by John Aubrey
Never lament or make any mone
For either ther’s Remedy, or there is none.
Another rule laid it down that the Scholars were Not to be dressed a la mode till Dinner-time, for Aubrey had been acutely aware that he was working against time ever since his friend, Mr. J. Ward, had told him that he had found by experience, that the only time of Teaming is from nine to sixteen, afterwards Cupid beginns to Tyrannize. And in case any one should misunderstand exactly what Mr. Ward meant by that, Aubrey mentioned that Mr. Hobbes told me, that G. Duke of Buckingham had at Paris when he was about twenty yeares old, desired Him to reade Geometrie to him: his Grace had great naturall parts, and quicknesse of witt; Mr. Hobbes read, and his Grace did not apprehend, which Mr. Hobbes wondered at: at last, Mr. Hobbes observed that his Grace was at mastrupation (his hand in his Codpiece). This is a very improper age; for that reason for learning.
Aubrey was under no illusion about the opposition which his plan would meet, nor from what direction that opposition would come, for the book concludes: But now (me thinkes) I see a black Squadron marching from Oxford led up by a Crosier Staffe (Jo: Fell, Bp. Oxon) to discomfit this pretty Flock: and so my pleasing Dream
is at an
END.
Although Aubrey headed this work, A Private Essay only, he took more trouble over it after its completion, than over any of his other books. Not only did he choose the sites where he wished his schools to be, for he considered that half a dozen establishments would cover the needs of the whole country, but he continued for several years to make strenuous efforts to find a patron, or rather six patrons, who would put his schemes into practice. Sir, he wrote to Anthony Henley in 1694, I hope this Child of mine will be presented to you in a lucky houre. I am much joy’d to heare that excellent character you give of the Earl of Leicester: He may be a meanes to promote this Designe: the Earl of Pembroke hath read it all over, and excerped some things: he approves of it: but is not active. I have some hopes that the Marquess of Worcester (to whom my brother is well known) may propagate this Design in Wales: I am not over confident of my Lord Weymouth. Unfortunately, however, he had over-estimated the public spirit of all the other peers in whom he had placed such high hopes: for although they all admired the design, none took any practical steps to carry it out. God’s will be done, was Aubrey’s reaction. If the Nobless have a mind to have their Children be put into the Clergie’s pockets, much good may it do ’em. And at last even he despaired of seeing his Idea take practical shape: But I forsee that it will lie coffined up, and nobody have that Generosity to set affoote this noble Designe.
Deare Friend, Aubrey wrote to Anthony Wood on May 11, 1686. In January last, after a very great conflict of affliction, I rowsed up my spirits and writt a lettre to you, and immediately fell to worke with my Naturall History of Wilts, which I had just donne April 21, rough hewn, and finished the last chapter, when at the evening I heard of the sad news of the Decease of my deare and ever honoured mother: who died at Chalke, but my brother has buried her with my father in North Wilts (Kingston S. Michael). My head has been a fountain of teares, and this is the first lettre (except of businesse) that I have, writt since my Griefe. I am now involved in a great deale of trouble, and Chalke must be sold; but I hope to make some reservations for my selfe, and I hope before I dye to be able to make an honourable present to you: for I am for the Spaniards way; sc. not to make my soule my Executor. I shall shortly goe to Chalke to see how matters goe there: and as soon as I can pick up a little money intend to see you at Oxon, and thinke the time very long till I am with you. God blesse you and comfort me, that I may but live to finish and publish my papers.
Tuissimus, J.A.
Let me desire you to write to me by the next post, to let me know how you doe: yor letter will be a Cordial to me: therefore pray fail not. Fabian Philips is yours. I am sorry for the losse of our facetious friend Parson Hodges. I must make hast with my papers, for I am now 60.
