by John Aubrey
But to return to Aubrey’s life: for the first three years of the Commonwealth he tried to alleviate the misery of his sad life in the country, by toying with the idea of travel abroad. William Harvey, my she cosen Montague’s physitian and friend, proved very communicative and willing to instruct any that were modest and respectfull to him and in order to my Journey, gave me, i.e. dictated to me, what to see, what company to keepe, what Bookes to read, how to manage my Studies: in short, he bid me goe to the Fountain head, and read Aristotle, Cicero, Avicenna, and did call the Neoteriques shitt-breeches. These plans came to maturity in 1651, Aubrey continued, when I made my will and settled my Estate on Trustees, intending to have seen the Antiquities of Rome and Italy, and then to have returned and maried, but my mother, to my inexpressible griefe and ruine, hindred this designe, which was the procatratique cause of my ruine.
His mother’s importunities were no doubt caused by the illness of his father, who died at last in 1652, unregretted by his son, who ungratefully mentioned only that he was left debts 1800 pounds, and ignored the estates in Wiltshire, Surrey, Monmouth, Brecknock, Hereford and Kent which also came to him, albeit they were well entangled with law suits.
Now that he was free from his father’s disapproving gaze and master of his own purse, Aubrey embarked wholeheartedly on a career of dilletantism. His estates were left to look after themselves while he led the life of a wealthy young squire in London, which even under the English Attila, Oliver, was more congenial than the lonely farms of Wiltshire. For the condition of England during Oliver’s Triumphant Usurpation is best summed up by an inn-sign near Oxford which, at the beginning of the Commonwealth, had been altered to read “This was the King’s Head.” And as Aubrey sought out the merry men in the reigne of the Saintes, he discovered that the main result of the Commonwealth was an increase in concealment and hypocrisy, rather than a change of heart. The Presbyterians, as Anthony Wood was quick to notice, “would not goe to ale-houses or taverns, but send for their liquors to their respective chambers and tiple it there. Some would goe in publick; but then, if overtaken, they were so cunning as to dissemble it in their way home by a lame leg or that some suddaine paine there had taken them.” A more unexpected result of Puritanism, however, was that “Dr. John Owen, the Deane of Christ Church, when Vice-Chancellor, had as much powder in his haire that would discharg eight cannons,” as well as “cambric band with larg costly band-strings, velvet jacket, his breeches set round at knee with ribbons, pointed, Spanish leather boots with Cambrig tops, etc. And all this was in opposition to a prelaticall cut.”
The death of his father had started Aubrey on a depressing train of thought, and after considering long and seriously what he was best fitted to do in life, he had to answer: Truly nothing: only Umbrages. If ever I had been good for anything, ’twould have been a Painter, I could fancy a thing so strongly and had so cleare an idaea of it, but to become a good painter would have been a laborious business, and so Aubrey decided that his real purpose in life was to be a wheatstone and to strike ideas from other people and sharpen their wits for work. He was not long, however, in finding his proper bent, for he mentions that he began to enter into pocket memorandum bookes, philosophical and antiquarian remarques, Anno Domini 1654, at Llantrithid.
In 1655, Aubrey says, there was published by Mr. Web a Booke intituled Stonehenge-restored (but writt by Mr. Inigo Jones) which I read with great delight. There is a great deale of Learning in it: but having compared his Scheme with the Monument it self, I found he had not dealt fairly: but had made a Lesbian’s rule, which is conformed to the stone; that is, he framed the monument to his own Hypothesis, which is much differing from the Thing it self. This gave me an edge to make more researches; and a farther opportunity was, that my honoured and faithfull Friend Colonell James Long of Draycot, since Baronet, was wont to spend a weeke or two every Autumne at Anbury in Hawking, where several times I have had the happiness to accompany him. I should now be both Orator and Soldier to give this honoured friend of mine, a Gentleman absolute in all numbers, his due Character, said Aubrey, and therefore limited himself to giving a mere list of Sir James’s capabilities. In the Civill Warres, Colonel of Horse in Sir Francis Dodington’s Brigade. Maried a most elegant Beautie and Witt. Good sword-matt; horseman; admirable extempore Orator pro Harangue; Great Memorie; great Historian and Romanceer; great Falkoner and for Horsemanship; for Insects; exceeding curious and searching long since, in naturall things. And to show that he was not alone in appreciating his friend’s charms, Aubrey mentions that Oliver Protector, hawking at Hownslowe-heath, discoursing with him, fell in love with his company, and commanded him to weare his sword, and to meete him a Hawking, which made the strict Cavaliers look on him with an evill eye.
