John Aubrey: My Own Life (25 page)

. . .

March

My friend Edward Davenant
⁴⁴
has written to tell me that he has now given up his mathematical studies because his age is calling him to serious thoughts of another world. He is seventy-one this year. I am hoping to get him to print his work, lest it be lost, and have introduced him to John Collins of the Royal Society who may help him in this.

. . .

Since the Great Conflagration
⁴⁵
last year, all the ruins in London are overgrown with herbs, especially one with a yellow flower. On the south side of St Paul’s Church it grew as thick as could be, even on the very top of the tower. The herbalists call it
Ericolevis Neapolitana
: small bank cresses of Naples.

Many Roman remains
⁴⁶
have been discovered among the ruins of London. Christopher Wren, digging deep to lay the foundation of Bow church tower, came to the Roman way which now lies nineteen feet under Cheapside: they know it to be the Roman way by the gravel mixed with Roman brick-bats and potsherds and baked earth such as urns. Dr Wren believes it firm enough to act as the foundation of the tower.

. . .

June

At the Royal Society, before a large audience, we tested bottles of water I had carried up from Seend. It did not turn black, after so long a journey, but went a deep dark claret colour. The physicians present were all wonderfully surprised and urged me to recommend the water to the doctors of Bath. They think that in the treatment of some ailments, it would be better to begin with the waters at Seend and end with those of Bath (and in other cases vice versa).

. . .

I have written to several doctors in Bath, but to no purpose. I have now discovered that what the London doctors told me is true: the Bath doctors are in agreement about the quality of the Seend water, but they do not care to have their customers leave Bath. I shall make known the discovery myself by inserting it into Mr William Lilly’s almanac.

. . .

Joan Sumner’s brother John tells me floods of people have started coming to Seend to take the waters I discovered there. The village cannot accommodate them all, so there are plans to build new guesthouses before next summer. Sumner (whose well is the best) hopes the trade will be worth 200 li. per annum to him.

My discovery has been mentioned by Dr Nehemiah Grew in his History of the Repository of the Royal Society. There is iron ore in the water, which was not noticed before.

. . .

31 July

On this day the Treaty of Breda has secured peace between England and the Netherlands.

. . .

I have promised
⁴⁷
my old friend Mr Hobbes that I will publish his life: nobody else knows so many particulars of his life as I do. I have known him since I was eight years old. If it please God that I prosper in the world, I will arrange for an exact map of Malmesbury, showing the place of Mr Hobbes’s birth. I would have Mr Hollar draw a map of the town with the names of the rivers that embrace it – the Avon and Newnton Water – together with the prospect, the abbey church and King Athelstan’s monument. In the abbey church, where the choir was, now grass grows, where anciently were buried kings and great men.

. . .

August

In Oxford, I browsed the booksellers’ stalls, including Edward Forest’s, opposite All Souls College. Afterwards I met Anthony Wood: the younger brother of my deceased Trinity College friend Ned Wood. We drank at Mother Web’s and in the Mermaid Tavern, where Mr Wood spent 3s. 8d. He aims to be a despiser of riches, to live independently and frugally, and not to be afraid to die. His income is around 40 li. per annum. He supplements this by cataloguing libraries and occasionally selling a manuscript. He is at work on an historical survey of the city of Oxford, including its university, colleges, monasteries and parish churches. I offered to assist him with his researches.

We talked of Mr Hobbes
⁴⁸
, my honoured friend, whose life I have promised to write. And we talked of poor Ned. It is already twelve years since he died of consumption: he was a promising scholar and had been elected a proctor of the University just weeks before his death. His brother is lastingly proud of the fact that Ned was freely elected, not imposed on the University by the Parliamentarian Visitor. He has edited five of Ned’s sermons.

Mr Wood was in the Bodleian quad last year when, by order of the King, John Milton’s works were burnt because they defended the execution of the late King. Mr Wood tells me he saw scholars of all degrees and qualities standing around the flames and humming while the books were burning.

He recently met and became friends with Mr William Dugdale, at work in the records in the Tower of London, gathering material for a third volume of his
Monasticon
. Mr Wood has promised to send Mr Dugdale documents to help him.

This summer, Mr Wood
⁴⁹
has been perusing the rent rolls, etc. in Christ Church treasury. He says there are many evidences there that belonged to Osney Abbey and innumerable writings and rolls which belonged to the priories and nunneries that Cardinal Wolsey dissolved when he set about founding his college in Oxford. But the Cardinal died before the task was completed, so the lands of the dissolved religious houses came under the King’s protection. He gave much away before the college was finally settled three years later in 1532; and for this reason, Christ Church cares little for those ancient documents that lie around in the damp and at the mercy of the rats. I will share with Mr Wood my own notes on the history of Christ Church, Trinity College and Osney Abbey.

I do not remember such hot weather as we have had this summer. Mr Wood says Oxford saw no rain from 30 June to 27 July, and none after that until 9 August. Several scholars have gone mad with heat and strong drink.

. . .

November

I have received
⁵⁰
a letter from Mr Wood in Oxford, asking me for details of Dr John Hoskyns’s time at New College – his birth, death, burial and the books he wrote – and for some details of other Oxford men including John Owen, the epigrammatist, and Sir Kenelm Digby. But I am leaving for London and am too plagued by my lawsuit to reply.

