John Aubrey, page 38
. . .
August
Dr Ralph Bathurst10 tells me he is pleased I have resumed thoughts of publishing my Monumenta Britannica, improved by Dr Gale’s annotations, with many cuts or illustrations. He claims that Mr Charlett will be very ready to advise and assist in the work of printing it. He has asked to be put down as a subscriber to my book. But I need to find more subscribers or my manuscript will never be printed.
. . .
30 August
I am in Cambridge11, where the news has reached me that my dear friend Mr Wood was fined 40 li. and expelled from the University of Oxford last month on 29 July. I read of it in the Gazette as I sat in the coffee house. The Heads of Houses in Oxford were offended by Mr Wood’s book. So at about ten o’clock, on the morning of 31 July, the Parator made a fire of two faggots in the Sheldonian Theatre yard and burnt Mr Wood’s offending pages.
Dr Holder has introduced me to some of the Heads of Houses in Cambridge, very few of whom have read Mr Wood’s book; I told them I thought it would be good if someone wrote a similar book about Cambridge, but they slighted the proposal as useless learning. There are excellent philologists in Cambridge, but the worst antiquaries I ever conversed with.
I hope my brother William, despite our quarrels and differences, and Mr Thomas Tanner will live to finish my Wiltshire Antiquities for me. I have been dragged into the legal proceedings between William and my old landlord Mr Kent. Even though my brother has not been kind to me, I must do right by him in court, even to my own detriment.
I will visit Rycot12 and thence to Sir John Aubrey’s house at Borstall, near Brill in Buckinghamshire, then to Oxford. Dr Bathurst has kindly offered me assistance in printing my book but says that Dr Charlett and the Principal of Jesus can be of more help.
. . .
I called on Mr Coley13, who is still very cross with Mr Wood for calling astrologers conjurors.
. . .
I have sent a boxful14 of antiquities to Mr Lhwyd for the Ashmolean Museum (they are deposits, for now, not donations, because there are some things among them reflecting on Dr Wallis that are not fit to be seen by everybody yet). I hope Mr Wylde will give Mr Lhwyd the Armenian dictionary for the museum too.
. . .
September
Mr Thomas Tanner15 has spent the last three months in Wiltshire, on the business of promoting our common design of illustrating a new translation and edition of Mr Camden’s Britannia. He admits that one who had spent all his life in Wiltshire – as I have – might have done more than he could, but he has left room for insertions. He has made several finds: the track of the Fosse Way; nearly a hundred villages not mentioned in the former map; several places mentioned in the Saxon histories; and around twenty stations and encampments of the Romans, Danes and Saxons.
. . .
October
Mr Lhwyd16 – who has been in Wales collecting information to add to the new translation and edition of Mr Camden’s Britannia – has asked me to send him my memoirs of Caerphilly Castle, which I visited in 1656.
He promises he will do me right and not rob me of honour and thanks due to me from the curious and ingenious. He asks too if he may open my box of papers in Oxford for his own private use.
I am fearful that all the credit for my unprinted work will be stolen from me.
. . .
I have asked Mr Thomas Tanner17 to peruse my manuscript, but not to let Mr Lhwyd excerpt from it, lest he put an extract into the new Britannia and spoil the sale of my book. I will send all my manuscripts to Oxford; I hope my brother and Mr Tanner will finish my Antiquities of Wiltshire. And if I die, I hope Mr Gibson will print my other antiquities manuscripts, and that Mr Lhwyd will print my Natural History of Wiltshire.
. . .
Mr Thomas Tanner has read18 my Templa Druidum (the first part of my Monumenta Britannica) with great satisfaction, together with Dr Garden’s letter about it, which he believes will be an ornament to the book.
. . .