Our Sport was very good, and in a Romantick countrey, Aubrey continues, sc. the Prospects noble and vast, the Downes stock’t with numerous Flocks of Sheep, the Turfe rich and fragrant with Thyme and Burnet. Nor are the Nut-brown Shepherdesses without their graces. But the flight of the Falcon was but a parenthesis to the Colonell’s facetious discourse, who was tam Marti quam Mercurio; and the Muses did accompany him with his Hawkes and Spanniels. Unfortunately Aubrey was so entertained by his friend’s conversation that he never committed his arguments to paper, and so Inigo Jones went unrefuted.
Undaunted by his failure even to complete a pamphlet, Aubrey at once embarked on a much more elaborate task. 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 Ano 1656, he said, and the work he was planning was indeed new. He had undertaken to write The Naturall Historie of Wiltshire, and although it was never published, he did in fact bring it nearer to completion than any of his other books.
The mere chapter headings show the vast scope of the work, for they range from Air, Springs Medicinall, Rivers, Earths, Mineralls, Stones, Plantes, Beastes, Fishes, Birds, Insects and Reptiles, Men and Women, to Things Praeternatural, e.g. Witchcraft, Phantomes, &c., and the Number of Attornies every 30 yeares since H. viii. And there are numerous diversions into subjects like The History of Cloathing and Cloathiers of Wilts, Faires and Markets: Their Rise and Decay, and Of the Grandure of the Herberts, Earles of Pembroke.
In this book, Aubrey put forward many new theories, some absurd, some endorsed by time. If you let fall a stone into the water, he said, immediately it makes a little Circle, then another bigger without that, and so forth, till it touches at the Bank, and then it recoiles in a little Circle, which generates other bigger Circles; so sounds move by Sphaeres, in the same manner, which though obvious enough, I doe not remember to have seen in any Booke; and this observation he counterbalanced by suggesting that it rains more often when the moon is full because her Vicinity to the Earth gradually depresseth our amosphere. This last idea is typical of the seventeenth century for, intoxicated by the possibilities of the scientific method, men were apt to put far more faith in it than it warranted. Aubrey measured the height of Salisbury spire by barometric pressure, for instance, and got the result to the nearest inch, and he says to find the Proportion of the Downes of this Countrey to the Vales, I did divide Speeds Mappe of Wiltshire with a paire of Cizars, according to the respective Hundreds of Downes and Vale: And I weighed them in a Curious Ballance of a Goldsmith.
On the whole, however, his observations were accurate and his deductions good. He noticed that the ground rose with age and also that the Roman remains at Silchester, though they were deep underground, were visible from a height, in the grass. Aubrey was the first archeologist that England had produced, and he devoted himself to all the ramifications of that study: geology, heraldry, palaeography, numismatics and comparative architecture: but being the first in the field, he was offered little help by his predecessors. I have often times wish’t for a Mappe of England coloured according to the colours of the Earth: with markes of the Fossils and Minerals, he said, and he regretted that no one had ever found time to write a Historie of the Weather. His study
of these archeological remains, too, caused his fertile brain to throw out various ideas which were far in advance of his time. That the World is much older, then is commonly supposed, he said, any man may be induced to believe from the finding Fossils so many Foot deep in the Earth, and he foreshadowed the theory of evolution when he saw (to use the Heralds terme) that Fishes are of the elder House.
The work also contained a less learned side, which was so entertaining that John Ray felt obliged to issue a warning. “I think (if you can give me leave to be free with you),” he wrote to Aubrey, “that you are a little inclinable to credit strange relations. I have found men that are not skilfull in the 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 authority, but are ever suspicious that they may either be deceived themselves, or delight to teratologize (pardon ye word) and to make shew of knowing strange things.”
