In Wiley river are otters, and perhaps in others. The otter is our English bever; and Mr. Meredith Lloyd saies that in the river Tivy in Carmarthenshire there were real bevers heretofore - now extinct. Dr. Powell, in his History of Wales, speakes of it. They are both alike; fine furred, and their tayles like a fish. (The otter hath a hairy round tail, not like the beavers. - J. RAY.) ___________________________________
I come now to warrens. That at Auburn is our famous coney-warren; and the conies there are the best, sweetest, and fattest of any in England; a short, thick coney, and exceeding fatt The grasse there is very short, and burnt up in the hot weather. 'Tis a saying, that conies doe love rost-meat. ___________________________________
Mr. Wace's notes, p. 62.- "We have no wild boares in England: yet it may be thought that heretofore we had, and did not think it convenient to preserve this game". But King Charles I. sent for some out of France, and putt them in the New Forest, where they much encreased, and became terrible to the travellers. In the civill warres they were destroyed, but they have tainted all the breed of the pigges of the neighbouring partes, which are of their colour; a kind of soot colour.
(There were wild boars in a forest in Essex formerly. I sent a Portugal boar and sow to Wotton in Surrey, which greatly increased; but they digged the earth so up, and did such spoyle, that the country would not endure it: but they made incomparable bacon.- J. EVELYN.) ___________________________________
In warrens are found, but rarely, some old stotes, quite white: that is, they are ermins. My keeper of Vernditch warren hath shewn two or three of them to me.
At Everley is a great warren for hares; and also in Bishopston parish neer Wilton is another, where the standing is to see the race; and an°. 1682 the Right Honble James, Earle of Abingdon, made another at West Lavington. ___________________________________
Having done now with beastes of venerum, I will come to dogges. The British dogges were in great esteeme in the time of the Romans; as appeares by Gratius, who lived in Augustus Caesar's time, and Oppian, who wrote about two ages after Gratius, in imitation of him. "Gratii Cynegeticon", translated by Mr. Chr. Wace, 1654:-
"What if the Belgique current you should view,And steer your course to Britain's utmost shore'!Though not for shape, and much deceiving show,The British hounds no other blemish know:When fierce work comes, and courage must he shown,And Mars to extreme combat leads them on,Then stout Molossians you will lesse commend;With Athemaneans these in craft contend."___________________________________
It is certain that no county of England had greater variety of game, &c. than Wiltshire, and our county hounds were as good, or rather the best of England; but within this last century the breed is much mix't with northern hounds. Sir Charles Snell, of Kington St. Michael, who was my honoured friend and neighbour, had till the civill warrs as good hounds for the hare as any were in England, for handsomenesse and mouth (deep-mouthed) and goodnesse, and suited one another admirably well. But it was the Right Hon. Philip I. Earle of Pembroke, that was the great hunter. It was in his lordship's time, sc. tempore Jacobi I. and Caroli I. a serene calme of peace, that hunting was at its greatest heighth that ever was in this nation. The Roman governours had not, I thinke, that leisure. The Saxons were never at quiet; and the barons' warres, and those of York and Lancaster, took up the greatest part of the time since the Conquest: so that the glory of the English hunting breath'd its last with this Earle, who deceased about 1644, and shortly after the forests and parkes were sold and converted into arable, &c. 'Twas after his lordship's decease [1650] that I was a hunter; that is to say, with the Right Honourable William, Lord Herbert, of Cardiff, the aforesaid Philip's grandson. Mr. Chr. Wace then taught him Latin, and hunted with him; and 'twas then that he translated Gratii Cynegeticon, and dedicated it to his lordship, which will be a lasting monument for him. Sir Jo. Denham was at Wilton at that time about a twelve moneth. ___________________________________
The Wiltshire greyhounds were also the best of England, and are still; and my father and I have had as good as any were in our times in Wiltshire. They are generally of a fallow colour, or black; but Mr. Button's, of Shirburn in Glocestershire, are some white and some black. But Gratius, in his Cynegeticon, adviseth:-
"And chuse the grayhound py'd with black and white,He runs more swift than thought, or winged flight;But courseth yet in view, not hunts in traile,In which the quick Petronians never faile."
We also had in this county as good tumblers as anywhere in the nation.Martial speakes of the tumblers:-
"Non sibi sed domino venatur vertagus acer,Illæsum leporem qui tibi dente feret" -
Turnebus, Young, Gerard, Vossius, and Janus Ulitius, all consenting that the name and dog came together from Gallia Belgica. Dr. Caldicot told me that in Wilton library there was a Latine poeme (a manuscript), wrote about Julius Caesar's time, where was mention of tumblers, and that they were found no where but in Britaine. I ask'd him if 'twas not Gratius; he told me no. Quaere, Mr. Chr. Wace, if he remembers any such thing? The books are now most lost and gonne: perhaps 'twas Martial.
Very good horses for the coach are bought out of the teemes in our hill-countrey. Warminster market is much used upon this account. ___________________________________
I have not seen so many pied cattle any where as in North Wiltshire. The country hereabout is much inclined to pied cattle, but commonly the colour is black or brown, or deep red. Some cow-stealers will make a hole in a hott lofe newly drawn out of the oven, and putt it on an oxes horn for a convenient tune, and then they can turn their softned homes the contrary way, so that the owner cannot swear to his own beast. Not long before the King's restauration a fellow was hanged at Tyburn for this, and say'd that he had never come thither if he had not heard it spoken of in a sermon. Thought he, I will try this trick.
HUNGERFORD trowtes are very much celebrated, and there are also good ones at Marleborough and at Ramesbury. In the gravelly stream at Slaughtenford are excellent troutes; but, though I say it, there are none better in England than at Nawle, which is the source of the streame of Broad Chalke, a mile above it; but half a mile below Chalke, they are not so good. King Charles I. loved a trout above all fresh fish; and when he came to Wilton, as he commonly did every summer, the Earle of Pembroke was wont to send for these trowtes for his majesties eating. ___________________________________
The eeles at Marleborough are incomparable; silver eeles, truly almost as good as a trout. In ye last great frost, 168-, when the Thames was frozen over, there were as many eeles killed by frost at the poole at the hermitage at Broad Chalke as would fill a coule; and when they were found dead, they were all curled up like cables. ["Coul, a tub or vessel with two ears." Bailey's Dictionary.-J. B.] ___________________________________
Umbers are in the river Nadder, and so to Christ Church; but the late improvement of drowning the meadowes hath made them scarce. They are only in the river Humber besides. [Aubrey's friend, Sir James Long, mentions these fish as "graylings, or umbers". They are best known by the former name. Dr. Maton states that they are still to be found in the Avon, at Downton, where Walton speaks of them as being caught in his time. Mr. Hatcher says that "the umber abounds in the waters between Wilton and Salisbury". (History of Salisbury, p. 689.)-J. B.] ___________________________________
Crafish are very plenty at Salisbury; but the chiefest places for themHungerford and Newbury: they are also at Ramesbury, and in the Avon atChippenham.
"Greeke, carps, turkey-cocks, and beere,Came into England all in a yeare."
In the North Avon are sometimes taken carpes which are extraordinary good. [Besides giving "the best way of dressing a carpe", Aubrey has annexed to his original manuscript a piece of paper, within the folds of which is inclosed a small bone. The paper bears the following inscription: "1660. The bone found in the head of a carpe. Vide Schroderi. It is a good medicine for the apoplexie or falling sickness; I forget whether." Aubrey's reference is to "Zoology; or the History of Animals, as they are useful in Physic and Chirurgery"; by John Schroderus, M.D. of Francfort Done into English by T. Bateson. London, 1659, 8vo.
