[AV] Aubrey gives in trick the coat: 'argent, on a chief gules 2 bucks'
heads caboshed or, a crescent for difference.'
[AW] MS. Wood F. 49, fol. 139, has a note which Wood describes to be by
'Francis Snow, of Merton College,' viz. '"Sir John Popham, Lord Chiefe
Justice of England, Privy Councellor of Queen Elizabeth and King James,
aged 76, died 10 of June 1607": at Wellington in Somerset, this cost me
a shilling.' Wood notes that the words are 'on his monument: which is
all written thereon, and therefore print it.'
=Samuel Pordage= (1633-1691?).
[709]Samuel Pordage I knew very well. He was head-steward of the lands
to the right honourable Philip, earl of Pembroke.
His father was called Dr. Pordage, a physitian and astrologer; I know
not whether he was rector. His picture was graved three or four yeares
since, I thinke 'tis before a book.
The son (Samuel), a civil courteous person, and a handsome man; gave me
(1660) his translation of Seneca's _Troas_ in English; and I think he
hath printed something since.
=Francis Potter= (1594-1678).
[710]Mr. Francis Potter's father[711] was one of the benefactors to the
organ at the cathedrall church at Worcester, and there amongst others
is this coate--'..., a chevron between 3 flower-vases ...' [Potter].
[712]Francis Potter, B.D., borne at Mere, a little market-towne in
Wilts, 'upon Trinity-Sunday-eve 1594, in the evening.'--'Anno Domini
1625, December 10ᵗʰ, horâ decimâ, inventum est mysterium Bestiae' as he
went up the staire to his chamber (which was at his brother's, scil.
the great roome that nowe is added to the President's lodgeing).
[713]'A.D. 1625, December 10ᵗʰ, hora decima inventum est Mysterium
Bestiæ'--these words I found wrote in his Greeke Testament. He told
me the notion came into his mind as he was goeing up staires into his
chamber at Trin. Coll. which was the senior fellowe's chamber then (he
lay with his brother, Dr. Hannibal Potter): this chamber is now united
to the President's lodgeings.
[714]Francis Potter, B.D.: Anthony Ettrick adviseth me to write
'To the worthy successor of Mr. Potter at Kilmington,'
and it will oblige the said rector to speed an answer, and also an
account of the picture of Sir Thomas Pope--No answer! Quaere my brother
Tom who is successor; and quaere and vide register and place of buriall.
[715]Mr. Francis Potter, B.D., was borne at the [vicaridge[716]] house
at Mere in the county of Wiltes, anno Domini [1594, upon Trinity
Sunday eve, in the evening].
His father was minister there, and also of Kilmanton in com. Somerset
about 3 miles distant, and was also a prebendary of the Cathedrall
Church of Worcester. He had three sonnes, Hannibal, Francis, and....
His wife's name was Horsey, of the worshipfull and ancient family of
the Horseys of Clifton in com. Dorset.
He was taught his grammar learnings by Mr. <Henry> Bright (the famous
school master of those times) of the schoole at Worcester.
Anno ætatis <15> (vide A. Wood's _Antiq. Oxon._) he went to Trinity
Colledge in Oxon, where his father (who was an Oxfordshire man borne)
had been a fellowe. His brother Hannibal was his tutor. Here he was a
commoner twenty-seaven yeares, and was senior to all the house but Dr.
Kettle and his brother.
His genius lay most of all to the mechanicks; he had an admirable
mechanicall invention, but in that darke time wanted encouragement,
and when his father dyed (which was about 1637) he succeeded him in
the parsonage of Kilmanton, worth, per annum, about 140_li._ He was
from a boy given to draweing and painting. The founder's (Sir Thomas
Pope's) picture in Trinity Colledge hall is of his copying. He had
excellent notions for the raysing of water; I have heard him say,
that he could rayse the water at Worcester with lesse trouble, i.e.
fewer ..., then there are; and that he had never seen a water-house
engine, but that he could invent[717] a better. Kilmanton is on a high
hill, and the parsonage-well is extraordinary deepe. There is the most
ingeniose and usefull buckett-well, that ever I sawe. Now, whereas some
deepe wells have wheeles for men or doggs to go within them, here is
a wheele of ... foot diameter, with steps (like stayres) to walke on
as if you were goeing up staires, and an ordinary bodye's[718] weight
drawes-up a great bucket, which holdes a barrell, and the two bucketts
are contrived so that their ropes alwaies are perpendicular and
consequently parallell, and so never interfere with one another. Now,
this vast buckett would be to combersome to overturne to power out the
water; and therefore, he contrived a board with lifts about the sides,
like a trough, to slide under the bucket, when 'tis drawne up; and at
the bottom of the buckett is a plug, the weight of the water jogging
upon the sliding trough, the water powres out into the trough, and
from thence runnes into your paile, or other vessell. 'Tis extremely
well worth the seeing. I have[719] taken heretofore a draught of it.
