[CC] Aubrey gives in trick the coat, 'azure, a bend or cottised argent,
between six martlets or,' and notes 'this is the same coat that is
borne by Delabere.'
[CD] MS. Aubr. 22 is a collection of short treatises, chiefly on
Latin grammar. Of this Aubrey says:--'Memorandum:--this collection of
grammatical learning (and another in 8vo) is in relation to my idea of
the education of the noblesse,' i.e. is in preparation for MS. Aubr. 10
_infra_.--In this volume is a treatise 'by Dr. Tonge, Brampton Castle,
Dec. 23, 1672,' entitled 'Dr. Tonge _de punctis_,' 3 pp., dealing with
Wasmuth's rules for punctuation.
Also, _An epitome of Grammar_, by Ezerel Tonge, D.D., being 18 memorial
verses, beginning
'Eight parts, two numbers, six cases, these.'
Also, a prospectus of Tong's school, 'At Islington in or near Sir
Richard Fisher's house, next the church, having a prospect into Canbury
fields'; and on the back of it a scheme of the terminations in the
declension of Latin nouns. Also, 4 pp. of memorial verses (Latin), and
(in MS.) a scheme for the conjugation of verbs.
MS. Aubr. 10 is Aubrey's 'The idea of education of a young gentleman.'
In this, chapter 3 (i.e. foll. 13-20) is 'An introduction to the Latin
tongue, by Ezerel Tong, D.D.'
=Nathaniel Torporley= (1563-1632).
[1094]Mr. J.[1095] Torporley--Mr. <Robert> Hooke affirms to me that Mr.
J. Torporley was amanuensis to Vieta[1096]; but from whom he had that
information he haz now forgot, but he had good and credible authority
for it, and bids me tell you that he was certainly so.
He printed something against Vieta by the name of John Poulterey (a
disguised name, the same letters a little transpos'd).
[1097]Memorandum:--Mr. Nicholas Mercator (who taught the last earl of
Northumberland[1098], then lord Percy, at Petworth) assures me that
the earle of Northumberland who was prisoner in the Tower gave also a
pension to one Mr. ... Torporley, Salopiensis, a learned man; and that
in the library of that family (I thinke) at Petworth, are some papers
of his: quaere iterum.
Ex catalogo librorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae:
_Nath. Torporlaeus_, Diclides coelometricae, seu valvae astronomicae
universales: Lond. 1602, 4to: C. 46 _Art._
=Thomas Triplett= (1603-1670).
[1099]Next to Dr. Outram's inscription <in the south aisle of
Westminster abbey> stands this of Dr. Triplett, in the very place
where Mr. Thomas May's stood, of white marble[1100]:--
Hic requiescit vir
Reverend. Dr. Thomas Triplett,
ex agro Oxoniensi,
Praebendarius hujus ecclesiae,
Qui postquam ad annum aetatis septuagesimum
pietate et cultus assiduitate, Deo,
Graecae linguae peritia non vulgari, doctis,
largitate et continua beneficentia, egenis,
morum innocua jucunditate, omnibus,
carum se praebuisset,
Ab hac vita ad meliorem commigravit,
Anno Domini 1670
Die Julii 18.
He went to schoole to Dr. Gill, as appeares by his ballad[1101], which
will last longer then any sermon that ever he made.
After his sequestration[1102] he kept a schoole at Dublyn (when the
king was beheaded); afterwards at Hayes, Surrey, 12 miles from London.
'Twas here our[1103] common friend George Ent went to schoole to him,
who told me that he had forgot the smart of his old master, Gill; he
was very severe.
I'le tell you a story of our old friend. His master Triplett was a
great lover of honey, and one of his schoolefellow's mother having sent
a pott of honey to the doctor, G. Ent putt his schoolefellow to beg
a little of his master, and he had gott a manchet and so they would
have a _regalio_. The doctor was in his study; and the boy takes the
confidence to approach, with his 'Quaeso, praeceptor, da mihi mel.'
G. Ent was sneaking behind. Qᵈ. the disturbed doctor, 'You audacious
raskall,' and gave him a good cuffe on the ear, 'how dare you be thus
impudent? Sirrah, who putt you on?' The boy answered (whiningly) 'G.
Ent.' The enraged doctor flies out of his study (he was a very strong
man), gives poore George a kick in the breech, and made him fly downe
a flight of 7 or 8 staires to the landing-place, where his head first
came to. He was stunn'd, but 'twas well his neck was not broken. 'Twas
a most cruel and inhumane act to use a poore child so. It so happened
that a day or two before G. E. had shaled a tooth. He writes a letter
to his father (now Sir George Ent) and incloses the tooth in it;
relates the story and that he lost the tooth by that meanes[1104].
