by John Aubrey
AUBREY’S COLLECTIONS FOR WILTS. PART I. London: PRINTED BY J. DAVY, QUEEN STREET. SEVEN DIALS. 1821.
4to: iv, 136 pp. Some facsimiles of Aubrey’s drawings in text.
AN ESSAY Towards THE DESCRIPTION OF THE NORTH DIVISION OF WILTSHIRE By Me JOHN AUBREY, Of Easton Pierse. TYPIS MEDIO-MONTANIS, IMPRESSIT C. GILMOUR, 1838.
4to: 2 leaves, 124 pp.
This edition, which is known as the Middle Hill Wiltshire, was printed at his own expense by Sir Thomas Phillipps, who confesses in a preface to the second part that the first volume was printed, “owing to my abscence abroad, not so accurately as I could have desired. To this Second Part therefore I have added the list of Errata, by which the Possessors of the Work will be able to correct their 1st. Part.” Part One fairly often turns up separately, but Part Two, which is printed on blueish paper, is very rare separately. All authorities, including Britton, have said that the plates were never done. However, twenty-six plates were issued and are facsimiles of Aubrey’s own drawings. In the illustrated copies of Part Two, there is also a half-title which reads AUBREY’S COLLECTIONS FOR WILTS. PART 2. TYPIS MEDIO-MONTANIS, IMPRESSIT C. GILMOUR. 1838.
WILTSHIRE. THE TOPOGRAPHICAL COLLECTIONS OF John Aubrey, F.R.S., A.D. 1659–70, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. CORRECTED AND ENLARGED BY JOHN EDWARD JACKSON, M.A., F.S.A., OF BRASENOSE COLL. OXON. RECTOR OF LEIGH DELAMERE, VICAR OF NORTON, AND HON. CANON OF BRISTOL. PUBLISHED BY The Wiltshire Archeological and Natural History Society. LONDON: LONGMAN & CO. 1862.
4to: xiii, 491 pp. Frontispiece of Leigh de la Mere Church, portrait of Aubrey, 44 plates and 2 genealogical tables.
Canon Jackson was one of Aubrey’s most devoted admirers and sympathetic editors, and the preparation of this work for the press, with the vast amount of rearrangement which Aubrey’s manuscript required, bears tribute to his loyalty. In this edition Aubrey’s illustrations have been redrawn.
CANON JACKSON’S COPY OF AUBREY’S WILTSHIRE COLLECTIONS. By Albert Hollaender, Ph. D. The Wiltshire Archeological and Natural History Magazine. Vol. xlix. DEVIZES. 1942.
This article gives a description of the volume, now in the John Rylands Library at Manchester, which Canon Jackson compiled with a view to a second edition of his book.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF WILTSHIRE
MEMOIRES OF NATURAL REMARQUES IN THE COUNTY OF WILTS, To which are annexed OBSERVABLE OF THE SAME KIND In the County of SURREY and FLYNTSHIRE, BY MR. JOHN AUBREY, R.S.S. 1685. Ex MSto. in Bibl. Societ. Regalis. Londini. C. Gilmour. Typis MEDIO-MONTANIS. 1838. Folio: 12 pp. A fragment.
This volume was intended to be a companion to the Middle Hill Wiltshire, but its production was abandoned in the early stages.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF WILTSHIRE; BY John Aubrey, F.R.S. (WRITTEN BETWEEN 1656 and 1601.) EDITED, AND ELUCIDATED BY NOTES, BY JOHN BRITTON, F.S.A. &c. &c. &c. Published by the Wiltshire Topographical Society. LONDON: PRINTED BY J. B. NICHOLS AND SON. MDCCCXL VII.
4to: xii, 132 pp. With a woodcut of the tower of Sutton Benger Church on the title-page.
This volume contains a rather haphazard selection from Aubrey’s manuscript, executed with no modern critical standards, but it has been of great use to all students of Aubrey, and Britton’s contribution to Aubrey’s fame is considerable.