Deborah Aubrey was 15 yeares old and as much as from January to June when she was married, John Aubrey says, and as he was her first child, there was less difference in years between them than there was between Aubrey and his brother, William. It was no wonder, therefore, that his mother’s death brought home to him so forcibly his own age and the perilous condition of his works. His Writings had the usual fate of those not printed in the Author’s life-time, Aubrey had written many years before about Nicholas Hill, and his Minutes of Lives are full of similar references. George Herbert writt a folio in Latin, he noted, which because the Parson of Hineham could not read, his widowe condemned to the uses of good houswifry, and he mentioned many other manuscripts besides which had wrapt Herings by this time or had been putt under Pyes. The examples were so unending: George Sandys, Poet, had something in Divinity ready for the presse, which his niece my Lady Wyat lost in the Warres—the title of it shee does not remember: and the Fire of London had caused such widespread destruction, that even plagiarism was excusable in that age. ’Tis certaine, Aubrey says, that John Wallis is a person of reall yorth, and may stand very gloriously upon his owne basis, and need not be beholding to any man for Fame, yet he is so extremely greedy of glorie, that he steales feathers from others to adorne his own cap; e.g. he lies at watch, at Sir Christopher Wren’s discourse, Mr. Robert Hooke’s, Dr. William Holder, &c; putts downe their notions in his Note booke, and then prints it, without owneing the Authors. This frequently, of which they complain. But though he does an injury to the Inventors, he does good to Learning, in publishing such curious notions, which the author (especially Sir Christopher Wren) might never have the leisure to write of himselfe.
There was one example, however, wnich appalled Aubrey by its similarity in every detail to his own case. One Mr. Gerard of Castle Carey in Somerset, collected the Antiquities of that county, Dorset, and that of Devon, he said, which I cannot for my life retrive. His Executor had them, whose Estate was seized for debt; and they utterly lost. And so, before setting out for Wiltshire to settle his mother’s affairs, Aubrey made an elaborate will, although he had nothing to leave except instructions as to the fate of his manuscripts, and in it he charged Robert Hooke with the task of preparing his Wiltshire papers for the press. For to the men of the seventeenth century, their reputation after death was a matter of the utmost concern, and though few of them went so far as Machiavelli in believing that fame was the only immortality of which the individual was capable, the desire for a good and a lasting reputation was so general, that Aubrey recorded with astonishment the reply Charles I made, when Mr. Ross endeavoured to persuade him to pay for the engraving of a manuscript by saying that it would appeare glorious in historie after his Majestie’s death. Pish, sayd He, I care not what they say of me in History when I am dead.
Aubrey, however, cared most particularly and he eagerly accepted Elias Ashmole’s suggestion that he should entrust his manuscripts to the newly founded Ashmolean Museum at Oxford; an idea with which his friends were not all in favour as the following letter shows. Mr. Wood, Aubrey began coldly, Last Teusday I went to see Mr. Ashmole, whom I found ill. He lately received a letter from Dr. Plot, about the things that I sent to Oxford; and says that he desired you to send to the Museum, but you denyed it, and would not let him see the Catalogue, that I sent. Mr. Ashmole desired to speake with me about it, and is most outragiously angry; and charg’d me to write to you as soon as I could and to order you to putt the Box in the Museum: for he looks upon you as a Papist, and sayeth so does the whole Universitie, and there was present at this angry fitt of his, an Oxford scholar (I thinke his Kinsman) who owned, what Mr. Ashmole sayd. Mr. Ashmole saies that now there is such care and good method taken, that the Books in the Museum are more safe than those in the Librarie, or Archives; and he says he expects to heare of your being plunder’d, and papers burnt, as at the Spanish Ambassador’s, at Wild house, where were burnt MSS and Antiquities invaluable, such as are not left in the world: and he further bids me tell you, that if you shall refuse to del
iver the things sent downe by me, to Oxford, that he will never looke on you as Friend, and will never give a farthing more to the University of Oxford. Since therefore it is so ordered, I do desire and appoint you to send my Box forthwith (you may keep the Key) for feare that all my MSS. &c. should be rifted by the Mobile (which God forbid, but Mr. E. Ashmole and I doe much feare) besides my Guift will make a better shew, in the Museum; than when dispersed in 2 places. I have severall other MSS. of my own and Mr. Mercator’s. That of mine that I most value is my Idea of Education of Young Gentlemen, which is in a Box as big as that sent to you; with choice Grammaticall bookes, ancient and modern, for the Informator to peruse and study. If I should die here, they will be lost or seized upon by Mr. Kent’s son: if I send them to the Museum, the Tutors would burn it, for it crosses their Interest exceedingly: if in your hands when you die your Nephew will stop gunnes with them. I intended the Earl of Abingdon, but he has now other Fish to fry. I think the Earl of Pembroke would do best, but had I money to pay an Amanuensis, I would leave a Copie in the hands of each of those 2 peeres. Tuissimus, J. Aubrey.
