II. Condition of the Text of the 'Lives.'
Few of the 'Lives' are found in a fair copy[8]. Again and again, in his letters to Anthony Wood, Aubrey makes confession of the deficiencies of his copy, but puts off the heavy task of reducing it to shape.
His method of composition was as follows. He had a folio MS. book, and wrote at the top of a page here and there the name of a poet, or statesman, or the like, whose life he thought of committing to paper. Then, selecting a page and a name, he wrote down hastily, without notes or books, his recollections of the man, his personal appearance, his friendships, his actions or his books. If a date, a name, a title of a book, did not occur to him on the spur of the moment, he just left a blank, or put a mark of omission (generally, ... or——), and went on. If the matter which came to him was too much for the page, he made an effort to get it in somehow, in the margins (top, bottom, or sides), between the paragraphs, or on the opposite page.
When he read over what he had written in the first glow of composition, he erased, wrote alternatives to words and phrases, marked words, sentences, and paragraphs for transposition, inserted queries: unsettled everything.
If later on, from books or persons, he got further information, he was reckless as to how he put in the new matter: sometimes he put it in the margin, sometimes at a wrong place in the text, or on a wrong leaf, or in the middle even of another life, and often, of course, in a different volume.
And there, as has been said, the copy was left. Very seldom was a revised copy made.
To the confusions unavoidable in composing after this fashion, must be added the unsteadiness consequent on writing in the midst of morning sickness after a night's debauch. One passage, in which he describes his difficulties in composing, explains, in a way nothing else could, the frequent erasures, repetitions, half-made or inconsistent corrections, and dropping of letters, syllables, and words, which abound in his MSS. March 19, 1680/1[9]; 'if I had but either one to come to me in a morning with a good scourge, or did not sitt-up till one or two with Mr. <Edmund> Wyld, I could doe a great deal of businesse.'