When a boy I caught many of these fish in the pond at Kington St. Michael, both by angling and by baiting three or four hooks at the end of a piece of string and leaving them in the water all night. In the morning I have found two, and sometimes three, large fish captured. On one occasion "Squire White", the proprietor of the estate, discharged his gun, apparently at me, to deter me from this act of poaching and trespassing. - J. B.] ___________________________________
As for ponds, we cannot boast much of them; the biggest is that in Bradon Forest. There is a fair pond at West Lavington which was made by Sir John Danvers. At Draycot Cerne the ponds are not great, but the carpes very good, and free from muddinesse. In Wardour Parke is a stately pond; at Wilton and Longleat two noble canals and severall small ponds; and in the parke at Kington St. Michael are several ponds in traine. [The latter ponds are supplied by two springs in the immediate vicinity, forming one of the tributaries of the Avon. The stream abounds with trout, many of which I have caught at the end of the summer season, by laving out the water from the deeper holes. - J. B.] ___________________________________
Tenches are common. Loches are in the Upper Avon at Amesbury. Very good perches in the North Avon, but none in the Upper Avon. Salmons are sometimes taken in the Upper Avon, rarely, at Harnham Bridge juxta Sarum. [On the authority of this passage, Dr. Maton includes the salmon among the Wiltshire fish; but he adds, "I know no person now living who has ascertained its having ascended the Avon so far as Salisbury." Hatcher's Hist, of Salisbury, p. 689.-J. B.] ___________________________________
Good pikes, roches, and daces in both the Avons. In the river Avon at Malmesbury are lamprills (resembling lampreis) in knotts: they are but….. inches long. They use them for baytes; and they squeeze these knotts together and make little kind of cheeses of them for eating.
WE have great plenty of larkes, and very good ones, especially in Golem-fields and those parts adjoyning to Coteswold. They take them by alluring them with a dareing-glasse,* which is whirled about in a sun- shining day, and the larkes are pleased at it, and strike at it, as at a sheepe's eye, and at that time the nett is drawn over them. While he playes with his glasse he whistles with his larke-call of silver, a tympanum of about the diameter of a threepence. In the south part of Wiltshire they doe not use dareing-glasses but catch these pretty ætheriall birds with trammolls.
* ["Let his grace go forward, and dare us with his cap like larks."- Shakspere, Henry VIII. Act iii. sc. 2.]
The buntings doe accompany the larkes. Linnets on the downes.Woodpeckers severall sorts: many in North Wilts.
Sir Bennet Hoskins, Baronet, told me that his keeper at his parke at Morehampton in Hereford-shire, did, for experiment sake, drive an iron naile thwert the hole of the woodpecker's nest, there being a tradition that the damme will bring some leafe to open it. He layed at the bottome of the tree a cleane sheet, and before many houres passed the naile came out, and he found a leafe lying by it on the sheete. Quaere the shape or figure of the leafe. They say the moone-wort will doe such things. This experiment may easily be tryed again. As Sir Walter Raleigh saies, there are stranger things to be seen in the world than are between London and Stanes. [This is the "story" which Ray, in the letter printed in page 8, justly describes as, "without doubt, a fable." - J. B.]
In Sir James Long's parke at Draycot Cerne are some wheat-eares; and on come warrens and downes, but not in great plenty. Sussex doth most abound with these. It is a great delicacie, and they are little lumps of fatt.
On Salisbury plaines, especially about Stonehenge, are bustards. They are also in the fields above Lavington: they doe not often come to Chalke. (Many about Newmarket, and sometimes cranes. J. EVELYN.) [In the "Penny Cyclopaedia" are many interesting particulars of the bustard, and in Hoare's "Ancient Wiltshire, vol. i. p. 94, there is an account of two of these birds which were seen near Warminster in the summer of 1801; since when the bustard has not been seen in the county.-J. B.]
On Salisbury plaines are gray crowes, as at Royston. [These are now met with on the Marlborough downs.- J. B.]
" Like Royston crowes, where, as a man may say,Are friars of both the orders, black and gray."- J. CLEVELAND'S POEMS.
'Tis certain that the rookes of the Inner Temple did not build their nests in the garden to breed in the spring before the plague, 1665; but in the spring following they did.
Feasants were brought Into Europe from about the Caspian sea. There are no pheasants in Spaine, nor doe I heare of any in Italy. Capt. Hen. Bertie, the Earle of Abingdon's brother, when he was in Italy, was at the great Duke of Tuscany's court entertained with all the rarities that the country afforded, but he sawe no pheasants. Mr. Wyld Clarke, factor fifteen yeares in Barberie, affirmes there are none there. Sir John Mordaunt, who had a command at Tangier twenty-five yeares, and had been some time governour there, a great lover of field sports, affirmes that there are no pheasants in Africa or Spaine. [See Ray's Letter to Aubrey, ante, page 8.] ___________________________________
Bitterns in the breaches at Allington, &c. Herons bred heretofore, sc. about 1580, at Easton- Piers, before the great oakes were felled down neer the mannour-house; and they doe still breed in Farleigh Parke. An eirie of sparrow-hawkes at the parke at Kington St. Michael. The hobbies doe goe away at….. and return at the spring. Quære Sir James Long, if any other hawkes doe the like? ___________________________________
Ganders are vivacious animals. Farmer Ady of Segary had a gander that was fifty yeares old, which the soldiers killed. He and his gander were both of the same age. (A goose is now living, anno 1757, at Hagley hall in Worcestershire, full fifty yeares old. MS. NOTE.)
Sea-mewes. Plentie of them at Colern-downe; elsewhere in Wiltshire I doe not remember any. There are presages of weather made by them. [Instead of "presages of weather," the writer would have been more accurate if he had said that when "sea-mewes," or other birds of the ocean, are seen so far inland as Colern, at least twenty miles from the sea, they indicate stormy weather in their natural element. - J. B.]-Virgil's Georgics, lib. i. Englished by Mr. T. May:-
"The seas are ill to sailors evermoreWhen cormorants fly crying to the shore;From the mid-sea when sea-fowl pastime makeUpon dry land; when herns the ponds forsake,And, mounted on their wings, doe fly aloft."
[THIS Chapter contains several extraordinary recipes for medicines to be compounded in various ways from insects and reptiles. As a specimen one of them may he referred to which begins as follows:-"Calcinatio Bufonum. R. Twenty great fatt toades; in May they are the best; putt them alive in a pipkin; cover it, make a fire round it to the top; let them stay on the fire till they make no noise," &c. &c. Aubrey says that Dr. Thomas Willis mentions this medicine in his tractat De Febribus, and describes it as a special remedy for the plague and other diseases.-J. B.]
No snakes or adders at Chalke, and toades very few: the nitre in the chalke is inimique to them. No snakes or adders at Harcot-woods belonging to — Gawen, Esq.; but in the woods of Compton Chamberleyn adjoyning they are plenty. At South Wraxhall and at Colern Parke, and so to Mouncton-Farley, are adders.
In Sir James Long's parke at Draycot-Cerne are grey lizards; and no question in other places if they were look't after; but people take them for newts. They are of that family. About anno 1686 a boy lyeing asleep in a garden felt something dart down his throat, which killed him: 'tis probable 'twas a little newt. They are exceeding nimble: they call them swifts at Newmarket Heath. When I was a boy a young fellow slept on the grasse: after he awak't, happening to putt his hand in his pocket, something bitt him by the top of his finger: he shak't it suddenly off so that he could not perfectly discerne it. The biteing was so venomous that it overcame all help, and he died in a few hours:-
"Virus edax superabat opera: penituaq{ue} receptumOssibus, et toto corpore pestis erat."- OVID. FASTOR.
Sir George Ent, M.D. had a tenant neer Cambridge that was stung with an adder. He happened not to dye, but was spotted all over. One at Knahill in Wilts, a neighbour of Dr. Wren's, was stung, and it turned to a leprosy. (From Sr. Chr. Wren.)
At Neston Parke (Col. W. Eire's) in Cosham parish are huge snakes, an ell long; and about the Devises snakes doe abound.
