; the lumen was rotten. Mr. Wm. Scott’s

wife of this parish, from whom I have this, saw it, with severall of

her neighbours.

Mrs. Mary Norborne, of Calne, a gentlewoman worthy of belief, told me

that Mr…. White, Lord of Langley’s grave was opened forty years after

he was buried. He lay in water, and his body not perished, and some old

people there remembred him and knew him. He was related to Mrs.

Norborne, and her husband’s brother was minister here, in whose time

this happened.

Mrs. May of Calne, upon the generall fright in their church of the

falling of the steeple, when the people ran out of the church,

occasioned by the throwing of a stone by a boy, dyed of this fright in

halfe an hour’s time. Mrs. Dorothy Gardiner was frightened at Our Lady

Church at Salisbury, by the false report of the falling of the steeple,

and died in… houres space. The Lady Jordan being at Cirencester when it

was beseiged (anno atatis 75) was so terrified with the shooting that

her understanding was so spoyled that she became a child, that they

made babies for her to play withall.

At Broad Chalke is a cottage family that the generation have two

thumbes. A poor woman’s daughter in Westminster being born so, the

mother gott a carpenter to amputate one of them with his chizel and

mallet. The girl was then about seven yeares old, and was a lively

child, but immediately after the thumb was struck off, the fright and

convulsion was so extreme, that she lost her understanding, even her

speech. She lived till seventeen in that sad condition.

The Duke of Southampton, who was a most lovely youth, had two foreteeth

that grew out, very unhandsome. His cruel mother caused him to be bound

fast in a chaire, and had them drawn out; which has caused the want of

his understanding.

[This refers to Charles Fitzroy, one of the natural sons of King

Charles II. by his mistress, Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland. He

was created Duke of Southampton in 1674; became Duke of Cleveland on

the death of his “cruel mother” in 1709; and died in 1730.—J. B.]

Mdm. Dr. W. Harvey told me that the biteing of a man enraged is

poysonous. He instanced one that was bitt in the hand in a quarrell,

and it swoll up to his shoulder, and killed him in a short time. [That

death, from nervous irritation, might follow such a wound is not

improbable: but that it was caused by any “poison” infused into the

system is an idea too absurd for refutation.—J. B.]

CHAPTER XV.

DISEASES AND CURES.

[SEVERAL passages may have been noticed in the preceding pages,

calculated to shew the ignorance which prevailed in Aubrey’s time on

medical subjects, and the absurd remedies which were adopted for the

cure of diseases. In the present chapter this topic is further

illustrated. It contains a series of recipes of the rudest and most

unscientific character, amongst which the following are the only parts

suited to this publication. Aubrey describes in the manuscript an

instrument made of whalebone, to be thrust down the throat into the

stomach, so as to act as an emetic. He states that this contrivance was

invented by “his counsel learned in the law,” Judge Rumsey; and

proceeds to quote several pages, with references to its advantages,

from a work by W. Rumsey, of Gray’s Inn, Esq., entitled, “Organon

Salutis, an instrument to cleanse the stomach: with new experiments on

Tobacco and Coffee.” The work quoted seems to have been popular in its

day, for there were three editions of it published. (London, 1657,

1659, 1664, 12mo.)—J. B.]

THE inscription over the chapell dore of St. Giles, juxta Wilton, sc.

“1624. This hospitall of St. Giles was re-edified by John Towgood,

Maior of Wilton, and his brethren, adopted patrons thereof, by the gift

of Queen Adelicia, wife unto King Henry the first.” This Adelicia was a

leper. She had a windowe and a dore from her lodgeing into the chancell

of the chapell, whence she heard prayers. She lieth buried under a

plain marble gravestone; the brasse whereof (the figure and

inscription) was remaining about 1684. Poore people told me that the

faire was anciently kept here.

At Maiden Bradley, a maiden infected with the leprosie founded a house

for maidens that were lepers. [See a similar statement in Camden’s

“Britannia,” and Gough’s comments thereon.—J. B.]

Ex Registro. Anno Domini 1582, May 4, the plague began in Kington St.

