Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects

This etext was produced by Michael Coker.
LIFE of Aubrey Dedication to the First Edition Day-Fatality; or, Some Observations of Days Lucky and Unlucky Day-Fatality of Rome Of Fatalities of Families and Places Ostenta; or, Portents Omens Dreams Apparitions Voices Impulses Knockings Blows invisible Prophesies Miranda Magick Transportation by an invisible Power Visions in a Beryl or Crystal Visions without a Glass or Crystal Converse with Angels and Spirits Corps-candles in Wales Oracles Ecstacy Glances of Love and Malice An accurate account of Second-Sighted men in Scotland Additaments of Second-Sight Farther Additaments Appendix
JOHN AUBREY, the subject of this brief notice, was born at Easton Pierse, (Parish of Kington,) in Wiltshire, on the 12th of March, 1626; and not on the 3rd of November in that year, as stated by some of his biographers. He was the eldest son of Richard Aubrey, Esq. of Burleton, Herefordshire, and Broad Chalk, Wiltshire. Being, according to his own statement, very weak, and like to dye, he was baptized on the day of his birth, as appears by the Register of Kington. At an early age (1633) he was sent to the Grammar School at Yatton Keynel, and in the following year he was placed under the tuition of Mr. Robert Latimer, the preceptor of Hobbes, a man then far advanced in years.
On the 2nd of May, 1642, being then sixteen years of age, Aubrey was entered a gentleman commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, where he appears to have applied himself closely to study. He however cherished a strong predilection for English History and Antiquities, which was fostered and encouraged at this time by the appearance of the Monasticon Anglicanum , to which he contributed a plate of Osney Abbey, an ancient ruin near Oxford, entirely destroyed in the Civil Wars.
On the 16th of April, 1646, Aubrey was admitted a student of the Middle Temple, but the death of his father shortly after, leaving him heir to estates in Wiltshire, Surrey, Herefordshire, Brecknockshire and Monmouthshire, obliged him to relinquish his studies and look to his inheritance, which was involved in several law suits.