by John Aubrey
These Lines Sir Walter Raleigh wrote in his Bible, the night before he was beheaded, and desired his Relations with these words, viz. beg my dead body, which living is denyed you; and bury it either in Sherbourne or Exeter Church. He was somtimes a Poet, not often.
A Scaffold was erected in the old Palace yard, upon which after 14 yeares reprivement, his head was cutt off: at which time, such abundance of bloud issued from his veines, that shewed he had stock of nature enough left to have continued him many yeares in life, though now above three score yeares old, if it had not been taken away by the hand of Violence. And this was the end of the great Sir Walter Raleigh: great sometimes in the favour of Queen Elizabeth, and next to Sir Francis Drake, the great Scourge and hate of the Spaniard, who had many things to be commended in his life, but none more than his constancy at his death, which he tooke with so undaunted a resolution that one might perceive that he had a certain expectation of a better life after it, so far he was from holding those Atheisticall opinions, an Aspersion whereof some had cast upon him.
On the famous Sir Walter Rawleigh, who fell a Sacrifice to Spanish Politicks:
Here lieth, hidden in this Pitt,
The Wonder of the World for Witt.
It to small purpose did him serve;
His Witt could not his Life preserve.
Hee living, was belov’d of none,
Yet in his death all did him moane.
Heaven hath his Soule, the world his Fame,
The grave his Corps; Stukley his shame.
MARY RICH: COUNTESS OF WARWICK
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[Born 1625. She was the seventh daughter and thirteenth child of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork. At the age of fourteen, she expressed a very high averseness and contradicon to the suitor chosen for her by her father: Being refused in marriadge by my unrewly daughter Mary, the old Earl noted angrily in his Journal, he departed my hows the second of September to the Bathe. His daughter later gave her own explanation. Living so much at my ease, she said, I was unwilling to change my condition, for the Earl of Cork had recently moved to the Savoy and when we were once settled there, my father living extraordinarily high, drew a very great resort thither. Amongst other visitors was Charles Rich, second son of the Earl of Warwick, a poverty stricken young man with £1300 or £1400 a year at the most. A young man in such straitened circumstances had little hope of gaining the hand of the great Earl’s daughter, and yet for two years he proved a most diligent gallant to me, Mary reported, applying himself, when there were no other beholders in the room but my sister, to me; but if any other person came in he took no more than ordinary notice of me. However Mary caught measles, when she was sixteen, and Charles Rich’s anxiety was so marked that the family’s suspicions were at last aroused. Mary Boyle was therefore packed off into the country in disgrace, but not before she had accepted Charles Rich, so handsome did he express his passion. After several weeks the Earl of Cork relented and gave his daughter permission to marry and a dowry of £7000: whereupon Mary Boyle, who had been always a great enemy to a public marriage, insisted on eloping. Five years later, her only son, which I then doated on with great fondness, fell seriously ill and his mother vowed to God that she would become a new creature, if her child recovered. He did get better, and Mary Rich, who had always been stedfastly set against being a Puritan and had particularly delighted in constant crowds of company, now began to find in myself a greate desire to go into the country, which I never remember before to have had, thinking it allways the saddest thing that could be when we were to remove. Her home in Essex thereafter became the resort of pious Puritan ministers and Bishops from London, and her new faith stood her in good stead when her only child finally died of smallpox in his twenty-first year: I was dumb, she says, and held my peace, because God did it. Her husband became fourth Earl of Warwick on his brother’s death, in 1659, and died himself in 1673, leaving his entire estate at his wife’s disposal for her lifetime. She became widely known for her charity and died in 1678.]