Michaell, and lasted the 6th of August following; 13 died of it, most

of them being of the family of the Kington’s; which name was then

common, as appeared by the register, but in 1672 quite extinct.

[The words “here the plague began,” and “here the plague rested,”

appear in the parish register of Kington St. Michael, under the dates

mentioned by Aubrey. Eight of the thirteen persons who died during its

continuance were of the family of the Kingtons.—J. B.]

May-dewe is a very great dissolvent of many things with the sunne, that

will not be dissolved any other way; which putts me in mind of the

rationality of the method used by Wm. Gore of Clapton, Esq}. for his

gout; which was, to walke in the dewe with his shoes pounced; he found

benefit by it. I told Mr. Wm. Mullens, of Shoe Lane, Chirurgion, this

story; and he sayd this was the very method and way of curing that was

used in Oliver Cromwell, Protectour. [See “Observations and Experiments

upon May-Dew,” by Thomas Henshaw, in Philosophical Transactions, 1665.

Abbr. i. 13.—J. B.]

For the gowte. Take the leaves of the wild vine (bryony, vitis alba);

bruise them and boyle them, and apply it to the place grieved, lapd in

a colewort-leafe. This cured an old man of 84 yeares of age, at

Kilmanton, in 1669, and he was well since, to June 1670: which account

I had from Mr. Francis Potter, the rector there.

Mr. Wm. Montjoy of Bitteston hath an admirable secret for the cure of

the Ricketts, for which he was sent to far and neer; his sonne hath the

same. Rickettie children (they say) are long before they breed teeth. I

will, whilst ’tis in my mind, insert this remarque; viz. about 1620,

one Ricketts of Newbery, perhaps corruptly from Ricards, a practitioner

in physick, was excellent at the curing children with swoln heads and

small legges; and the disease being new and without a name, he being so

famous for the cure of it they called the disease the ricketts; as the

King’s evill from the King’s curing of it with his touch; and now ’tis

good sport to see how they vex their lexicons, and fetch it from the

Greek {Gk: Rachis} the back bone.

For a pinne-and-webbe* in the eye, a pearle, or any humour that comes

out of the head. My father laboured under this infirmity, and our

learned men of Salisbury could doe him no good. At last one goodwife

Holly, a poore woman of Chalke, cured him in a little time. My father

gave her a broad piece of gold for the receipt, which is this:-Take

about halfe a pint of the best white wine vinegar; put it in a pewter

dish, which sett on a chafing dish of coales covered with another

pewter dish; ever and anon wipe off the droppes on the upper dish till

you have gott a little glassefull, which reserve in a cleane vessell;

then take about half an ounce of white sugar candie, beaten and searcht

very fine, and putt it in the glasse; so stoppe it, and let it stand.

Drop one drop in the morning and evening into the eye, and let the

patient lye still a quarter of an hour after it.

I told Mr. Robert Boyle this receipt, and he did much admire it, and

tooke a copie of it, and sayd that he that was the inventor of it was a

good chymist. If this medicine were donne in a golden dish or porcelane

dish, &c. it would not doe this cure; but the vertue proceeds, sayd

hee, from the pewter, which the vinegar does take off.

* [The following definitions are from Bailey’s Dictionary (1728):-“Pin

and Web, a horny induration of the membranes of the eye, not much

unlike a Cataract.” “Pearl (among oculists), a web on the eye.”—J.B.]

In the city of Salisbury doe reigne the dropsy, consumption, scurvy,

gowte; it is an exceeding dampish place.

At Poulshot, a village neer the Devises, in the spring time the

inhabitants appeare of a primrose complexion; ’tis a wett, dirty place.

Mrs. Fr. Tyndale, of Priorie St. Maries, when a child, voyded a

lumbricus biceps. Mr. Winceslaus Hollar, when he was at Mechlin, saw an

amphisbæna, which he did very curiously delineate, and coloured it in

water colours, of the very colour: it was exactly the colour of the

inner peele of an onyon: it was about six inches long, but in its

repture it made the figure of a semicircle; both the heads advancing

equally. It was found under a piece of old timber, about 1661; under

the jawes it had barbes like a barbel, which did strengthen his motion

in running. This draught, amongst a world of others, Mr. Thorn.

