by John Aubrey
During this time, olde Mr. Thomas Barrow was shutt-up at Oxford, which was then a Garrison for the King, and could not heare of his Sonne. But young Isaac’s Master, Holbitch, found him out in London, and courted him to come to his Schoole, and that he would make him his Heire: But he did not care to goe to schoole again.
When my Lord Fairfax faild, and that he saw he grewe heavy upon him, he went to see one of his Schoolefellowes, one Mr. Walpole, a Norfolk Gent., who asked him what would he doe? He replyed he knew not what to doe; he could not goe to his father at Oxford. Mr. Walpole then tolde him: I am goeing to Cambridge to Trinity College and I will maintaine you there; and so he did for halfe a yeare till the Surrender of Oxford; and then his Father enquired after him and found him at Cambridge. And the very next day after old Mr. Barrow came to Cambridge, Mr. Walpole was leaving the University and (hearing nothing of Isaac’s father) resolved to take Isaac along with him to his Howse. His father then asked him what profession he would be of, a merchant or etc.? He begged of his father to lett him continue in the University. His father then asked what would maintain him. He told him 20 pounds per annum. I warrant you, sayd he, I will maintaine myselfe with it. His father replyed, I’le make a shift to allow you that. So his father then went to his Tutor and acquainted him. His Tutor, Dr. Duport, told him he would take nothing for his Reading to him, for that he was likely to make a brave Scholar, and he would helpe him to halfe a chamber for nothing. And the next news his father heard of him was that he was chosen in to the Howse. Dr. Hill was then Master of the College. He mett Isaac one day, and layd his hand upon his head, and sayd, Thou art a good boy, ’tis pitty thou art a Cavalier.
His Humour when a Boy, and after:---merry and cheerfull, and beloved wherever he came. His grandfather kept him till he was seven yeares old; his father was faine to force him away, for he would have been good for nothing there.
A good Poet, English and Latin. He spake 8 severall Languages.
He was a strong and stowt man and feared not any man. He would fight with the Butchers boyes in St. Nicholas shambles, and be hard enough for any of them.
He went to Travell three or four yeares after the King was beheaded, upon the Colledge account. He was a Candidate for the Greeke Professor’s place and had the consent of the University, but Oliver Cromwell put in Dr. Widrington, and then he travelled.
He was abroade about 5 yeares, viz. in Italie, France, Germany, Constantinople. As he went to Constantinople, two men of warre, Turkish Shippes, attacqued the Vessell wherin he was. In which engagement he shewed much valour in defending the vessell; which the men that were in that engagement often testifye, for he never told his father of it himself.
Upon his return, he came in Ship to Venice, which was stowed with Cotton-wooll, and as soon as ever they came on Shore the ship fell on fire and was utterly consumed, and not a man lost, but not any goods saved—a wonderful! preservation.
At Constantinople, being in company with the English Merchants, there was a Rhadamontade that would fight with any man and bragged of his Valour, and dared any man there to try him. So no man accepting, said Isaac (not then a Divine) Why, if none els will try you I will; and fell upon him and chastised him handsomly that he vaunted no more amongst them.
After he had been three years beyond sea, his Correspondent dyed, so that he had no more supply; yet he was so well beloved that he never wanted.
At Constantinople, he wayted on the Consul, Sir Thomas Bendish, who made him staye with him, and, kept him there a yeare and a halfe, whether he would or no.
At Constantinople, Mr. Dawes, a Turkey merchant, desired Mr. Barrow to stay but such a time and he would returne with him, but when that time came he could not goe, some Businesse stayed him. Mr. Barrow could stay no longer; so Mr. Dawes would have had Mr. Barrow have 100 pistolles. No, said Mr. Barrow, I know not whether I shall be able to pay you. ’Tis no matter, said Mr. Dawes. To be short, forced him to take fifty pistolls, which at his return he payd him again.
I have heard Mr. Wilson say that when he was at study, was so intent at it when the bed was made, or so, he heeded it not nor perceived it, was so totus in hoc [absorbed]; and would sometimes be goeing out without his hatt on.
He was by no means a spruce man, not a Dr. Smirke, but most negligent in his dresse. As he was walking one day in St. James’s parke, his hatt up, his cloake halfe on and halfe off, a gent. came behind him and clapt him on the Shoulder and sayd, Well goe thy wayes for the veriest scholar that ever I mett with.
He was a strong man, but pale as the Candle he studyed by.
