Brief Lives, Vol. 2 — Background and Themes

Recurring Images of Invention and Credit

Aubrey repeatedly returns to stories of inventors who lost credit or profit to wealthier backers. The entry on Mr. Ingelbert states he was 'the first inventer or projector of bringing the water from Ware to London' but that Sir Hugh Middleton 'moneyed the businesse; undertooke it; and gott the profit and also the credit.' Aubrey adds that a statue 'ought to have been erected' for Ingelbert. This pattern—an ingenious poor man, a rich financier, and a grievance—appears elsewhere. In the Selden entry, Aubrey notes that Selden's father, a yeoman, 'played well on the violin' and that Selden himself, as a young student, was 'lookt upon then to be of parts extraordinary.' The tension between humble origins and later renown is a thread Aubrey pulls throughout.

Movement Between Scenes and Social Spaces

Aubrey's entries often shift abruptly from a public setting to a private one, creating a sense of movement. In the Selden life, the narrative moves from a Christmas dinner at Sir Thomas Alford's—where Selden 'sate at the lower end of the table'—to his chamber in the Inner Temple, 'uppermost story, where he had a little gallery to walke in.' Later, it describes his life with the Countess of Kent in White Fryers, 'a noble dwelling.' These transitions are not explained; they simply follow the biographer's associative memory. The effect is a collage of scenes: a hall, a study, a deathbed. Aubrey also includes physical details like Selden's 'false carpet' thrown over his papers when a stranger entered, which grounds the intellectual life in domestic habit.

Heraldry and Material Traces

Several entries pause to describe coats of arms or inscriptions, treating them as evidence. For John Innocent, Aubrey records a blazon: 'argent on gules a mayd stark naked with a chaplet in her hand dexter.' He notes that this coat appears at the free school Innocent built in Berkhamsted. Similarly, the Isaacson entry includes a full transcription of a marble gravestone inscription. These heraldic and epigraphic details are not decorative; they serve as documentary anchors. Aubrey often learned the meaning of a coat 'by chance' or from a courtier, as he says of Innocent's. The editor Clark reinforces this by adding marginal notes with archival sources, such as 'MS. Aubr. 8, fol. 89 v.' The reader is thus made aware of the manuscript origins of each fact.

Editorial Apparatus as a Second Voice

Andrew Clark's editing shapes the text significantly. He inserts footnotes that identify sources, correct dates, or explain allusions. For example, after Aubrey's note on Ingelbert, Clark adds a note from 'Pond's Almanack, 1647' giving a different date. In the Selden entry, Clark supplies cross-references like '[LXXXII.] She was living in 1646, or 1647, an old woman, 80+.' These interventions create a dialogue between Aubrey's 17th-century voice and Clark's 19th-century scholarship. The reader must navigate two layers: Aubrey's sometimes gossipy, first-person observations ('From my honoured and learned friend Mr. Fabian Philips') and Clark's sober citations. This dual structure invites careful reading, as the footnotes often qualify or expand the main text.

Readers approaching this volume should expect a mosaic of fragments rather than a continuous narrative. Aubrey's method is associative: a name triggers a memory, a hearsay, a scrap of heraldry. Clark's edition preserves that texture while adding scholarly scaffolding. To make the most of the work, attend to the footnotes and the bracketed annotations, which often reveal how Aubrey gathered his information. The lives are brief, but the details—a violin played at Christmas, a false carpet over papers, a coat of arms in a school—accumulate into a vivid portrait of an era.

John Aubrey’s little sketches feel like someone whispering secrets about the dead—habits, crests, small inventions. I kept thinking how Ralegh would have fascinated him, all that restless brilliance and stubborn pride. Then I found Sir Walter Ralegh: A Biography — Reading Companion, and it felt less like reading history and more like sitting beside a quiet fire, listening to a friend remember.