Delphi Collected Works of John Aubrey Illustrated (eBook)

John Aubrey (Autor)

Delphi Classics (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
2277 Seiten
Delphi Publishing Ltd (Verlag)
9781801702706 (ISBN)

Infos

The antiquarian and biographer John Aubrey is best known for vivid, intimate and at times acerbic sketches of his famous seventeenth century contemporaries. His celebrated 'Brief Lives' are not biographies in the strict sense, being based on observation and gossip, offering engaging portraits that are graced by picturesque and revealing detail. Winning great acclaim with later generations, they include revealing stories of such figures as Francis Bacon, Thomas Browne, Sir Walter Raleigh, Edmund Halley, Ben Jonson, Thomas Hobbes and William Shakespeare. This eBook presents Aubrey's collected works, with numerous illustrations, rare texts, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)

* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Aubrey's life and works
* Concise introductions to the texts
* All the major works, with individual contents tables
* Andrew Clark's celebrated 1898 edition of the 'Brief Lives', with Clark's original hyperlinked footnotes
* Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts
* Excellent formatting of the texts
* Features a brief biography

CONTENTS:

The Works
The Natural History of Wiltshire (1691)
Miscellanies (1696)
Brief Lives (1697)

The Biography
John Aubrey (1900) by Richard Garnett

Textauszug

CHAPTER I. AIR.

[THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS a variety of matter not apposite to Wiltshire. Besides the passages here quoted, there are accounts of several remarkable hurricanes, hail storms, &c. in different parts of England, as well as in Italy. The damage done by “Oliver’s wind” (the storm said to have occurred on the death of the Protector Cromwell) is particularly noticed: though it may be desirable to state on the authority of Mr. Carlyle, the eloquent editor of “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches” (8vo. 1846), that the great tempest which Clarendon asserts to have raged “for some hours before and after the Protector’s death”, really occurred four days previous to that event. Aubrey no doubt readily adopted the general belief upon the subject. He quotes, without expressly dissenting from it, the opinion of Chief Justice Hale, that “whirlewinds and all winds of an extraordinary nature are agitated by the spirits of air”. Lunar rainbows, and meteors of various kinds, are described in this chapter; together with prognostics of the seasons from the habits of animals, and some observations made with the barometer; and under the head of Echoes, “for want of good ones in this county”, there is a long description by Sir Robert Moray of a remarkable natural echo at Roseneath, about seventeen miles from Glasgow. On sounds and echoes there are some curious notes by Evelyn, but these are irrelevant to the subject of the work. — J. B.]

Before I enter upon the discourse of the AIR of this countie, it would not be amiss that I gave an account of the winds that most commonly blow in the western parts of England.

I shall first allege the testimony of Julius Cæsar, who delivers to us thus: “Corns ventus, qui magnam partem omnis temporis in his locis flare consuevit”. — (Commentaries, lib. v.) To which I will subjoine this of Mr. Th. Ax, of Somersetshire, who hath made dayly observations of the weather for these twenty-five years past, since 1661, and finds that, one yeare with another, the westerly winds, which doe come from the Atlantick sea, doe blowe ten moneths of the twelve. Besides, he hath made observations for thirty years, that the mannours in the easterne parts of the netherlands of Somersetshire doe yield six or eight per centum of their value; whereas those in the westerne parts doe yield but three, seldome four per centum, and in some mannours but two per centum. Hence he argues that the winds carrying these unwholesome vapours of the low country from one to the other, doe make the one more, the other less, healthy.

 

This shire may be divided as it were into three stories or stages. Chippenham vale is the lowest. The first elevation, or next storie, is from the Derry Hill, or Bowdon Lodge, to the hill beyond the Devises, called Red-hone, which is the limbe or beginning of Salisbury plaines. From the top of this hill one may discerne Our Lady Church Steeple at Sarum, like a fine Spanish needle. I would have the height of these hills, as also Hackpen, and those toward Lambourn, which are the highest, to he taken with the quicksilver barometer, according to the method of Mr. Edmund Halley in Philosophical Transactions, No. 181.

 

Now, although Mindip-hills and Whitesheet, &c. are as a barr and skreen to keep off from Wiltshire the westerly winds and raines, as they doe in some measure repel those noxious vapours, yet wee have a flavour of them; and when autumnal agues raigne, they are more common on the hills than in the vales of this country.

 

The downes of Wiltshire are covered with mists, when the vales are clear from them, and the sky serene; and they are much more often here than in the lowest story or stage.

The leather covers of bookes, &c. doe mold more and sooner in the hill countrey than in the vale. The covers of my bookes in my closet at Chalke would be all over covered with a hoare mouldinesse, that I could not know of what colour the leather was; when my bookes in my closet at Easton-Piers (in the vale) were not toucht at all with any mouldiness.

