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.

  • Aubrey, John, 1626-1697.
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.

    441/460 (page 417)
    memorie. At . . . yeares old, he went to Winton schole, where he was the flower of his time. I remember I have heard that one time he had not made his exercise (verse) and spake to one of his forme to shew him his, which he sawe. The schoolmaster presently calles for the exercises, and Hoskyns told him that he had writ it out but lost it, but he could repeate it, and repeated the other boye’s exercise (I think 1% or 16 verses) only at once reading over. When the boy who really had made them shewed the master the same, and could not repeate them, he was whipped for stealing Hoskyns’ exercise. I thinke John Owen3 and he were schoole-fellowes. There were many pretty stories of him when a schooleboy, which I have forgott. I have heard his son say that he was a yeare at Westminster ; and not speeding there, he was sent to Winton. The Latin verses in the quadrangle at Winton Colledge at the cocks where the boyes wash their hands, were of his making, where there is the picture a of a good servant, with hind’s feet, . . . head, a padlock on his lippes, . . . The Latin verses describe the properties of a good servant. When he came to New College, he was Terrae filius\ but he was so bitterly satyricall that he was expelled and putt to his shifts. He went into Somersetshire and taught a schole for about a yeare at Ilchester. He compiled there a Greeke lexicon as far as M, which I have seen. He maried (neer there) a rich widowe, [of Mr. Bourne] ; she was a Moyle of Kent; by whome he had only one sonne and one daughter. [After b his mariage] he admitted himselfe at the Middle Temple, London. He wore good cloathes, and kept good company. His excellent witt gave him letters of com- mendacion to all ingeniose persons. At his * first comeing to London he gott acquainted with the under-secretaries at court, where he was often usefull to them in writing their Latin letters. His great witt quickly made him be taken notice of, a Dupl. with ‘emblem.’ b Scored out.