. . .

December

At a meeting
⁵¹
of the Royal Society today, I was delighted to present Mr Francis Potter’s device for measuring time through an air-strainer. Mr Potter’s clock is powered by bellows, not cogs. Mr Hooke has been asked to consider and comment on it at a subsequent meeting. Mr Wylde said he had heard of a similar approach to measuring time (from Sir Edward Lake, via Mr Smethwick). We are both to present the Society with descriptions of these instruments.

. . .

12 December

Today, before the Royal Society
⁵²
, Mr Hooke reported on the method for measuring time through air that Mr Wylde and I introduced at the last meeting. He said that though the invention is ingenious and new, it will not be suitable for pocket watches, nor as accurate and useful as the pendulum. The obstacle, in his view, is the unevenness of air, caused by the various degrees of its rarefaction and condensation, as well as its dryness and moisture.

. . .

I was arrested in Chancery Lane at Mrs Joan Sumner’s suit. I have been released, but there will be a trial at Sarum between us this coming year. How much I regret that I ever involved myself with that woman. I hoped she would restore my finances, but now she seems likely to ruin me.

. . .

Anno 1668

January

I am at last
⁵³
within reach of leisure to assist Mr Wood. I will leave Broad Chalke and go to Oxford as soon as I can.

. . .

In Oxford, I have spent the evening with Mr Wood at the Crown Tavern. My French servant Robert Wiseman (Robinet Prudhomme) lit Mr Wood’s way home and was extravagantly rewarded with sixpence.

. . .

24 February

Early this morning my trial against Joan Sumner was heard at Sarum. I won and was awarded 600 li. damages, though there was devilish opposition against me. I fear this will not be the end of the matter, as Joan seems intent upon continuing to pursue me through the courts. I have discovered that I am not the only man she has treated thus. On 10 July 1665, a few months before I made my first address to her in an ill hour, there was a marriage licence taken out at Salisbury between Joan and one Samuel Gayford.

. . .

7 April

I read a paper on Wiltshire springs to the Royal Society.

. . .

9 April

I went today
⁵⁴
to Sir William Davenant the Poet Laureate’s funeral. He died two days ago. Mr Hobbes knew him well and they were in France together during the late wars. He wrote more than twenty plays, besides his
Gondibert
and
Madagascar
. His coffin was of walnut wood: Sir John Denham declared it the finest he has ever seen. Davenant’s body was carried in a hearse from the playhouse to Westminster Abbey, where he was received at the great West Door by the choir and choristers, who sang the church service: ‘I am the Resurrection’, etc. His grave is in the south cross aisle and on it is written (in imitation of Ben Jonson): ‘O rare Sir Will. Davenant.’

When Sir William Davenant became Poet Laureate in 1638, after Ben Jonson’s death in 1637, Thomas May was also a candidate.

Thomas May translated
⁵⁵
the poet Lucan’s
Pharsalia
(1626), which made him in love with the Roman republic. The odour stuck to him. His
Breverie of the History of the Parliament of England
was printed in 1650, the year he died from choking when tying his cap. Thomas May compared the Long Parliament to the history of Rome, even while admitting that the affairs of Rome were of such transcendent greatness that they admit of no comparison to states before or after. My friend Edmund Wylde knew Thomas May when he was young, and says he was thoroughly debauched, but I do not by any means take notice of this, for we have all been young. I must find out where his monument is.

. . .

I have seen Mr Hobbes
⁵⁶
. He is writing a tract on the law of heresy.

. . .

The Council
⁵⁷
of the Royal Society has licensed the printing of John Wilkins’s
Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language
.

. . .

23 April

Today I brought before
⁵⁸
the Royal Society some mineral water from Milson in Wiltshire. Despite being carried eighty miles or so, the water kept its strength so well that when a little powder of galles was added to it and stirred in, the water became a dark red colour. The remainder of the water has been sent to Mr Merret for further examination.

. . .

I have decided
⁵⁹
to make a map of the remains of the Roman camps in Britain. Lord Bacon urged active men to become writers and after all the travelling that I have done on horseback through Wiltshire and south Wales, I am sure I can consider myself an active observer whose inspections of ancient monuments must be worth writing down. When I ride through the downs and see the numerous barrows – those beds of honour where now so many heroes lie buried in oblivion – they speak to me of the death and slaughter that once raged upon this soil, where so many thousands fell in terrible battles. I will trace the route the victorious Roman eagle took through ancient Britain and map the sites of those Imperial camps, now given over to sheep and the plough.

. . .

27 April

Exploring the sky
⁶⁰
with a telescope I noticed a cloudy star, which appeared to be about the size of Venus and resembled a dim planet, lying in a right line and near the midway between Cancer and the Head of Hydra.

. . .

May

The Royal Society
⁶¹
has established a committee to examine, consider and report on Mr Wilkins’s
Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language
, published this year. A Real Character, as opposed to a notional, nominal or verbal one, has a shape that embodies the structure of the language, lexically, grammatically, or both. Mr Wilkins is developing ideas about Real Characters in Lord Bacon’s
Of the Advancement and Proficience of Learning
, which was translated from Latin into English in 1640.

. . .

When I was a boy
⁶²
, I used to hear from my grandmother the story of how Queen Elizabeth loved my great-grandfather, Dr William Aubrey, even though he voted against the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.