John Aubrey’s racy portraits of the great figures of 17th-century England, from Sir Walter Raleigh to John Milton, stand alongside Pepys’s diary as a vivid evocation of the period. Richard Barber’s full, modern English edition reproduces Aubrey’s words as closely as possible and enables modern readers to enjoy this eccentric masterpiece.

Contents
   Introduction
   Brief Lives

Interesting facts
Aubrey’s life itself is a fascinating affair, full of contradictions, as Richard Barber explains in his Introduction: “…a gentleman with a learned turn of mind, yet little formal education, a lover of books and manuscripts, yet almost penniless, a would-be scholar who loved worldly company as much as that of serious men, who spent the last twenty years of his life living in other people’s houses, on the run from his creditors”.

Aubrey’s Brief Lives are presented in alphabetical format, from A to Z, finishing with Sir Edward Zouche (Knight-marshal of the household in 1618) and beginning with…John Aubrey himself!

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Excerpts

John Milton
He was a spare man. He was scarce so tall as I am – question, how many feet am I high: answer, of middle stature. He had light brown hair. His complexion exceeding fair – he was so fair that they called him the lady of Christ’s College. Oval face. His eye a dark gray.

Sir Thomas More
His discourse was extraordinarily facetious. Riding one night, upon the sudden he crossed himself with a great cross, crying out, ‘Jesu Maria! Do not you see that prodigious dragon in the sky?’ they all looked up, and one did not see it, nor the other did not see it. At length one had spied it, and at last all had spied; whereas there was no such phantom; only he imposed on their fantasies.

Sir Walter Raleigh
Memorandum: he made an excellent cordial, good in fevers etc; Mr Robert Boyle has the recipe, and makes it and does great cures by it.
      A person so much immersed in action all along and in fabrication of his own fortunes (till his confinement in the Tower), could have but little time to study, but what he could spare in the morning. He was no slug; without doubt he had a wonderful waking spirit, and great judgement to guide it.

Eleanor Radcliffe, Countess of Sussex
A great and sad example of the power of lust and slavery of it. She was as great a beauty as any in England and had a good wit. After her lord’s death (he was jealous) she sends for one formerly her footman, and makes him groom of the chamber. He had the pox and she knew it; a damnable sot. He was not very handsome, but his body of an exquisite shape (hence the arrows of love). His nostrils were stuffed and borne out with corks in which were quills to breath through. About 1666 this countess died of the pox.

William Shakespeare
This William being inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came to London, I guess, about 18; and was an actor at one of the playhouses and did act exceedingly well (now B. Johnson was never a good actor, but an excellent instructor). […]
He was wont to say[…]that he ‘never blotted out a line in his life’; said Ben Johnson, ‘I wish he had blotted out a thousand.’