John Aubrey: My Own Life (59 page)

In 1975, the distinguished historian of science Michael Hunter published the first study of Aubrey’s ideas,
John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning.
This is still the best book on Aubrey’s intellectual milieu. Hunter intended his book to supplement Powell’s focus on Aubrey’s social life. Powell referred often to Aubrey as someone primarily interested in the past, whereas Hunter argued that the present and the future were at least as imaginatively important to him. Hunter explained
¹¹
the nature of Aubrey’s intellectual preoccupations and compared and contrasted them with those of his contemporaries, arguing that there was still no straightforward distinction between mechanist moderns and mystical ancients in Aubrey’s time: in fact, ‘he was typical in deriving scientific and magical theories and explanations from all sorts of old and new sources’.

In 1980, John Fowles, a novelist fascinated by the collector’s quest, noted that generations of scholars had sunk their lives into trying to order Aubrey’s Monumenta Britannica manuscript, before he rushed in himself ‘where angels fear to tread’ and together with the historian Rodney Legg published for the first time a quasi-facsimile edition of
Monumenta Britannica
, nearly 200 years after Aubrey’s death. In his brief foreword
¹²
Fowles wrote: ‘I think not even with Pepys are we closer to an existential awareness of what it was like to be alive then: the anxieties, the delusions, the hopes, the joys, the melancholies and poetries.’

In the twenty-first century, Aubrey’s afterlife, slowly but surely accumulating since he died, is flourishing. In 2010, the literary and intellectual historian William Poole organised an exhibition at the Bodleian Library, ‘John Aubrey and the Advancement of Learning’, to coincide with the Royal Society of London’s 350th anniversary. Poole’s accompanying book offers an introduction to Aubrey’s intellectual world: ‘Aubrey was a very clubbable man in a very clubbable century.’ As part of Oxford University’s Cultures of Knowledge project
¹³
, ‘Networking the Republic of Letters 1550–1750’, Poole is coordinating the publication and digitalisation of Aubrey’s correspondence. This will make the collection of over 800 letters Aubrey exchanged with the pre-eminent philosophers, scientists and scholars of his day accessible in print and online: a gift to posterity beyond his wildest dreams. In 2015, Clark’s long-standing edition of
Brief Lives
has been superseded by Kate Bennett’s magisterial new scholarly edition for the Clarendon Press. In Bennett, Aubrey has found at last an editor after his own heart. More fastidious in the pursuit of truth than Aubrey was himself, Bennett’s
Brief Lives
is the first to be faithful to Aubrey’s own vision of the form and meaning of his biographical collections. Her edition includes censored and deleted material, title pages, antiquarian notes and indices, together with a critical introduction and comprehensive commentary. It is the result of two decades of painstaking work in archives: Aubrey would have been delighted.

Aubrey hoped that his name would live on after his death and that posterity would benefit from the paper and material collections it was his life’s work to assemble. Most of these collections were successfully preserved in the Ashmolean Museum. In 1860, Aubrey’s paper collections were moved to the Bodleian Library. Aside from
Brief Lives
very recently, none of them has been adequately edited, and many are in urgent need of conservation. With two exceptions (Faithorne’s portrait of Aubrey and Hollar’s engraving of the drawing of Osney Abbey Aubrey commissioned), all the illustrations in my book are Aubrey’s own, reproduced from his manuscripts, by kind permission of the Bodleian Library. Hollar’s engraving of Osney Abbey is rare: it was mysteriously omitted from a large number of the first editions of the second volume of Dugdale’s
Monasticon Anglicanum
, and afterwards the plate was lost or melted in the Fire of London. The engraving is reproduced in my book with thanks to Olivia Horsfall Turner, Curator of Designs at the Victoria and Albert Museum, who is preparing an edition of Aubrey’s Chronologia Architectonica. From childhood and throughout his life, Aubrey loved to draw and paint. I have chosen for the cover of
John Aubrey: My Own Life
his only known self-portrait: a sketch of himself and Sir James Long of Draycot out hawking. Typically, it is clear which figure is Sir James, at the centre of the picture, with a telescope and the sword Oliver Cromwell permitted him to wear. But which figure is Aubrey? My bet is that he drew himself the least defined of all the figures: the one lightly shaded in brown beside Sir James, through whom the outlines of some trees are visible; the one who has dismounted from his horse and is looking intently at a building in the valley beyond.