Luckily Aubrey ignored this well meant advice and left in the “strange relations,” which nowadays provide the main interest of the work. Such complete irrelevancies as the best way of dressing a Carpe find their way into the Naturall Historie, besides a most useful hint for the cellar: Dead Men’s bones burn’t to ashes and putt into drinke doe intoxicate exceedingly. Then, too, he was ready with a most efficacious cure for anyone who happened to bang his head: A Fellow in North-Wales, shrowding of a Tree fell downe on his head, and his Braine being turned, lay for dead: A Mason being thereby, advised that he should have a good strong coffin made, and his feete to come to the end of it, and his head not to touch the other end by two inches: He layeth the Man in the Coffin on a Table-board, and then with a huge Axe, gave a sound Knock at the feet, to turne by that contrary motion his braine right againe. After the blow was given the fellow gave a groane and spake: and he recovered.
A whole treasure trove of words lies jumbled up together in this book. In North Wilts, Aubrey says, the Milke mayds sing as shrill and cleare as any Swallow sitting on a Berne, and the next minute he is telling us how some Cow-stealers will make a hole in a hott loafe newly drawne out of the oven, and put it on an Oxes-horn for a convenient time, and then they can turn their softened homes the contrary way: So that the owner cannot sweare to his own beast. Not long before the King’s restauration, a fellow was hang’d at Tyburn for this Trick, and sayd, that he had never come thither, if he had not heard this Trick spoken of in a Sermon. Thought he, I will try this Trick. After this salutary warning against the dangers of church-going, Aubrey flies off at a tangent again to report that Isaac Selfe, a wealthy Cloathier of Milsham, died in the ninety second yeare of his Age, leaving behind him a numerous offspring; viz. eighty and three in number, and this reminds him that 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 he got his wife with Child: and she was delivered of seven Children at one Birth. What the moral of this story was, Aubrey omits to say, but he added that Dr. Wm. Harvey (Author of the Circulation of the Bloud) told me that one Mr. Palmer’s Wife in Kent did beare a Child every day for five daies together, a tale which was capped by Mris. Hine the Vicar’s-wife of Kington St. Michael (a very able Midwife) who informed Aubrey that Mris. Kath. H—— (who was brought to bed at Dorchester) (Dorset) was delivered first of a Sonne (now liveing and the Heir) and afterwards for eight daies together, every day another Child: Some whereof had heads, and Armes, and no lower parts; others had lower, but no upper-parts: but she never had any Child afterwards. Nor was this all, for the said Mris. Hine did tell a storie (about 1649) which was confidently averred; that about Westerly, or Alderly, or that way in Glocestershire, there were two Children born in the grave. Refusing to be outdone in this vein, William Harvey countered with the story of a certain Knight in Kent, who having gott his Wives Mayd with Child, sent her to London to lie-in under pretence of seeing her friends: She was brought to bed there about Michaelmas; and after some convenient time she returned to her Lady: She found herselfe not well, and in December following, she fell in labour again, and was delivered of another Child. It is unlikely that this untoward incident caused her neighbours much surprise, for when Mary Waterman, half an hour after bearing a normal child, was delivered of a Monstrous-birth, haveing two Heades the one opposite to the other, the seventeenth century coped with the matter with exemplary efficiency. About four o Clock in the after-Noon the same day, Aubrey records, it was christened, by the name of Martha and Mary, having two pretty faces, and lived till fryday next. And then he says, I will whilst ’tis in my mind insert this Remarque, viz—about 1620 one Ricketts of Newberye a Practictioner 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 cureing of it with his Touch; and now ’tis good sport to see how they vex their Lexicons, and fetch it from the Greek , the back bone.
It was no wonder, therefore, that when he presented a fair copy of this work to the Royal Society, it gave them two or three dayes Entertainment, which they were pleased to like. But though it circulated widely amongst his friends, and despite its hopeful dedication to the Right Honourable Thomas Earle of Pembroke, my singular good Lord, the Naturall Historie was never published; indeed it was never finished, for although Aubrey did his part, his Advice to the Painter or Graver was not carried out, and the list of the illustrations he desired went unnoticed, as he half suspected it would. If these views were well donn, he had said, they would make a glorious Volume by itselfe, and like enough it might take well in the World. It were an inconsiderable charge to these Persons of Qualitie: and it would remaine to Posterity, when their Families are gonn, and their Buildings ruin’d by time, or Fire, as we have seen that stupendous Fabrick of Paul’s Church, not a stone left on a stone, and lives now onely in Mr. Hollar’s Etchings in Sir William Dugdale’s History of Pauls. I am not displeased with this Thought as a Desideratum, he concluded, but I doe never expect to see it donn: so few men have the hearts to doe publique good: to give 3, 4, or 5 pounds for a Copper Plate.