The next day the grave and learned Dr. Ent comes to Hayes (the fame
of whose learning and testimonie did give great credit and reputation
to this schoole); expostulates with the doctor about his sonne. To
be short, tooke him away, and placed him with Mr. William Radford at
Richmond (an honest sequestred fellow of Trinity College, Oxon, and an
excellent schoolmaster, having been bred at Thame under Dr. Birt[1105]
and afterwards sent to Winton.) This accident well-nigh did breake
Dr. Triplett's schoole. But shortly after this time, happened the
restauration of his majestie, and then he was also restored to his
former preferments.
=Thomas Tusser= (1527-1580).
[1106]Memorandum:--Edward Bullock, of Fayburne-hall, in Essex, esq.
assures me, that this Tusser was borne at Riven-hall in Essex. The
howse wherein he was borne they doe yet shew. He rented the parsonage
of Fairested. He speakes in his booke of the people's cosening him of
his tythes.
=William Twisse= (1574-1646).
[1107]... Twisse, D.D., of Newbury:--his sonne Dr. ... Twisse, minister
of the new church neer Tothil street, Westminster, told me that he
had heard his father say that when he was a schoole-boy at Winton
Colledge that he was a rakell, and that one of his schoolefellowes and
camerades (as wild as himselfe) dyed there; and that his father goeing
in the night to the house of office, the phantome or ghost of his dead
schoolefollow appeared to him and told him 'I am damn'd'; and that this
was the beginning of his conversion.
Memorandum:--the Dr. had a melancholique and hypo-condriaque
temperament.
=John Twyne= (15--- 1581).
[1108]Jo. Twini, Bolingdunesis, Angli, de rebus Albionicis,
Britannicis, atque Anglicis commentariorum libri 2, ad Thomam Twinum,
filium: Lond. 1599.
The father was schoolmaster of St. Saviour's in Canterbury. John Leland
haz verses on him.
=Thomas Twyne= (1543-1613).
[1109]☞ From Mr. Meredith Lloyd--'The Breviarie of Britaine of Humphrey
Lloyd, dedicated to Ortelius, translated out of Latine by Mr. Twyne,
wherein are the etymologies of the Welsh names, rivers, cities, etc.'
He says that the Latin edition is altogether false writt, which names
Mr. Twyne hath printed true in the English edition.
=Thomas Tyndale= (1588-1671/2).
<In MS. Aubr. 21, among the notes Aubrey has jotted down for
his projected comedy _The Country Revel_, are a number under
the initials of T. T., i.e. of Thomas Tyndale (see p. 190,
_supra_), whom Aubrey took for his model in depicting an
old gentleman ('Sir Eubule Nestor') of the heroic age. Some
of these opinions of 'an old courtier of the Queen's' are
collected here.>
In those days (Elizabetha regina) the great men had a gate (the
yettes), and when a senator went to the Parliament-house a-foote, or a
horse-back with his foot-cloath, he had at his heeles 1/2 a dozen or 10
tall fellowes with blew coates and badges and long basket-hilt swords.
Now forsooth only a laquey and a little spitt-pig[1110].
T. T.--The advantage that king Charles I had: gentlemen tho[1111] kept
good horses, and many horses for a man-at-armes, and men that could
ride them; hunting horses. Now we are come all to our coaches forsooth!
(Sir Philip Sydney[1112]). Now young men are so farre from managing
good horses, they know not how to ride a hunting nag nor handle their
weapons. So God help the king if, etc.
In Sir Philip Sydney's time 'twas as much disgrace for a cavalier to be
seen in London rideing in a coach in the street as now 'twould be to be
seen in a petticoate and wastcoate. They rode in the streets then with
their rich footcloathes, and servants wayting on them with blewe coates
and badge, 6[1113], 8, 12 +.
T. T., an old gentleman that remembers Queen Elizabeth's raigne and
court, one of true gravity and prudence, not one that depends upon the
grave cutt of his beard to be thought so. He hath seen much in his
time both at home and abroade; and with much choler inveighes against
things now:--'Alas! O' God's will! Now-a-dayes every one, forsooth!
must have coaches, forsooth! In those dayes gentlemen kept horses for
a man-at-armes, besides their hackney and hunting horses. This made
the gentry robust and hardy and fitt for service; were able to be
their owne guides in case of a rout or so, when occasion should so
require[1114]. Our gentry forsooth in these dayes are so effeminated
that they know not how to ride on horseback.--Tho when the gentry mett,
it was not at a poor blind sordid alehouse, to drinke up a barrell of
drinke and lie drunke there two or three dayes together; fall together
by the eares. They mett tho in the fields, well-appointed, with their
hounds or their hawkes; kept up good hospitality; and kept a good
retinue, that would venture that bloud and spirit that filled their
vaines which their masters' tables nourisht[1115]; kept their tenants
in due respect of them. We had no depopulacion in those dayes.