All his works, therefore, were deposited in the Ashmolean, except for The Minutes of Lives, which Anthony Wood still kept, and The Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, which Aubrey had finished that very year, and had dedicated To His ever honoured Friend Edmund Wylde, Esqr. as a small token of ancient Friendship. As if to repay Aubrey for his sharpness to Anthony Wood, his bequest was no sooner settled than the museum was robbed, and there vanished among other things his Picture in miniature, by Mr. S. Cowper (which at an auction yields 20 Guineas) and Archbishop Bancroft’s, by Hillyard, the famous Illuminer in Q. Elizabeth’s time. But his papers were untouched.
It was only fair that Aubrey should see his life-work settled safely before his death, for he had expended a great deal of energy in rescuing other people’s libraries from dispersal. In 1683, he had attempted to get the Royal Society or the University of Oxford to purchase the mathematical collections of his old friend Sir Jonas Moore. Getting no response from either of these bodies, he had approached Isaac Newton, but with no more success, for Newton pointed out that Trinity College had incurred such heavy charges over its new buildings that the purchase was out of the question for them, and the University of Cambridge was likely to prove no better prospect, “their chest being at present very low.”
Nor was it books alone that roused the easy-going Aubrey to such endeavours. When the havoc of the Civil War was succeeded by the disastrous Fire of London, he redoubled his efforts to preserve the dwindling number of antiquities that still remained. ’Tis pitty that in noblemen’s galleries, the names are not writt on or behind the pictures, he thought, and therefore in his life of Milton he made this note: Write his name in red letters on his Pictures, with his widowe, to preserve. In another case, he tried to kill two birds with one stone and failed in both attempts: Mr. Inigo Jones (Architect to King James I, and to King Charles I) was wont to wayte upon their Majesties when they went their Progress, he said. He design’d admirably well: and in these Progresses he drew a great many Prospects of the old Gothick, or ancient Castles, in sheetes of paper. He bought the Mannour of Burley neer Glastonbury (once belonging to it; but very unfortunate to the late Possessors) where in a large Parlour, I saw these Draughts of Castles: they did furnish the Roome round; one of them was falln downe, and in a childs hands, which I rescued: and hung it up my selfe. I have often intimated this to our Gravers to make them publick: but I cannot perswade them to it. But had the ingeniose Mr. Wenceslaus Hollar lived, he would have donne it, upon my request. Of these once stately Castles, there is not now a stone left upon a stone. In many other cases, too, Aubrey came too late to do anything but record the damage already done. In the Abbey-church of Dowre are two remaynders of mayled and cross-legged monuments, he reported, one sayd to be of a Lord Chandois, th’other, the Lord of Eywas-lacy. A little before I sawe them a Mower had taken one of the armes to whett his syth. This ignorant destruction was bad enough, but the thoughtlessness of the educated classes was even harder to bear: Franciscus Linus made the Jesuits College at Liège the finest Dialls in the World. The like dialls he made (which resemble something of Candlesticks) in the garden at Whitehall, which were one night, Anno Domini 1674, broken all to pieces (for they were of glasse spheres) by the Earl of Rochester, Lord Buckhurst, Fleetwood Shephard, etc. comeing in from their Revells. What, said the Earl of Rochester, doest thou stand heer to marke time? Dash they fell to worke. Ther was a watchman alwayes stood there to secure it.
Aubrey was no blind admirer of old things, however, for he said, the old windowes of the Church of Clerken-well are of great antiquitie, as appears by their shape, and their uglinesse, and he recorded with equal care vanishing legends: The tradition is that the Bell of Lincoln’s-Inne was brought from Cales [Cadiz], tempore Reginae Elizabethae, plundered in the expedition under the Earl of Essex: and passing curiosities: Mr. Emanuel Decretz (Serjeant Painter to King Charles 1st) told me in 1649, that the Catafalco of King James at his funerall (which is a kind of Bed of State, erected in Westminster Abbey, as Robert Earl of Essex had, Oliver Cromwell, and General Monke) was very ingeniosely designed by Mr. Inigo Jones, and that he made the 4 heades of the Cariatides (which bore up the Canopie) of playster of Paris, and made the drapery of them of white Callico, which was very handsome and very cheap, and shewed as well as if they had been cutt out of white marble. Even the changes in the language were recorded by him, for his book Villare Anglicanum is subtitled: Derivation of English Place names—A Collection of so many British words, as come to my memorie, that are endemized, and now current English: and have escaped the fury of the Saxon Conquest. How these curiosities would be quite forgott, he added, did not such idle fellowes as I am putt them downe!
