John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr

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    I went to visit the ruins of Eynsham Abbey – the Benedictine monastery that was dissolved in 1538 – and greatly admired the two high towers at the west end. The ruins set my thoughts working to make out their magnificence in former times.
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    Dr William Petty teaches anatomy at Brasenose College and keeps a partially pickled dead body for this purpose. He brought the body to Oxford from Reading by water. He is beloved by all the scholars, especially Ralph Bathurst of Trinity College (brother of Dr George Bathurst, who was killed in the Battle of Faringdon), John Wilkins (astronomer and natural philosopher), Seth Ward (mathematician), Thomas Willis (royal physician), etc. Together they pursue experimental philosophy.
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    Ralph Bathurst says 23 the poet Ben Jonson was a Warwickshire man (though others dispute this). Jonson came to Trinity College with an Exhibition after a benefactor overheard him reciting Greek verse from Homer as he worked on the wall between Lincoln’s Inn and Chancery Lane alongside his stepfather, a bricklayer.
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    My Trinity friends 24 , Thomas Mariett, William Radford and Ned Wood, have had a frolic on foot from Oxford to London. Never having been to Windsor before, they passed through it and visited Mr John Hales, Fellow of Eton College, general scholar and poet, who has a noble library of books. When the court was at Windsor, the learned courtiers much delighted in his company, but the Parliamentarian Visitation of 1642 ejected Mr Hales from his position as Canon of Windsor. My friends presented themselves to him as scholars, so he treated them well and gave them ten shillings.
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    I went to visit William Stumpe 25 , out of curiosity to see his manuscripts (I remember seeing some of them in my childhood); but by now they are mostly lost. I have never forgotten how he used to abuse them, lining the corks of ale bottles with precious pages. His sons are gunners and soldiers who follow their father in their disrespect for manuscripts and scour their guns with them. But Mr Stumpe showed me several old deeds granted by the Lords Abbots, with their scales annexed, which I suppose his son Captain Thomas Stumpe of Malmesbury – he who had adventures as a boy in Guyana – will inherit.
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    Despite all the disruptions 26 and distractions of this troubled time, I am continuing my studies at Middle Temple. This evening we were finishing our common meal when Sir John Maynard came in from Westminster Hall, weary with the business of the day and hungry. He sat down by Mr Bennett Hoskyns, son of the poet Serjeant Hoskyns, and some others who were discussing the meaning of the text: ‘For a just man one would dare to die: but for a good man one would willingly die.’ They asked Sir John what the difference is between a just man and a good man. He said it was all very well for those who had eaten to begin on such a discourse, but he was hungry. Then, after a couple of mouthfuls, he said: ‘I’ll tell you the difference presently: Serjeant Rolle is a just man and Matthew Hale is a good man.’ That is all he said before returning to his food. There could not be a better elucidation of that text. Serjeant Rolle is just, but naturally penurious (and his wife makes him worse). Whereas Matthew Hale is not only just, but charitable, open-handed, and no sounder of his own trumpet, as hypocrites are.
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    James Harrington and Thomas Herbert have been appointed to His Majesty’s Bedchamber at Holmeby House, by order of the Parliament. I am told that Mr Harrington passionately loves the King, and they often dispute together about government, but the King will not hear talk of a Commonwealth. I hope to meet Mr Harrington: he was a gentleman commoner at Trinity College before my time.
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    Anno 1647
    May
    ‘How it comes to pass 27 , I know not; but by ancient and modern example it is evident, that no great accident befalls a city or prince but it is presaged by divination or prodigy, or