Toades are plentifull in North Wiltshire: but few in the chalkie countreys. In sawing of an ash 2 foot + square, of Mr. Saintlowe's, at Knighton in Chalke parish, was found a live toade about 1656; the sawe cutt him asunder, and the bloud came on the under-sawyer's hand: he thought at first the upper-sawyer had cutt his hand. Toades are oftentimes found in the milstones of Darbyshire. ___________________________________
Snailes are everywhere; but upon our downes, and so in Dorset, and I believe in Hampshire, at such degree east and west, in the summer time are abundance of very small snailes on the grasse and come, not much bigger, or no bigger than small pinnes heads. Though this is no strange thing among us, yet they are not to be found in the north part of Wilts, nor on any northern wolds. When I had the honour to waite on King Charles I.* and the Duke of York to the top of Silbury hill, his Royal Highnesse happened to cast his eye on some of these small snailes on the turfe of the hill. He was surprised with the novelty, and commanded me to pick some up, which I did, about a dozen or more, immediately; for they are in great abundance. The next morning as he was abed with his Dutches at Bath he told her of it, and sent Dr. Charleton to me for them, to shew her as a rarity.
* [This should be "Charles II." who visited Avebury and Silbury Hill, in company with his brother, afterwards James II., in the autumn of the year 1663, when Aubrey attended them by the King's command. See his account of the royal visit, in the Memoir of Aubrey, 4to. 1845. - J. B.] ___________________________________
In the peacefull raigne of King James I. the Parliament made an act for provision of rooke-netts and catching crows to be given in charge of court-barons, which is by the stewards observed, but I never knew the execution of it. I have heard knowing countreymen affirme that rooke-wormes, which the crows and rookes doe devour at sowing time, doe turne to chafers, which I think are our English locusts: and some yeares wee have such fearfull armies of them that they devour all manner of green things; and if the crowes did not destroy these wormes, it would oftentimes happen. Parliaments are not infallible, and some thinke they were out in this bill. ___________________________________
Bees. Hampshire has the name for the best honey of England, and also the worst; sc. the forest honey: but the south part of Wiltshire having much the like turfe must afford as good, or little inferiour to it. 'Tis pitty these profitable insects should loose their lives for their industry.
"Flebat Aristæus, quod Apes cum stirpe necatasViderat incoeptos destituisse favos."-OVID. FAST. lib. i.
A plaster of honey effectually helpeth a bruise. (From Mr. Francis Potter, B. D., of Kilmanton.) It seemes to be a rational medicine: for honey is the extraction of the choicest medicinal flowers.
Mr. Butler of Basingstoke, in Hampshire, who wrote a booke of Bees, had a daughter he called his honey-girle; to whom, when she was born, he gave certain stocks of bees; the product of which when she came to be married, was 400li. portion. (From — Boreman, of Kingston-upon- Thames, D.D.)
Mr. Harvey, at Newcastle, gott 80li. per annum by bees. (I thinke Varro somewhere writes that in Spaine two brothers got almost as much yearly by them.- J. EVELYN.) Desire of Mr. Hook, R.S.S. a copie of the modelle of his excellent bee-hive, March 1684-5; better than any yet known. See Mr. J. Houghton's Collections, No. 1683, June, where he hath a good modelle of a bee-hive, pag. 166. Mr. Paschal hath an ingeniouse contrivance for bees at Chedsey; sc. they are brought into his house. Bee-hive at Wadham College, Oxon; see Dr. Plott's Oxfordshire, p. 263.
Heretofore, before our plantations in America, and consequently before the use of sugar, they sweetened their [drink, &c.] with honey; as wee doe now with sugar. The name of honey-soppes yet remaines, but the use is almost worne out. (At Queen's College, Oxon, the cook treats the whole hall with honey-sops on Good Friday at dinner. - BISHOP TANNER.) Now, 1686, since the great increase of planting of sugar-canes in the Barbados, &c. sugar is but one third of the price it was at thirty yeares since. In the time of the Roman Catholique religion, when a world of wax candles were used in the churches, bees-wax was a considerable commodity.
To make Metheglyn:-(from Mistress Hatchman. This receipt makes good Metheglyn; I thinke as good as the Devises). Allow to every quart of honey a gallon of water; and when the honey is dissolved, trie if it will beare an egg to the breadth of three pence above the liquor; or if you will have it stronger putt in more honey. Then set it on the fire, and when the froth comes on the toppe of it, skimme it cleane; then crack eight or ten hen-egges and putt in the liquor to cleare it: two or three handfulls of sweet bryar, and so much of muscovie, and sweet marjoram the like quantity; some doe put sweet cis, or if you please put in a little of orris root. Boyle all these untill the egges begin to look black, (these egges may be enough for a hoggeshead,) then straine it forth through a fine sieve into a vessell to coole; the next day tunne it up in a barrell, and when it hath workt itself cleare, which will be in about a weeke's time, stop it up very close, and if you make it strong enough, sc. to carry the breadth of a sixpence, it will keep a yeare. This receipt is something neer that of Mr. Thorn. Piers of the Devises, the great Metheglyn-maker. Metheglyn is a pretty considerable manufacture in this towne time out of mind. I doe believe that a quantity of mountain thyme would be a very proper ingredient; for it is most wholesome and fragrant [Aubrey also gives another "receipt to make white metheglyn," which he obtained "from old Sir Edward Baynton, 1640." I have seen this old English beverage made by my grandmother, as here described.-J. B.]
Mr. Francis Potter, Rector of Kilmanton, did sett a hive of bees in one of the lances of a paire of scales in a little closet, and found that in summer dayes they gathered about halfe a pound a day; and one day, which he conceived was a honey-dew, they gathered three pounds wanting a quarter. The hive would be something lighter in the morning than at night. Also he tooke five live bees and putt them in a paper, which he did cutt like a grate, and weighed them, and in an hower or two they would wast the weight of three or four wheatcornes. He bids me observe their thighes in a microscope. (Upon the Brenta river, by Padua in Italy, they have hives of bees in open boates; the bees goe out to feed and gather till the honey-dews are spent neer the boate; and then the bee master rows the boate to a fresh place, and by the sinking of the boate knows when to take the honey, &c.- J. EVELYN.)
[THE following instances of remarkable longevity, monstrous births, &c. will suffice to shew the nature of this Chapter. It must be admitted that its contents are unimportant except as matters of curious speculation, and as connected with the several localities referred to.-J. B.]
'Salisbury PlainNever without a thief or twain.'
As to the temper and complexion of the men and woemen, I have spoken before in the Prolegomena.
As to longæevity, good aire and water doe conduce to it: but the inhabitants are also to tread on dry earth; not nitrous or vitriolate, that hurts the nerves. South and North Wiltshire are wett and dampish soiles. The stone walles in the vale here doe also cast a great and unwholsome dampe. Eighty-four or eighty-five is the age the inhabitants doe rarely exceed. But I have heard my worthy friend George Johnson of Bowdon, Esq., one of the judges in North Wales, say that he did observe in his circuit, sc. Montgomery, Flint, and Denbigh, that men lived there as commonly to an hundred yeares as with us to eighty. Mr. Meredith Lloyd hath seen at Dolkelly, a great parish in Merionithshire, an hundred or more of poore people at eighty yeares of age at church in a morning, who came thither bare-foot and bare-legged a good way. In the chancell of Winterborn Basset lies interred Mr. Ambrose Brown, who died 166-,aged 103 yeares. Old goodwife Dew of Broad Chalke died about 1649, aged 103. She told me she was, I thinke, sixteen yeares old when King Edward the sixth was in this countrie, and that he lost his courtiers, or his courtiers him, a hunting, and found him again in Falston-lane. In the parish of Stanton St. Quintin are but twenty- three houses, and when Mr. Byron was inducted, 167-, here were eight persons of 80 yeares of age. Mr. Thorn. Lyte of Easton-Piers, my mother's grand- father, died 1626, aged 96; and about 1674 died there old William Kington, a tenant of mine, about 90 yeares of age. A poore woman of Chippenham died about 1684, aged 108 yeares.