Endnotes

Abbreviations

For full details,
see Bibliography
.

Bennett
: John Aubrey,
John Aubrey: Brief Lives

Clark
: John Aubrey, ‘
Brief Lives’, chiefly of Contemporaries

Monumenta
: John Aubrey,
Monumenta Britannica

Natural History
: John Aubrey,
The Natural History of Wiltshire

Surrey
: John Aubrey,
The Natural History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey

Wiltshire Collections
: John Aubrey,
Wiltshire: The Topographical Collections

Education
: John Aubrey,
Aubrey on Education

Three Prose Works
: John Aubrey,
Miscellanies, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, Observations

England’s Collector

1
 
He offered as a ‘probability’
: MS Aubrey 14, fol. 25.

2
 
In the aftermath of:
Powell (1949), p.xxii.

3
 
The historical and scientific interests
: K. J. Williams (2012); Poole (2010).

4
 
Looking back:
Powell (1948), p.274; MS Aubrey 3.

5
 
Antiquities, according to Bacon:
Robertson (ed.) (2013), p.82.

6
 
One of the drawings:
William Dugdale collaborated with Roger Dodsworth.
The Monasticon Anglicanum
was first published in Latin, vol. 1 (1655), vol. 2 (1661) and vol. 3. (1673). Hollar’s engraving was published in vol. 2 (1661) facing p.136.

7
 
Aubrey records that:
Keynes (1968); Bennett, vol. 1, p.432; Clark, vol. 1, p.37.

8
 
After the Restoration:
Compare the work of William Somner in Canterbury and see,
A treatise of the Roman ports and forts in Kent
.

9
 
Before Printing: Three Prose Works
, p.290.

10
 
From here the book trade:
Raymond (2003), p.83.

11
 
He became a Fellow:
Hunter (1975), p.64; Hunter (1981), p.21; Hunter (1989), p.8–9.

12
 
He promised to give his own important collection:
Ovenell (1986), pp.14–15.

13
 
At the end of his life:
MS Aubrey 6, MS Aubrey 7, MS Aubrey 8. Bennett; Clark.

14
 
About himself Aubrey concluded:
Bennett, vol. 1, p.429; Bobrick (2006), p.231.

15
 
He cursed the classical tradition:
MS Wood 39, fol. 340r.

16
 
A Life, he insisted:
MS Wood 39, fol. 340r.

17
 
His idea was to get at the truth:
MS Aubrey 6, fol. 12; Bennett, vol. 1, p.38.

18
 
An example is the Life:
Bennett, vol. 1, p.406.

19
 
In
Elizabeth and Essex
, Lytton Strachey writes:
Powell (1949), pp.xxi–xxii.

20
 
Among the manuscripts and letters:
MS Aubrey 7, fol. 3; Bennett, vol. 1, p.429.

21
 
When he could no longer afford:
Or occasionally with antiquarian services, see Thanet’s archive.

22
 
In describing himself:
MS Wood 39, fol. 196; MS Aubrey 9, fol. 8.

23
 
In the pencil portrait of Aubrey:
Portrait of John Aubrey by William Faithorne, in the Ashmolean Museum, Accession Number WA1904.3, graphite and wash on vellum, with red chalk and graphite.

24
 
I was inspired: The Diary of Samuel Pepys:
Latham and Matthews (1971–1983); de Beer (1955); Robinson and Adams (1935).

25
 
Pepys kept his diary for a decade:
Even though he wrote in shorthand, Pepys took care over the final copy of his diary, which was elegantly bound and shelved for posterity.

Part I: Wiltshire

1
 
My grandfather tells me:
Wiltshire Collections, pp.240–1.

2
 
I like to ask:
MS Top. Gen. C.25, fol. 207.

3
 
I lie on the bank:
MS Aubrey 10, fol. 117.