THE PERAMBULATION OF SURREY
THE Natural History and ANTIQUITIES OF THE County of SURREY. Begun in the year 1673, By JOHN AUBREY, Esq; F.R.S. and continued to the present Time. Illustrated with proper SCULPTURES. LONDON, Printed for E. CURLL in Fleet-street. M.DCC.XIX.
8vo: In five volumes. With a portrait of the author, a folding map of the county, a view of Richmond Palace, a west view of Albury, a genealogy of the family of Evelyn; and eight plates of marbles.
Dr. Richard Rawlinson, the editor, states that this book was printed from the original MS. in the possession of a Private Gentleman and collated with another preserved in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, both wrote with the Author’s own Hand, and both huddled together in a very confused and immethodical Order.” The former manuscript has disappeared, so it is not possible to check Dr. Rawlinson’s statement that Volume One is an exact transcript of these manuscripts, and that the other four volumes have been edited “in such a manner that Mr. Aubrey’s Materials are entirely preserved.” The short sketch of Aubrey’s life at the beginning of this work was the first attempt, and a singularly inaccurate one, at his biography. This book was reissued in 1723 with new title-pages bearing the imprint of W. Mears.
A LIST of the CURATES AND VICARS OF PIRBRIGHT, SURREY, Additions to the published records of the Earlier Incumbents of Pirbright, and Worplesdon, and Other neighbouring parishes or places, in Surrey; with Appendices containing descriptions of Pirbright and Worplesdon, written by JOHN AUBREY, F.R.S., in 1673; and a supplement to his List of Lords of the Manor of Pirbright; &c. By Henry Curtis, B.S.i&M.D., F.R.C.S. 1924.
8vo: 52, xxxii pp. Duplicated in typewritten facsimile and illustrated with photographs.
A copy of this work, which was never published, is in the British Museum.
REMAINES OF GENTILISME AND JUDAISME
OBSERVATIONS ON POPULAR ANTIQUITIES: CHIEFLY ILLUSTRATING THE ORIGIN OF OUR VULGAR CUSTOMS, CEREMONIES AND SUPERSTITIONS. BY JOHN BRAND, M.A. FELLOW AND SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF LONDON: ARRANGED AND REVISED, WITH ADDITIONS, BY HENRY ELLIS, F.R.S. SEC. S.A. KEEPER OF THE MANUSCRIPTS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. LONDON: PRINTED FOR F. C. RIVINGTON (and others). 1813.
4to: In two volumes.
Left in manuscript at Brand’s death, this book, which contains some extracts from Aubrey’s Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, was first brought out by Sir Henry Ellis in 1813, and subsequent editions appeared in 1840, 1847 and 1880.
Time’s Telescope; OR, A Complete Guide to the Almanack: CONTAINING AN EXPLANATION OF SAINT’S DAYS AND HOLIDAYS; WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF BRITISH HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES AND NOTICES OF OBSOLETE RITES AND CUSTOMS. TO WHICH IS ADDED AN ACCOUNT OF THE FASTS AND FESTIVALS Of the Jews. 1814–1834.
8vo. In twenty-one volumes.
Extracts from the Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme were included in this annual publication, which was edited by J. Millard from 1814 until 1830.
ANECDOTES AND TRADITIONS ILLUSTRATIVE OF EARLY ENGLISH HISTORY AND LITERATURE DERIVED FROM MS. SOURCES. EDITED BY WILLIAM J. THOMS, ESQ. F.S.A. LONDON. PRINTED FOR THE CAMDEN SOCIETY, BY JOHN BOWYER NICHOLS AND SON. M.DCCC.XXXIX.
4to: xxviii, 134 pp.
Pages 80 to 116 of this book are devoted to extracts from Aubrey’s manuscript. In his preface Mr. Thoms says that with one exception his selections differed from those in Brand’s Popular Antiquities, which, “combined with those here printed, may be said to comprise everything deserving of publication contained in the volume.” This is not so, however, for the transcription is not complete nor is it entirely accurate.
