Note Q — THE 'LIVES'

In MS. Aubr. 23 (his 'Collectio geniturarum'), fol. 116, 117, are letters from Charles Snell about Aubrey's nativity and accidents. Snell there enumerates Aubrey's:—

'Sicknesse att birth; ague and vomittings aboute 5 or 6 yeares old; issue in his head; small-pox; amours with madam Wiseman[229]; selling away the mannor of Stratford, etc.; haesitating in his speech.'

Snell gives this advice:—

'If the haesitation in your speech doth hinder, gett a parsonage of 4 or 500 li. per annum, and give a curat 100 li. per annum to officiate for you.'

The letter is dated from 'Fordingbridge; 12 August, 1676.'

Aubrey, in his letters to Anthony Wood, several times touches on the idea of his taking Orders. MS. Ballard 14, fol. 98:—'I am like to be spirited away to Jamaica by my lord <John> Vaughan, who is newly made governor there, and mighty earnest to have me goe with him and will looke out some employment worthy a gentleman for me. Fough! the cassock stinkes: it would be ridiculous.'—April 9, 1674. MS. Ballard 14, fol. 119:—'I am stormed by my chiefest friends afresh, viz. Baron Bertie[230], Sir William Petty, Sir John Hoskyns, bishop of Sarum[231], etc., to turne ecclesiastique; "but the king of France growes stronger and stronger, and what if the Roman religion should come-in againe?" "Why then!" say they, "cannot you turne too?" You, I say, know well that I am no puritan, nor an enimy to the old gentleman on the other side of the Alpes. Truly, if I had a good parsonage of 2 or 300 li. per annum, (as you told me) it would be a shrewd temptation.'—Aug. 29, 1676.