I am back19 from a short visit to Oxford, during which I scarcely spoke to Mr Wood, and now I am staying with James, Earl of Abingdon, at Lavington, where I have leisure enough. The fine garden here is a monument to the ingenuity of Sir John Danvers. It came into the Earl of Abingdon’s possession through his first wife, who was Sir John’s granddaughter. Through the length of the garden there runs a fine clear trout stream, walled with brick on each side. The garden is full of irregularities both natural and artificial. It is almost impossible to describe this garden, it is so full of variety and unevenness; it would even be difficult for a good artist to make a draft of it.
I am reading over20 Dr Locke’s book On Education printed this year. But my leisure to read and think will soon disappear when I return to London, where I shall sink under trouble. Mr Kent and my brother are up to their ears in Chancery and I shall be dragged further into it.
. . .
November
Mr Lhwyd is trying21 to reassure me that he only meant to ask for my thoughts on Caerphilly Castle and anything else I might communicate about Wales. He says he had no intention of stealing from my Monumenta Britannica manuscript. He thought just one or two pages of my three volumes might be made use of (under my own name). He was asking to see only a transcript of those few pages, not the whole manuscript. He says he would welcome Mr Wylde’s Armenian dictionary for the museum. It was Mr Wylde who first encouraged Mr Lhwyd to the study of British antiquities, which he now relishes and will never forsake.
. . .
December
Mr Thomas Tanner now advises22 me to abridge the first part of my Monumenta Britannica for printing to about forty sheets, partly to make a cheaper book. He points out that the cheaper a book is, the more buyers it will have. He suspects that the reason why I have not sent him the other parts of my Monumenta or my Natural History of Wiltshire is that I have changed my mind about doing so on hearing that he is now engaged in preparing a new edition of Mr Camden’s Britannia. He insists emphatically that I need not fear he will play the plagiarist with my manuscripts or treat me ungently as Mr Wood has done: he bids me trust his good will. He assures me that his reason for asking to see my Wiltshire Antiquities was chiefly that he might make many pertinent additions to my book. He asks me to trust my papers in his hands as soon as possible.
. . .
St John’s Day
I came back to London23 with Lord Abingdon ten days ago. I intend to go to Oxford this coming March for a month, and I hope Mr Wood will have returned to me before then the ten pages he cut from my collection of Lives. If, and only if, he has done so, I shall let him peruse the rest of the Lives when I go to Oxford. I am deeply hurt by Mr Wood’s rough dealing with me. I have returned his letters, as he asked me to, but he will not give back my pages, even though I have asked him often.
. . .
Anno 1694
January
At a party yesterday24, I ate a couple of good fowl, as good as any I have ever eaten, and drank some very good wine. My friends and I were ingeniously merry!
. . .
5 January
I had an apoplectic fit25 today around 4 p.m.
. . .
Mr Lhwyd says26 the University’s instrument maker is willing to make a quadrant for me – I desire a copy of the one my old friend Mr Potter gave me many years ago. The instrument maker says he will do it for 10s. even though he cannot see what use the quadrant will be. Mr Lhwyd asks if he can copy one of the Roman inscriptions that Mr Tanner showed him in my Antiquities of Wiltshire.
. . .
I hope to see27 Mr Wood in Oxford early in April. I hope he has delivered Mr Hobbes’s Leviathan to Dr Bayley (which I promised to their library). I must take care that Mr Wood deposits the draft of Osney Abbey and the verses on Mr Bushell’s works in the Ashmolean Museum.
. . .
February
I have told Mr Thomas Tanner that while I welcome his encouragement to print my book about Druid temples, further consideration is needed. Soon the wagonner will be delivering my Natural History of Wiltshire to Oxford and I would be content for some excerpts to be printed in the Britannia, but not the cream, leaving only the skimmed milk to be published as my own.
Among other papers I have put in the box some for Mr Tanner’s private use. I have several letters to add to my volume, but they are not fit for the young critics of Oxford to peruse and scoff at.
I am busy28 compiling my collection of Hermetick Philosophy from manuscript notes I have been keeping for years in a box named ‘Dreams’. There are millions of dreams that too little notice is taken of, but those who have the truest dreams have the IXth House well dignified in their star charts, which I do not.