'You see in me the ruines of time. The day is almost at end with
me, and truly I am glad of it: I desire not to live in this corrupt
age. I foresawe and foretold the late changes, and now easily foresee
what will follow after. Alas! O' God's will! It was not so in Queen
Elizabeth's time: then youth had[1116] respect to old age.
'Revels--Tho the elders and better sort of the parish sate and beheld
the pastimes of the young men, as wrastling, shooting at butts,
bowling, and dancing. All this is now lost; and pride, whoreing,
wantonnesses, and drunkennesses. Tho the charity of the feast, St.
Peter's box[1117], maintayned the old impotent poore.'
=James Usher= (1580/1-1655/6).
[1118]Memorandum:--... Usher, Lord Primate <of Ireland>, was at
Llantrithed[1119] for severall moneths, and divertised himselfe much to
talke with the poore people to understand Welsh, for that 'it had,' he
sayd, 'a great affinity with the Irish.' He sayd the Old Testament was
translated by the Universities, but the New Testament was translated by
the bishops; but the Old is much better donne.
=Henry Vaughan= (1621-1695).
=Thomas Vaughan= (1621-1666/7).
[1120]There are two Vaughans, twinnes, both very ingeniose and
writers. One writt a poeme called _Olor Iscanus_ (Henry Vaughan, the
first-borne), and another booke of Divine Meditations. His brother
wrote severall treatises, whose names I have now forgott, but names
himself _Eugenius Philalethes_.
They were borne at Llansanfraid in Brecknockshire, by the river Uske
(Isca). Their grandmother was an Aubrey: their father, a coxcombe and
no honester then he should be--he cosened me of 50_s._ once.
Eugenius Philalethes was of Jesus College. Whither Henry was I have
forgotten; but he was a clarke sometime to Judge Sir Marmaduke
Lloyd[1121].
[1122]Henry Vaughan, 'Silurist':--you know Silures contayned
Breconockshire, Herefordshire, etc.
[1123]My brother and I were borne att Newton, in Brecknockshire, in the
parish of St. Briget's, in the year 1621.
I stayed not att Oxford to take my degree, but was sent to London,
beinge then designed by my father for the study of the law, which the
sudden eruption of our late civil warres wholie frustrated.
My brother continued there for 10 or 12 yeares, and I thinke he could
be noe lesse than Master of Arts. He died upon an imployment for his
majesty, within 5 or 6 miles of Oxford, in the yeare that the last
great plague visited London. He was buried by Sir Robert Murrey,
his great friend (and then secretary of estate for the kingdome of
Scotland); to whome he gave his bookes and MSS.
[1124]My profession allso is physic, which I have practised now for
many years with good successe (I thanke God) and a repute big enough
for a person of greater parts than my selfe.
[1125]My brother died in the seaven and fortieth year of his age, upon
the 27th of Februarie in the yeare 1666, and was buried upon the first
of March.
[1126]Sir Robert Moray ... told me he buryed <my cosen Thomas Vaughan>
at Albery neer Ricot within three miles of Oxford. He dyed at Mr.
[Sam.[1127]] Kem's howse, the minister.
=Edward de Vere=, 17th earl of Oxford (15--- 1604).
[1128]Mr. Thomas Henshawe, Regiae Societatis Socius, tells me that
Nicholas Hill was secretary to ..., the great earle of Oxford, who
spent fourty thousand pounds per annum in seaven yeares travell. He
lived at Florence in more grandeur than the duke of Tuscany[1129].
This earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to queen Elizabeth,
happened to ..., at which he was so abashed[1130] that he went to
travell 7 yeares. On his returne the queen welcomed him home and sayd,
'My lord, I had forgot the ...'
A poor man[1131] askt of Mr. Hill one time to give him 6_d._ (or 1_s._
or such an almes). Sayd Mr. Hill 'What doest say, if I give thee ten
pounds?' 'Oh!' sayd he, 'ten pounds would make me a man.' And he did
put it downe in the account--'Item, x_li._ for making a man'--which his
lordship allowed and was well pleased at it.
=Villiers=, duke of Buckingham.
[1132]George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, natus 28 Aug. 1592, 4ʰ
40´ A.M., at Brookesby, Leicestershire.
George, filius of the duke of Buckingham, natus 30 Januarii, 1627/8;
obiit in Yorkshire, Saturday, 16 Apr. 1687.
[1133](_a_) George, duke of Buckingham, borne Aug. 28, Thursday, 15ʰ
P.M. 1595.--(_b_) George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, natus Tuesd.
