I may take this opportunity of saying that the text gives Aubrey's quotations, English and Latin alike, in the form in which they are found in his MSS. They are plainly cited from memory, not from book: they frequently do not scan, and at times do not even construe. A few are incorrect cementings of odd half lines.
The necessary excisions have not been numerous. They suggest two reflections. The turbulence attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh seems to have made his name in the next age the centre of aggregation of quite a number of coarse stories. In the same way, Aubrey is generally nasty when he mentions the noble house of Herbert, earl of Pembroke, and the allied family of Sydney. There may be personal pique in this, for Aubrey thinks he had a narrow escape from assassination by a Herbert (i. 48); perhaps also there may be the after-glow of a Wiltshire 'feud' (i. 316).
The Index gives all references to persons mentioned in the text, except to a few found only in pedigrees, or otherwise quite insignificant; also to all places of which anything distinctive is said.
Andrew Clark.
January 4, 1898.
CONTENTS
| VOLUME I | ||
|---|---|---|
| Frontispiece: John Aubrey, aetat. 40. | ||
| PAGE | ||
| Synopsis of the Lives | [ix]-xv | |
| Introduction | [1]-23 | |
| Lives:—Abbot to Hyde | [24]-427 | |
| VOLUME II | ||
| Frontispiece: Aubrey's book-plate. | ||
| Lives:—Ingelbert TO York | [1]-316 | |
| Appendix I:—Aubrey's Notes of Antiquities | [317]-332 | |
| Appendix II:—Aubrey's Comedy The Countrey Revell | [333]-339 | |
| Index | [341]-370 | |
| Facsimiles | At end. | |
| I. | Castle Mound, Oxford. Riding at the Quintin. | |
| II. | Verulam House. | |
| III. | Horoscope and cottage of Thomas Hobbes. | |
| IV. | Plans of Malmsbury and district. | |
| V. | Horoscope and arms of Sir William Petty. | |
| VI. | Wolsey's Chapel at Christ Church. | |