I have heard him say that he would have undertaken to have brought up
the water from the springs at the bottom of the hill to the towne of
Shaftesbury, which is on a waterles hill.
Anno Domini 16<25> (see[720] part ii) goeing into his chamber, the
notion of 25, the roote of 666, for the roote of the number of the
Beast in the Revelation, came into his head; so he opposed 25 to 12,
the roote of 144.
When he tooke his degree of Batchelaur in Divinity, his question was,
An Papa sit Anti-Christus? Aff.--In his younger yeares he was very
apt to fall into a swoune, and so he did when he was disputing in the
Divinity-schoole upon that question.--I remember he told me that one
time reading Aristotle de Natura Animalium, where he describes how
that the lionesses, when great with young, and neer their time of
parturition, doe goe between two trees that growe neer together, and
squeeze out their young ones out of their bellies; he had such a strong
idea of this, and of the paine that the lionesse was in, that he fell
into a swoune.
He was of a very tender constitution, and sickly most of his younger
yeares. His manner was, when he was beginning to be sick, to _breath
strongly_ a good while together, which he sayed did emitt the noxious
vapours.
He was alwayes much contemplative, and had an excellent philosophicall
head. He was no great read man; he had a competent knowledge in the
Latin, Greeke, and Hebrue tongues, but not a critique. Greeke he
learn'd by ... Montanus's Interlineary Testament[721], after he was
a man, without a grammar, and then he read Homer. He understood only
common Arithmetique, and never went farther in Geometrie then the first
six bookes of Euclid; but he had such an inventive head, that with
this foundation he was able to doe great matters in the mechaniques,
and to solve phaenomena in naturall philosophy. He had but few bookes,
which when he dyed were sold for fifty-six shillings, and surely no
great bargaine. He published[722] nothing but his _Interpretation of
the number 666_, in 4to, printed at Oxford, 1642, which haz been twice
translated into Latin, into French, and other languages[AX]. He made
the fine diall with its furniture, on the north wall of the quadrangle
at Trinity Colledge, which he did by Samminitiatus's booke of Dialling
(it haz been gonne about 1670, and another is there putt). He lived and
dyed[723] a batchelour. He was hospitable, vertuous, and temperate;
and, as I sayd before, very contemplative. He lookt the most like a
monk, or one of the pastours of the old time, that I ever sawe one. He
was pretty long visagd and pale cleare skin, gray eie. His discourse
was admirable, and all new and unvulgar. His house was as undeckt[724]
as a monke's cell; yet he had there so many ingeniose inventions that
it was very delightfull. He had a pretty contrived garden there,
where are the finest box hedges of his planting that ever I sawe. The
garden is a good large square; in the middle is a good high mount, all
fortified (as you may say) and adorned with these hedges, which at the
interstices of ... foot have a high pillar (square cutt) of box, that
shewes very stately and lovely both summer and winter.
[Illustration]
On the buttery-dore in his parlour he drew his father's picture at
length, with his booke (fore-shortned), and on the spectacles in his
hand is the reflection of the Gothique south windowe. I mention this
picture the rather, because in processe of time it may be mistaken by
tradition for his son Francis's picture, author of the booke aforesayd.
I never have enjoyed so much pleasure, nor ever so much pleased with
such philosophicall and heartie entertainment as from him. His booke
was in the presse at Oxford, and he there, when I was admitted of the
College, but I had not the honour and happinesse to be acquainted with
him till 1649 (Epiphanie), since which time I had a conjunct friendship
with him to his death, and corresponded frequently with him. I have all
his letters by me, which are very good, and I beleeve neer 200, and
most of them philosophicall.
I have many excellent good notes from him as to mechaniques, etc., and
I never was with him but I learn't, and alwayes tooke notes; but now
indeed the Royall Societie haz out-donne most of his things, as having
a better apparatus, and more spare money. I have a curious designe of
his to drawe a landskip or perspective (1656), but Sir Christopher Wren
hath fallen on the same principle, and the engine is better work't.
