(a) A plain text is given of what Aubrey wrote, taking, as seemed most convenient, sometimes his first version of a sentence or a word, sometimes his alternative version. The rejected alternatives are given in the textual notes, as 'duplicate with'; and occasionally the erasures, as 'substituted for.' Many of these notes are very trivial; but their presence, which after all gives little trouble, provides a complete view of the MS. text. I believe also that in this way I have preserved for the collector of words some quaint forms and expressions for which he will thank me, and provided the student of English style with some apt instances of the way in which terse native words have been replaced in our written language by feebler Latinisms.
(b) I have been careful to give, in every case, Aubrey's own spelling, with or without final or medial 'e,' with single or double letters, 'ie' or other diphthong where we write 'ei,' and the like. The English of Aubrey's age is so like our own that it is not unimportant to mark even its minor differences.
All merely artificial tricks of writing (wch for which, and the like) have been neglected.
(c) Where a date, a word, or a name has been inserted, the insertion is enclosed in angular brackets < >. Where it seemed requisite to mark that a word or phrase was added at a later date, or by another hand, square brackets have been used []. The use of these symbols, borrowed from Vahlen's edition of Aristotle's Poetics, has been censured as pedantic, but I know of no clearer or shorter way of making plain in a printed text just what is, and what is not, in the MS. text.
(d) Punctuation is generally absent in Aubrey's text, as might be expected, and where it is found, it is often misleading. The points and marks in this edition are therefore such as seemed to make the meaning clear to myself, and therefore, I hope, to others.
(e) As regards the order of the paragraphs, Aubrey's text has been given, where convenient, sentence by sentence, and page by page. But I have taken full liberty to bring into their proper place marginalia, interlinear notes, addenda on opposite pages, &c. In some cases, indeed, to give in print the MS. text sentence by sentence is to do it injustice. In the MS., the difference of inks between earlier and later notes, the difference of pen-strokes (on one day with a firm pen, on another with a scratchy quill), and similar nuances, impress the eye with a sequence of paragraphs which in print can be shown only by redistribution. For example, I claim that the life of Milton, in this edition, is, from its bolder treatment, truer to the MS., than the servile version in the old edition.
4. As regards notes and explanations. Aubrey's lives supply an inviting field for comment, correction, and addition. But, even so treated, they will never be a biographical dictionary. Their value lies not in statement of bibliographical or other facts, but in their remarkably vivid personal touches, in what Aubrey had seen himself and what his friends had told him. The notes therefore seek to supply no more than indications of outstanding features of the text, identifications of Aubrey's informants, or necessary parallels from his letters.
IV. Description of the MSS.
MS. Aubr. 6: a volume chiefly of folio leaves; written mostly in February 1679/80; now marked as containing 122 leaves (some pages blank), but having also a few unfoliated slips. Aubrey's own short title to it was:—
'Σχεδιάσματα. Brief Lives, part i.,'