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AUBREY, JOHN (1626-1697)

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 891 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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AUBREY, See also:JOHN (1626-1697) , See also:English See also:antiquary, was See also:born at See also:Easton Pierse or See also:Percy, near See also:Malmesbury, See also:Wiltshire, on the 12th of See also:March 1626, his See also:father being a See also:country See also:gentleman of consider-able See also:fortune. He was educated at the Malmesbury See also:grammar school under See also:Robert See also:Latimer, who had numbered See also:Thomas See also:Hobbes among his earlier pupils, and at his schoolmaster's See also:house Aubrey first met the philosopher about whom he was to leave so many curious and interesting details. He entered Trinity See also:College, See also:Oxford, in 1642, but his studies were interrupted by the See also:Civil See also:War. In 1646 he became a student of the See also:Middle See also:Temple, but was never called to the See also:bar. He spent much of his See also:time in the country, and in 1649 he brought into See also:notice the megalithic remains at See also:Avebury. His father died in 1652, leaving to Aubrey large estates, and with them, unfortunately, complicated See also:law-suits. Aubrey, however, lived gaily, and used his means to gratify his See also:passion for the See also:company of celebrities and for every sort of knowledge to be gleaned about them. See also:Anthony a See also:Wood prophesied that he would one See also:day break his See also:neck while See also:running downstairs after a retreating See also:guest, in the See also:hope of extracting a See also:story from him. He took no active See also:share in the See also:political troubles of the time, but from his description of a See also:meeting of the See also:Rota See also:Club, founded by See also:James See also:Harrington. the author of Oceana, he appears to have been a theorizing republican. His reminiscences on this subject date from the Restoration, and are probably softened by considerations of expediency. In 1663 he became a member of the Royal Society, and in the next See also:year he met See also:Joan Somner, " in an See also:ill See also:hour," he tells us. This connexion did not end in See also:marriage, and a lawsuit with the See also:lady complicated his already embarrassed affairs.

He lost See also:

estate after estate, until in 167o he parted with his last piece of See also:property, Easton Pierse. From this time he was dependent on the hospitality of his numerous See also:friends. In 1667 he had made the acquaintance of Anthony a Wood at Oxford, and when Wood began to gather materials for his invaluable Athenae Oxonienses, Aubrey offered to collect See also:information for him. From time to time he forwarded memoranda to him, and in 168o he began to promise the " Minutes for Lives," which Wood was to use at his discretion. He See also:left the task of verification largely to Wood. As a hanger-on in See also:great houses he had little time for systematic See also:work, and he wrote the " Lives " in the See also:early See also:morning while his hosts were sleeping off the effects of the dissipation of the See also:night before. He constantly leaves blanks for See also:dates and facts, and many queries. He made no See also:attempt at a See also:fair copy, and, when fresh in-formation occurred to him, inserted it at See also:random. He made some distinction between hearsay and See also:authentic information, but had no pretence to accuracy, his retentive memory being the See also:chief authority. The See also:principal See also:charm of his " Minutes " lies in the amusing details he has to recount about his personages, and in the plainness and truthfulness that he permits himself in See also:face of established reputations. In 1592 he complained bitterly that Wood had destroyed See also:forty pages of his MS., probably because of the dangerous freedom of Aubrey's See also:pen. Wood Was prosecuted eventually for insinuations against the judicial integrity of the See also:earl of See also:Clarendon.

One of the two statements called in question was certainly founded, on information provided by Aubrey. This perhaps explains the estrangement between the two antiquaries and the ungrateful See also:

account that Wood gives of the See also:elder See also:man's See also:character. " He was a shiftless See also:person, roving and magotie-headed, and sometimes little better than erased. And being exceedingly credulous, would stuff his many letters sent to A. W. with follies and misinformations, which sometimeswould See also:guide him into the paths of errour."1 In 1673 Aubrey began his " Perambulation " or " Survey " of the See also:county of See also:Surrey, which was the result of many years' labour in See also:collecting See also:inscriptions and traditions in the country. He began a " See also:History of his Native See also:District of See also:Northern Wiltshire," but, feeling that he was too old to finish it as he would wish, he made over his material, about 1695, to Thomas See also:Tanner, afterwards See also:bishop of St See also:Asaph. In the next year he published his only completed, though certainly not his most valuable work, the Miscellanies, a collection of stories on ghosts and dreams. He died at Oxford in See also:June 1697, and was buried in the See also:church of St See also:Mary Magdalene. Beside the See also:works already mentioned, his papers included: Architectonica Sacra," notes on ecclesiastical antiquities; and " See also:Life of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury," which served as the basis of Dr See also:Blackburn's Latin life, and also of Wood's account. His survey of Surrey was incorporated in R. See also:Rawlinson's Natural History and Antiquities of Surrey (1719); his antiquarian notes on Wiltshire were printed in Wiltshire; the Topographical Collections of John Aubrey, corrected and enlarged by J. E.

See also:

Jackson (See also:Devizes, 1862) See also:part of another MS. on " The Natural History of Wiltshire " was printed by John See also:Britton in 1847 for the Wiltshire Topographical Society; the Miscellanies were edited in 1890 for the Library of Old Authors; the " Minutes for Lives " were partially edited in 1813. A See also:complete transcript, Brief Lives chiefly of Contemporaries set down by John Aubrey between the Years 1669 and 1696, was edited for the Clarendon See also:Press in 1898 by the Rev. See also:Andrew See also:Clark from the See also:MSS. in the Bodleian, Oxford. See also John Britton, Memoir of John Aubrey (1845) ; See also:David See also:Masson, in the See also:British Quarterly See also:Review, See also:July 1856; Emile See also:Montegut, Heures de lecture d'un critique (1891); and a See also:catalogue of Aubrey's collections in The Life and Times of Anthony Wood . ., by Andrew Clark (Oxford, 1891-1900, vol. iv. pp. 191-193), which contains many other references to Aubrey.

End of Article: AUBREY, JOHN (1626-1697)

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