Chiffinch, of Whitehall, hath; for which Mr. Hollar protested to me he

had no compensation. The diameter was about that of a slo-worme; and I

guesse it was an amphisbænal slo-worme.

[The serpents called amphisbæna are so designated (from the Greek {Gk:

amphisbaina}) in consequence of their ability to move backwards as well

as forwards. The head and tail of the amphisbæna are very similar in

form: whence the common belief that it possesses a head at each

extremity. It was formerly supposed that cutting off one of its “heads”

would fail to destroy this animal; and that its flesh, dried and

pulverized, was an infallible remedy for dislocations and broken

bones.—J. B.]

CHAPTER XVI.

OBSERVATIONS ON PARISH REGISTERS, ACCORDING TO THE WAY PRESCRIBED BY

THE HONBLE. SIR WM. PETTY, KNIGHT.

[THIS chapter consists merely of memoranda for the further examination

of those valuable materials for local and general statistics—the

parochial registers. Aubrey has inserted the number of baptisms,

marriages, and burials, recorded in the registers of Broad Chalke, for

each year, from 1630 to 1642, and from 1676 to 1684 inclusive;

distinguishing the baptisms and burials of males and females in each

year. The like particulars are given for a period of five years from

the registers of Dunhead St. Mary. He adds, “In anno 1686 I made

extracts out of the register bookes of half a dozen parishes in South

Wiltshire, which I gave to Sir Wm. Petty.” The following passages will

suffice to indicate the nature of his remarks.—J. B.]

MR. ROBERT GOOD, M.A., of Bower Chalke, hath a method to calculate the

provision that is spent in a yeare in their parish; and does find that

one house with another spends six pounds per annum; which comes within

an hundred pounds of the parish rate.

Sir “W. Petty observes, from the account of the people, that not above

halfe teeming women are marryed; and that if the Government pleased

there might be such a multiplication of mankind as in 1500 yeares would

sufficiently plant every habitable acre in the world.

Mdm. The poore’s rate of St. Giles-in-the-fields, London, comes to six

thousand pounds per annum. [The sixth chapter of Mr. Rowland Dobie’s

“History of the United Parishes of St. Giles-in-the-Fields and St.

George, Bloomsbury,” (8vo. 1829) contains some curious and interesting

“historical sketches of pauperism.” Speaking of the parish workhouse,

the author says, “It contains on an average from 800 to 900 inmates,

which is however but a small proportion to the number constantly

relieved, at an expense [annually] of nearly forty thousand pounds.”—J.

B.]

Dunhead St. Mary.-The reason why so few marriages are found in the

register bookes of these parts is that the ordinary sort of people goe

to Ansted to be married, which is a priviledged church; and they come

40 and 50 miles off to be married there.

Of periodicall small-poxes.—Small-pox in Sherborne dureing the year

1626, and dureing the yeare 1634; from Michaelmas 1642 to Michaelmas

1643; from Michaelmas 1649 to Michaelmas 1650; &c. Small-pox in Taunton

all the year 1658; likewise in the yeare 1670, &c. I would I had the

like observations made in great townes in Wiltshire; but few care for

these things.

It hath been observed that the plague never fix’t (encreased) in

Bridgenorth in Salop. Also at Richmond it never did spread; but at

Petersham, a small village a mile or more distant, the plague made so

great a destruction that there survived only five of the inhabitants.

1638 was a sickly and feaverish autumne; there were three graves open

at one time in the churchyard of Broad Chalke.

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

WORTHIES.

[IN this chapter Aubrey has transcribed that portion of Fuller’s

Worthies of England which relates to celebrated natives of the county

of Wilts; but as Fuller’s work is so well known, it is unnecessary to

print Aubrey’s extracts from it here. He has interspersed them with

additional matter from which the following passages are selected.—J.

B.]

PRINCES.—There is a tradition at Wootton Basset that King Richard the

Third was born at Vasthorne [Fasterne], now the seate of the earle of

Rochester. This I was told when I was there in 1648. Old Mr. Jacob,

then tenant there to the Lady Inglefield, was then eighty yeares old,

and the like other old people there did affirme.