REMAINES OF GENTILISME AND JUDAISME. BY JOHN AUBREY, R.S.S. 1686–87. EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY JAMES BRITTEN, F.L.S. LONDON: PUBLISHED FOR THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY BY W. SATCHELL, PEYTON, AND CO. 1881.
8vo: vii, 273 pp.
This book, besides giving an accurate transcript of the Remaines, contains many examples of folk-lore extracted from Aubrey’s other works (the Miscellanies excluded).
THE MINUTES OF LIVES
THE OXFORD CABINET, CONSISTING OF ENGRAVINGS FROM ORIGINAL PICTURES, IN THE Ashmolean Museum, AND OTHER PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS; WITH Biographical Anecdotes, BY JOHN AUBREY, F.R.S. AND OTHER CELEBRATED WRITERS. LONDON: PRINTED FOR JAMES CAULFIELD, WILLIAM STREET, ADELPHI. 1797.
4to: 48 pp. (Part I pp. 1–32: Part II pp. 33–48). With a portrait of Aubrey and 8 plates.
This book, which was the first attempt to print the Brief Lives, was originally intended to form an “Aubrean Miscellany,” but soon after he began compiling it, James Caulfield was refused access to the manuscripts in the Ashmolean Museum through the influence of Edmund Malone, who claimed an exclusive right to their use. Caulfield challenged this argument in his pamphlet AN
ENQUIRY INTO THE CONDUCT OF EDMOND MALONE, ESQ. CONCERNING THE MANUSCRIPT PAPERS OF JOHN AUBREY, F.R.S. IN THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD. I will a round unvarnished tale deliver. OTHELLO. LONDON: 1797. In The Oxford Cabinet, the arms under Aubrey’s portrait are printed the wrong way (sinister). A separate plate was afterwards issued with the arms corrected. Some copies were issued with the plates in colour.
LETTERS WRITTEN BY EMINENT PERSONS IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES: TO WHICH ARE ADDED, HEARNE’S JOURNEY TO READING, AND TO WHADDON HALL, THE SEAT OF BROWNE WILLIS, ESQ. AND LIVES OF EMINENT MEN, BY JOHN AUBREY, ESQ. THE WHOLE NOW FIRST PUBLISHED FROM THE ORIGINALS IN THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY AND ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND LITERARY ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON: LONGMAN, HURST, (etc.). 1813.
8vo. In two volumes (usually bound in three).
This work, which was edited by the Rev. Dr. Philip Bliss and the Rev. John Walker, suffers from the disadvantages of the slipshod editorial ideals of its period. It is incomplete, inaccurate and heavily expurgated, and yet the debt we owe to it is enormous, for this book remained for eighty-five years the only edition of the Brief Lives. It is a work of the first importance, if only for the information it gives concerning Shakespeare, Milton, Hobbes and Harvey; and the Victorian biographers made vigorous use of it, usually, from Halliwell-Phillipps to Sir D’Arcy Power, disparaging Aubrey as a gossip as they pilfered his work. And research since their day has often proved Aubrey, and not his critics, to have been in the right.
LIVES OF EDWARD AND JOHN PHILIPS, NEPHEWS AND PUPILS OF MILTON INCLUDING VARIOUS PARTICULARS OF THE LITERARY AND POLITICAL HISTORY OF THEIR TIMES. BY WILLIAM GODWIN. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, I. COLLECTIONS FOR THE LIFE OF MILTON. BY JOHN AUBREY, FRS. PRINTED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT COPY IN THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM AT OXFORD. II. THE LIFE OF MILTON. BY EDWARD PHILIPS. PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1694. LONDON: LONGMAN, HURST (etc.) 1815.
4to: xvi, 410 pp.
This is the first occasion on which one of Aubrey’s biographies was published separately in a volume of this sort.
‘Brief Lives,’ chiefly of Contemporaries, set down by John Aubrey, between the Years 1669 and 1696. EDITED FROM THE AUTHOR’S MSS. BY ANDREW CLARK M.A. WITH FACSIMILES. Oxford. AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. 1898.
