Volume 1

'Brief Lives', chiefly of Contemporaries, set down by John Aubrey, between the years 1669 & 1696. / Edited from the author's mss. by Andrew Clark.

  • John Aubrey
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: 'Brief Lives', chiefly of Contemporaries, set down by John Aubrey, between the years 1669 & 1696. / Edited from the author's mss. by Andrew Clark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    ship a between us) the trueth, and, as neer as I can and that religiously as a poenitent to his confessor, nothing but the trueth: the naked and plaine trueth, which is here exposed so bare that the very pudenda are not covered b, and affords many passages that would raise a blush in a young virgin’s0 cheeke. So that after your perusall, I must desire you to make a castration (as Raderusd to Martial) and to sowe-on some figge-leaves—i. e., to be my Index expurgatorius. What uncertainty doe we find in printed histories? they either treading too neer on the heeles of trueth that they dare not speake plaine, or els for want of in- telligence (things being antiquated) become too obscure and darke! I doe not here repeat any thing already published (to the best of my remembrance) and I fancy my selfe all along discourseing with you; alledgeing those of my relations and acquaintance (as either you knew or have heerd of) ad faciendam fidem : so that you make me to renew my acquaintance with my old and deceased friends, and to rejuvenescere (as it were) which is the pleasure of old men. ’Tis pitty that such minutes had not been taken ioo yeares since or more: for want wherof many worthy men’s names and notionse are swallowd-up in oblivion ; as much of these also would [havef been], had it not been through your instigation: and perhaps this is one of the usefullest pieces g that I have scribbeld. I remember one sayeing of generall Lambert’s, that “ the a Aubrey cites in the margin :— ‘Utrumque nostrum admirabili modo Consentit astrum. Horat. lib. 2, ode 17: Nescio quod certe est, quod me tibi temperet, astrum. Pers. Sat. v. v. 50 ’; and adds the date in the margin ‘ 1665 ’; but according to Wood, 1667 was the date of their first acquaintance (Clark’s Wood’s Life and Times, ii. 116). b Dupl. with ‘ hid.’ c Subst. for ‘girle’s.’ d Matth. Raderi ‘novi commentt.’ were published in 1602, and later editions. e Dupl. with ‘inventions.’ 1 ‘ Have been ’ is scored out. s Subst. for ‘ things.’