It says a great deal for Aubrey’s power of concentration that he was able to proceed as far with this work as he did, for in 1656 he also began his chargeable and taedious Lawesuite about the Entaile in Brecknockshire and Monmouthshire, which lands, he said rather hopefully, now of right belong to me. For his great-grandfather, the little Doctor of Queen Elizabeth’s Court, had entailed the Brecon estate on the Issue male of his eldest son, and in defailer, to skip the 2d son (for whom he had well provided, and had married a good fortune) and to come to the third. Edward the eldest had seaven Sonnes: and his eldest son Sir Will had also seaven sonnes; and so I am heyre, being the 18th man in Remainder, which putts me in mind of Dr. Donne:
For what doeth it availe
To be twentieth man in an Entaile?
The tortuous descent of this land was further complicated by the fact that William Aubrey’s executor ran away into Ireland and cosened all the Legatees. So Aubrey cannot really have been surprised when he lost the case. It cost me 1200 pounds, he noted sadly all the same, adding this yeare, and the last, was a strange year to me, and full of Contradictions:—scilicet Love and Law-suites.
For Aubrey’s affairs were rapidly becoming desperate. Then Debts and Law-suites, he says, opus et usus, borrowing of money and perpetuall riding, which itself was not without complications, for he lists a whole chapter of accidents. On Monday after Easter weeke, he reports, my uncle’s nag ranne away with me, and gave me a very dangerous fall. Just before it I had an Impulse of the Briar under which I rode, which tickled him, at the Gap at the upper end of Bery Lane. Deo gratias! Then (I thinke) June 14, I had a fall at Epsam, and brake one of my ribbes and was afrayd it might cause an Apostumation, and good antiquary that he was, he religiously preserved among his papers William Harvey’s prescription for that treatment
. March or Aprill, he wrote a few years later, like to break my neck in Ely Minster, and the next day, riding a gallop there, my horse tumbled over and over, and yet (I thanke God) no hurt. The next time, however, he was not to be so fortunate, for Munday after Christmas, was in danger to be spoiled by my horse, and the same day received laesio in Testiculo which was like to have been fatall: but was not: and ever afterwards he rode quietly.
To my prayse, he said, I had wonderfull credit in the countrey for money. Sold Manor of Bushelton in Herefordshire to Dr. T. Willis. Sold Manor of Stratford in the same county to Herbert, Lord Bishop of Hereford. And so began the dissipation of his estates, so recently inherited, so soon to be squandered.
In 1659, Aubrey started a second work relating to Wiltshire, which was intended to form part of a County History of England. At a Meeting of Gentlemen at the Devizes for choosing of Knights of the Shire in March 1659, he said, it was wish’d by some that this County (wherein are many observable Antiquities) was survey’d, in Imitation of Mr. Dugdale’s Illustration of Warwickshire; but it being too great a Task for one Man, Mr. William Yorke (Councellor at Law, and a Lover of this Kind of Learning) advis’d to have the Labour divided; he himself would undertake the Middle Division, I would undertake the North; T. Gore, Esq. Jeffrey Daniel, Esq. and Sir John Ernely, would be Assistants. And so An Essay towards the Description of the North Division of Wiltshire was begun with high hopes, and was soon illustrated with armorial shields elaborately emblazoned and with facsimiles of old deeds and seals. But once again Aubrey malingered and the work stopped just short of completion. This good design vanished in fumo Tabaci, and was never thought of since, he said hopelessly eleven years later. However he would not admit final defeat. I have since that occasionally made this following Collection, which perhaps may sometime or other fall into some Antiquary’s Hands, to make a handsom Work of it. I am heartily sorry, he continued, I did not set down the Antiquities of these parts sooner, for since the Time aforesaid (1659) many Things are irrecoverably lost.