His pill (an opiate, possibly Matthews his pil) which he was wont to take in Turkey, which was wont to doe him good, but he took it preposterously at Mr. Wilson’s, the Saddlers, neer Suffolk House, where he was wont to lye and where he dyed, and ’twas the cause of his death.
As he laye unravelling in the agonie of death, the Standers-by could hear him say softly, I have seen the Glories of the world.
FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER
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[Playwrights. Francis Beaumont was born in 1584 and collaborated with John Fletcher in the writing of plays from 1606 until his death in 1616. Dryden states that Beaumont was so accurate a judge of plays that Ben Jonson submitted all his writings to his censure. His superior faculty for the construction of plots is discernible in some of the plays that he wrote with Fletcher. Beaumont was educated at Oxford, and John Fletcher, who was born in 1579, was at Cambridge. Fletcher wrote fifty-two plays in all, fifteen of them with Beaumont, sixteen by himself, and the rest in collaboration with Rowley, Middleton, Massinger, Ben Jonson and Shakespeare. He died in 1625.]
MR. FRANCIS BEAUMONT was the son of Judge Beaumont. There was a wonderfull consimility of phansey between him and Mr. John Fletcher, which caused that dearnesse of frendship between them.
I thinke they were both of Queen’s College in Cambridge.
I have heard Dr. John Earles, since Bishop of Sarum, who knew them, say, that Mr. Beaumont’s maine Businesse was to lop the overflowings of Mr. Fletcher’s luxuriant Fancy and flowing Witt.
They lived together on the Banke side, not far from the Play-house, both batchelors; lay together; had one Wench in the house between them, which they did so admire; the same cloathes and cloake, &c.; betweene them.
He writt (amongst many other) an admirable Elegie on the Countesse of Rutland. John Earles in his Verses on him, speaking of them,
A monument that will then lasting bee,
When all her Marble is more dust than shee.
Mr. Edm. Waller on him:
I never yet the Tragick Scene assaid
Deterr’d by thy inimitable Mayd:
And when I striv’d to reach the Comick Stile
Thy Scornfull Lady seem’d to mock my toile.
John Fletcher, invited to goe with a Knight into Norfolke or Suffolke in the Plague-time 1625, stayd but to make himselfe a suite of Cloathes, and while it was makeing, fell sick of the Plague and dyed. This I had (1668) from his Tayler, who is now a very old man, and Clarke of St. Mary Overy’s in Southwark. Mr. Fletcher had an Issue in his arm (I thought it had not used so long ago). The Clarke (who was wont to bring him Ivy-leaves to dresse it) when he came, found the Spotts upon him. Death stopped his Journey and laid him low here.
SIR JOHN BIRKENHEAD
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[Born 1616. Poet and journalist. Probationer Fellow of All Souls, Oxford 1640. Devised and mostly wrote Mercurius Aulicus, the weekly journal of the Royalists at Oxford, 1642–45. He was imprisoned, after the surrender of Oxford, and subsequently, according to Anthony Wood, he lived by his wits in helping young gentleman out at dead lifts in making poems, songs, and epistles to their respective mistresses, as also in translating and writing several little things and other petite employments. In exile with the Prince of Wales 1648. Knighted at St. Germains 1649. M.P. for Wilton 1661. Fellow of the Royal Society. His poems were mainly satirical. Died 1679.]
SIR JOHN BIRKENHEAD, Kni
ght, was borne at Nantwych, in Cheshire. His father was a Sadler there, and he had a brother a sadler, a Trooper in Sir Thomas Ashton’s regiment, who was quartered at my father’s, who tolde me so.
He went to Oxford University, and was first a Servitor of Oriall Colledge: he wrote an excellent hand, and, when William Laud, ABC, was last there, he had occasion to have some things well transcribed, and this Birkenhead was recommended to him, who performed his businesse so well, that the archbishop recommended him to All Soules College to be a Fellow, and he was accordingly elected. He was Scholar enough, and a Poet.
After Edgehill fight, when King Charles I first had his Court at Oxford, he was pitched upon as one fitt to write the Newes, which Oxford Newes was called Mercurius Aulicus, which he writt wittily enough, till the surrender of the Towne.
After the surrender of Oxford, he was putt out of his Fellowship by the Visitors, and was faine to shift for himselfe as well as he could. Most part of his time he spent at London, where he mett with severall persons of quality that loved his company, and made much of him.
