Читать книгу The Natural History of Wiltshire - John Aubrey - Страница 14

He is my old acquaintance, and I desired him to tell me freely if the Irish Boyes had as good witte as the English; because some of our severe witts have ridiculed the Irish understanding. He protested to me that he could not find but they had as good witts as the English; but generally speaking he found they had better memories. Dr. James Usher, Lord Primate of Ireland, had a great memorie: Dr Hayle (Dr. of the Chaire at Oxford) had a prodigious memorie: Sir Lleonell Jenkins told me, from him, that he had read over all the Greeke fathers three times, and never noted them but with his naile. Mr. …. Congreve, an excellent dramatique poet. Mr. Jo. Dodwell hath also a great memorie, and Mr. …. Tolet hathe a girle at Dublin, mathematique, who at eleven yeares old would solve questions in Algebra to admiration. Mr. Tolet told me he began to instruct her at seven yeares of age. See the Journall of the R. Society de hoc. ___________________________________

As to singing voyces wee have great diversity in severall counties of this nation; and any one may observe that generally in the rich vales they sing clearer than on the hills, where they labour hard and breathe a sharp ayre. This difference is manifest between the vale of North Wilts and the South. So in Somersettshire they generally sing well in the churches, their pipes are smoother. In North Wilts the milkmayds sing as shrill and cleare as any swallow sitting on a berne:-

"So lowdly she did yerne, Like any swallow sitting on a berne."-

CHAUCER.

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According to the severall sorts of earth in England (and so all the world over) the Indigense are respectively witty or dull, good or bad.

To write a true account of the severall humours of our own countrey would be two sarcasticall and offensive: this should be a secret whisper in the eare of a friend only and I should superscribe here,

"Pinge duos angues -locus est sacer: extra

Mei ite." - PERSIUS SATYR.

Well then! let these Memoires lye conceal'd as a sacred arcanum.

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In North Wiltshire, and like the vale of Gloucestershire (a dirty clayey country) the Indigense, or Aborigines, speake drawling; they are phlegmatique, skins pale and livid, slow and dull, heavy of spirit: hereabout is but little, tillage or hard labour, they only milk the cowes and make cheese; they feed chiefly on milke meates, which cooles their braines too much, and hurts their inventions. These circumstances make them melancholy, contemplative, and malicious; by consequence whereof come more law suites out of North Wilts, at least double to the Southern Parts. And by the same reason they are generally more apt to be fanatiques: their persons are generally plump and feggy: gallipot eies, and some black: but they are generally handsome enough. It is a woodsere country, abounding much with sowre and austere plants, as sorrel, &c. which makes their humours sowre, and fixes their spirits. In Malmesbury Hundred, &c. (ye wett clayy parts) there have ever been reputed witches.

On the downes, sc. the south part, where 'tis all upon tillage, and where the shepherds labour hard, their flesh is hard, their bodies strong: being weary after hard labour, they have not leisure to read and contemplate of religion, but goe to bed to their rest, to rise betime the next morning to their labour.

——- "redit labor actus in orbem Agricolae."-VIRGIL, ECLOG. ___________________________________

The astrologers and historians write that the ascendant as of Oxford is Capricornus, whose lord is Saturn, a religious planet, and patron of religious men. If it be so, surely this influence runnes all along through North Wilts, the vale of Glocestershire, and Somersetshire. In all changes of religions they are more zealous than other; where in the time of the Rome-Catholique religion there were more and better churches and religious houses founded than any other part of England could shew, they are now the greatest fanaticks, even to spirituall madness: e. g. the multitude of enthusiastes. Capt. Stokes, in his "Wiltshire Rant, "printed about 1650, recites ye strangest extravagancies of religion that were ever heard of since the time of the Gnosticks. The rich wett soile makes them hypochondricall.

"Thus wind i'th Hypochondries pent,

Proves but a blast, if downwards sent;

But if it upward chance to flie

Becomes new light and prophecy."-HUDIBRAS.

[The work above referred to bears the following title: "The Wiltshire

Rant, or a Narrative of the Prophane Actings and Evil Speakings of

Thomas Webbe, Minister of Langley Burrell, &c. By Edward Stokes. "4to.

Lond. 1652.-J. B.]

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The Norfolk aire is cleare and fine. Indigente, good clear witts, subtile, and the most litigious of England: they carry Littleton's Tenures at the plough taile. Sir Thorn. Browne, M. D., of Norwich, told me that their eies in that countrey doe quickly decay; which he imputes to the clearness and driness (subtileness) of the aire. Wormwood growes the most plentifully there of any part of England; which the London apothecaries doe send for.

Memorandum.-That North Wiltshire is very worme-woodish and more litigious than South Wilts,

[A Table of Contents, or List of the Chapters, is prefixed to each

Part, or Volume, of the Manuscript, as follows:-]