John Aubrey: My Own Life (38 page)
Read John Aubrey: My Own Life Online
Authors: Ruth Scurr
Some time ago
3
, I sent my friend Mr Paschall Mr Lodwick’s essay on the Universal Character and communicated his responses to the author. Now Mr Lodwick has sent me further reflections on that subject and asked me to pass them on to Mr Paschall if I think he would be interested.
October
Mr Thomas Pigott
4
of Wadham College doubts Mr Hooke’s design for a pocket watch. He is interested too in the Philosophical Language and difficulties of the Universal Character.
. . .
20 October
I went to celebrate
5
Sir Christopher Wren’s birthday at Palgraves Head, near Temple Bar: he paid for everything. Sir John Hoskyns and Mr Hooke came too.
. . .
9 November
Today I was with
6
Mr Hooke at Tooth’s coffee house, then later at Garraway’s.
. . .
15 November
I went home
7
with Mr Hooke (Mr Crisp came too) and we drank two bottles of claret.
. . .
17 November
I went to Child’s
8
in St Paul’s Churchyard and heard Mr Hooke and Mr Hill discourse about teaching children grammar by tables.
. . .
24 November
Mr Hooke and I
9
went to dine with Lord Sarum.
. . .
7 December
I went to the Crown
10
with Mr Wylde and Mr Hooke, where we drank brandy wine.
. . .
12 December
My friend the Reverend
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Andrew Paschall hopes that the outcome of Seth Ward the Bishop of Sarum’s considerations on a Universal Language may be to reduce schism and babel to nothing.
. . .
Anno 1677
January
My lord the Earl
12
of Thanet promises that he will acquaint his agent with the quality and quantity of shells I would like sent from the Bermudas.
. . .
March
My friend Mr Thomas Pigott
13
has tracked down Dr Morison for me; he is putting out a general history of plants according to the order of nature. His proposals are in the Royal Society’s Transactions and Mr Pigott will find out if Sir John Hoskyns wishes to subscribe. Further, he promises that as soon as he hears of anyone writing on medicinal waters, examined chemically, he will be sure to let me know.
. . .
My friend Mr James Boevey
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of the Inner Temple, who went to Florence in 1642 and enquired after Machiavelli’s reputation, has also written many treatises on what he calls ‘active philosophy’: for example, ‘The Government of Resolution’ and ‘The Art of Governing the Tongue’. He has sent me a list of his manuscripts and I am trying to persuade him to donate them to the library of the Royal Society.
Mr Boevey was a merchant before he was admitted to the Inner Temple. He is a great lover of natural philosophy and keeps a candle burning by him all night, with pen, ink and paper, so that he might not lose a thought. He is a person of great temperance, and deep thoughts, and a working head, which is never idle. He is only five foot tall, slenderly built, with extremely black hair, curled at the ends, an equally black beard, and the darkest of eyebrows hovering above dark but sprightly hazel eyes.
Mr Ashmole has made a list of the many books on magic in Mr Boevey’s library.
. . .
12 March
Jane Smyth, who is somewhat
15
better, and I met Mr Hooke this evening at Cardinal’s Tavern in Lombard Street. We drank until past midnight and Mr Hooke vomited up wine.
Jane Smyth has the idea
16
that men might metamorphose into trees and flowers planted in their graves. Her notion is that the soul of the deceased goes into the tree or plant and lives. It is lovely and ingenious.
. . .
25 March
Lady Day
17
: my good friend Mr Wenceslaus Hollar has died. If he had lived until 13 July this year, he would have been seventy years old. He will be buried in St Margaret’s churchyard, Westminster. He was a very friendly, good-natured man, but shiftless as to the world and died not rich.
. . .
James, Duke of York, has reluctantly consented to the marriage of his Protestant daughter Mary to William, the Prince of Orange, Stadholder of the Dutch Republic. Our present King, who still has no children born within wedlock, arranged the marriage. Many in England fear the prospect of a Roman Catholic monarch if James succeeds to the throne.
. . .
21 April
Mr Hooke saw
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the comet this morning (he learnt of it yesterday). He says it appeared in the sign of Taurus, between the base of the triangle and the unformed stars in the cloud of Aries. The head of it was in a right line with the heart of Cassiopeia and Alamak, or the south foot of Andromeda. As near as he could judge with his naked eye (he had no instrument or help to hand) it was 5/6 of the distance between the feet and the girdle of Andromeda.
. . .
24 April
I went to Mr Hooke’s
19
with Mr Wylde, Mr Merret, Mr Moxon and others to see the comet, but we missed it and drank two bottles of claret.
. . .
June
An abscess on my head broke.
. . .
July
Mr Charles Snell
20
has written to explain my horoscope to me. He addresses me as ‘Dear Gossip’! He says his brother will be glad to enter my lord the Earl of Thanet’s employment as steward for his Barbados concerns, if he has not already engaged one.
. . .
I have sold
21
some books to Mr Littlebury.
. . .
August
I am recovered now
22
from my illness and will go soon into the country, where I hope to visit Mr Paschall in Somerset. We have much to discuss: the Universal Character, the cider press, etc. He tells me he has not yet been able to go to Salisbury to see the Bishop of Sarum, nor to visit my mother at Broad Chalke. I will go myself soon, I hope.
. . .