For the past fifty years, Natural Philosophy has been exceedingly advanced, but Hermetick Philosophy has lain long untouched. I think this strange. Hermetick Philosophy holds that the three parts of wisdom are alchemy, astrology and theurgy (or supernatural intervention in human affairs). It is a subject worthy of consideration.
I do not think29 I will ever have the leisure to put my papers in order. They will all need to be copied anew. I hope Mr Lhwyd will oblige me in this.
. . .
On behalf of my friend30 the Earl of Pembroke, I hope to buy a picture from one Mrs Hall: she is asking 14 li. for it. I will not give more than 12 li. and have asked Mr Lhwyd to offer her this sum. The painting is The Executioner with John the Baptist’s Head, by William Dobson. The Earl of Pembroke asks that his identity not be disclosed (for fear Mrs Hall will raise the price). If I can arrange this purchase for him, the painting will be safe at Wilton House.
The Earl of Pembroke has read31 over my Idea of Education and approves of it, but he is not active in helping me print it. I am concerned that if I die before my manuscript is printed, it will be coffined up together with the books I have collected that relate to it. Nobody will have the generosity to set my design afoot after my death.
I doubt I will live32 to see my school established at Cranborne, or anywhere else. If the nobles have a mind to have their children in the clergy’s pockets, much good may it do them.
. . .
March
The Earl of Pembroke has agreed to pay the sum Mrs Hall is asking for the picture. He desires it be sent to him without delay (but is not interested in the frame it is currently in). If Mrs Hall will appoint someone to receive the money, I will meet them in Dirty Lane in Bloomsbury and conduct them to his lordship, so this business can be settled. I hope this can be done soon because I intend to leave London for Hertford, where Dr Holder invites me. But I must finish the Earl of Pembroke’s business first.
I never go out33 of my lodgings until noon these days.
. . .
2 March
Mr Thomas Tanner called34 on me.
. . .
I am receiving35 my letters via my friend Dr Gale, Master of St Paul’s. I have received one from Mr Lhwyd asking if I have given the books I sent to the Ashmolean Museum, or only temporarily deposited them there for custody. He says Mr Thomas Tanner gave him the key to my box and that Mr Tanner now has my Monumenta Britannica, and will send for my History of Wiltshire.
. . .
Mr Thomas Tanner has asked36 me to do him the favour of visiting his brother, who lives at an address in Clement Lane, near Lombard Street. He urges me to visit Oxford too, where I am promised good company.
. . .
The Earl of Pembroke37 is very impatient for his picture. I have asked Mr Lhwyd to send it on as soon as possible. I have decided to make a gift to the museum of the books I sent with Mr Kent. Mr Tanner has obtained a history of Wiltshire in which there is a pedigree of the Aubrey family. I would like a copy for my cousin Sir John Aubrey.
. . .
I have been ill with a fever.
. . .
I need to send Mr Lhwyd the information he needs.
. . .
Several Roman coins38 have been found lately at Caerphilly Castle. Sir John Aubrey tells me he welcomes my help in making Caerphilly better known in the new edition of Camden.
. . .
I have written to Mr Lhwyd asking if he has my manuscript of Remaines of Gentilisme. I fear it is too light for the University. I have asked him to insert my manuscript of the Antiquities of Wiltshire in the museum catalogue, but not my letters.
Major Beach of Bradford says he would be glad to have Mr Lhwyd visit him. There is a woman living near him who is celebrated for botany and who supplies all the Bath doctors with samples.
Lord Pembroke has received39 his picture and is very pleased with it. He has put it in a noble gilt frame and sent it this week to Wilton. Sir John Aubrey will get Mr Webb to draw and paint a copy of the Aubrey pedigree.
. . .