8vo. In two volumes. With a portrait of Aubrey and 7 plates.
This edition is invaluable to scholars in finding their way about Aubrey’s manuscripts, but it is handicapped by being heavily bowdlerised. This squeamishness has led the editor into a certain dishonesty, for he frequently omits passages which offend him without acknowledging that he has done so. As the primary purpose of this book, which follows neither Aubrey’s capitalisation nor his punctuation, was to place the entire contents of the four main manuscripts beyond the risk of perishing, it was not designed to be read for pleasure.
THE SCANDAL AND CREDULITIES OF JOHN AUBREY. Edited by John Collier. LONDON: PETER DAVIES. MCMXXXI. 8vo: xxxviii, 169 pp.
The purpose of this volume, which makes no attempt to be a work of scholarship, is sufficiently set forth in the title. Being extremely short, it misses many of the best stories and is often inaccurate, but Mr. Collier has prefaced the text with a charming and sympathetic account of Aubrey’s character.
THE EARLY LIVES OF MILTON. Edited with Introduction and Notes by HELEN DARBISHIRE. LONDON: CONSTABLE & CO. LTD. 1932.
8vo: lxi, 353 pp. 6 plates.
An outstanding example of scrupulous editing, this book contains an exact transcript of Aubrey’s life of Milton, as well as the biographies by John Philips, Anthony Wood, Edward Philips, John Toland and Jonathan Richardson. Two of the plates are of pages of Aubrey’s manuscript.
BRIEF LIVES and Other Selected Writings by JOHN AUBREY. EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY ANTHONY POWELL. LONDON. THE CRESSET PRESS. MCMXLIX.
8vo: xxvi, 410 pp.
This book, admirable for the general reader, contains the ablest short sketch of Aubrey’s life yet published. Scholars will find, however, that the text contains little of fresh material. Furthermore, Mr. Powell frequently follows Andrew Clark’s erratic capitalisation, his unacknowledged expurgations, and even his mistakes.
OTHER WORKS BY JOHN AUBREY
In October 1697, four months after Aubrey’s death, some remarks by him entitled A Letter concerning a Medicated Spring at Lancarim, Glamorganshire were published in the PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY VOL. XIX, No. 233 at page 727.
Five letters from Aubrey to John Ray appeared in PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS Between the late Learned Mr. RAY And several of his Ingenious CORRESPONDENTS, NATIVES and FOREIGNERS. Published by W. DERHAM. LONDON: Printed by WILLIAM AND JOHN INNYS, Printers to the Royal Society, at the Prince’s Arms in St. Pauls Churchyard. 1718. (8vo: vi, 388 pp.)
The same five letters appeared in the 1848 edition of THE CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN RAY, which was edited by Edwin Lankester, M.D., F.R.S., for the Ray Society.
BIOGRAPHIES OF JOHN AUBREY
OXONIANA. Printed for RICHARD PHILLIPS, London. (Circa 1807.)
12mo: In four volumes. With facsimiles of documents.
Apart from the inaccurate sketches of Aubrey’s life prefixed to the Miscellanies and the Surrey, this volume, which was edited by the Rev. John Walker, contains the first attempt at a biography of Aubrey. Pages 233 to 238 of Volume III are taken up with ACCIDENTS OF JOHN AUBREY. FROM A MS. IN HIS OWN HAND WRITING, WITH THE ABOVE TITLE, IN THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY, and the same volume contains a Life of JOHN AUBREY (pp. 246–248) and a section Mr Aubrey complains of A. Wood’s unkindness at pages 126 to 128.
MEMOIR OF JOHN AUBREY, F.R.S. EMBRACING HIS AUTO-BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, A BRIEF REVIEW OF HIS PERSONAL AND LITERARY MERITS, AND AN ACCOUNT OF HIS WORKS; WITH Extracts from his Correspondence, ANECDOTES OF SOME OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES AND OF THE TIMES IN WHICH HE LIVED BY JOHN BRITTON, F.S.A. &c. Published by the Wiltshire Topographical Society. LONDON: PRINTED BY J. B. NICHOLS AND SON. 1845.