So the roomes at Winterslow, which is seated exceeding high, are very mouldie and dampish. Mr. Lancelot Moorehouse, Rector of Pertwood, who was a very learned man, say’d that mists were very frequent there: it stands very high, neer Hindon, which one would thinke to stand very healthy: there is no river nor marsh neer it, yet they doe not live long there.

The wheat hereabout, sc. towards the edge of the downes, is much subject to be smutty, which they endeavour to prevent by drawing a cart-rope over the corne after the meldews fall.

Besides that the hill countrey is elevated so high in the air, the soile doth consist of chalke and mawme, which abounds with nitre, which craddles the air, and turns it into mists and water.

 

On the east side of the south downe of the farme of Broad Chalke are pitts called the Mearn-Pitts*, which, though on a high hill, whereon is a sea marke towards the Isle of Wight, yet they have alwaies water in them. How they came to be made no man knowes; perhaps the mortar was digged there for the building of the church.

* Marne is an old French word for marle.

 

Having spoken of mists it brings to my remembrance that in December, 1653, being at night in the court at Sr. Charles Snell’s at Kington St. Michael in this country, there being a very thick mist, we sawe our shadowes on the fogg as on a wall by the light of the lanternes, sc. about 30 or 40 foot distance or more. There were several gentlemen which sawe this; particularly Mr. Stafford Tyndale. I have been enformed since by some that goe a bird-batting in winter nights that the like hath been seen: but rarely.

[A similar appearance to that here mentioned by Aubrey is often witnessed in mountainous countries, and in Germany has given rise to many supernatural and romantic legends. The “spectre of the Brocken”, occasionally seen among the Harz mountains in Hanover, is described by Mr. Brayley in his account of Cumberland, in the Beauties of England and Wales, to illustrate some analogous appearances, which greatly astonished the residents near Souterfell, in that county, about a century ago. — J. B.]

 

The north part of this county is much influenc’t by the river Severne, which flowes impetuously from the Atlantick Sea. It is a ventiduct, and brings rawe gales along with it: the tydes bringing a chilnesse with them.

 

On the top of Chalke-downe, 16 or 18 miles from the sea, the oakes are, as it were, shorne by the south and south-west winds; and do recline from the sea, as those that grow by the sea-side.

 

A Wiltshire proverb:-

“When the wind is north-west,
The weather is at the best:
If the raine comes out of east
‘Twill raine twice twenty-four howres at the least.”

I remember Sr. Chr. Wren told me, 1667, that winds might alter, as the apogæum: e.g. no raine in Egypt heretofore; now common: Spaine barren; Palseston sun-dried, &c. Quaere, Mr. Hook de hoc.

A proverbial rithme observed as infallible by the inhabitants on the Severne-side: —

“If it raineth when it doth flow,
Then yoke your oxe, and goe to plough;
But if it raineth when it doth ebb,
Then unyoke your oxe, and goe to bed.”

 

It oftentimes snowes on the hill at Bowden-parke, when no snow falles at Lacock below it. This hill is higher than Lacock steeple three or four times, and it is a good place to try experiments. On this parke is a seate of my worthy friend George Johnson, Esqr. councillor at lawe, from whence is a large and most delightfull prospect over the vale of North Wiltshire.

Old Wiltshire country prognosticks of the weather: —

“When the hen doth moult before the cock,
The winter will be as hard as a rock;
But if the cock moults before the hen,
The winter will not wett your shoes seame.”

In South Wiltshire the constant observation is that if droppes doe hang upon the hedges on Candlemas-day that it will be a good pease yeare. It is generally agreed on to be matter of fact; the reason perhaps may be that there may rise certain unctuous vapours which may cause that fertility. [This is a general observation: we have it in Essex. I reject as superstitious all prognosticks from the weather on particular days. — JOHN RAY.]

 

At Hullavington, about 1649, there happened a strange wind, which did not onely lay down flatt the corne and grasse as if a huge roller had been drawn over it, but it flatted also the quickset hedges of two or three grounds of George Joe, Esq.-It was a hurricane.

Anno 1660, I being then at dinner with Mr. Stokes at Titherton, news was brought in to us that a whirlewind had carried some of the hay-cocks over high elmes by the house: which bringes to my mind a story that is credibly related of one Mr. J. Parsons, a kinsman of ours, who, being a little child, was sett on a hay-cock, and a whirlewind took him up with half the hay-cock and carried him over high elmes, and layd him down safe, without any hurt, in the next ground.

 

Anno 1581, there fell hail-stones at Dogdeane, near Salisbury, as big as a child’s fist of...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.8.2025
• Reihe/Serie: Delphi Series Fifteen
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte / Antike
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Altertum / Antike
• Schlagworte: Bacon • browne • complete • Hobbes • Lives • miscellanies • Wiltshire
• ISBN-13: 9781801702706 / 9781801702706