John Aubrey: My Own Life (39 page)

. . .

I have had
³⁸
such a good time in Oxford with my lady friend and ingenious company. Thomas Pigott would not be parted from us and even came to see us off on the coach at Abingdon.

. . .

The great lover
³⁹
of antiquities, Silas Taylor, has died. During his lifetime he accumulated many rare manuscripts, including those of the Church of Hereford and the Church of Worcester. Among them was King Edgar’s original grant of the right to the sovereignty of the sea to the Kings of England. There is a printed copy in Mr Selden’s
Mare Clausum
. I have seen the original many times and it is as legible as if it was writ yesterday. Mr Silas Taylor tried to sell it to the King for 120 li., but the King would not pay so much. Now that Silas Taylor has died a debtor, I fear his creditors will seize on his papers and belongings and this precious manuscript will end up being used to wrap herrings!

. . .

June

Yesterday on the Exchange
⁴⁰
it was reported that in the Roman Catholic countries there is a group of devotes that go up and down begging for money to make war on England: they have got about two million so far. They wear crosses and a crown of thorns on their heads.

. . .

I have heard
⁴¹
that my old friend Francis Potter has died. He died between Easter and Whitsuntide on 22 April. He will be buried in the chancel at Kilmington where he was rector. His books have been sold for under 3 li. In Trinity College, Oxford, he will be remembered for the sundial he made on the north wall of Durham Quad and his copy of the portrait of the college’s founder, Thomas Pope, which hangs in the hall.

. . .

Andrew Paschall has had an idea
⁴²
for promoting the Real Character. He suggests that sheets displaying tables of plants, with their names given in the Real Character, could be illustrated to hang in greenhouses like maps; the same for shrubs, trees, minerals and stones, insects, animals; also in pocket book size. This would be a clever way of getting the Real Character taken notice of.

. . .

4 July

Today I presented
⁴³
the herb called
terrara
to the Royal Society. It was brought over from Carolina by Sir Peter Colleton, and grown here in Mr Johnson’s garden: it is the best antidote against all manner of poisons. Its virtues were a great secret among the Indians, until someone who married an Indian king’s daughter discovered it. It is mentioned in the history of the Antilles, where it is called
herbe aux flesches
.

I also related an anecdote about a man whose feet rotted off from wearing shoes that had been taken off a malefactor’s feet after he had rotted.

. . .

Thomas Pigott tells me
⁴⁴
that learned Dr Morison has talked to him of the Italian botanists Ambrosinus and Zeno, and shown him plates in Zeno’s book.

. . .

Andrew Paschall has sent me
⁴⁵
an elaborate draft of his design for the table of plants. It sets out each separate part of the plant, botanical classifications, etc. The plant names are to be in several languages, in distinct columns. He asks me to assure Mr Lodwick that his proposals are intended to agree with the framework for the Real Character set out by the Bishop of Sarum. Mr Paschall has no ambition to be the author of a schism.

. . .

Mr Evelyn has been
⁴⁶
to see Mr Ashmole’s library and collection of curiosities at South Lambeth. Mr Ashmole has many astrological manuscripts and is dedicated to the study of astrology.

. . .

September

I leave now for a few days in Oxford, where Mr Sheldon will send a horse for me, and I will travel on to his house at Weston, where Mr Wood has been staying and cataloguing his library.

I have promised
⁴⁷
to help Mr Wood by searching the register for the burial of John Milton. I have also encouraged him not to forget to mention Mr Wenceslaus Hollar, who so much obliged the world with his etchings and deserves to be remembered: he lies buried in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster.

When I went to see
⁴⁸
Mr Milton’s widow, she assured me that Mr Thomas Hobbes was not one of her late husband’s acquaintances, that he did not like Mr Hobbes at all, but would acknowledge him to be a man of great parts and learned. Their interests and tenets were diametrically opposed.

. . .

Titus Oates, who was received into the Roman Catholic Church on Ash Wednesday last year, has accused the Jesuits of plotting to set fire to the City of London, murder the King and conquer England by Irish and French arms. The world runs madding.

Titus Oates now claims that he became a Roman Catholic only to spy on the Jesuits. Together with Israel Tonge, he wrote a manuscript outlining a Jesuit plot to assassinate the King. Today he was questioned by the King’s Council and made allegations against over 500 Roman Catholic priests and nobles. Close members of the Duchess of York’s circle are among those he has named. He has launched a public campaign against the ‘Papists’.

. . .

12 October, Weston

Mr Sheldon’s house
⁴⁹
has been searched today for arms by six men under the command of Sir Thomas Mordant, who is investigating the alleged Papist Plot, revealed by Titus Oates.

I will ask Mr Wood to lend me some money so that I can go straight back to London and stay out of the way of trouble.

. . .

15 October

Mr Wood agreed
⁵⁰
to lend me 3s. 6d: I will pay him back through his brother, whom I will meet at Staple Inn when he is next in London.

. . .

19 October

Mr Hooke and I watched the eclipse of the moon.

. . .

November

Mr Pigott tells me
⁵¹
in his letter that every corner of Oxford is now full of rumours about the Papist Plot, so much so that other discourses seem silenced. Plots, policies and rumours in these troublesome and disordered times take away all thoughts of learning.

. . .

22 November

My old friend from Trinity, Thomas Mariett, now High Sheriff of Warwickshire, has gone to Weston with a warrant from the Privy Council and arrested Mr Sheldon, who has been taken to Warwick Gaol.

. . .

Titus Oates claims that the Queen is working with the King’s Physician to poison His Majesty. The King will question Titus Oates himself.

. . .

The King has ordered the arrest of Titus Oates, whom he has caught out under questioning.

. . .