4to: x, 131 pp. With a portrait and a woodcut of Lower Easton Pierse.
This volume provides a detailed and sympathetic defence of John Aubrey from the onslaughts of his Victorian disparagers, and it was the first serious biography to be written about him. John Britton was born in the same village as Aubrey—there is a stained glass window to them in the church at Kington St. Michael—and this book partakes of its author’s lifelong enthusiasm and industry in other fields.
THE HISTORY OF THE PARISH OF KINGTON ST. MICHAEL, COUNTY OF WILTS. BY THE REV. J. E. JACKSON M.A., F.S.A., Rector of Leigh Delamere, and Hon. Canon of Bristol. DEVIZES: PRINTED BY H. BULL, SAINT JOHN STREET. M.DCCC.LVII.
4to: 93 pp. With illustrations and 6 plates.
A most sympathetic account of Aubrey’s life is included in this work by the editor of the Wiltshire Collections.
JOHN AUBREY AND HIS FRIENDS by ANTHONY POWELL. EYRE AND SPOTTISWODE. LONDON. (1948). 4to: 335 pp. With 2 portraits and 7 plates.
The portrait of Aubrey, which this book was intended to give, has been obscured by a rising flood of details about even the most unimportant things, people and places that Aubrey was connected with during his long life. It serves, nonetheless, as a useful supplement to Britton’s Memoir, particularly with regard to the Joan Sumner episode.
ARTICLES ABOUT JOHN AUBREY
There have been many short critical studies of John Aubrey, quite apart from the obvious mentions of him in such works as the Dictionary of National Biography, Chambers Cyclopedia of English Literature and the Cambridge History of English Literature.
The first in point of time is Professor David Masson’s review of Letters from the Bodleian in THE BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW. JULY AND OCTOBER 1856. VOL XXIV. LONDON: JACKSON & WALFORD at pages 153 to 182. The patronising tone of this article can best be summed up by two quotations, for Professor Masson, having described Samuel Pepys as “the Paul Pry of his day,” went on to say “Aubrey, who was a contemporary of Pepys, was, we fear, a lower man in the class than even Pepys.”
An affectionate but superficial essay by E
mile Montégut is included in his HEURES DE LECTURE D’UN CRITIQUE. JOHN AUBREY: POPE: WILLIAM COLLINS: SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE. PARIS. LIBRAIRIE HACHETTE ET Cie. 1891. It is fundamentally a study of the superstitions of the Miscellanies, without reference to the other works.
Constant references to Aubrey have occurred in the Gentleman’s Magazine throughout its existence. The most important is an extremely patronising article by B. G. Johns, entitled JOHN AUBREY OF WILTS. 1626–1697. (pp. 279–291 of THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE for 1893) which is mainly concerned with making fun of its subject, whom it describes as “about as credulous an old goose as one could hope to find out of Gotham.”
A LITERARY PILGRIM IN ENGLAND BY EDWARD THOMAS. METHUEN & CO. LTD. 1917. (8vo: x, 330 pp. With 8 illustrations in colour and 12 in monotone) contains a charming and sympathetic account of John Aubrey and his literary associations.
A most famous article by the Rev. W. K. Fleming entitled Some Truths about ‘John Inglesant’ which appeared in the QUARTERLY REVIEW. JULY, 1925 (pp. 130–148) showed for the first time the extent of the “liftings” from Aubrey, Wood, Evelyn and other seventeenth century writers, which J. H. Shorthouse had inserted, with slight alterations, in his novel John Inglesant. Shorthouse even adapted Aubrey’s description of himself as a boy for the description of the young John Inglesant.
Meijer Polak, a Dutchman, wrote in English an even more detailed study of ‘John Inglesant’ than W. K. Fleming, entitled The Historical, Philosophical and Religious Aspects of John Inglesant. Purmerend. J. MUUSSES, 1933. (8vo: 6 leaves, 188 pp.)