Aubrey's Brief Lives

by John Aubrey

  As Sylvanus returned to London through Canterbury, the Mayer there (a Shoemaker) a pragmaticall fellow, examined him, who and whence, etc., and what his business was, and if he had a Passe? Yes, quod he, I have a Passe, and produces Monsieur’s letter, superscribed to her Majestie, which, one would have thought, had been enough to have shewen. The Mayor presently breakes open the Love-letter, and reades it. I know not how, this action happened to take wind; and ’twas brought to Court, and became so ridicule, that Sylvanus Scory was so laughed at and jeer’d that he never delivered the letter to the Queen; which had been the easiest and most honourable step to preferment that mortall man could have desired.

  The Hon. Robert Boyle

  From the portrait by Freidrich Kerseboom in the collection of the Royal Society at Burlington House

  William Penn

  From the portrait at Christ Church, Oxford

  JOHN SELDEN

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  [Born 1584. Jurist. His first work, written in 1606, was Analecton Anglo-Britannicon, a chronological collection of English records down to the Norman invasion. In 1610 appeared a treatise on the Duello, or Single Combat; in 1614 he wrote Titles of Honour, which is full of profound learning and is still a high authority; and three years later he gained a European reputation as a scholar through his book De Deis Syris (On the Gods of Syria) an enquiry into Polytheism. He was forced to recant, before the High Commission Court, the doctrines he had put forward in his History of Tithes in 1618, and in 1621 he was imprisoned for opposition to James I’s prerogative. He was Member of Parliament for Lancaster in 1623 and his moderate views brought him under suspicion from both sides, so that he was imprisoned in the Tower from 1630 until 1634. After the execution of the King, to which he was strongly opposed, he took little part in public affairs and died in 1654.]

  HIS FATHER WAS a yeomanly man, of about fourty pounds per annum, and played well on the violin, in which he tooke delight, and at Christmas time, to please him selfe and his neighbours, he would play to them as they danced.

  He was of Hart-hall in Oxon, and Sir Giles Mompesson told me that he was then of that house, and that he was a long scabby-pold boy, but a good student.

  Thence he came to the Inner-Temple. He was quickly taken notice of for his learning, and was Sollicitor and Steward to the Earle of Kent, whose Countesse, being an ingeniose woman and loving men, would let him lye with her, and her husband knew it. After the Earle’s death he maried her. He did lye with Mris. Williamson (one of my Lady’s woemen) a lusty bouncing woman, who robbed him on his death-bed. I remember in 1646, or 1647, they did talk also of my Lady’s Shee Blackamore.

  I remember my Sadler (who wrought many years to that Family) told me that Mr. Selden had got more by his Prick then he had done by his practise. He was no eminent practiser at Barre.

  He never owned the mariage with the Countesse of Kent till after her death, upon some Lawe-account.

  He kept a plentifull Table, and was never without learned company: he was temperate in eating and drinking. He had a slight stuffe, or silke, kind of false carpet, to cast over the table where he read and his papers lay, when a stranger came-in, so that he needed not to displace his bookes or papers.

  His treatise that Tythes were not jure diving drew a great deale of Envy upon him from the Clergie. W. Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, made him make his Recantation before the High Commission Court. After, he would never forgive the Bishops, but did still in his writings levell them with Presbyterie.

  After he had got a dulce ocium he chiefly addicted himselfe to his more ingeniose studies and Records. He was one of the Assembly of Divines and was like a Thorne in their sides: he was wont to mock the Assembly-men about their little gilt Bibles, and would baffle and vexe them sadly: sayd he, I doe consider the original: for he was able to runne them all downe with his Greeke and Antiquities.

  He was very tall, I guesse about 6 foot high, sharp ovall face, head not very big, long nose inclining to one side, full popping Eie (gray). He was a Poet.

  In his younger yeares he affected obscurity of style, which, after, he quite left off, and wrote perspicuously. ’Twill be granted that he was one of the greatest Critiques of his time.

  Mr. J. Selden writt a 4to booke called Tabletalke; which will not endure the Test of the Presse.

  Sir Robert Cotton (the great Antiquary, that collected the Library) was his great Friend, whose son Sir Thomas Cotton was obnoxious to the Parliament and skulked in the Countrey. Mr. Selden had the Key and command of the Library, and preserved it, being then a Parliament-man.