SHEE NEEDED NEITHER borrowed Shades, nor reflexive Lights, to set her off, being personally great in all naturall Endowments and accomplishments of Soul and Body, Wisdome, Beautie, Favour, and Virtue;
Great in the honour of her Birth, being born a Lady and a Virtuosa both;
Great by her Tongue, for never woman used one better, speaking so gracefully, promptly, discreetly, pertinently, holily, that I have often admired the edifying words that proceeded from her mouth;
Great by her Pen, as you may discover by that little tast of it the world hath been happy in, the hasty fruit of one or two interrupted houres after Supper, which she professed to me, with a little regret, when she was surprised with it’s sliding into the world without her knowledge, or allowance, and wholly beside her expectation;
Great by being the greatest Mistresse and Promotress, not to say the Foundress and Inventress, of a new Science—the Art of obliging; in which she attain’d that Sovereign Perfection, that she reigned over all their hearts with whom she did converse;
Great in her nobleness of Living and Hospitality;
Great in the unparallelld sincerity of constant, faithfull, condescending Friendship, and for that Law of Kindness which dwelt in her Lips and Heart;
Great in her dexterity of Management;
Great in her quick apprehension of the difficulties of her Affaires, and where the stress and pinch lay, to untie the Knot, and loose and ease them;
Great in the conquest of her selfe;
Great in a thousand things beside, which the world admires as such: but she despised them all, and counted them but loss and dung in comparison of the feare of God, and the excellency of the Knowledge of Christ Jesus.
CHARLES ROBSON
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[Born 1598. Divine. Fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford, 1620. Owing to his lax habits the College gladly gave him three years’ leave of absence in 1623, and he was appointed preacher to the colony of English merchants at Aleppo at a salary of £50 a year. This leave was extended and Robson did not return to England until 1630, when he became a Bachelor of Divinity. However, in 1631, he was deprived of his Fellowship on account of his dissolute haunting of taverns and brothels and his neglect of study and divine worship, and the University appointed him to a vicarage in Cumberland. He died in 1638.]
ROBSON WAS THE first that brought into England the Art of making Venice-glasses, but Sir Edward Zouche (a Courtier and a drolling Favourite of King James) oppressed this poor man Robson, and forc’t it from him, by these four verses to King James, which made his Majestie laugh so that he was ready to beshitt his Briggs. The verses are these:—
Severn, Humber, Trent, and Thames,
And thy great Ocean, and her Streames,
Must putt downe Robson, and his Fires
Or downe goes Zouche and his desires.
The King granted this ingeniose manufacture to Zouch, being tickled as aforesayd with these Rythmes; and so poor Robson was oppressed and utterly undon: and came to that low degree of Poverty that Mr. Philips told me that he swept the Yard at Whitehall and that he himselfe saw him doe it.
WALTER RUMSEY
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[Born 1584. Lawyer. He was called to the Bar in 1608. Judge of Great Sessions for the Counties of Brecknock, Glamorgan and Radnor from 1631 till he was removed by Parliament in 1647. At the Restoration he was made Keeper of the Judicial Seal for the same counties and was nominated to be a Knight of the Royal Oak. He died in 1660.]
HE WAS SO excellent a lawyer, that he was called The Pick-lock of the Lawe.
He was an ingeniose man, and had a Philosophicall head; he was most curious for graffing, inocculating, and planting, and ponds. If he had any old dead plumbe-tree or apple-tree, he lett them stand, and planted Vines at the bottome, and lett them climbe up, and they would beare very well.
He was one of my Councell in my Law-suites in Breconshire about the Entaile: he had a kindnesse for me and invited me to his house, and told me a great many
fine things, both naturall and antiquarian.
He was very facetious, and a good Musitian, playd on the organ and lute. He could compose.
He was much troubled with Flegme, and being so one winter at the Court at Ludlowe (where he was one of the councesellors) sitting by the fire, spitting and spawling, he tooke a fine tender sprig and tied a ragge at the end, and conceited he putt it downe his throat and fetch-up the Flegme, and he did so. Afterwards he made this instrument of Whale-bone. I have oftentimes seen him use it. I could never make it goe downe my throat, but for those that can ’tis a most incomparable engine. If troubled with the wind, it cures you immediately, with a blast as when a Bottle is un-stopp’t. It makes you vomit without any paine, and besides, the Vomits of Apothecaries have aliquid veneni [some poison] in them. He wrote a little booke of this way of medicine, called Organon Salutis (An Instrument to cleanse the stomach). I had a young fellow, Marc Collins, that was my servant, that used it incomparably, more easily than the Judge: he made of them. In Wilts, among my things, are some of his making still. The Judge sayd he never sawe any one use it so dexterously in his life. It is no paine, when downe your throate; he would touch the bottome of his Stomach with it.
THOMAS SACKVILLE: EARL OF DORSET
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[Born 1536. Poet and statesman. He was a cousin of Queen Elizabeth and studied at both Oxford and Cambridge, before removing to the Inner Temple. He was created Lord Buckhurst in 1566. His father had amassed so great a fortune that he was known as Sir Richard Fill Sack, but his son was extravagant beyond all bounds and soon fell into considerable difficulties, but he was so humiliated by being kept waiting by one of his creditors that he embraced a magnificent economy. Queen Elizabeth sent him on an embassy to Paris in 1570 to treat of the marriage then proposed between herself and the Duke of Anjou; appointed him one of the Commissioners for the trial of Mary Queen of Scots, and he had to announce to her the sentence of death and to superintend her execution. In 1587 he was imprisoned for a year after a quarrel with Leicester, but in 1588 he was made a Knight of the Garter and, in 1591, he became Chancellor of the University of Oxford. He was selected to negotiate peace with Spain in 1598, and on the death of Burghley, he was appointed Lord High Treasurer, in which office he was confirmed by James I, who created him Earl of Dorset in 1604. At the age of seventy-two he was seriously ill and the King sent him a ring set with twenty diamonds, hoping that he might live as long as the dyamonds of that ring did endure. However he died soon after, in 1608, in the presence of the King and on opening his head, they found in it certain little bags of water, which, falling upon his brain, caused his death. In his poetry, Sackville is the connecting link between Chaucer and Spenser. In conjunction with Thomas Norton, he wrote Gorboduc, the first regular English tragedy, which rid the theatre of the rigid conventions of its infancy and cleared the stage for the genius of Marlowe and Shakespeare.]
EPIGRAM ON THE Earle of Dorset, who dyed suddenly at the Council-Boord:
Uncivil Death! that would’st not once conferre,
Dispute, or park with our Treasurer,
Had He been Thee, or of thy fatall Tribe,
He would have spar’d thy life, and ta’ne a Bribe.
He that so often had, with gold and witt,
Injur’d strong Lawe, and almost conquer’d it,
At length, for want of evidence to shewe,
Was forc’t himselfe to take a deadly blowe.
The Tryall was with this Sir Richard Temple’s great Grandfather. The Lord Treasurer had in his Bosome some writings, which as he was pulling-out to give in evidience, sayed Here is that will strike you dead! and as soon as he had spoken these words, fell downe starke dead in the place.
Richard, Earle of Dorset, (eldest grandson and heire to the Lord Treasurer) lived in the greatest grandeur of any nobleman of his time in England. He had 30 Gentlemen, and gave to each 50 pounds per annum, besides keeping and his horse. G. Villiers (after Duke of Bucks) was a Petitioner to have had a Gentleman’s place under him, and miss’t it, and within 12 moneth was a greater man himselfe; but the Duke ever after bore a grudge to the Earl of Dorset. ’Twas he that translated the Cid (a French Comoedie) into English, about 1640. His eldest sonne is Richard, Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, a most noble Lord and my most kind friend.
SIR HENRY SAVILE
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[Born 1549. Scholar. Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, at the age of sixteen. Lectured in mathematics. Warden of Merton 1585–1622. Translated Histories of Tacitus 1591. Secretary of Latin tongue to Queen Elizabeth. Provost of Eton 1596. Knighted 1604. He was one of the scholars commissioned to prepare the authorised translation of the Bible. He assisted Sir Thomas Bodley in founding his library. Founded the Savile Professorships of Geometry and Astronomy at Oxford. Died 1622.]
SIR HENRY SAVILL, Knight was a younger (or son of a younger) brother, not borne to a foot of land.
He was a learned gentleman as most was of his time; he would faine have been thought (I have heard Mr. Hobbes say) to have been as great a scholar as Joseph Scaliger. But as for Mathematiques, I have heard Dr. Wallis say that he look’t on him to be as able a Mathematician as any of his time. He was an extraordinary handsome and beautifull man; no lady had a finer complexion.