[According to the best authorities, this tradition is incorrect:

Richard was born in Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, on the 2d of

October, 1452.—J. B.]

Anne, eldest daughter of Sir Edward Hyde, Knight, was born at Purton,

in this county, and married to His Royal Highnesse James Duke of Yorke,

[James II.] by whom she left issue Mary Queen of England, and Anne

Princesse of Denmark [afterwards Queen].

SAINTS.—St. Adelm. There was a great bell at Malmesbury Abbey, which

they called St. Adelm’s bell, which was accounted a telesman, and to

have the power, when it was rang, to drive away the thunder and

lightning. I remember there is such a great bell at St. Germain’s Abbey

at Paris, which they ring to the aforesayd purpose when it thunders and

lightens. Old Bartlemew and other old people of Malmesbury had by

tradition severall stories of miracles donn by St. Adelm some whereof I

wrott down heretofore; now with Mr. Anth. Wood at Oxford. [St. Adelm,

or more correctly Aldhelm, is mentioned in page 42, ante. His life was

written by William of Malmesbury, and published by the Rev. Henry

Wharton, in his “Anglia Sacra.” (fol. 1691.)—J. B.]

Methinkes it is pitie that Ela, daughter of [William] Longespe Earl of

Salisbury, should be here omitted. [See ante, p.70 ]

PRELATES.—Since the Reformation.—Alexander Hyde, LL.Dr., sonn of Sir

Laurence Hyde, and brother to Sir Robert Hyde, Lord Cheif Justice of

the King’s Bench, was born, I believe, at Hele, in this county. He was

made Bishop of Salisbury 1665.

STATESMEN.—William Earle of Pembroke [the second of that name]. In the

east windowe of the south aisle of the church at Wilton is this

following inscription in gothick black letter:-“… church was… by the

vertuose….. wife to the right…. Sir Henry Sidney, Knight of the Garter

and Lord President of the Marches of Wales, &c. In April 1580, the

eight day of that moneth, was born William Lord Herbert of Cardif, the

first-born child to the noble Henry Earle of Pembroke, by his most dear

wife Mary the Countesse, daughter to the forenamed Sir Henry and Lady

Mary, whose lives Almighty God long prosper in much happiness.”*

Memorandum, to insert his titles inscribed under his printed picture.

As I remember he was Lord High Steward of his Majesties Household,

Justice in Eire of all his Majesties Forrests, &c. on this side Trent,

Chancellor of the University of Oxford, one of his Majesties Privy

Councell, and Knight of the Garter. He was a most noble person, and the

glory of the court in the reignes of King James and King Charles. He

was handsome, and of an admirable presence-

* [This inscription is not mentioned in the account of Wilton Church in

Hoare’s Modern, Wiltshire, but the author notices a tablet recording

the birth and baptism of the Earl “over the south entrance.” He states

that the side aisles were added to the church “within the last two

centuries”—J. B.]

“Gratior et pulchro veniens a corpore virtus.”

He was the greatest Mecænas to learned men of any peer of his time or

since. He was very generous and open handed. He gave a noble collection

of choice bookes and manuscripts to the Bodleian Library at Oxford,

which remain there as an honourable monument of his munificence. ’Twas

thought, had he not been suddenly snatch’t away by death, to the grief

of all learned and good men, that he would have been a great benefactor

to Pembroke Colledge in Oxford, whereas there remains only from him a

great piece of plate that he gave there. His lordship was learned, and

a poet; there are yet remaining some of his lordship’s poetry in a

little book of poems writt by his Lordship and Sir Benjamin Ruddyer in

12o. [“Poems, written by William Earl of Pembroke, &c. many of which

are answered by way of repartee, by Sir Benjamin Rudyard. With other

poems by them occasionally and apart.” Lond. 1660, 8vo.—J. B.] He had

his nativity calculated by a learned astrologer, and died exactly

according to the time predicted therein, at his house at Baynard’s

Castle in London. He was very well in health, but because of the fatal

direction which he lay under, he made a great entertainment (a supper)

for his friends, went well to bed, and died in his sleep, the [10th]

day of [April] anno Domini 1630. His body lies in the vault belonging

to his family in the quire of Our Ladies Church in Salisbury. At Wilton

is his figure cast in brasse, designed, I suppose, for his monument.