April
Mr Lhwyd has written40 to thank me for my observations on the Remaines of Gentilisme, which he hopes may encourage study of that subject at Oxford. There are only a few at present in the University who pursue the study of antiquities. But Mr Lhwyd’s view is that even if some young man or other might undervalue my work, that should not prevent it being presented to the library. He says that Mr Gibson, noting my family’s pedigree in Wiltshire, may be able to trace it into Brecknock. He thinks that my letters are a valuable treasure, but recognises that it would be improper to prevail on me to donate them to the museum.
. . .
At last, Mr Thomas Tanner41 has consigned to the carrier, called Matthew’s Wagon, my Monumenta Britannica, my dreams manuscript, and a sheet of Dr Pell’s notes about the taking of Rome. His delay this past three weeks made me angry. Now he has apologised for keeping them so long and explained that he has marked the passages that he has borrowed, that he has borrowed very sparingly, and has taken care not to plagiarise. He is very pleased that I have donated my Antiquities of Wiltshire to the museum, but agreed to leave the manuscripts in his hands until he has completed them with the illustrations he is engaged on.
. . .
It seems more and more unlikely that my Monumenta Britannica will be printed. I despair of the manuscript ever becoming a book in four volumes. I begin to wonder if I should print another of my manuscripts, one that is less lengthy perhaps? My collection of Hermetick Philosophy? Before I die, I hope to dedicate at least one printed book to my patron, Lord Abingdon.
. . .
I have got to know Sir Henry Chancey, Serjeant at Law, who is writing the Antiquities of Hertfordshire, with more diligent extraction of the records than anyone else has done. He requires the names of the last abbots of St Albans and I said I would ask Mr Wood.
Sir John Aubrey42 has invited me to Borstall for the last week of April.
. . .
May
By Mores’ Wagon I have sent my English copy of Pliny’s Natural History and my Reden and Holyoks Dictionary to Oxford for the museum. My Pliny is in three volumes and has annotations by me throughout. I have carefully distinguished the cures Pliny lists that depend on magic from those that depend on herbal remedies. The dictionary is not worth much, but I am sending it to show how I found out the proportion of the several different languages of which present English consists.
I hope to be43 in Oxford with my friends in a fortnight.
. . .
I remember that44 on Shotover Hill in Oxfordshire, not long before the civil wars, and within living memory, there was an effigy of a giant cut in the earth, like the white horse by Ashbury Park.
. . .
I hope Mr Lhwyd45 received the books I sent by Mores’ Wagon ten days ago: I made sure to pay the carriage. I think I will get to Oxford by about the middle of June. Mr Gibson tells me that the University will not print my manuscripts: they let them lie amongst the rubbish.
. . .
Mr Lhwyd says46 the books I have given to the museum have arrived and he has entered my English Pliny in the catalogue. He will make a list of all my pamphlets and donations, but he can say nothing about the printing of my manuscript of Monumenta Britannica till the Press has perused it. At the present time, Dr Lister and I are the library’s only benefactors of note for books and other curiosities, aside from Mr Ashmole.
. . .
St John the Baptist Day
Today is Midsummer’s Day47. I was walking in the pasture behind Montagu House, Bloomsbury, around ten o’clock, when I saw twenty-two or three young women, most of them well dressed, busy on their knees, as though weeding. I could not understand what they were doing, until a young man explained that they were looking for a coal under the root of a plantain, to put under their heads tonight, so they will dream of their future husbands. It is said that the coal can only be found on this day at that hour.
There are other magical secrets women have handed down for this purpose. On St Agnes Night, 21 January, take a row of pins and pull out every one, one after another, saying an Our Father and sticking the pins in your sleeve, and then you will dream of him or her you shall marry. This makes me think of Ben Jonson’s verse:
And on sweet Agnes Night
Please you with the promis’d sight,
Some of Husbands, some of Lovers,
Which an empty Dream discovers.
I never married.
. . .
July
I am at Borstall48. I find it more troublesome to write to my friends from here than from London, because Sir John Aubrey’s servants are full of business and have no time to carry my letters to the post.
. . .
August
Mr Wood makes such demands49 of me! His most recent list of queries includes:
