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.'
III. Aim of this Edition.
In presenting a text of Aubrey's 'Lives,' an editor, on more than one important point, has to decide between alternatives.
1. Shall all, or some only, of the lives be given?
It is plain, from a glance over the MSS., that many of the lives are of little interest; in some cases, because they contain more marks of omission than statements of fact; in other cases, because they give mainly excerpts from prefaces of books; and so on. A much more interesting, as well as handier, book would be produced, if the editor were to reject all lives in which Aubrey has nothing of intrinsic value to show.
2. In the lives selected, shall the whole, or parts only, of what Aubrey has written be given?