[See the notices of the Earls of Pembroke in the ensuing chapter.—J.

B.]

Sir Edward Hyde, Earle of Clarendon, Lord Chancellour of England, was

born at Dynton in Wiltshire. His father was the fourth and youngest

sonn of….. Hyde, of Hatch, Esq. Sir Edward married [Frances] daughter

of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, one of the clarks of the councell In his exile

in France he wrote the History of the late Times, sc. from 1641 to

1660; near finished, but broken off by death, by whom he was attacked

as he was writing; the penn fell out of his hand; he took it up again

and tryed to write; and it fell out the second time. He then saw that

it was time to leave off, and betooke himself to thinke about the other

world. (From the Countess of Thanet.) He shortly after ended his dayes

at [Rouen] Anno Domini 1674, and his body was brought over into

England, and interred privately at Westminster Abbey. From the Earle of

Clarendon. [Anthony Wood states (probably on the authority of Aubrey)

that Clarendon was buried on the north side of Henry the Seventh’s

chapel in Westminster Abbey; but the place of his interment is not

marked by any monument or inscription.—J. B.]

SOLDIERS.—Sir Henry Danvers, Knight, Earle of Danby and Baron of

Dauntesey, was born at Dauntesey, 28th day of June Ano. Dni. 1573. He

was of a magnificent and munificall spirit, and made that noble

physic-garden at Oxford, and endowed it with I thinke 30li. per annum.

In the epistles of Degory Wheare, History Professor of Oxford, in

Latin, are severall addressed to his lordship that doe recite his

worth. He allowed three thousand pounds per annum only for his kitchin.

He bred up severall brave young gentleman and preferred them; e. g.

Colonell Leg, and severall others, of which enquire further of my Lady

Viscountesse Purbec. The estate of Henry Earle of Danby was above

eleven thousand pounds per annum; near twelve. He died January the

20th, 1643, and lies buried in a little chapell made for his monument

on the north side of Dantesey-church, near to the vault where his

father and ancesters lye. [Aubrey here transcribes his epitaph, which,

with other particulars of his life, will be found in the Beauties of

Wiltshire, vol. iii. p. 76.—J. B.]

Sir Michael Ernele, Knight, was second son of Sir John Ernele, of

Whetham in the County of Wilts. After he had spent some time at the

University of Oxford, he betooke himself to a militarie life in the Low

Countries, where he became so good a proficient that at his return into

England at the beginning of the Civill warres, King Charles the First

gave him the commission of a Colonell in his service, and shortly after

he was made Governour of Shrewsbury, and he was, or intended to bee,

Major Generall. He did his Majesty good service in the warres, as doth

appeare by the Mercurii Aulici. His garrison at Shrewsbury being

weakened by drawing out great part of them before the battel at Marston

Moore, the townesmen plotted and betrayed his garrison to the

Parliament soldiers. He was slain then in the market-place, about the

time of the battle of Marston Moore.*

* [It was the common belief that Sir Michael Erneley was killed, as

here stated, by the Parlimentary soldiers at the time Shrewsbury was

taken (Feb. 3,1644-5); but in Owen and Blakeway’s Hist, of Shrewsbury,

4to. 1825, the time and manner of his death is left uncertain. His name

is included in the list of those who were made prisoners when the town

surrendered.—J. B.]

William Ludlow, Esq. sonn and heir of Sir [Henry] Ludlow, and Dame……

daughter of the Lord Viscount Bindon, in this county, was Governour of

Wardour Castle in this county, for the Parliament, which he valiantly

defended till part of the castle was blown up, 1644 or 1645. He was

Major General, &c. See his life in Mr. Anth. Wood’s Antiquities of

Oxford. [This passage refers to Edward (not William) Ludlow; the famous

Republican general. His “Memoirs” were printed in 1698-9, at Vevay in

Switzerland, where he died about five years previous to their

publication. They have gone through several editions, and constitute a

valuable historical record of the times.—J. B.]

