Sir John Ernele, great-grandson of Sir John Ernele above sayd, and eldest sonn of Sir John Ernele, late Chancellour of the Exchequer, had the command of a flag-ship, and was eminent in some sea services. He married the daughter and heir of Sir John Kerle of…. in Herefordshire. ___________________________________
A DIGRESSION. - Anno 1633, I entred into my grammar at the latin schoole at Yatton-Keynel, in the church, where the curate, Mr. Hart, taught the eldest boyes Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, &c. The fashion then was to save the forules of their bookes with a false cover of parchment, sc. old manuscript, which I [could not] was too young to understand; but I was pleased with the elegancy of the writing and the coloured initiall letters. I remember the rector here, Mr. Wm. Stump, great gr.-son of St. the cloathier of Malmesbury, had severall manuscripts of the abbey. He was a proper man and a good fellow; and, when he brewed a barrell of speciall ale, his use was to stop the bung- hole, under the clay, with a sheet of manuscript; he sayd nothing did it so well: which me thought did grieve me then to see. Afterwards I went to schoole to Mr. Latimer at Leigh-delamer, the next parish, where was the like use of covering of bookes. In my grandfather's dayes the manuscripts flew about like butterflies. All music bookes, account bookes, copie bookes, &c. were covered with old manuscripts, as wee cover them now with blew paper or marbled paper; and the glovers at Malmesbury made great havoc of them; and gloves were wrapt up no doubt in many good pieces of antiquity. Before the late warres a world of rare manuscripts perished hereabout; for within half a dozen miles of this place were the abbey of Malmesbury, where it may be presumed the library was as well furnished with choice copies as most libraries of England; and perhaps in this library we might have found a correct Pliny's Naturall History, which Cantus, a monk here, did abridge for King Henry the Second. Within the aforesaid compass was Broad stock Priory, Stan Leigh Abbey, Farleigh Abbey, Bath Abbey, eight miles, and Cirencester Abbey, twelve miles. Anno 1638 I was transplanted to Blandford-schoole, in Dorset, to Mr. Wm. Sutton. (In Mr. Wm. Gardner's time it was the most eminent schoole for the education of gentlemen in the West of England.) Here also was the use of covering of bookes with old parchments, sc. leases, &c., but I never saw any thing of a manuscript there. Hereabout were no abbeys or convents for men. One may also perceive by the binding of old bookes how the old manuscripts went to wrack in those dayes. Anno 1647 I went to Parson Stump out of curiosity, to see his manuscripts, whereof I had seen some in my childhood; but by that time they were lost and disperse. His sons were gunners and souldiers, and scoured their gunnies with them; but he shewed me severall old deeds granted by the Lords Abbots, with their scales annexed, which I suppose his sonn Capt. Tho. Stump of Malmesbury hath still. [I have quoted part of this curious paragraph in my Memoir of Aubrey, 4to. 1845.-J. B.] ___________________________________
WRITERS.- William of Malmesbury. He was the next historiographer of this nation to Venerable Bede, as he himself written; and was fain, he sayes, to pick out his history out of ballads and old rhythmes….. hundred yeares after Bede. He dedicates his history to [Robert, Earl of Gloucester] "filio naturali Henrici primi". He wrote also the history of the abbey of Glastonbury, which is in manuscript in the library of Trinity College in Cambridge, wherein are many good remarques to be found, as Dr. Thomas Gale of Paules schoole enformes me. [This was edited by Gale, and published at Oxford in 1691, 8vo. - J. B.]
Robertus Sarisburiensis wrote a good discourse, De Piscinis, mentioned and commended by Sir Henry Wotton in his Elements of Architecture. Q. Anth. Wood, de hoc.
Dr….. Forman, - Mr. Ashmole thinkes his name was John, [Simon.- J. B.]- physitian and astrologer, was born at Wilton, in Wilts. He was of the University of Oxford, but took his degree of Doctor in Cambridge, practised in Salisbury, where he was persecuted for his astrologie, which in those ignorant times was accounted conjuring. He then came to London, where he had very good practise, and did great cures; but the college hated him, and at last drove him out of London: so he lived and died at Lambeth, where he lies buried. Elias Ashmole, Esq. has severall bookes of his writing (never printed), as also his own life. There it may be seen whether he was not a favorite of Mary, Countesse of Pembroke. He was a chymist, as far as chymistry went in those dayes, and 'tis very likely he was a favorite of her honour's. Quaere Mr. Dennet, the Earl of Pembrock's steward, if he had not a pension from the Earl of Pembrock? Forman is a common name in Calne parish, Wilts, where there are still severall wealthy men, cloathiers, &c. of that name; but tempore Reginæ Elizabethæ there was a Forman of Calne, Lord Maior of London. My grandfather Lyte told me that at his Lord Maior's shew there was the representation of the creation of the world, and writt underneath, "and all for man." [Some interesting passages from Forman's MS. Diary have recently been brought forward by Mr. Collier in illustration of the history of Shakspere's works. They describe some very early performances of several of his plays, at which Forman was present. - J. B.]
Sr Johan Davys, Knight, was born at Tysbury; his father was a tanner. He wrote a poeme in English, called "Nosce Teipsum"*; also Reports. He was Lord Chief Justice in Ireland. His wife was sister to the Earle of Castle-Haven that was beheaded; she had also aliquid dementiæ, and was a prophetesse, for which she was confined in the Tower, before the late troubles, for her predictions. His onely daughter and heire was married to [Ferdinando] Earle of Huntingdon.
[*"Nosce Teipsum: this oracle expounded in two elegies. 1st. Of Human knowledge. 2nd. Of the soule of man, and the immortality thereof;" with acrostics on Queen Elizabeth. (London, 1609, small 8vo.) The works of the above named Lady Eleanor Davies, the prophetess, widow of Sir John, were of a most extraordinary kind. See a list of them in Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica. - J. B.]
Mr. Thomas Hobbes was born at Westport juxta Malmesbury, April the fifth, anno 1588, he told me, between four and six in the morning, in the house that faces or points to the horse-faire. He died at Hardwick in Darbyshire, Anno Domini 1679, ætatis 91. [See Aubrey's Life of Hobbes, appended to Letters from the Bodleian, vol. iii. p. 593. - J. B.]
Thomas Willis, M.D., was born at Great Bedwin in this county, anno [1621.] His father, he told me, was steward to my Lady Smyth there. He dyed in London, and lies interred with his wife in Westminster Abbey.
Thomas Piers, D.D., and Dean of Salisbury, formerly President of Magdalen College in Oxford, was born at the Devizes. His father was a woollen draper and an alderman there.