He went over into France, where he stayed some time, I thinke not long. He received grace there from the Dutches of Newcastle, I remember he told me. He gott many a fourty shillings (I beleeve) by Pamphlets, such as that of Col. Pride, and The Last Will and Testament of Philip Earle of Pembroke, &c.
He was exceedingly bold, confident, witty, not very grateful to his benefactors; would Lye damnably. He was of midling stature, great goggli eies, not of sweet aspect.
He was chosen a Burghes of Parliament at Wilton in Wiltshire, anno Domini 1661, i.e. of the King’s long parliament. Anno 1679 upon the choosing of this Parliament, he went downe to be elected, and at Salisbury heard how he was scorned and mocked at Wilton (whither he was goeing) and called Pensioner, etc.: he went not to the Borough where he intended to stand; but returned to London, and tooke it so to heart that he insensibly decayed and pined away; and so dyed at his Lodgeings in Whitehall, and was buried Saturday, December 6, in St. Martyn’s churchyard in-the-fields, neer the church, according to his Will and Testament; his reason was because he sayd they removed the bodies out of the Church.
I remember at Bristow (when I was a boy) it was a common fashion for the woemen to get a Tooth out of a Sckull in the Church yard; which they wore as a preservative against the Tooth-ach. Under the Cathedral-church at Hereford is the greatest Charnel-house for bones, that ever I saw in England. In A° 1650 there lived amongst those bones a poor old woman that, to help out her fire, did use to mix the deadmen’s bones: this was thrift and poverty: but cunning alewives putt the Ashes of these bones in their Ale to make it intoxicateing.
SIR HENRY BLOUNT
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[Born 1602. Traveller. On 7th May, 1634, he left Venice in a Venetian galley on his well-known voyage to the Levant. Sailing down the Adriatic, he landed at Spalatro in Dalmatia: thence he crossed the Dinaric Alps and descended into the plains of Bosnia, arriving at Sarajevo, the capital, after a journey of nine days. Departing thence with the Turkish troops proceeding to the war in Poland, he arrived at Valiero in Servia. Three days later he reached Belgrade and then proceeded by way of Nissa, Sophia in Bulgaria and Philippoli to Adrianople, finally reaching Constantinople after a land journey of fifteen hundred miles in fifty-two days. He then sailed for Alexandria with the Turkish Fleet, visiting Rhodes on the way. Thence he reached Cairo by water in five days, from which he made an excursion to the interior of the great pyramid at Gizeh. Leaving Cairo in November, he took passage on board a French vessel at Alexandria, bound for Palermo. Re-embarking at Trepassi for Naples, he returned via Rome, Florence and Bologna, to Venice, where he arrived after eleven months, having journeyed about six thousand miles. Published Voyage to the Levant, 1636. Knighted 1640. Sided with the Royalists in the Civil War. Died 1682.]
SIR HENRY BLOUNT, Knight, was borne (I presume) at Tittinghanger in the Countie of Hertford. It was heretofore the summer seate of the Lord Abbot of St. Alban’s.
He was pretty wild when young, especially addicted to common wenches. He was a second brother.
He was a Gentleman Pensioner to King Charles I, on whom he wayted (as it was his turne) to Yorke (when the King deserted the Parliament): was with him at Edgehill fight; came with him to Oxford; and so returned to London; walkt into Westminster Hall with his Sword by his side; the Parliamentarians all stared upon him as a Cavaleer, knowing that he had been with the King; was called before the House of Commons, where he remonstrated to them he did but his duty, and so they acquitted him.
In those dayes he dined most commonly at the Heycock’s-ordinary, near the Pallzgrave head taverne, in the Strand, which was much frequented by Parliament men and gallants. One time Colonel Betridge being there (one of the handsomest men about the Towne) and bragged how much the woemen loved him. Sir H. Blount did lay a wager, that let them two goe together to a Bordello, he only without money, with his handsome person, and Sir Henry with a twenty-shilling piece on his bald croone, that the wenches should choose Sir Henry before Betridge; and Sir H. won the wager. Edmund Wyld, Esq., was one of the witnesses.
There was a Pamphlet (writt by Henry Nevill, Esq.) called the Parliament of Ladies, wherin Sir Henry Blount was the first to be called to the Barre, for spreading abroad that abominable and dangerous Doctrine that it was far cheaper and safer to lye with Common Wenches then with Ladies of Quality.
His estate left him by his father was 500 pounds per annum, which he sold for an annuitie of 1000 pounds per annum; and since, his elder brother dyed.
He was made one of the Comittee for Regulating the Lawes. He was severe against Tythes, and for the abolishing them, and that every Minister should have 100 pounds per annum and no more.
Since he was —— year olde he dranke nothing but water or Coffee. 1647, or therabout, he maryed to Mris. Hester Wase, daughter of Christopher Wase, who dyed 1679, by whom he haz two sonnes, ingeniose young Gentlemen. Charles Blount (his second sonne) hath writt Anima Mundi (burnt by order of the Bishop of London) and of Sacrifices.
I remember twenty yeares since he inveighed much against sending youths to the Universities—quaere if his sons were there—because they learnt there to be debaucht, and that the learning that they learned there they were to unlearne againe, as a man that is buttond or laced too hard, must unbutton before he can be at his ease. Drunkeness he much exclaimed against, but wenching he allowed. When Coffee first came in he was a great upholder of it, and hath ever since been a constant frequenter of Coffee houses, especially Mr. Farre at the Rainbowe, by Inner Temple Gate, and lately John’s coffee house, at Fuller’s rents.
The first Coffe howse in London was in St. Michael’s Alley in Cornehill, opposite to the church, which was sett up by one Bowman (Coachman to Mr. Hodges, a Turkey merchant, who putt him upon it) in or about the yeare 1652. ’Twas about four yeares before any other was sett up, and that was by Mr. Far. Jonathan Paynter, opposite to St. Michael’s Church, was the first apprentice to the Trade, viz. to Bowman. The Bagneo, in Newgate Street, was built and first opened in December 1679, built by Turkish Merchants.
He is a Gentleman of very cleare Judgement, great experience, much Contemplation, not of very much Reading, of great Foresight into Government. His conversation is admirable. When he was young, he was a great collector of Bookes, as his sonne is now.
He was heretofore a great Shammer, i.e. one that tells falsities not to doe any body any injury, but to impose on their understanding; e.g. at Mr. Farre’s, that at an Inne (nameing the signe) in St. Albans, the Innekeeper had made a Hogs-trough of a free-stone coffin, but the pigges after that grew leane, dancing and skipping, and would run upon the topps of the houses like goates. Two young Gents., that heard Sir H. tell this sham so gravely, rode the next day to St. Albans to enquire; comeing there, nobody had heard of any such thing, ’twas altogether false. The next night as soon as they allighted, they came to the Rainbowe and found Sir H., looked louringly on him, and told him they wondered he was not a
shamed as to tell such stories, etc. Why, Gentlemen, sayd Sir H., have you been there to make enquiry? Yea, sayd they. Why truly, gentlemen, sayd Sir H. I heard you tell strange things that I knew to be false. I would not have gonne over the threshold of the dore to have found you out in a Lye, at which all the Company laught at the two young Gents.
He was wont to say that he did not care to have his servants goe to Church, for there servants infected one another to goe to the Alehouse and learne debauchery; but he did bid them goe to see the Executions at Tyeburne, which worke more upon them than all the oratory in the Sermons.
He is now (1680) neer or altogether 80 yeares, his Intellectuals good still; and body pretty strong.
This last weeke of Sept. 1682, he was taken very ill at London, and his Feet swelled; and removed to Tittinghanger.
EDMUND BONNER
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[Born 1495. Divine. Chaplain to Cardinal Wolsey 1529. He appealed in person to Pope Clement VII against Henry VIII’s ex-communication after his marriage to Anne Boleyn in 1533. Bishop of Hereford and Ambassador to the French Court 1538. Bishop of London 1539. Ambassador to the Emperor 1542. Bonner was three times imprisoned for his opposition to Edward VI’s religious policy and was deprived of his bishopric. Restored to his see on Mary’s accession in 1553, he joined with such great severity in the Marian persecution that he became one of the chief villains in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, where he is referred to as the Bloody Bishop: he was said to have delightedly followed the accusation and found means to indite Richard Mekins, a child not past his fifteenth year, who had heard folkes talke, and in his innocence had chanced to speake against the Sacrament of the Altar. The poore boy for the safeguard of his life would gladly have said that the twelve apostles taught it hym, for he had not cared whom he had named, such was his childish innocence and feare, and had him burned to death at Smithfield. He refused the Oath of Supremacy to Elizabeth and was again deprived of his bishopric. He died in prison in 1569 and, although Foxe noted angrily that Bonner had longfeasted and banqueted in durance at the Marshalsea, he held that his stinking death was a certain sign of God’s wrath against the children of the murdering mother church of Rome.]