Sir John Ernele, great-grandson of Sir John Ernele above sayd, and

eldest sonn of Sir John Ernele, late Chancellour of the Exchequer, had

the command of a flag-ship, and was eminent in some sea services. He

married the daughter and heir of Sir John Kerle of…. in Herefordshire.

A DIGRESSION.—Anno 1633, I entred into my grammar at the latin schoole

at Yatton-Keynel, in the church, where the curate, Mr. Hart, taught the

eldest boyes Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, &c. The fashion then was to save the

forules of their bookes with a false cover of parchment, sc. old

manuscript, which I [could not] was too young to understand; but I was

pleased with the elegancy of the writing and the coloured initiall

letters. I remember the rector here, Mr. Wm. Stump, great gr.-son of

St. the cloathier of Malmesbury, had severall manuscripts of the abbey.

He was a proper man and a good fellow; and, when he brewed a barrell of

speciall ale, his use was to stop the bung-hole, under the clay, with a

sheet of manuscript; he sayd nothing did it so well: which me thought

did grieve me then to see. Afterwards I went to schoole to Mr. Latimer

at Leigh-delamer, the next parish, where was the like use of covering

of bookes. In my grandfather’s dayes the manuscripts flew about like

butterflies. All music bookes, account bookes, copie bookes, &c. were

covered with old manuscripts, as wee cover them now with blew paper or

marbled paper; and the glovers at Malmesbury made great havoc of them;

and gloves were wrapt up no doubt in many good pieces of antiquity.

Before the late warres a world of rare manuscripts perished hereabout;

for within half a dozen miles of this place were the abbey of

Malmesbury, where it may be presumed the library was as well furnished

with choice copies as most libraries of England; and perhaps in this

library we might have found a correct Pliny’s Naturall History, which

Cantus, a monk here, did abridge for King Henry the Second. Within the

aforesaid compass was Broad stock Priory, Stan Leigh Abbey, Farleigh

Abbey, Bath Abbey, eight miles, and Cirencester Abbey, twelve miles.

Anno 1638 I was transplanted to Blandford-schoole, in Dorset, to Mr.

Wm. Sutton. (In Mr. Wm. Gardner’s time it was the most eminent schoole

for the education of gentlemen in the West of England.) Here also was

the use of covering of bookes with old parchments, sc. leases, &c., but

I never saw any thing of a manuscript there. Hereabout were no abbeys

or convents for men. One may also perceive by the binding of old bookes

how the old manuscripts went to wrack in those dayes. Anno 1647 I went

to Parson Stump out of curiosity, to see his manuscripts, whereof I had

seen some in my childhood; but by that time they were lost and

disperse. His sons were gunners and souldiers, and scoured their

gunnies with them; but he shewed me severall old deeds granted by the

Lords Abbots, with their scales annexed, which I suppose his sonn Capt.

Tho. Stump of Malmesbury hath still. [I have quoted part of this

curious paragraph in my Memoir of Aubrey, 4to. 1845.—J. B.]

WRITERS.—William of Malmesbury. He was the next historiographer of this

nation to Venerable Bede, as he himself written; and was fain, he

sayes, to pick out his history out of ballads and old rhythmes…..

hundred yeares after Bede. He dedicates his history to [Robert, Earl of

Gloucester] “filio naturali Henrici primi”. He wrote also the history

of the abbey of Glastonbury, which is in manuscript in the library of

Trinity College in Cambridge, wherein are many good remarques to be

found, as Dr. Thomas Gale of Paules schoole enformes me. [This was

edited by Gale, and published at Oxford in 1691, 8vo.—J. B.]

Robertus Sarisburiensis wrote a good discourse, De Piscinis, mentioned

and commended by Sir Henry Wotton in his Elements of Architecture. Q.

Anth. Wood, de hoc.