In the chancel at Milsham is an inscription of Isaac Self, a wealthy cloathiers of that place, who died in the 92nd yeare of his age, leaving behind him a numerous offspring; viz. eighty and three in number.
Ella, Countesse of Salisbury, daughter to [William] Longespe, was foundress of Lacock Abbey; where she ended her days, being above a hundred yeares old; she outlived her understanding. This I found in an old MS. called Chronicon de Lacock in Bibliotheca Cottoniana. [The chronicle referred to was destroyed by the fire which so seriously injured the Cotton MSS. in 1731. The extracts preserved from it do not confirm Aubrey's statements, but place the Countess Ela's death on the ix kal. Sept. 1261, in the 74th year of her age. See Bowles's History of Lacock, Appendix, p. v. - J. B.]
Dame Olave, a daughter and coheire of Sir [Henry] Sharington of Lacock, being in love with [John] Talbot, a younger brother of the Earle of Shrewsbury, and her father not consenting that she should marry him; discoursing with him one night from the battlements of the Abbey Church, said shee, "I will leap downe to you:" her sweet heart replied he would catch her then; but he did not believe she would have done it. She leap't downe, and the wind, which was then high, came under her coates and did something breake the fall. Mr. Talbot caught her in his armes, but she struck him dead: she cried out for help, and he was with great difficulty brought to life again. Her father told her that since she had made such a leap she should e'en marrie him. She was my honoured friend Col. Sharington Talbot's grandmother, and died at her house at Lacock about 1651, being about an hundred yeares old. Quaere, Sir Jo. Talbot?
[This romantic story seems to have escaped the attention of the venerable historian of Lacock, the Rev. Canon Bowles. The late John Carter mentions a tradition of which he was informed on visiting Lacock in 1801, to the effect that "one of the nuns jumped from a gallery on the top of a turret there into the arms of her lover." He observes, as impugning the truth of the story, that the gallery "appears to have been the work of James or Charles the First's time." Aubrey's anecdote has an appearance of authenticity. Its heroine, Olave, or Olivia Sherington, married John Talbot, Esq. of Salwarpe, in the county of Worcester, fourth in descent from John, second Earl of Shrews- bury. She inherited the Lacock estate from her father, and it has ever since^ remained the property of that branch of the Talbot family, now represented by the scientific Henry Fox Talbot, Esq. -J. B.] ___________________________________
The last Lady Prioresse of Priorie St Marie, juxta Kington St. Michael, was the Lady Mary Dennys, a daughter of the Dennys's of Pocklechurch in Gloucestershire; she lived a great while after the dissolution of the abbeys, and died in Somersetshire about the middle or latter end of the raigne of King James the first
The last Lady Abbese of Amesbury was a Kirton, who after the dissolution married to….. Appleton of Hampshire. She had during her life a pension from King Henry VIII.: she was 140 yeares old when she dyed. She was great-great-aunt to Mr. Child, Rector of Yatton Keynell; from whom I had this information. Mr. Child, the eminent banker in Fleet Street, is Parson Child's cosen-german. [The name of the last Abbess of Amesbury was Joan Darell, who surrendered to the King, 4 Dec. 1540. Hoare's Modern Wiltshire, Amesbury Hundred, p. 73. J. B.]
When King Charles II. was at Salisbury, 1665, a piper of Stratford subCastro playd on his tabor and pipe before him, who was a piper inQueen Elizabeth's time, and aged then more than 100.___________________________________
One goodwife Mills of Yatton Keynel, a tenant of my father's, did dentire in the 88 yeare of her age, which was about the yeare 1645. The Lord Chancellour Bacon speakes of the like of the old Countesse of Desmond, in Ireland. ___________________________________
Mr. William Gauntlett, of Netherhampton, born at Amesbury, told me that since his remembrance there were digged up in the churchyard at Amesbury, which is very spacious, a great number of huge bones, exceeding, as he sayes, the size of those of our dayes. At Highworth, at the signe of the Bull, at one Hartwells, I have been credibly enformed is to be seen a scull of-a vast bignesse, scilicet half as big again as an ordinary one. From Mr. Kich. Brown, Rector of Somerford Magna, (At Wotton in Surrey, where my brother enlarged the vault in which our family are buried, digging away the earth for the foundations, they found a complete skeleton neer nine foot in length, the skull of an extraordinary size. - J. EVELYN.)
George Johnson Esq. bencher of the Middle Temple, digging for marle at Bowdon Parke, Ano. 1666, the diggers found the bones of a man under a quarrie of planke stones: he told me he saw it. He was a serious person, and "fide dignus". ___________________________________
At Wishford Magna is the inscription, "Hic jacet Thomas Bonham, armiger, quondam Patronus istius Ecclesiæ, qui quidem Thomas obiit vicesimo nono die Maii, Anno Domini MCCCCLXXIII (1473); el Editha uxor ejus, quæ quidem Editha obiit vicesimo sexto die Aprilis, Anno D'ni MCCCCLXIX. (1469). Quorum animabus propitietur Deus.- Amen." They lye both buried under the great marble stone in the nave of this church, where is the above said inscription, above which are their pourtraictures in brasse, and an escucheon now illegible. Beneath this inscription are the small figures of nine young children in brasse. This Mr. Bonham's wife had two children at one birth, the first time: and he being troubled at it travelled, and was absent seven yeares. After his returne she was delivered of seven children at one birth. In this parish is a confident tradition that these seven children were all baptized at the font in this church, and that they were brought thither in a kind of chardger, which was dedicated to this church, and hung on two nailes, which are to be seen there yet, neer the bellfree on the south side. Some old men are yet living that doe remember the chardger. This tradition is entred into the register booke there, from whence I have taken this narrative (1659). [See the extract from the register, which is signed by "Roger Powell, Curate there," in Hoare's Modern Wilts. (Hundred of Branch and Dole) p. 49.-J. B.] ___________________________________
On Tuesday the 25th day of October, Anno Dni 1664, Mary, the wife of John Waterman, of Fisherton Anger, neer Salisbury, hostler, fell into travell, and on Wednesday, between one and two in the morning, was delivered of a female child, with all its parts duly formed. Aboute halfe an hour after she was delivered of a monstrous birth, having two heades, the one opposite to the other; the two shoulders had also [each] two armes, with the hands bearing respectively each against the other; two feet, &c. About four o'clock in the afternoon it was christened by the name of Martha and Mary, having two pretty faces, and lived till Fryday next. The female child first borne, whose name was Elselet, lived fourteen days, and died the 9th of November following: the mother then alive and in good health.
[This narrative is accompanied by a description of the internal structure of the lusus naturæ, as developed in a post mortem examination; which "accurate account," says Aubrey, "was made by my worthy and learned friend Thorn. Guidot, Dr. of Physick, who did kindly communicate it to me out of his collection of medicinall observations in Latin."]
Dr. Wm. Harvey, author of the Circulation of the Blood, told me that one Mr. Palmer's wife in Kent did beare a child every day for five daies together. ___________________________________
A wench being great with child drowned herself in the river Avon, where, haveing layn twenty-four houres, she was taken up and brought into the church at Sutton Benger, and layd upon the board, where the coroner did his office. Mris. Joane Sumner hath often assured me that the sayd wench did sweat a cold sweat when she lay dead; and that she severall times did wipe off the sweat from her body, and it would quickly returne again: and she would have had her opened, because she did believe that the child was alive within her and might bee saved. ___________________________________
In September 1661 a grave was digged in the church of Hedington for a widow, where her husband was buried in 1610. In this grave was a spring; the coffin was found firme; the bodie not rotten, but black; and in some places white spotts; the lumen was rotten. Mr. Wm. Scott's wife of this parish, from whom I have this, saw it, with severall of her neighbours.
