<Here and there in the Lives Aubrey has jotted down notes on various matters of antiquarian interest. These are collected here, and a few other notes of the same type from other Aubrey volumes added to them. Aubrey attached to some of these notes the title of 'Nouvelles,' e.g. MS. Aubr. 8, foll. 6, 28v, 103.>
<'Sir' = dominus.> I remember, before the late warres, the ministers in Herefordshire, etc. (counties that way), had the title of Sr., as the bachalours of Art[1301] have at Oxon, as 'Sir Richard, of Stretford,' 'Sir William, of Monkland.' And so it was in Wilts, when my grandfather Lyte was a boy; and anciently everywhere. The example of this appeares in the excellent comoedie of The Scornfull Ladie, where 'Sir Roger' (the chaplain) has a great part. It was made by Mr. J. Fletcher about the beginning of King James' time; but in all old wills before the reformation it is upon record.—MS. Aubr. 3, fol. 30.
<The ways of the gentry, tempore Jacobi I.> In those dayes hunting and falconery were at the height: old Serjeant Latham then lived, and writt his falconry[1302]. Good cheere was then much in use; but to be wiser then one's neighbours, scandalous and to be envyed at. And the nobility and gentry were, in that soft peace, damnable prowd and insolent.—MS. Aubr. 3, fol. 30.
<Ghost-stories.> When I was a child, and so before the civill warres, the fashion was for old women and maydes to tell fabulous stories, night-<t>imes, and of sprights and walking of ghosts, etc. This was derived downe from mother to daughter, etc., from the monkish ballance, which upheld holy Church: for the divines say 'Deny spirits, and you are an atheist.' When the warres came, and with them liberty of conscience and liberty of inquisition, the phantomes vanish. Now children feare no such things, having heard not of them, and are not checked[1303] with such feares.—MS. Aubr. 3, fol. 30.
The first pointe-de-Venice band that was worne in England was by King Charles the first at his coronation. Now[1304], 'tis common.—MS. Aubr. 6, fol. 1v.
Point-bands. The first point-band worne in England was that which King <Charles> IId wore when he was crowned: and presently after, the fashion was followed infinitely:—from Mris Judith Dobson, vidua pictoris[1305].—MS. Aubr. 6, fol. 11v.
Apothecaries. Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, saies, as I remember, in the College of Physicians case, that ... Falconti[1306], an Italian, was the first apothecarie in London. But vide Sir Geofrey Chaucer, in his Prologue of the Doctor of Physick, [s<ae>c.[1307] xiiiith, thus]:—
'Full readie had he his apothecaries
To send him drugg and electuaries.'
And Mr. Anthony à Wood shewes in his Oxon. Antiquities[1308] that there was a place there, called Apothecaria, 300 yeares ago. In queen Elizabeth's time the apothecaries did sell sack in their shoppes: my grandfather[1309] and severall old men that I knew heretofore did remember it.—MS. Aubr. 6, fol. 11v.