Dr….. Forman,—Mr. Ashmole thinkes his name was John, [Simon.—J. B.]-

physitian and astrologer, was born at Wilton, in Wilts. He was of the

University of Oxford, but took his degree of Doctor in Cambridge,

practised in Salisbury, where he was persecuted for his astrologie,

which in those ignorant times was accounted conjuring. He then came to

London, where he had very good practise, and did great cures; but the

college hated him, and at last drove him out of London: so he lived and

died at Lambeth, where he lies buried. Elias Ashmole, Esq. has severall

bookes of his writing (never printed), as also his own life. There it

may be seen whether he was not a favorite of Mary, Countesse of

Pembroke. He was a chymist, as far as chymistry went in those dayes,

and ’tis very likely he was a favorite of her honour’s. Quaere Mr.

Dennet, the Earl of Pembrock’s steward, if he had not a pension from

the Earl of Pembrock? Forman is a common name in Calne parish, Wilts,

where there are still severall wealthy men, cloathiers, &c. of that

name; but tempore Reginæ Elizabethæ there was a Forman of Calne, Lord

Maior of London. My grandfather Lyte told me that at his Lord Maior’s

shew there was the representation of the creation of the world, and

writt underneath, “and all for man.” [Some interesting passages from

Forman’s MS. Diary have recently been brought forward by Mr. Collier in

illustration of the history of Shakspere’s works. They describe some

very early performances of several of his plays, at which Forman was

present.—J. B.]

Sr Johan Davys, Knight, was born at Tysbury; his father was a tanner.

He wrote a poeme in English, called “Nosce Teipsum”*; also Reports. He

was Lord Chief Justice in Ireland. His wife was sister to the Earle of

Castle-Haven that was beheaded; she had also aliquid dementiæ, and was

a prophetesse, for which she was confined in the Tower, before the late

troubles, for her predictions. His onely daughter and heire was married

to [Ferdinando] Earle of Huntingdon.

[*“Nosce Teipsum: this oracle expounded in two elegies. 1st. Of Human

knowledge. 2nd. Of the soule of man, and the immortality thereof;” with

acrostics on Queen Elizabeth. (London, 1609, small 8vo.) The works of

the above named Lady Eleanor Davies, the prophetess, widow of Sir John,

were of a most extraordinary kind. See a list of them in Watt’s

Bibliotheca Britannica.—J. B.]

Mr. Thomas Hobbes was born at Westport juxta Malmesbury, April the

fifth, anno 1588, he told me, between four and six in the morning, in

the house that faces or points to the horse-faire. He died at Hardwick

in Darbyshire, Anno Domini 1679, ætatis 91. [See Aubrey’s Life of

Hobbes, appended to Letters from the Bodleian, vol. iii. p. 593.—J. B.]

Thomas Willis, M.D., was born at Great Bedwin in this county, anno

[1621.] His father, he told me, was steward to my Lady Smyth there. He

dyed in London, and lies interred with his wife in Westminster Abbey.

Thomas Piers, D.D., and Dean of Salisbury, formerly President of

Magdalen College in Oxford, was born at the Devizes. His father was a

woollen draper and an alderman there.

Sir Christopher Wren, Knt., Surveyor of his Majesties buildings, the

eldest sonne of Dr. Christopher Wren, Deane of Windsor, was born at

Knoyle, in this county, where his father was rector, in the

parsonage-house, anno 1631; christened November the 10th; but he tells

me that he was born October the 20th. His mother fell in labour with

him when the bell rung eight.

[Richard] Blackmore, M.D., born in Cosham parish, the sonne of an

attorney, went to schoole to Parson…. of Dracot. Scripsit an Epique

poeme, called Prince Arthur, 1694.

Sir William Penn, Vice-Admirall, born at Minety, in the hundred of

Malmesbury. His father was a keeper in Braden forest: the lodge is

called Penn’s lodge to this day. He was father to William Penn, Esq.

Lord Proprietor of Pensylvania; it is a very ancient family in

Buckinghamshire. This family in North Wilts had heretofore a dependence

on the Abbey of Malmesbury as stewards or officers. [Sir William Penn

was buried in Redcliffe Church, Bristol. See Britten’s Account of

Redcliffe Church.—J. B.]

T. Byfield, a physician, sonn of Adoniram Byfield, the Assembly man,

born at Collingbourn Ducis, where his father was rector. He published a

book of Waters about 1684.