  He intended to have given his owne Library to the University of Oxford, but received disobligation from them, for that they would not lend him some MSS.; wherfore by his Will he left it to the disposall of his Executors (viz. Lord Chiefe Justice Hales, Lord Chief Justice Vaughan, Rowland Jukes, and his flatterer) who gave it to the Bodleian Library, at Oxon.

  He would tell his intimate friends, Sir Bennet Hoskyns, etc., that he had no body to make his heire, excepte, it were a Milke-mayd: and that such people did not know what to doe with a great estate. (Bishop Grostest, of Lincoln, told his brother, who asked him to make him a grate man; Brother, said he, if your Plough is Broken, I’le pay the mending of it; or if an Oxe is dead, I’le pay for another: but a Plough-man I found you, and a Plough-man I’le leave you.)

  He dyed of a Dropsey; he had his Funerall Scutcheons all ready moneths before he dyed. When he was neer death, the Minister was comeing to him to assoile him: Mr. Hobbes happened then to be there, sayd he, What, will you that have wrote like a man, now dye like a woman? So the Minister was not let in.

  Mr. Johnson, Minister of the Temple, buryed him, the Directory way, where, amongst other things, he quoted the sayeing of a learned man (he did not name him) that when a learned man dies, there dyes a great deale of learning with him, and that if Learning could have kept a man alive our Brother had not dyed.

  WILLIAM SEYMOUR: DUKE OF SOMERSET

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  [Born 1588. Courtier and soldier. There were some doubts about his legitimacy. Against James I’s wishes, he secretly married Arabella Stuart in 1610, and when the marriage was discovered he was committed to the Tower. Having made a plan to join Arabella Stuart on the Continent, his barber, Batten, helped him to escape. Batten, who was well known to the guards, presented himself at the Tower completely disguised and asked for Mr. Seymour’s barber, whom he professed to know was within. On being admitted, he transferred the disguise to Seymour and then boldly sallied forth with him. The barber was committed to the Tower next day and Seymour fled to the Continent, but his wife was prevented from joining him and, after her death in the Tower in 1615, he made his peace with the King and returned to England. Knight of the Bath 1616. He adopted the title of Baron Beauchamp 1618. On his grandfather’s death, he became Earl of Hertford in 1621. Privy Councillor and created Marquis of Hertford 1640. Governor to Charles, Prince of Wales 1641. In the Civil Wars he became a Royalist Commander, capturing Hereford, Cirencester and Bristol and being victorious at Lansdown in 1643. In 1645 he was put in charge of Oxford and, on its surrender next year, he compounded for his estates and attended Charles I during his imprisonment. He joined with the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Southampton in praying the King’s Judges to lay upon them, as Charles’s advisers, the exclusive responsibility for his acts, and when this plea failed, he obtained permission to bury the King’s body at Windsor. He received the Garter, the Barony of Seymour and the Dukedom of Somerset at the Restoration, but died the same year.]

  CONCERNING FURZE-CUTTERS:—BRIANSTON by Blandford in Dorset was, tempore Henr. 8, belonging to Sir John (I thinke) Rocklington: he had a faire Estate, and no child; and there was a poor cottager whose name was Rogers that had a pretty wife whom this Knight did visit and had a mind to have a child by her. As he did suppose he afterwards had; and in consideration of affection, etc., settled his whole estate on this young Rogers. William, Lord Marquesse Hartford, Duke of Somerset, was son of the
grand-daughter of this Rogers.

  This present Lord Roberts of Truro (now Earl of Radnor) his grandfather (or great-grandfather) was a Furze-cutter in Cornwall; which I have heard old Parson Wodenot of Linkenhorne in Cornwall say many times.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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  [Born 1564. Actor, poet and playwright. Died 1616.]

  MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was borne at Stratford upon Avon in the County of Warwick. His father was a Butcher, and I have been told heretofore by some of the neighbours, that when he was a boy he exercised his father’s Trade, but when he kill’d a Calfe he would doe it in a high style, and make a Speech. There was at this time another Butcher’s son in this Towne that was held not at all inferior to him for a naturall witt, his acquaintance and coetanean, byt dyed young.

  This William, being inclined naturally to Poetry and acting, came to London, I guesse about 18: and was an Actor at one of the Play-houses, and did acte exceedingly well: now B. Johnson was never a good Actor, but an excellent Instructor.