Mrs. Mary Norborne, of Calne, a gentlewoman worthy of belief, told me that Mr…. White, Lord of Langley's grave was opened forty years after he was buried. He lay in water, and his body not perished, and some old people there remembred him and knew him. He was related to Mrs. Norborne, and her husband's brother was minister here, in whose time this happened. ___________________________________
Mrs. May of Calne, upon the generall fright in their church of the falling of the steeple, when the people ran out of the church, occasioned by the throwing of a stone by a boy, dyed of this fright in halfe an hour's time. Mrs. Dorothy Gardiner was frightened at Our Lady Church at Salisbury, by the false report of the falling of the steeple, and died in… houres space. The Lady Jordan being at Cirencester when it was beseiged (anno atatis 75) was so terrified with the shooting that her understanding was so spoyled that she became a child, that they made babies for her to play withall. ___________________________________
At Broad Chalke is a cottage family that the generation have two thumbes. A poor woman's daughter in Westminster being born so, the mother gott a carpenter to amputate one of them with his chizel and mallet. The girl was then about seven yeares old, and was a lively child, but immediately after the thumb was struck off, the fright and convulsion was so extreme, that she lost her understanding, even her speech. She lived till seventeen in that sad condition.
The Duke of Southampton, who was a most lovely youth, had two foreteeth that grew out, very unhandsome. His cruel mother caused him to be bound fast in a chaire, and had them drawn out; which has caused the want of his understanding.
[This refers to Charles Fitzroy, one of the natural sons of King Charles II. by his mistress, Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland. He was created Duke of Southampton in 1674; became Duke of Cleveland on the death of his "cruel mother "in 1709; and died in 1730.-J. B.] ___________________________________
Mdm. Dr. W. Harvey told me that the biteing of a man enraged is poysonous. He instanced one that was bitt in the hand in a quarrell, and it swoll up to his shoulder, and killed him in a short time. [That death, from nervous irritation, might follow such a wound is not improbable: but that it was caused by any "poison" infused into the system is an idea too absurd for refutation.- J. B.]
[SEVERAL passages may have been noticed in the preceding pages, calculated to shew the ignorance which prevailed in Aubrey's time on medical subjects, and the absurd remedies which were adopted for the cure of diseases. In the present chapter this topic is further illustrated. It contains a series of recipes of the rudest and most unscientific character, amongst which the following are the only parts suited to this publication. Aubrey describes in the manuscript an instrument made of whalebone, to be thrust down the throat into the stomach, so as to act as an emetic. He states that this contrivance was invented by "his counsel learned in the law," Judge Rumsey; and proceeds to quote several pages, with references to its advantages, from a work by W. Rumsey, of Gray's Inn, Esq., entitled, "Organon Salutis, an instrument to cleanse the stomach: with new experiments on Tobacco and Coffee." The work quoted seems to have been popular in its day, for there were three editions of it published. (London, 1657, 1659, 1664, 12mo.)-J. B.]
THE inscription over the chapell dore of St. Giles, juxta Wilton, sc. "1624. This hospitall of St. Giles was re-edified by John Towgood, Maior of Wilton, and his brethren, adopted patrons thereof, by the gift of Queen Adelicia, wife unto King Henry the first." This Adelicia was a leper. She had a windowe and a dore from her lodgeing into the chancell of the chapell, whence she heard prayers. She lieth buried under a plain marble gravestone; the brasse whereof (the figure and inscription) was remaining about 1684. Poore people told me that the faire was anciently kept here.
At Maiden Bradley, a maiden infected with the leprosie founded a house for maidens that were lepers. [See a similar statement in Camden's "Britannia," and Gough's comments thereon.-J. B.] ___________________________________
Ex Registro. Anno Domini 1582, May 4, the plague began in Kington St. Michaell, and lasted the 6th of August following; 13 died of it, most of them being of the family of the Kington's; which name was then common, as appeared by the register, but in 1672 quite extinct.
[The words "here the plague began," and "here the plague rested," appear in the parish register of Kington St. Michael, under the dates mentioned by Aubrey. Eight of the thirteen persons who died during its continuance were of the family of the Kingtons.-J. B.] ___________________________________
May-dewe is a very great dissolvent of many things with the sunne, that will not be dissolved any other way; which putts me in mind of the rationality of the method used by Wm. Gore of Clapton, Esq}. for his gout; which was, to walke in the dewe with his shoes pounced; he found benefit by it. I told Mr. Wm. Mullens, of Shoe Lane, Chirurgion, this story; and he sayd this was the very method and way of curing that was used in Oliver Cromwell, Protectour. [See "Observations and Experiments upon May-Dew," by Thomas Henshaw, in Philosophical Transactions, 1665. Abbr. i. 13.-J. B.] ___________________________________
For the gowte. Take the leaves of the wild vine (bryony, vitis alba); bruise them and boyle them, and apply it to the place grieved, lapd in a colewort-leafe. This cured an old man of 84 yeares of age, at Kilmanton, in 1669, and he was well since, to June 1670: which account I had from Mr. Francis Potter, the rector there.
Mr. Wm. Montjoy of Bitteston hath an admirable secret for the cure of the Ricketts, for which he was sent to far and neer; his sonne hath the same. Rickettie children (they say) are long before they breed teeth. I will, whilst 'tis in my mind, insert this remarque; viz. about 1620, one Ricketts of Newbery, perhaps corruptly from Ricards, a practitioner in physick, was excellent at the curing children with swoln heads and small legges; and the disease being new and without a name, he being so famous for the cure of it they called the disease the ricketts; as the King's evill from the King's curing of it with his touch; and now 'tis good sport to see how they vex their lexicons, and fetch it from the Greek {Gk: Rachis} the back bone. ___________________________________
For a pinne-and-webbe* in the eye, a pearle, or any humour that comes out of the head. My father laboured under this infirmity, and our learned men of Salisbury could doe him no good. At last one goodwife Holly, a poore woman of Chalke, cured him in a little time. My father gave her a broad piece of gold for the receipt, which is this:-Take about halfe a pint of the best white wine vinegar; put it in a pewter dish, which sett on a chafing dish of coales covered with another pewter dish; ever and anon wipe off the droppes on the upper dish till you have gott a little glassefull, which reserve in a cleane vessell; then take about half an ounce of white sugar candie, beaten and searcht very fine, and putt it in the glasse; so stoppe it, and let it stand. Drop one drop in the morning and evening into the eye, and let the patient lye still a quarter of an hour after it.
I told Mr. Robert Boyle this receipt, and he did much admire it, and tooke a copie of it, and sayd that he that was the inventor of it was a good chymist. If this medicine were donne in a golden dish or porcelane dish, &c. it would not doe this cure; but the vertue proceeds, sayd hee, from the pewter, which the vinegar does take off.
* [The following definitions are from Bailey's Dictionary (1728):-" Pin and Web, a horny induration of the membranes of the eye, not much unlike a Cataract." "Pearl (among oculists), a web on the eye."- J.B.] ___________________________________
In the city of Salisbury doe reigne the dropsy, consumption, scurvy, gowte; it is an exceeding dampish place.
At Poulshot, a village neer the Devises, in the spring time the inhabitants appeare of a primrose complexion; 'tis a wett, dirty place. ___________________________________
Mrs. Fr. Tyndale, of Priorie St. Maries, when a child, voyded a lumbricus biceps. Mr. Winceslaus Hollar, when he was at Mechlin, saw an amphisbæna, which he did very curiously delineate, and coloured it in water colours, of the very colour: it was exactly the colour of the inner peele of an onyon: it was about six inches long, but in its repture it made the figure of a semicircle; both the heads advancing equally. It was found under a piece of old timber, about 1661; under the jawes it had barbes like a barbel, which did strengthen his motion in running. This draught, amongst a world of others, Mr. Thorn. Chiffinch, of Whitehall, hath; for which Mr. Hollar protested to me he had no compensation. The diameter was about that of a slo-worme; and I guesse it was an amphisbænal slo-worme.