Mr. Edward Whatman, of Mayden Bradley, practitioner in physick, and

very successfull in his practise. By reason of the civill warrs he was

of no university, but he was a young man of great parts and great

hopes. He died shortly after his Majesties restauration, aged about 35.

He onely printed “Funerall Obsequies on the Honourable the Ladie

Elizabeth Hopton, wife to Sir Ralph Hopton,” London, 1647.

Mr. William Gardiner, the eminent schoolemaster at Blandford, about

twenty yeares; born in this county; died about 1636, aetatis 47.

MUSICIANS.-The quire of Salisbury Cathedral hath produced as many able

musicians, if not more, than any quire in this nation.

Andrew Markes, of Salisbury, where his father was a fiddle maker, was

the best lutinist in England in his time—sc. the latter end of Queen

Elizabeth and King James, and the best composer of lute lessons; and as

to his compositions, Mr. Sam. Cowper, the famous limner, who was an

excellent lutinist, did affirme that they are of great value to this

time.

Jo. Coperario, whose reall name I have been told was Cowper, and

Alfonso Ferrabosco, lived most in Wiltshire, sc. at Amesbury, and

Wulfall, with Edward Earle of Hertford, who was the great patrone of

musicians.

Davys Mell, born at Wilton, was the best violinist of any Englishman in

England: he also took a fancy to make clocks and watches, and had a

great name for the goodness of his work. He was of the King’s musick,

and died in London about 1663.

…. Bell, of Wilton, was sagbuttere to King Charles the First, and was

the most excellent artist in playing on that instrument, which is very

difficult, of any one in England. He dyed about the restauration of the

King.

Humphrey Madge, of Salisbury, was servant bound to Sir John Danvers,

and afterwards one of the violinists to King Charles the Second.

Will. Yokeney, a lutinist and a composer of songs, e. g. of Colonel

Lovelace’s songs, &c. was born at Lacock, 1646. Among other fine

compositions of songs by Will. Yokeney, this following ought to be

remembred, made 1646 or 1647, viz.:-

“What if the King should come to the city,

Would he be then received I trow?

Would the Parliament treat him with rigor or pity?

Some doe think yea, but most doe think no, &c.”

It is a lively, briske aire, and was playd by the lowd musick when King

Charles the Second made his entry in London at his restauration.

Captain Thomas Stump, of Malmesbury. Tis pity the strange adventures of

him should be forgotten. He was the eldest sonn of Mr. Will. Stump,

rector of Yatton Keynell; was a boy of a most daring spirit; he would

climbe towers and trees most dangerously; nay, he would walke on the

battlements of the tower there. He had too much spirit to be a scholar,

and about sixteen went in a voyage with his uncle, since Sir Thomas

Ivy, to Guyana, in anno 1633, or 1632. When the ship put in some where

there, four or five of them straggled into the countrey too far, and in

the interim the wind served, and the sails were hoist, and the

stragglers left behind. It was not long before the wild people seized

on them and strip’s them, and those that had beards they knocked their

braines out, and (as I remember) did eat them; but the queen saved T.

Stump, and the other boy. Stump threw himself into the river Pronoun to

have drowned himself, but could not sinke; he is very full chested. The

other youth shortly died. He lived with them till 1636 or 1637. His

narrations are very strange and pleasant; but so many yeares since have

made me almost forget all. He sayes there is incomparable fruite there,

and that it may be termed the paradise of the world. He says that the

spondyles of the backbones of the huge serpents there are used to sit

on, as our women sitt upon butts. He taught them to build hovels, and

to thatch and wattle. I wish I had a good account of his abode there;

he is “fide dignus”. I never heard of any man that lived so long among

those salvages. A ship then sayling by, a Portughese, he swam to it;

and they took him up and made use of him for a seaboy. As he was

sayling near Cornwall he stole out of a port-hole and swam to shore;

and so begged to his father’s in Wiltshire. When he came home, nobody

knew him, and they would not own him: only Jo. Harris the carpenter

knew him. At last he recounted so many circumstances that he was owned,

and in 1642 had a commission for a Captain of Foot in King Charles the

First’s army.