He was smyth and joyner enough to serve his turne, but he did not
pretend to curiosity in each. He gave me a quadrant in copper, and made
me another in silver, of his owne projection, which serves for all
latitudes. He shewed me, 1649, the best way of making an arch was a
parabola with a chaine; so he tooke of his girdle from his cassock, and
applyed it to the wall, thus:
[Illustration]
He invented and made with his owne handes a paire of beame[725]
compasses, which will divide an inch into a hundred or a thousand
parts. At one end of the beame[725] is a roundle, which is divided
into 100 equall parts, with a sagitta to turne about it with a handle:
this handle turnes a skrew of a very fine thread, and on the back of
the saile or beame is a graduation. With these compasses he made the
quadrants aforesayd. He gave me a paire of these compasses, which I
shewed to the[726] Royall Societie at their first institution, which
they well liked, and I presented them as a rarity to my honoured
friend, Edmund Wyld, esqre. There are but[727] two of them in the world.
☞ Memorandum that at the Epiphanie, 1649, when I was at his house, he
then told me his notion of curing diseases, etc. by transfusion of
bloud[LXI.] out of one man into another, and that the hint came into
his head reflecting on Ovid's story of Medea and Jason, and that this
was a matter of ten yeares before that time. About a yeare after, he
and I went to trye the experiment, but 'twas on a hen, and the creature
to little and our tooles not good: I then sent him a surgeon's lancet.
Anno ... I recieved a letter from him concerning this subject, which
many yeares since I shewed, and was read and entred in the bookes of
the Royall Societie, for Dr. Lower would have arrogated the invention
to himselfe, and now one [R.[728] Griffith,] Dr. of Physique, of
Richmond, is publishing a booke of the transfusion of bloud, and
desires to insert Mr. Potter's letter: which I here annex in perpetuam
rei memoriam.
[LXI.] Memorandum:--Mr. Meredith Lloyd tells me that Libavius speakes
of the transfusion of bloud, which I dare sweare Mr. F. Potter never
sawe in his life.
[729]'Worthy Sir,
'I am sorrie that I can as yet give you no better account of that
experiment of which you desire to heare. I am as yet frustrated _in
ipso limine_ (but it is by my owne unexpertnes, who never attempted any
such thing upon any creature before); for I cannot, although I have
tried divers times, strike the veine so as to make him bleed in any
considerable quantity.
'I have prepared a little cleare transparent vessel (like unto a
bladder), made of the[730] craw of a pullet; and I have fastened an
ivory pipe to one of the neckes of it, and I have put it into a veine
which is most conspicuous about the lowest joint of the hinder legges;
and yet I cannot procure above 2 or 3 drops of blood to come into the
pipe or the bladder.
[Illustration]
'I would have sent this bladder and pipe in my letter unto you but that
I feare it might be an occasion that my letter might not come into your
hands.--This is the rude figure of it which I do here set down because
I thinke it the most convenient for this purpose:--
'_a_ = the necke of the craw which goeth to the mouth.
'_b_ = the other necke which goeth from the craw to the gissar.
Another pipe may be tied to this end and put into the veine
of another living creature at the same time.
'_d_ = a little crooked ivory pipe, fastened (as a clister pipe
is) to a bladder.
'_e_ = the capacity of the craw or bladder.'
'Sir,
'I received that oyle in a little glasse which you had from Mr. Decreet
and a receipt in another letter, and I desire you not to impute it to
my unthankefulnes that I did not thanke you for it in my last letter. I
have most times such sorrow and discontents in my breast which make me
forget my selfe and my best friends and such things as I most delight
in.
'If I should have occasion to write anything unto you in characters you
may be pleased to remember this key, that the three first letters and
every other three letters doe _quiescere_ and that a comma is placed at
the end of every word. As for example this writing:--
'Sed cæssat ar, otracci elusus, subest:--
'that is,
'cæsar occisus est,
'You need but cancell or make a line under every other three letters,
and then you may easily and speedily read it, as this example:--
'_Sed_ cæs_sat_ ar, o_tra_cci _elu_sus, _sub_est.
'~Sed~ cæs~sat~ ar, o~tra~cci ~elu~sus, ~sub~est.
'Sir,
'I humbly present my service and best wishes unto you and shall still be
'Yours, in all true affection, to be commanded