4
 
The north part:
Three Prose Works
, p.312; Wiltshire Collections, p.236.

5
 
The stones at Easton:
MS Aubrey 1, fol. 84.

6
 
I am so bored:
MS Aubrey 10, fol. 7b.

7
 
When I was learning: Natural History
, p.43.

8
 
I love to read:
MS Top. Gen. C.25, fol. 203v. In his
Idea of Education
, Aubrey complained about the use of hornbooks that taught children to read using gothic characters instead of Latin:
Education
, p.51.

9
 
I started school:
Clark, vol. 1, p.33; MS Ballard 14, fol. 133.

10
 
There is another: Natural History
, p.17.

11
 
I have moved:
MS Aubrey 2, fol. 18b.

12
 
My fine box top:
MS Aubrey 10, fol. 8b.

13
 
In Latin lessons: Education
, p.53.

14
 
My most distinguished ancestor:
Bennett, vol. 1, pp.114–19; Clark, vol. 1, pp.210–15. Dr John Dee (1527–1609), mathematician, astrologer and antiquary.

15
 
My nurse, Kath:
Bennett, vol. 2, p.439.

16
 
Kath knows the history:
Three Prose Works
, pp.287, 290.

17
 
I am newly recovered:
Bennett, vol. 1, p.439.

18
 
It is venison season:
Aubrey is mistaken. In fact Hobbes’s father was vicar of the small neighbouring parish of Brokenborough, one of the poorest livings in the area. See Malcolm, p.2. Hobbes went to school in Westport when Robert Latimer was teaching there. Clark, vol. 1, pp.331–2.

19
 
Mr Hobbes went to Oxford:
Malcolm, pp.4–12. Hobbes returned to England in October 1636.

20
 
Here are some:
Clark, vol. 2, p.325.

21
 
I rode over: Natural History
, p.44;
Monumenta
, p.103.

22
 
Sir Philip Sidney: Monumenta
, p.98. Note that in his manuscript transcription of Sidney’s poem Aubrey writes ‘stones’ instead of ‘stone’. Duncan-Jones (1973), p.102.

23
 
My honoured teacher:
‘Here lieth Mr Robert Latymer, sometime rector and pastor of this church, who deceased this life the second day of November, anno domini 1634’.

24
 
I love the music:
Bennett, vol. 1, p.36; Clark, vol. 2, p.319.

25
 
Above alderman and woollen draper:
Bennett, vol. 1, p.259; Clark, vol. 2, pp.249–50; Duncan-Jones (1991), p.299.

26
 
My grandmother, Rachel Danvers:
Bennett, vol. 1, pp.712–13; Clark, vol. 2, pp.298–9.

27
 
Since Alderman Whitson’s death: Monumenta
, pp.47, 65.

28
 
When we are not:
Dr William Aubrey and William, Earl of Pembroke, were distantly related (by descent from the Welsh princes Melin and Philip ap Elydr) and fought together at the Battle of St Quentin (1557). See Powell (1948), p.22.

29
 
I have seen a book:
MS Aubrey 2, fols 36, 167.

30
 
Here is the 1st Earl of Pembroke:
Bennett, vol. 1, pp.247–50; Clark, vol. 1, pp.314–17.

31
 
Here is Mary, Countess of Pembroke:
Bennett, vol. 1, p. 251–3; Clark, vol. 1, pp.310–3.

32
 
Here is Sir Philip Sidney:
Bennett, vol. 1, pp.256–60; Clark, vol. 2, pp.247–50.

33
 
The situation of Wilton House:
MS Aubrey 2, fol. 31.

34
 
There is a picture:
MS Aubrey 2, fol. 32.

35
 
Peacock has run
:
Natural History
, p.117.

36
 
This autumn, Broad Chalke:
MS Aubrey 1, fol. 171.

37
 
Mr Peyton is now:
Bennett, vol. 1, p.527; Clark, vol. 2, p.307. Francis Bacon, Viscount St Albans (1561–1626), Lord Chancellor, politician and philosopher.

38
 
Lord Bacon has argued:
Bacon (2013), p.82.

39
 
I have found: Education
, p.20.