The Parliament has forced the release of Titus Oates. He is to be given an apartment in Whitehall and an annual allowance of 1,200 li.

. . .

Together with the future
⁵²
Earl of Pembroke, I have been chosen to inspect the proceedings of the Royal Society’s Secretaries.

. . .

5 December

Today I left
⁵³
some books for Mr Wood at the Saracen’s Head, including Mr Hobbes’s
Leviathan
.

. . .

Anno 1679

January

I sent Mr William Howe
⁵⁴
the almanac of the Royal Society last year. He is sailing to Persia, from where he has promised me seeds and shells, and any rarities he finds on his travels. He says the Congo is not so pleasant a place as I believe it to be, but a trading seaport, which is barren and sandy. It is true that there are all sorts of fruit to be got there, but they are brought from elsewhere in the country. How I wish I were travelling with him.

. . .

27 January

Fire broke out in Middle Temple Lane last night and many of Mr Ashmole’s collections have been burnt. His large paper book of faces, and another of marriage ceremonies and funerals, etc. are lost, along with all his subterranean antiquities and curiosities of nature. Some 9,000 brass, copper and silver coins and medals are missing or defaced. Mr Ashmole will spare no pains to rescue what he can from the ash.

. . .

I join Mr Wood
⁵⁵
in his lament for Mr Ashmole’s collections: ‘His losses are ours!’ Before they burnt, those rarities were destined for Oxford.

. . .

The Commons have concluded that Papists started the fire in Middle Temple Lane, but others say it was a maidservant who lit a fire and went away.

. . .

February

Mr Crooke tells me
⁵⁶
there is competition for the printing of Mr Hobbes’s life.

. . .

March

I have sent Mr Hobbes
⁵⁷
Sir George Ent’s book on respiration. I sent it via Mr William Crooke’s shop, and Mr Hobbes writes back to me the same way. My friend George Ent, son of Sir George, is seriously ill.

. . .

20 March

I was at Jonathan’s coffee house
⁵⁸
, which is next door to Garraway’s in Exchange Alley, with Sir John Hoskyns and Mr Hooke.

. . .

25 March

I was at Jonathan’s coffee house again
⁵⁹
, but was expelled with Mr Wylde and Mr Sacwill.

. . .

At the Royal Society
⁶⁰
there has been further discussion of printing all Roger Bacon’s works together, but before that can be done, it is necessary to find what writings of his are dispersed in private libraries. His
Computus Naturalium
is in the library of University College in Oxford, for example, but not in the Bodleian. I am to ask Mr Wood to send the Society a copy of the catalogue of Bacon’s works that he included in his English edition of the Antiquaries of Oxford (which I have seen, even though it has yet to be printed).

. . .

2 April

I went to Child’s
⁶¹
coffee house this evening and saw Sir John Hoskyns, Mr Lodwick and Mr Hooke.

. . .

Often, as I lie
⁶²
in bed, I chide myself when I consider how much time Mr Wylde and I waste. I grow lethargic.

. . .

I dream often of my friend Ralph Sheldon’s house in Weston.

. . .

Last night I decided that the scurrilous satirical pamphlet against Mr Pepys and his colleague Mr Hewer,
The Hue and Cry
, is one of the pleasantest things that I have ever read and nothing could more fit me. The pamphlet accuses them of coining money, selling jobs and licences and taking bribes. Mr Hooke and I laughed at it heartily.

. . .

Robert Pugh, the Roman Catholic controversialist, died in Newgate on 22 January, and is buried in Christ Church. I have found out that his (nearly finished) treatise on the several states and governments that there have been in this country since the Troubles is in the Earl of Castlemaine’s hands; all his other works, including the almanac, were seized.

I am told
⁶³
that when his study was searched, his orders were there found and also a letter from the Queen Mother (whose confessor he had sometimes been) to the King to the effect that if he should fall into any danger of the law, upon sight of that letter he should have His Majesty’s pardon.

. . .

11 April

My lord the Earl
⁶⁴
of Thanet has invited me to call on him tomorrow morning for a little business, followed by a dish of meat and a bottle of most excellent Portugal wine.

. . .

12 April

At Jonathan’s
⁶⁵
coffee house, Mr Wylde and I discussed buildings with Mr Hooke.

. . .

My friend Mr Thomas Pigott
⁶⁶
claims the temptation of enjoying my company will attract him to London towards the end of May unless, still better, I visit him in Oxford. He writes to say he would be very glad to hear of the Bishop of Sarum’s design for the Universal Character and Mr Hooke’s and Mr Paschall’s amendments, and what reception his letter to Mr Lodwick had had among them.

But alas, he informs me that my poor former-servant Robert Wiseman died some time ago. Mr Pigott helped carry him to the grave and is much afflicted by grief, as am I.

. . .

May Day

Today Mr Michael Dary
⁶⁷
, mathematician and a gunner of the Tower (by profession a tobacco-cutter), was buried in the churchyard near Bethlem. He was an old man, I guess over sixty-six, and an admirable algebrician. This past winter was so severe that he got gangrene in his fingers and they rotted from writing in the frosty weather.

. . .

15 May

On this day
⁶⁸
the foundation stone for a new building in Oxford to house Mr Ashmole’s collection of rarities was laid next to Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre. Mr Ashmole’s collection includes that of the Tradescants of South Lambeth, which was assigned to him by Deed of Gift in 1659. He has agreed to donate all to the University, on the condition of the new building being completed. His intention in founding a public museum is to further knowledge of nature – necessary to human life, health and convenience – by promoting understanding of the history of nature. He hopes in this way to contribute to the development of medicine, manufacture and trade. Mr Evelyn has suggested to Mr Ashmole that Dr Plot would be a fit and proper appointment as the first keeper of the new museum when it is ready.