Free John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr Page B

– when I was about nine years old – that I remember the same practice introduced at Broad Chalke.
    There are otters 16 in the River Wylye, and perhaps in other rivers too. The otter is our English beaver.
    . . .
    April
    To my great pride and joy, I have been admitted to Middle Temple, where I hope I will be able to make new friends and study the law. I intend to divide my time from this day forth between London and Oxford. No more secluded rural life for me!
    The Middle Temple gardens 17 run alongside the River Thames. There are fewer buildings on the bankside opposite.
    . . .
    But alas! Despite my good intentions, my father’s sickness and business do not permit me to settle to my studies.
    . . .
    The war goes badly. There is little food and no cheer in Oxford. Mr Dobson is running out of painterly materials that cannot be sent for or fetched from London. The war has reduced the thick impasto of his earlier canvases to thin skim paint. Even so, he works with what he has. There is a new portrait of the King in his studio, nearly finished. It is done almost entirely in black and brown. The King wears military dress: his proud head and shoulders fill the canvas, ready to do battle, yet there is anxiety, sadness about his dark eyes. He seems much older than when he first came triumphantly into the city like Apollo; his face narrower, his hair thinner, his lips pressed tight together; a stubborn and a frightened man.
    . . .
    24 June
    On this day Oxford surrendered.
    . . .
    Sir Thomas Fairfax 18 , Lord General of the Parliament’s army, has set a good guard of soldiers to preserve and protect the Bodleian Library. It is said that during their garrison of the town, the King’s army did much damage to the library, embezzling the books and cutting off the chains that hold them in place. Lord Fairfax is a lover of learning, who will take care that our noble library is not further destroyed.
    . . .
    While the King 19 had his court at Oxford, after the Battle of Edgehill, John Birkenhead, a Fellow of All Souls, wrote up the news wittily enough in his newsbook Mercurius Aulicus . Now that Oxford has surrendered, he will stop.
    . . .
    Many of the King’s party, some already known to me, have come to London. I love not their debauches. I have friends who are not debauched, but even so their conversation is not improving: I find it unfit for the muses.
    . . .
    I have heard that Dr William Harvey has come to London to live with his brother Eliab, who is a rich merchant with a country house at Roehampton. I hope I will make his acquaintance before long.
    . . .
    July
    Lundy Island, where Mr Bushell has been commandant for the King, has finally surrendered.
    . . .
    October
    The painter William Dobson has died, aged just thirty-five. Like other supporters of the King who have left Oxford now the Parliamentarians have it, he came to live in London recently. But he was soon imprisoned for debt and died in poverty. I must see Judith, his sweet-faced widow, soon.
    . . .
    My honoured neighbour 20 , Sir Charles Snell, has told me of an interesting sepulchre called Hubbaslow (or Barrow Hill) on the road from Chippenham to Bristol, and has shown me a reference to it in the first edition of Stow’s Chronicle . I will see it.
    . . .
    November
    To my great joy 21 , I am returned to Trinity College, Oxford. The Fellows make much of me, and I am again amidst their learned conversation, books and music: ingenious youths, as rosebuds, imbibe the morning dew.
    . . .
    The Parliamentarian Visitation 22 – which has been sent to Oxford to reform and regulate the University – came to Trinity today. Hannibal Potter, Pro-Vice Chancellor at the moment, as well as President of Trinity, does his best to protect the antiquities and elude the Visitors. Last month, Dr Potter was summoned to appear before the Visitors but he declined to attend. Now he has been called before a parliamentary committee of Lords and Commons in London, but still refuses to go.
    . .