5 September
Mr Oldenburg
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, Secretary of the Royal Society, has died, aged about fifty-eight. He was made secretary when the Society was granted its royal charter in 1662 and was extremely active in that regard. He established the
Philosophical Transactions
in 1665. But it was through his default that some small tracts of Mr Hobbes’s were not published in the
Philosophical Transactions
.
. . .
7 September
Mr Hooke came to dine
24
with me and afterwards we went to see Sir John Hoskyns, then to visit Mr Alhurst, a perspective painter in Exeter Street, near the Red Cow.
. . .
11 September
My friend Mr Harrington
25
died today at his house in Little Ambry. He will be buried in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, next to illustrious Sir Walter Raleigh, under the south side of the altar, where the priest stands.
For this past year Mr Harrington’s memory and speech were taken away by disease. It was a sad sight to see such a sample of mortality in one whom I had known to be a brisk and lively
cavaliero
. Henry Nevill continued to pay his visits to Mr Harrington during this illness as duly and respectfully as when his friend was in the prime of his understanding. Henry Nevill was a true friend and should never be forgotten for his constancy.
. . .
16 September
I coincided
26
with Nell Young at Mr Hooke’s.
. . .
4 October
Today I watched
27
the demonstration of a new wind gun. It is made in the form of the head of a stick and from soldered brass, with two leather valves.
. . .
Mr Hooke has my picture
28
done by my dear friend Mr Cooper, the prince of limners, before he died. Mr Cooper once gave Mr Hooke drawing lessons.
. . .
Mr Hooke has asked me to help find a new President of the Royal Society by discussing with Mr Ent, Dr Millington, etc. the manner of choosing one. Viscount Brouncker has been President since 1663, but has decided to resign, as it is clear he will not be re-elected at the Society’s annual meeting on St Andrew’s Day. The Society is declining and many members believe it needs a change in President.
. . .
I will undertake
29
the correspondence for the election of the new President (although Sir John Hoskyns’s cabal opposes this).
. . .
13 October
Today I was at the Rainbow
30
and afterwards at Child’s.
. . .
Since Mr Oldenburg’s death, Mr Hooke has been elected Secretary of the Royal Society, together with Nehemiah Grew.
. . .
November
Viscount Brouncker sent me a note to give notice that next Friday, 30th of this month, the council and officers of the Royal Society are to be elected for the ensuing year, and my presence is expected for the election at Gresham College at nine o’clock in the morning precisely.
. . .
30 November
St Andrew’s Day
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. Mr Henshaw was in the chair for the Royal Society vote. Mr Grew read out the votes and Mr Hooke marked them. Sir Peter Wych scrutinised for Mr Grew and I did it for Mr Hooke. The outcome was Sir Joseph Williamson President, Mr Hill Treasurer, Mr Grew and Mr Hooke Secretaries.
. . .
Anno 1678
March
Some of my letters
32
reach me in London by being left with Mr William Crooke, the bookseller at the Green Dragon, outside Temple Bar. Mr Hobbes, who is in Hardwick, writes to me this way. He has not been able to write for some time and now has sent me a dictated letter. In it he says he is so weak that even dictating pains him. He is still bitter towards Dr Wallis. He says it is no surprise that Dr Wallis, or anyone else who studies mathematics only to gain preferment, should convert his study to juggling, conjuring and deciphering when his ignorance is discovered. According to Mr Hobbes, Dr Wallis is only esteemed in the universities because those who defended his geometry are too ashamed to recant.
I asked Mr Hobbes if he thought it possible to teach a man born deaf and dumb to speak. He answers me no: it is impossible. He says he is assured that a man born absolutely deaf must of necessity be made to hear before he can be made to speak.
. . .
In Oxford
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, Gloucester Hall, I am told, is in a terrible state. Not one student matriculated there these past four years, and only the incumbent Principal (Byrom Eaton) and his family and two or three other families living there keep some part of it from ruin. The paths are overgrown with grass and the hall and chapel have been nailed up with boards this year.
. . .
22 April
I dined
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with Sir John Hoskyns and Mr Hooke.
. . .
May
I have been misdirecting
35
my letters to my friend George Ent: I have been sending them to The Crown, instead of The Rose! He has written to say he is hoping for my company when he comes to London in a week’s time. He tells me that the University treasury is low, and so are Trinity College’s coffers, on account of their building projects, but he believes Queens’ or Emmanuel or some other Cambridge college might purchase Lady Dodington’s medals.
My friend Andrew Paschall
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, so far as his rusticated life permits, is studying the natural way of making and learning a language, on different lines from the Bishop of Sarum. I am grateful to him for his kindness to my mother, whom he writes to and visits.
John Ray tells me
37
he took up the study of plants only as a diversion, but since he is not qualified to serve God in his proper function – divinity is his profession, but he has not undertaken it for sixteen years – he has bestowed a good proportion of his time upon plants and has no thoughts of parting with any of his books on botany. In 1662, he forfeited his Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, because he could not accept the terms of the Act of Uniformity, which prescribed the form of the public prayers and sacraments of the Church of England. Even so, he has remained a loyal member of the Church of England. At Trinity he had a small garden, planted with specimens that he had collected on his long walks in the Cambridgeshire countryside, or else had sent to him. His first botanising perambulation outside Cambridgeshire was to Northampton, Warwick and north Wales in 1658. Since then he has travelled north as far as Scotland and visited many places of antiquarian interest while searching for plants.