Queen Elizabeth favoured him much; he read I thinke Greeke and Politiques to her. He was also preferred to be Provost of Eaton colledge.
He was a very severe Governour, the scholars hated him for his austerity. He could not abide Witts: when a young Scholar was recommended to him for a good Witt, Out upon him, I’le have nothing to doe with him; give me the ploding student. If I would look for witts, I would goe to Newgate: there be the Witts; and John Earles (afterwards Bishop of Sarum) was the only scholar that ever he tooke as recommended for a Witt, which was from Dr. Goodwyn, of Christ Church.
He was not only a severe Governor, but old Mr. Yates (who was fellow in his time) would make lamentable complaints of him to his dyeing day, that he did oppresse the fellows grievously, and he was so great and a favourite to the Queen, that there was no dealing with him; his naeve was that he was too much inflated with his learning and riches.
He was very munificent, as appeares by the two Lectures he has given to Astronomy and Geometry. Bishop Seth Ward, of Sarum, has told me that he first sent for Mr. Gunter, from London (being of Oxford University) to have been his Professor of Geometrie: so he came and brought with him his Sector and Quadrant, and fell to resolving of Triangles and doeing a great many fine things. Said the grave Knight, Doe you call this reading of Geometrie? This is shewing of tricks, man! and so dismisst him with scorne, and sent for Henry Briggs, from Cambridge.
I have heard Dr. Wallis say, that Sir H. Savill has sufficiently confuted Joseph Scaliger de Quadratura Circuli, in the very margent of the booke: and that sometimes when J. Scaliger sayes AB = CD ex constructione, Sir H. Savill writes sometimes in the margent, Et Dominatio vestra est Asinus ex constructione [and your rule is an ass by construction]. One sayes of Jos. Scaliger, that where he erres, he erres so ingeniosely, that one had rather erre with him then hit the mark with Clavius.
He had travelled very well, and had a generall acquaintance with the Learned men abroad; by which meanes he obtained from beyond sea, out of their Libraries, severall rare Greeke MSS., which he had copied by an excellent Amanuensis for the Greeke character. He gave his Collection of Mathematicall Bookes to a peculiar little Library belonging to the Savilian Professors.
SYLVANUS SCORY
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[The son of John Scory, Bishop of Hereford. He fought in the Low Countries. Prebendary of Hereford 1565–69. Member of Parliament for Newton in Hampshire in 1597. Died 1617.]
HE WAS A very handsome Gentleman, and had an excellent Witt, and his father gave him the best Education, both at home and beyond the Seas, that that age would afford, and loved him so dearly that he fleeced the Church of Hereford to leave him a good estate: and he did let such long and so many leases, that, as Mris. Master
s told me, they were not out till about these 60 yeares. To my best remembrance she told me that the estate left him was 1500 pounds per annum, which he reduced to nothing (allowing himselfe the libertie to enjoy all the pleasures of this World) and left his sonne so poor, that when he came among gentlemen, they would fancy a crowne or ten shillings for him.
I have heard Sir John Denham saye that he haz been well enformed that he was the most accomplished Gentleman of his time: ’tis a good testimoniall of his worth, that Mr Benjamin Johnson (who ever scorned an unworthy Patrone) dedicated to him. I have heard Sir John Denham also say, that he was the greatest confident and intimate Favourite of Monsieur of France (brother to the French King) who was a suitor to Queen Elizabeth, and whom her Majestie entirely loved; and as a Signalle of it, one time at St. Paules church London, openly kissed him in time of divine Service; and would have had him for her Husband, but only for reasons of State.
When her Majestie dismissed him ’twas donne with all passion and respecte imaginable. She gave him royall presents: he was attended to Dover by the flower of the Court; among others by this Sparke of whom I now write. When Monsieur tooke his leave of him, he told him that though ’twas so that her Majestie could not marie him (as aforesayd) yet he knew that she so much loved him that she would not deny him any request, wherby he might honour and benefit a Friend: and accordingly writes his love-letter to his Mistresse the Queen of England, and in it only begs that single favour to looke upon Mr. Scorie (the bearer) with a particular and extraordinary grace for his sake: delivered him the letter (and, as I take it, gave him a jewell).