John Aubrey: My Own Life (22 page)

. . .

The rivulet that runs
⁵⁷
through Chalke rises at a place called Naule, belonging to Broad Chalke farm, where a great many springs issue out of the chalky ground. It makes a kind of lake covering about three acres, where there are two-foot-long trout, the best in England. The water is good for washing and brewing. I tried putting crawfish in it, but they did not live, the water is too cold for them. When horses from north Wiltshire, or other horses from further afield, come to drink in the Chalke River, it is so cold and tort that they sniff and snort, I suppose because it is very heavily impregnated with nitre.

. . .

In the presence of the King, Walter Charleton and the President of the Royal Society, William Brouncker discussed my view that Avebury excels Stonehenge as much as a cathedral does a parish church. His Majesty expressed surprise than none of our chorographers have yet taken any notice of Avebury, and he has issued a Royal Command that Stonehenge and Avebury be investigated. Mr Charleton will arrange to take me into His Majesty’s presence to discuss this.

. . .

In his book
⁵⁸
Chorea Gigantum
, published this year, Mr Charleton argues that Stonehenge was the work of the Danes. The stones are so exceeding old that books do not reach them. They savour of an antique rudeness.

I think Mr Charleton
⁵⁹
is wrong. His book shows a great deal of learning in a very good style, but as to his hypothesis that the Danes built Stonehenge, that cannot be right: it is a gross mistake. In the thirteenth century, the historian Matthew Paris expressly affirmed that Stonehenge was the place where the Saxons’ treachery massacred the Britons, which was four or five hundred years before the conquest of the Danes. I think Simeon of Durham and Henry of Huntingdon said the same thing in the twelfth century.

Mr Charleton writes in his book, ‘Many things are well worthy our knowledge, that cannot yet deserve our belief; and even fictions sometimes have accidentally given light to long obscured writers.’

. . .

Today I met
⁶⁰
His Majesty. Into the King’s presence I took with me a draft of Avebury done only from memory, but well enough resembling it, I think. He was very pleased with it. He gave me his hand to kiss and commanded me to wait on him at Marlborough when he travels to Bath with the Queen in about a fortnight’s time.

. . .

October

On their progress to Bath, His Majesty and the Duke of York left the Queen and diverted to Avebury where I showed them that stupendous antiquity. I thought my stammer would start up through nervousness, but it disappeared when I saw how delighted by the monument the royal visitors were. The stones there are pitched on end, bigger than those at Stonehenge, but rude and unhewn, just as they were when they were drawn out of the earth.

Afterwards, as we were leaving
⁶¹
, the King cast his eye on Silbury Hill, about a mile away, and said he desired to see it. I climbed to the top with him; Mr Charleton and the Duke of York came too. At the top, the King saw his kingdom from a new prospect. After we descended he proceeded to the entertainment and dinner at Lacock; then on that evening to Bath. The gentry and common people of those parts received the royal party with great acclamations of joy.

His Majesty has commanded me to write a description of Avebury and present it to him, and the Duke of York has commanded me to provide an account of the Old Camps and Barrows on the Plains. I will attempt to do both.

His Majesty also
⁶²
commanded me to dig at the bottom of the stones, to see if I could find any human bones, but I will not do it.

. . .

I have returned to Stonehenge and discovered some new holes.

I noticed too, but not for the first time, that the high stones are so deeply honeycombed that the starlings use them as nests. Whether these holes in the high-up stones are natural or artificial I cannot tell. In Wales, starlings are called Adar y Drudwy (meaning Birds of the Druids). Perhaps the Druids made these holes on purpose for their loquacious birds to nest in. This calls to my mind Pliny’s description of the starling in his time that could speak Greek.

While I think it
⁶³
very probable that Stonehenge already existed long before the Romans became masters of Britain, they would have been delighted with the stateliness and grandeur of it, and (considering the dryness of its situation) would have found it suitable for urn-burial. There are about forty-five barrows near Stonehenge. It must have taken a great deal of time to collect so many thousand loads of earth, and soldiers have better things to do, so I do not think these barrows were for burying the dead slain in battles. When Christianity became the settled religion, the temples that had been dedicated to the heathen gods were converted to Christian use and worship.

The monument is still
⁶⁴
being damaged. Ever since I can remember, the locals have been picking at it. One large stone was carried away to make a bridge; and it is generally believed, by those living close by, that powder from these stones tipped down wells will drive away the toads that infest them. The source of this belief seems to be that no magpie, toad or snake has ever been seen at Stonehenge. But this is no surprise. Birds of weak flight will not fly beyond their power of reaching cover, for fear of their enemies, the hawks and ravens, and there is no cover within a mile and a half of Stonehenge. Snakes and adders love cover too, so avoid Stonehenge for the same reason as the magpies. As for the toads, they will not go beyond a certain distance from water.