28 Aug. 1592, 16ʰ 45´ P.M.--[Here (_b_) the yeare is 1592; but in the
former (_a_) 1595.]
The duke's sonne borne Wedn. 30 January 1627/8, 1ʰ P.M.
The countesse of Bucks[1134] died of a dropsi and phisick, 14 Apr. 1632.
[1135]Vide in _Vaticinium Poeticum_ de obitu lord Francis Villers[1136].
=William de Visscher.=
[1137]From Mr. Bovey:--William de Visscher, merchant in London,
borne at Emden in East Frisland in Germany, a Hans-towne--now under
the Dutch. At 2 yeares old was brought into England by his father,
an eminent merchant; lived 55 yeares in one house at St. Mary Hill,
and dyed in the 74th yeare of his age. He lived there till the fire
of London; he dyed about 3 yeares after--he did not enjoy himselfe
afterwards.
In the last great dearth of corne in England, which was in
anno[XC.] ..., when there was a great complaint and cry of the poore,
he bade them bee of good comfort for they should not starve, for he
would give them his labour and the use of his estate for that yeare.
He being a man of vast credit, gave his factors order that what corne
they could buy at such and such rates beyond sea, to hire flye-boates
and send them over to the port of London, of which he bought in one
yeare two thousand five hundred sayle. The corne that cost him 12_s._
per bushell beyond sea, he sold here for 14_s._; and some of the places
from whence he had corne (they selling it by reason of the greatnesse
of the price) afterwards wanted it themselves and were faine to be
supplied from hence, i.e. in some places, for which they were faine to
pay halfe value more then the first cost, or els must have starved.
[XC.] + Quaere annum. About 30 years since. I beleive it was 1647, or
1648--quaere.
Many disasters happened to many of the shippes that were bound for
London (some that never arrived were destroyed by foule weather; some
wind-bound so long till their corne fired for want of ayering, and was
faine to be throwne over-board) that in the whole matter, after all the
adventures runne, he did not gaine five and twenty hundred pounds. The
fly-boates caryed 800 tunne, and some more.
He left two sonnes and <one> daughter behind him, named Isabella (who
was maried to Mr. James Bovey, by which he haz one sonne and one
daughter).
He was a very eminent merchant, as most was of his time; and was valued
by common reputation (when he maried his daughter) to be worth sixscore
thousand pounds.
He stayed in London during the whole time of the plague, and had not
all that time one sick in his family. He was a temperate man, and had
his house very cleanly kept.
=Isaac Vossius= (1618-1688).
[1138]Isaac Vossius died at his lodgeings in Windsor Castle, February
the tenth, anno 1688/9; and hath left the best private library, they
say, in the world. 'Tis sayd king William will buy it to send into
Holland[1139].
=Johannes Gerhardus Vossius= (1577-1649).
[1140]He alwayes wrote his Adversaria on one side only of a sheet of
paper, so that as occasion required, he only tore his papers and fixt
them together, and would so send them to the presse without any more
transcribing. If his paper would beare ink of one side 'twas as much
as he desired. This way did save him a great deale of paines--quod
N.B.:--from Dr. John Pell.
Vide Drexelii, e Soc. Jesu, _de legendis auctoribus cum proficuo_.
_Sir Isaac Wake_ (1575-1632).
[1141]Sir Isaac Wake: he had a fine seate at Hampsted in Middlesex,
which lookes over London and Surrey, where he made those delicate
walkes of pines and firres, also corme-trees, etc.--The Lord Chiefe
Baron Wyld[1142] had it afterwards. His study was mighty pleasant.
The lord de la Ware, who maried the daughter and heire of the chiefe
baron, sold this seat about 1683 to a citizen of London, who pulled it
downe to build a house (1686).
The Chief Baron told his cosen Edmund Wyld, esq., that Sir Isaac Wake
was the first that planted pines and firres in England. E. W. might
have had the study for 8 _li._ per annum.
=Clement Walker= (1595-1651).
[1143]Clement Walker, esq. ('Theodorus Verax'), author of the History
of Independency, was of Christ Church, Oxon. Obiit ..., in the Tower
(about Worcester fight).
[1144]Clement Walker[CE], esq.--vide registrum at All Hallows, Barking,
about 1650, ubi sepultus, November:--he asked about an hower before he
dyed, how long it was to full-sea. They sayd, an hower. 'Then,' sayd
he, 'at that time I shall depart'; and he did so, quietly--from E.
P--.,, esq., his fellow-prisoner there, who told me that he wrote a
continuation of his Historic of the king's comeing to Worcester: 'tis
pitty 'tis lost.
His son[CF], W. W., now living, was a minor when his father dyed;
and ..., an elder brother of his, was made executor, who is also dead.
_Notes._