Now that his works were at last in safe custody, Aubrey set about revising them so as to speed them to the Presse; but as his revision consisted entirely of adding more haphazard notes, they came no nearer to publication until, in 1692, Thomas Tanner, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, promised to arrange The Naturall Historie of Wiltshire for the printer. “I shall go towards Lavington on Saturday next,” the nineteen-year-old Tanner wrote to him. “My principal business is to drive on our Common design, viz. the Antiquities of Wiltshire, which I hope will find encouragement. If it does not I will never undertake anything more for the publick. I am heartily sorry your Monumenta meets with no better incouragement in this age, but I like it never the worse for that. It hath been the ill fortune of the best books that they have not borne the Charges of their own impression. It is well known that no Bookseller would give Sir Henry Spelman five pounds in books for his incomparable Glossary, and you know that Sir Walter Raleigh burnt the latter part of his admirable History of the World, because the former had undone the printer. The Christian Scriptures and the Monasticon, volumes now worth old Gold, had never been printed had not the former been carried on by a publick fund, the other by the sole charges of the Editor. I hope to live to see the Monumenta Britannica in as good vogue as the best of them.” But though Tanner was to live for another forty years, he was not even to see Aubrey’s book in print, let alone in vogue. For without a patron to pay for the publishing, few works came out in those days; and to have a patron often meant interference, as Anthony Wood had found to his cost in his dealings with John Fell. Nor was this the only disadvantage to be encountered, for Aubrey mentions the case of Thomas Goodwyn, who was a generall Scholar, and had a delicate Witt; was a great Historian, and an excellent Poet. The Journey into France, crept in Bishop Corbet’s poems, was made by him; by the same token it made him misse of preferment at Court, Mary the Queen-mother remembring how he had abused her brother, the King of France; which made him to accept of the place at Ludlowe, out of view of the World. Aubrey, however, was to enjoy neither the advantages nor the disadvantages of the system, and his works remained unpublished for all the world as if he had lived in the days when the Price of Writing of Manuscripts, before the use of
Printing, was xxx shillings per quire.
The Monumenta Britannica, which Tanner mentioned, had had its origin in the command given by Charles II to print an account of Avebury, but Aubrey had proceeded so slowly with the work and had added so many facts about other antiquities that five separate dedications of the book were made, as death took away one hoped-for patron after another, before it even got near the press. Now, however, “Proposals for Printing Monumenta Britannica Written by Mr. John Aubrey, Fellow of the Royal Society” were issued at long last. “The whole Work will consist of about 160 Sheets, and will be Printed in Folio with abundance of Cuts” ran the advertisement, which gave the price as eighteen shillings, nine down and nine on delivery, and assured the public “that the Booke will be printed by Candlemas next.” In the Declension of the Roman Empire, runs a sample page on the back of the prospectus, the Britains being drawn away to defend other Provinces, their own Country lay open to the Incursion of the Invaders: In that miserable state of things, the Learned Men fled for Refuge into Ireland; upon which occasion Learning did flourish there a long time; but the memory of things here became obliterated. Books perish’d, and Tradition was forgot. The Saxon Conquerors ascribed Works great and strange to the Devil, or some Giants, and handed down to us only Fables. ’Twas in that Deluge of History, the Account of these British Monuments utterly perished; the Discovery whereof I do here endeavour (for want of written Record) to work out and restore after a kind of Algebraical Method, by compering them that I have seen, one with another and reducing them to a kind of Aequation: to (being but an ill Orator my self) to make the Stones give Evidence for themselves. Although this extract sounds enticing, the plan seems to have languished, for the book never appeared. Edmund Gibson, who had seen the manuscript, probably gave the true reason, when he wrote to Thomas Tanner some years later. “There is not in Mr. Aubrey’s books what I had expected,” he said then. “The accounts of things are so broken and short, the parts so much disordered, and the whole such a mere Rhapsody, that I cannot but wonder how that poor man could entertain any thoughts of a present Impression. They will be serviceable enough, however,” he admits, “especially in Counties where Intelligence falls short; but in the rest, we shall not make much use of them.”