  He began early to make essayes at Dramatique Poetry, which at that time was very lowe; and his Playes tooke well.

  He was a handsome, well-shap’t man: very good company, and of a very readie and pleasant smoothe Witt.

  The Humour of the Constable in Midsomernight’s Dreame, he happened to take at Grendon, in Bucks (I thinke it was Midsomer night that he happened to lye there) which is the roade from London to Stratford, and there was living that Constable about 1642, when I first came to Oxon. Ben Johnson and he did gather Humours of men dayly where ever they came. One time as he was at the Tavern at Stratford super Avon, one Combes, an old rich Usurer, was to be buryed. He makes there this extemporary Epitaph:

  Ten in the Hundred the Devill allowes,

  But Combes will have twelve he sweares and vowes:

  If anyone askes who lies in this Tombe,

  Hoh! quoth the Devill, ’Tis my John o’ Combe.

  He was wont to goe to his native Countrey once a yeare. I thinke I have been told that he left 2 or 300 pounds per annum there and thereabout to a sister.

  I have heard Sir William Davenant and Mr. Thomas Shadwell (who is counted the best Comoedian we have now) say that he had a most prodigious Witt, and did admire his naturall parts beyond all other Dramaticall writers.

  His Comoedies will remaine witt as long as the English tongue is understood, for that he handles mores hominum [the ways of mankind]. Now our present writers reflect so much on particular persons and coxcombeities that twenty yeares hence they will not be understood.

  Though, as Ben Johnson sayes of him, that he had little Latine and lesse Greek, He understood Latine pretty well: for he had been in his younger yeares a schoolmaster in the countrey.

  He was wont to say that he never blotted out a line in his life. Sayd Ben: Johnson, I wish he had blotted-out a thousand.

  OLIVE SHERINGTON

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  [She was the daughter and co-heir of Sir Henry Sherington, who in his turn had succeeded to the vast estates left by his brother, Sir William, whose third wife was the mother of his brother Henry’s wife. This Sir William was one of the chief officers of the Mint under Henry VIII and by malpractices, carried to an enormous extent, obtained the means of speculating on a vast scale in the purchase of Abbey lands, but his frauds were discovered in 1548 and he was clapt up in the Tower. On his own confession he was convicted of having counterfeited twelve thousand pounds worth of coinage in a single year, besides having defrauded the King of clippings and shearings of coin to the amount of several thousand pounds more and of having falsified indentures and books: all this to such an extent that he was quite unable to declare the whole amount of his profits. For these offences he was attainted and his lands forfeited. The fact of his confession showed, according to Bishop Latimer, that he is a chosen man of God, and one of his elected and, within three years, he had amassed another fortune sufficiently large to enable him to buy back all his estates for £13,000. Olive Sherington, after the death of John Talbot, her first husband, was married to Sir Robert Stapylton of Yorkshire and, after her second widowhood, lived at Lacock Abbey until her death.]

  DAME OLAVE, A Daughter and coheir of Sir Henry Sharington of Lacock being in Love with John Talbot (a younger Brother of the Earle of Shrewsbury) and her Father not consenting that she should marry Him: discoursing with Him one night from the Battlements of the Abbey-Church; said shee, I will leap downe to you: her sweet Heart replied, He would catch Her then: but he did not believe she would have done it: she leap’t downe and the wind (which was then high) came under her coates: and did something breake the fall: Mr. Talbot caught her in his armes, but she struck him dead; she cried out for help, and he was with great difficulty brought to life again: her father told her that since she had made such a leap she should e’en marrie him. She was my honoured friend Col. Sharington Talbot’s Grand Mother: and died at her house at Lacock about 1651, being about an hundred years old.

  SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

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  [Born 1554. Soldier, statesman and poet. His father was three times Lord Deputy of Ireland and President of Wales. He was at the French Court on the fateful 24th August, 1572, the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, but left Paris soon after and went to Germany, Poland, Hungary and Italy. On his return he became a friend of Spenser, who dedicated to him his Shepheard’s Calendar. In 1580 he lost the favour of the Queen by remonstrating against her proposed marriage with the Duke of Anjou, and in 1583 he was married himself to the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham. His writings consist of his famous pastoral romance of Arcadia, his sonnets Astrophel and Stella, and his Defence of Poesie. Sidney has always been considered as the type of English chivalry; and his extraordinary contemporary reputation, resting on his personal qualities of nobility and generosity (for none of his works were published in his lifetime) is shown by the inscription on the tomb of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke: Here lies the body of Sir Fulke Grevile, Knight, Servant to Queen Elizabeth, Counsellor to King James, and Friend to Sir Philip Sidney. In 1585 Sidney was engaged in the war in the Low Countries and was fatally wounded at Zutphen.]

  SIR PHILIP SYDNEY, Knight, whose Fame will never dye, whilest Poetrie lives, was the most accomplished Cavalier of his time. He was not only of an excellent witt, but extremely beautifull: he much resembled his sister, but his Haire was not red, but a little inclining, viz. a darke ambor colour. If I were to find a fault in it, methinkes ’tis not masculine enough; yett he was a person of great courage.

  He travelled France, Italie Germany; he was in the Poland warres, and at that time he had to his Page (and as an excellent accomplishment) Henry Danvers (afterwards Earle of Danby) then second son of Sir John Danvers of Dantesey in Wilts, who accounted himselfe happy that his son was so bestowed. He makes mention, in his Art of Poesie, of his being in Hungarie (I remember).

  He was a reviver of Poetry in those darke times, which was then at a very low ebbe: there is not 3 lines but there is by God, or by God’s wounds.

  He was much at Wilton with his sister, and at Ivy-church (which adjoyns to the parke pale of Clarindon Parke) situated on a hill that overlookes all the Country westwards, and North over Sarum and the plaines, and into that delicious parke (which was accounted the best of England) Eastwards. It was anciently a pleasant Monasterie (the Cloysters remayne still).

  My great Uncle Mr. Thomas Browne remembred him; and sayd that he was wont, as he was hunting on our pleasant plaines, to take his Table booke out of his pocket, and write downe his notions as they came into his head, when he was writing his Arcadia (which was never finished by him): he made it young, and Diying desired his folies might be burnt. These Romancy Plaines, and Boscages did no doubt conduce to the heightening of Sir Philip Sidneys Phansie.

  He was of a very munificent spirit, and liberall to all Lovers of Learning, and to those that pretended to any acquaintance with Parnassus: in so much that he was cloyed and surfeited with the Poetasters of those dayes. Among others, Mr. Ed
mund Spenser made his addresse to him, and brought his Faery Queen. Sir Philip was busy at his Study, and his servant delivered Mr. Spencer’s booke to his master, who layd it by, thinking it might be such kind of Stuffe as he was frequently troubled with. Mr. Spencer stayed so long that his patience was wearied, and went his way discontented, and never intended to come again. When Sir Philip perused it, he was so exceedingly delighted with it that he was extremely sorry he was gonne, and where to send for him he knew not. After much enquiry he learned his lodgeing, and sent for him, mightily caressed him, and ordered his servant to give him so many pounds in gold. His servant sayd that that was too much. No, sayd Sir Philip, and ordered an addition. From this time there was a great friendship between them, to his dying day.

  Tilting was much used at Wilton in the times of Henry Earle of Pembroke, and Sir Philip Sydney. At the Solemnization of the great Wedding of William the 2d Earle of Pembroke to one of the Co-heires of the Earle of Shrewsbury, here was an extraordinary Shew: at which time a great many of the Nobility, and Gentry, exercised: and they had Shields of Past-board painted with their Devices, and Emblemes: which were very pretty and ingenious: and I believe they were most of them contrived by Sir Philip Sidney. There are some of them hanging in some houses at Wilton to this day; but I did remember many more. Most (or all of them) had some relation to Marriage. One (I remember) was a Hawke lett of the hand, with her Leashes hanging at her Legges, which might hang her wher ’ere she pitch’t: And is an Embleme of Youth, that is apt to be ensnared by their own too plentiful Estates.

  I have heard Dr. Pell say, that he haz been told by ancient gentlemen of those dayes of Sir Philip, so famous for men at Armes, that ’twas then held as a great disgrace for a young Cavalier to be seen riding in the street in a Coach, as it would now for such a one to be seen in the streetes in a Petticoate and Wastcoate. So much in the fashion of the times nowe altered.