[The serpents called amphisbæna are so designated (from the Greek {Gk: amphisbaina}) in consequence of their ability to move backwards as well as forwards. The head and tail of the amphisbæna are very similar in form: whence the common belief that it possesses a head at each extremity. It was formerly supposed that cutting off one of its "heads" would fail to destroy this animal; and that its flesh, dried and pulverized, was an infallible remedy for dislocations and broken bones.-J. B.]
[THIS chapter consists merely of memoranda for the further examination of those valuable materials for local and general statistics - the parochial registers. Aubrey has inserted the number of baptisms, marriages, and burials, recorded in the registers of Broad Chalke, for each year, from 1630 to 1642, and from 1676 to 1684 inclusive; distinguishing the baptisms and burials of males and females in each year. The like particulars are given for a period of five years from the registers of Dunhead St. Mary. He adds, "In anno 1686 I made extracts out of the register bookes of half a dozen parishes in South Wiltshire, which I gave to Sir Wm. Petty." The following passages will suffice to indicate the nature of his remarks.- J. B.]
MR. ROBERT GOOD, M.A., of Bower Chalke, hath a method to calculate the provision that is spent in a yeare in their parish; and does find that one house with another spends six pounds per annum; which comes within an hundred pounds of the parish rate.
Sir "W. Petty observes, from the account of the people, that not above halfe teeming women are marryed; and that if the Government pleased there might be such a multiplication of mankind as in 1500 yeares would sufficiently plant every habitable acre in the world. ___________________________________
Mdm. The poore's rate of St. Giles-in-the-fields, London, comes to six thousand pounds per annum. [The sixth chapter of Mr. Rowland Dobie's "History of the United Parishes of St. Giles- in-the-Fields and St. George, Bloomsbury," (8vo. 1829) contains some curious and interesting "historical sketches of pauperism." Speaking of the parish workhouse, the author says, "It contains on an average from 800 to 900 inmates, which is however but a small proportion to the number constantly relieved, at an expense [annually] of nearly forty thousand pounds."-J. B.] ___________________________________
Dunhead St. Mary.-The reason why so few marriages are found in the register bookes of these parts is that the ordinary sort of people goe to Ansted to be married, which is a priviledged church; and they come 40 and 50 miles off to be married there. ___________________________________
Of periodicall small-poxes. - Small-pox in Sherborne dureing the year 1626, and dureing the yeare 1634; from Michaelmas 1642 to Michaelmas 1643; from Michaelmas 1649 to Michaelmas 1650; &c. Small-pox in Taunton all the year 1658; likewise in the yeare 1670, &c. I would I had the like observations made in great townes in Wiltshire; but few care for these things.
It hath been observed that the plague never fix't (encreased) in Bridgenorth in Salop. Also at Richmond it never did spread; but at Petersham, a small village a mile or more distant, the plague made so great a destruction that there survived only five of the inhabitants. 1638 was a sickly and feaverish autumne; there were three graves open at one time in the churchyard of Broad Chalke.
[IN this chapter Aubrey has transcribed that portion of Fuller's Worthies of England which relates to celebrated natives of the county of Wilts; but as Fuller's work is so well known, it is un- necessary to print Aubrey's extracts from it here. He has interspersed them with additional matter from which the following passages are selected. - J. B.]
PRINCES. - There is a tradition at Wootton Basset that King Richard the Third was born at Vasthorne [Fasterne], now the seate of the earle of Rochester. This I was told when I was there in 1648. Old Mr. Jacob, then tenant there to the Lady Inglefield, was then eighty yeares old, and the like other old people there did affirme.
[According to the best authorities, this tradition is incorrect: Richard was born in Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, on the 2d of October, 1452.-J. B.]
Anne, eldest daughter of Sir Edward Hyde, Knight, was born at Purton, in this county, and married to His Royal Highnesse James Duke of Yorke, [James II.] by whom she left issue Mary Queen of England, and Anne Princesse of Denmark [afterwards Queen]. ___________________________________
SAINTS. - St. Adelm. There was a great bell at Malmesbury Abbey, which they called St. Adelm's bell, which was accounted a telesman, and to have the power, when it was rang, to drive away the thunder and lightning. I remember there is such a great bell at St. Germain's Abbey at Paris, which they ring to the aforesayd purpose when it thunders and lightens. Old Bartlemew and other old people of Malmesbury had by tradition severall stories of miracles donn by St. Adelm some whereof I wrott down heretofore; now with Mr. Anth. Wood at Oxford. [St. Adelm, or more correctly Aldhelm, is mentioned in page 42, ante. His life was written by William of Malmesbury, and published by the Rev. Henry Wharton, in his "Anglia Sacra." (fol. 1691.)- J. B.]
Methinkes it is pitie that Ela, daughter of [William] Longespe Earl ofSalisbury, should be here omitted. [See ante, p.70 ]
PRELATES.- Since the Reformation. - Alexander Hyde, LL.Dr., sonn of Sir Laurence Hyde, and brother to Sir Robert Hyde, Lord Cheif Justice of the King's Bench, was born, I believe, at Hele, in this county. He was made Bishop of Salisbury 1665.
STATESMEN. - William Earle of Pembroke [the second of that name]. In the east windowe of the south aisle of the church at Wilton is this following inscription in gothick black letter:-"… church was… by the vertuose….. wife to the right…. Sir Henry Sidney, Knight of the Garter and Lord President of the Marches of Wales, &c. In April 1580, the eight day of that moneth, was born William Lord Herbert of Cardif, the first-born child to the noble Henry Earle of Pembroke, by his most dear wife Mary the Countesse, daughter to the forenamed Sir Henry and Lady Mary, whose lives Almighty God long prosper in much happiness."* Memorandum, to insert his titles inscribed under his printed picture. As I remember he was Lord High Steward of his Majesties Household, Justice in Eire of all his Majesties Forrests, &c. on this side Trent, Chancellor of the University of Oxford, one of his Majesties Privy Councell, and Knight of the Garter. He was a most noble person, and the glory of the court in the reignes of King James and King Charles. He was handsome, and of an admirable presence-
* [This inscription is not mentioned in the account of Wilton Church in Hoare's Modern, Wiltshire, but the author notices a tablet recording the birth and baptism of the Earl "over the south entrance." He states that the side aisles were added to the church "within the last two centuries " - J. B.]
"Gratior et pulchro veniens a corpore virtus."
He was the greatest Mecænas to learned men of any peer of his time or since. He was very generous and open handed. He gave a noble collection of choice bookes and manuscripts to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which remain there as an honourable monument of his munificence. 'Twas thought, had he not been suddenly snatch't away by death, to the grief of all learned and good men, that he would have been a great benefactor to Pembroke Colledge in Oxford, whereas there remains only from him a great piece of plate that he gave there. His lordship was learned, and a poet; there are yet remaining some of his lordship's poetry in a little book of poems writt by his Lordship and Sir Benjamin Ruddyer in 12o. ["Poems, written by William Earl of Pembroke, &c. many of which are answered by way of repartee, by Sir Benjamin Rudyard. With other poems by them occasionally and apart." Lond. 1660, 8vo.-J. B.] He had his nativity calculated by a learned astrologer, and died exactly according to the time predicted therein, at his house at Baynard's Castle in London. He was very well in health, but because of the fatal direction which he lay under, he made a great entertainment (a supper) for his friends, went well to bed, and died in his sleep, the [10th] day of [April] anno Domini 1630. His body lies in the vault belonging to his family in the quire of Our Ladies Church in Salisbury. At Wilton is his figure cast in brasse, designed, I suppose, for his monument. [See the notices of the Earls of Pembroke in the ensuing chapter. - J. B.]