. . .

11 November

Mr Francis Potter
⁶⁵
was admitted to the Royal Society today.

. . .

30 November

St Andrew’s Day
⁶⁶
: the day of the General Meeting of the Royal Society. Today at our meeting I remarked to Sir William Petty that it seems not well to me that we have pitched upon the feast day of the patron saint of Scotland. I would have thought it better to choose the feast of St George, or that of St Isidore, the canonised philosopher. ‘No,’ said Sir William, ‘I would rather have had it on St Thomas’s Day, for he would not believe in the resurrection until he had seen and put his fingers into the nail holes in Christ’s body.’ This according to the motto
Nullius in verba
(take nobody’s word for it).

. . .

December

Sir George Ent has shown the Royal Society a table top made of fossilised wood that was sent to him from Rome by the renowned collector of rarities Cassiano dal Pozzo. Sir George Ent met Cassiano dal Pozzo when he was in Rome with Dr William Harvey in 1636. Mr Evelyn visited him too, when he was on his Grand Tour in 1644. Cassiano dal Pozzo stayed in touch with Sir George Ent; he sent him examples of petrified wood and they carried on a lively correspondence and exchange of books, until Cassiano dal Pozzo’s death six years ago. I wish I could have visited Cassiano dal Pozzo’s paper museum myself and seen the two sets of drawings – things human and things divine – into which I have heard it was divided. There would have been many things in those collections of stupendous interest to a scurvy antiquary such as I am.

. . .

Anno 1664

January

I am lovesick
⁶⁷
. I left Sir John Hoskyns’s house abruptly, and claimed to be beset by melancholy, but I do not think he believed me. He urges me to divert my mind – to return to the city to meet him next Wednesday and enjoy ingenious company. He says I should let her go, and will do well enough without her. But I am lovesick and can think of nothing else besides my beloved.

. . .

March

I have been elected
⁶⁸
to the Royal Society’s new Georgical Committee. The committee has thirty-two members and will collect information on the history of gardening and agriculture in England, Scotland and Ireland. We will draft a set of questions and send them out to knowledgeable people in different regions. I will seek to obtain reports from Wiltshire and Dorset.

. . .

May

At the Royal Society I mentioned my desire to talk to Mr Jonas Moore about the astronomical tables of Mr Jeremiah Horrox. Mr Horrox died suddenly in 1641 as our wars were beginning, aged just twenty-two. He was the first to demonstrate that the moon moves round the earth in an elliptical orbit. His achievements must not be lost from the records of the advancement of science.

I have described
⁶⁹
to the learned Fellows a new way of brewing good and lasting beer with ginger but without hops. I have promised to bring some bottles of this beer to a future meeting for them to taste.

. . .

My friend Lord Nicholas Tufton, who was twice imprisoned in the Tower during the Commonwealth, has succeeded to the peerage and become the 3rd Earl of Thanet. He is a kind patron to me.

PART VI

Stone, Water, Fire

Anno 1664, France

June

MY FRIEND MR
George Ent and I are travelling together. After a rough crossing, we landed at Calais.

We have been exchanging stories of our schooling. George Ent tells me he was once kicked by his schoolmaster down seven or eight flights of stairs, landing on his head. He was lucky not to break his neck! The day before, he had shaled one of his teeth, so he wrote to his father, Sir George Ent, to describe the treatment he had endured, enclosing the tooth and claiming he had lost it falling down the stairs. Sir George arrived the next day and took him away. Afterwards he went to my Trinity friend William Radford’s school at Richmond. William Radford is an honest sequestered gentleman and has become an excellent schoolmaster since he was excluded from his Oxford Fellowship by the Parliamentarian Visitors.

I intend to travel on to Orleans by way of Paris.

. . .

I have reached Paris
¹
and have a plan to see next the Loire, Brittany and the country around Geneva. I am staying with M de Houlle, in the churchyard of Saint-Julien-Le-Pauvre, at the sign of the golden rock, in front of the fountain of Saint-Séverin, near the Châtelet. I have written a letter to Mr Hobbes, who told me much about Paris before I came here.

. . .

The shopkeepers here
²
in France count with counters, which is the best way. Counters were anciently used in England too.

. . .

August

I have reached Orleans, but here am suffering a terrible attack of piles.