Sir Edward Hyde, Earle of Clarendon, Lord Chancellour of England, was born at Dynton in Wiltshire. His father was the fourth and youngest sonn of….. Hyde, of Hatch, Esq. Sir Edward married [Frances] daughter of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, one of the clarks of the councell In his exile in France he wrote the History of the late Times, sc. from 1641 to 1660; near finished, but broken off by death, by whom he was attacked as he was writing; the penn fell out of his hand; he took it up again and tryed to write; and it fell out the second time. He then saw that it was time to leave off, and betooke himself to thinke about the other world. (From the Countess of Thanet.) He shortly after ended his dayes at [Rouen] Anno Domini 1674, and his body was brought over into England, and interred privately at Westminster Abbey. From the Earle of Clarendon. [Anthony Wood states (probably on the authority of Aubrey) that Clarendon was buried on the north side of Henry the Seventh's chapel in Westminster Abbey; but the place of his interment is not marked by any monument or inscription.-J. B.] ___________________________________
SOLDIERS. - Sir Henry Danvers, Knight, Earle of Danby and Baron of Dauntesey, was born at Dauntesey, 28th day of June Ano. Dni. 1573. He was of a magnificent and munificall spirit, and made that noble physic-garden at Oxford, and endowed it with I thinke 30li. per annum. In the epistles of Degory Wheare, History Professor of Oxford, in Latin, are severall addressed to his lordship that doe recite his worth. He allowed three thousand pounds per annum only for his kitchin. He bred up severall brave young gentleman and preferred them; e. g. Colonell Leg, and severall others, of which enquire further of my Lady Viscountesse Purbec. The estate of Henry Earle of Danby was above eleven thousand pounds per annum; near twelve. He died January the 20th, 1643, and lies buried in a little chapell made for his monument on the north side of Dantesey-church, near to the vault where his father and ancesters lye. [Aubrey here transcribes his epitaph, which, with other particulars of his life, will be found in the Beauties of Wiltshire, vol. iii. p. 76.—J. B.]
Sir Michael Ernele, Knight, was second son of Sir John Ernele, of Whetham in the County of Wilts. After he had spent some time at the University of Oxford, he betooke himself to a militarie life in the Low Countries, where he became so good a proficient that at his return into England at the beginning of the Civill warres, King Charles the First gave him the commission of a Colonell in his service, and shortly after he was made Governour of Shrewsbury, and he was, or intended to bee, Major Generall. He did his Majesty good service in the warres, as doth appeare by the Mercurii Aulici. His garrison at Shrewsbury being weakened by drawing out great part of them before the battel at Marston Moore, the townesmen plotted and betrayed his garrison to the Parliament soldiers. He was slain then in the market- place, about the time of the battle of Marston Moore.*
* [It was the common belief that Sir Michael Erneley was killed, as here stated, by the Parlimentary soldiers at the time Shrewsbury was taken (Feb. 3,1644-5); but in Owen and Blakeway's Hist, of Shrewsbury, 4to. 1825, the time and manner of his death is left uncertain. His name is included in the list of those who were made prisoners when the town surrendered.-J. B.]
William Ludlow, Esq. sonn and heir of Sir [Henry] Ludlow, and Dame…… daughter of the Lord Viscount Bindon, in this county, was Governour of Wardour Castle in this county, for the Parliament, which he valiantly defended till part of the castle was blown up, 1644 or 1645. He was Major General, &c. See his life in Mr. Anth. Wood's Antiquities of Oxford. [This passage refers to Edward (not William) Ludlow; the famous Republican general. His "Memoirs" were printed in 1698-9, at Vevay in Switzerland, where he died about five years previous to their publication. They have gone through several editions, and constitute a valuable historical record of the times. - J. B.]
Sir John Ernele, great-grandson of Sir John Ernele above sayd, and eldest sonn of Sir John Ernele, late Chancellour of the Exchequer, had the command of a flag-ship, and was eminent in some sea services. He married the daughter and heir of Sir John Kerle of…. in Herefordshire. ___________________________________
A DIGRESSION. - Anno 1633, I entred into my grammar at the latin schoole at Yatton-Keynel, in the church, where the curate, Mr. Hart, taught the eldest boyes Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, &c. The fashion then was to save the forules of their bookes with a false cover of parchment, sc. old manuscript, which I [could not] was too young to understand; but I was pleased with the elegancy of the writing and the coloured initiall letters. I remember the rector here, Mr. Wm. Stump, great gr.-son of St. the cloathier of Malmesbury, had severall manuscripts of the abbey. He was a proper man and a good fellow; and, when he brewed a barrell of speciall ale, his use was to stop the bung- hole, under the clay, with a sheet of manuscript; he sayd nothing did it so well: which me thought did grieve me then to see. Afterwards I went to schoole to Mr. Latimer at Leigh-delamer, the next parish, where was the like use of covering of bookes. In my grandfather's dayes the manuscripts flew about like butterflies. All music bookes, account bookes, copie bookes, &c. were covered with old manuscripts, as wee cover them now with blew paper or marbled paper; and the glovers at Malmesbury made great havoc of them; and gloves were wrapt up no doubt in many good pieces of antiquity. Before the late warres a world of rare manuscripts perished hereabout; for within half a dozen miles of this place were the abbey of Malmesbury, where it may be presumed the library was as well furnished with choice copies as most libraries of England; and perhaps in this library we might have found a correct Pliny's Naturall History, which Cantus, a monk here, did abridge for King Henry the Second. Within the aforesaid compass was Broad stock Priory, Stan Leigh Abbey, Farleigh Abbey, Bath Abbey, eight miles, and Cirencester Abbey, twelve miles. Anno 1638 I was transplanted to Blandford-schoole, in Dorset, to Mr. Wm. Sutton. (In Mr. Wm. Gardner's time it was the most eminent schoole for the education of gentlemen in the West of England.) Here also was the use of covering of bookes with old parchments, sc. leases, &c., but I never saw any thing of a manuscript there. Hereabout were no abbeys or convents for men. One may also perceive by the binding of old bookes how the old manuscripts went to wrack in those dayes. Anno 1647 I went to Parson Stump out of curiosity, to see his manuscripts, whereof I had seen some in my childhood; but by that time they were lost and disperse. His sons were gunners and souldiers, and scoured their gunnies with them; but he shewed me severall old deeds granted by the Lords Abbots, with their scales annexed, which I suppose his sonn Capt. Tho. Stump of Malmesbury hath still. [I have quoted part of this curious paragraph in my Memoir of Aubrey, 4to. 1845.-J. B.] ___________________________________
WRITERS.- William of Malmesbury. He was the next historiographer of this nation to Venerable Bede, as he himself written; and was fain, he sayes, to pick out his history out of ballads and old rhythmes….. hundred yeares after Bede. He dedicates his history to [Robert, Earl of Gloucester] "filio naturali Henrici primi". He wrote also the history of the abbey of Glastonbury, which is in manuscript in the library of Trinity College in Cambridge, wherein are many good remarques to be found, as Dr. Thomas Gale of Paules schoole enformes me. [This was edited by Gale, and published at Oxford in 1691, 8vo. - J. B.]
Robertus Sarisburiensis wrote a good discourse, De Piscinis, mentioned and commended by Sir Henry Wotton in his Elements of Architecture. Q. Anth. Wood, de hoc.
Dr….. Forman, - Mr. Ashmole thinkes his name was John, [Simon.- J. B.]- physitian and astrologer, was born at Wilton, in Wilts. He was of the University of Oxford, but took his degree of Doctor in Cambridge, practised in Salisbury, where he was persecuted for his astrologie, which in those ignorant times was accounted conjuring. He then came to London, where he had very good practise, and did great cures; but the college hated him, and at last drove him out of London: so he lived and died at Lambeth, where he lies buried. Elias Ashmole, Esq. has severall bookes of his writing (never printed), as also his own life. There it may be seen whether he was not a favorite of Mary, Countesse of Pembroke. He was a chymist, as far as chymistry went in those dayes, and 'tis very likely he was a favorite of her honour's. Quaere Mr. Dennet, the Earl of Pembrock's steward, if he had not a pension from the Earl of Pembrock? Forman is a common name in Calne parish, Wilts, where there are still severall wealthy men, cloathiers, &c. of that name; but tempore Reginæ Elizabethæ there was a Forman of Calne, Lord Maior of London. My grandfather Lyte told me that at his Lord Maior's shew there was the representation of the creation of the world, and writt underneath, "and all for man." [Some interesting passages from Forman's MS. Diary have recently been brought forward by Mr. Collier in illustration of the history of Shakspere's works. They describe some very early performances of several of his plays, at which Forman was present. - J. B.]
Sr Johan Davys, Knight, was born at Tysbury; his father was a tanner. He wrote a poeme in English, called "Nosce Teipsum"*; also Reports. He was Lord Chief Justice in Ireland. His wife was sister to the Earle of Castle-Haven that was beheaded; she had also aliquid dementiæ, and was a prophetesse, for which she was confined in the Tower, before the late troubles, for her predictions. His onely daughter and heire was married to [Ferdinando] Earle of Huntingdon.
[*"Nosce Teipsum: this oracle expounded in two elegies. 1st. Of Human knowledge. 2nd. Of the soule of man, and the immortality thereof;" with acrostics on Queen Elizabeth. (London, 1609, small 8vo.) The works of the above named Lady Eleanor Davies, the prophetess, widow of Sir John, were of a most extraordinary kind. See a list of them in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica. - J. B.]
Mr. Thomas Hobbes was born at Westport juxta Malmesbury, April the fifth, anno 1588, he told me, between four and six in the morning, in the house that faces or points to the horse-faire. He died at Hardwick in Darbyshire, Anno Domini 1679, ætatis 91. [See Aubrey's Life of Hobbes, appended to Letters from the Bodleian, vol. iii. p. 593. - J. B.]
Thomas Willis, M.D., was born at Great Bedwin in this county, anno [1621.] His father, he told me, was steward to my Lady Smyth there. He dyed in London, and lies interred with his wife in Westminster Abbey.
Thomas Piers, D.D., and Dean of Salisbury, formerly President of Magdalen College in Oxford, was born at the Devizes. His father was a woollen draper and an alderman there.
Sir Christopher Wren, Knt., Surveyor of his Majesties buildings, the eldest sonne of Dr. Christopher Wren, Deane of Windsor, was born at Knoyle, in this county, where his father was rector, in the parsonage-house, anno 1631; christened November the 10th; but he tells me that he was born October the 20th. His mother fell in labour with him when the bell rung eight.
[Richard] Blackmore, M.D., born in Cosham parish, the sonne of an attorney, went to schoole to Parson…. of Dracot. Scripsit an Epique poeme, called Prince Arthur, 1694.
Sir William Penn, Vice-Admirall, born at Minety, in the hundred ofMalmesbury. His father was a keeper in Braden forest: the lodge iscalled Penn's lodge to this day. He was father to William Penn, Esq.Lord Proprietor of Pensylvania; it is a very ancient family inBuckinghamshire. This family in North Wilts had heretofore adependence on the Abbey of Malmesbury as stewards or officers. [SirWilliam Penn was buried in Redcliffe Church, Bristol. See Britten'sAccount of Redcliffe Church. - J. B.]
T. Byfield, a physician, sonn of Adoniram Byfield, the Assembly man, born at Collingbourn Ducis, where his father was rector. He published a book of Waters about 1684.
Mr. Edward Whatman, of Mayden Bradley, practitioner in physick, and very successfull in his practise. By reason of the civill warrs he was of no university, but he was a young man of great parts and great hopes. He died shortly after his Majesties restauration, aged about 35. He onely printed "Funerall Obsequies on the Honourable the Ladie Elizabeth Hopton, wife to Sir Ralph Hopton," London, 1647.
Mr. William Gardiner, the eminent schoolemaster at Blandford, about twenty yeares; born in this county; died about 1636, aetatis 47. ___________________________________
MUSICIANS.-The quire of Salisbury Cathedral hath produced as many able musicians, if not more, than any quire in this nation.
Andrew Markes, of Salisbury, where his father was a fiddle maker, was the best lutinist in England in his time - sc. the latter end of Queen Elizabeth and King James, and the best composer of lute lessons; and as to his compositions, Mr. Sam. Cowper, the famous limner, who was an excellent lutinist, did affirme that they are of great value to this time.
Jo. Coperario, whose reall name I have been told was Cowper, andAlfonso Ferrabosco, lived most in Wiltshire, sc. at Amesbury, andWulfall, with Edward Earle of Hertford, who was the great patrone ofmusicians.
Davys Mell, born at Wilton, was the best violinist of any Englishman in England: he also took a fancy to make clocks and watches, and had a great name for the goodness of his work. He was of the King's musick, and died in London about 1663.
…. Bell, of Wilton, was sagbuttere to King Charles the First, and was the most excellent artist in playing on that instrument, which is very difficult, of any one in England. He dyed about the restauration of the King.
Humphrey Madge, of Salisbury, was servant bound to Sir John Danvers, and afterwards one of the violinists to King Charles the Second.
Will. Yokeney, a lutinist and a composer of songs, e. g. of Colonel Lovelace's songs, &c. was born at Lacock, 1646. Among other fine compositions of songs by Will. Yokeney, this following ought to be remembred, made 1646 or 1647, viz.:-
"What if the King should come to the city,Would he be then received I trow?Would the Parliament treat him with rigor or pity?Some doe think yea, but most doe think no, &c."'
It is a lively, briske aire, and was playd by the lowd musick whenKing Charles the Second made his entry in London at his restauration.
Captain Thomas Stump, of Malmesbury. Tis pity the strange adventures of him should be forgotten. He was the eldest sonn of Mr. Will. Stump, rector of Yatton Keynell; was a boy of a most daring spirit; he would climbe towers and trees most dangerously; nay, he would walke on the battlements of the tower there. He had too much spirit to be a scholar, and about sixteen went in a voyage with his uncle, since Sir Thomas Ivy, to Guyana, in anno 1633, or 1632. When the ship put in some where there, four or five of them straggled into the countrey too far, and in the interim the wind served, and the sails were hoist, and the stragglers left behind. It was not long before the wild people seized on them and strip's them, and those that had beards they knocked their braines out, and (as I remember) did eat them; but the queen saved T. Stump, and the other boy. Stump threw himself into the river Pronoun to have drowned himself, but could not sinke; he is very full chested. The other youth shortly died. He lived with them till 1636 or 1637. His narrations are very strange and pleasant; but so many yeares since have made me almost forget all. He sayes there is incomparable fruite there, and that it may be termed the paradise of the world. He says that the spondyles of the backbones of the huge serpents there are used to sit on, as our women sitt upon butts. He taught them to build hovels, and to thatch and wattle. I wish I had a good account of his abode there; he is "fide dignus". I never heard of any man that lived so long among those salvages. A ship then sayling by, a Portughese, he swam to it; and they took him up and made use of him for a seaboy. As he was sayling near Cornwall he stole out of a port-hole and swam to shore; and so begged to his father's in Wiltshire. When he came home, nobody knew him, and they would not own him: only Jo. Harris the carpenter knew him. At last he recounted so many circumstances that he was owned, and in 1642 had a commission for a Captain of Foot in King Charles the First's army.
[AUBREY'S account of the famous seat of the Pembroke family at Wilton, and of its choice and valuable contents, will be found exceedingly interesting. His statements are based upon his own knowledge of the mansion before the Civil Wars, and upon information derived from Thomas Earl of Pembroke, Dr. Caldicot, who had been chaplain to the Earl's family, and Mr. Unlades, who also held some appointment in the establishment.