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Brief Lives, Vol. 1

Chapter 33: Notes.
By John Aubrey
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BiographiesHistory - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)

About This Book

A collection of concise biographical sketches compiled from the author's manuscript notes, offering anecdotal portraits of a wide range of literary, scientific, political, and social figures across several generations. Entries blend remembered quotations, learned citation, personal recollection, and occasional gossip, producing uneven but vivid character sketches. Material is presented alphabetically and supplemented by antiquarian notes, a short theatrical piece, and facsimiles of manuscript drawings and plans. An introduction outlines editorial principles and reproduces the manuscript spellings and citations where appropriate, preserving the informality and immediacy of the original notes.

Francis Anthony (1550-1623).

[102]Dr. [Francis[103]] Anthony, the chymist, Londinensis, natus 16 Aprilis, 1550, 1h. P.M., Virgo 0° 3´ ascend.

Quaere A<nthony> W<ood> if of Oxon or Cambridge[104].

Scripsit 2 libros, viz.:—Aurum potabile, and his Defense against Dr. <Matthew> Gwyn (who wrote a booke called Aurum non Aurum). This is all that Mr. Littlebury, bookeseller, remembers.

He lived in St. Bartholomew's close, London, where he dyed, and is, I suppose, buried there, about 30 yeares since[H], scil. 1652.

Vide his nativity in Catalogue[I].

He had a sonne who wrote something, I thinke (quaere Mr. Littlebury); and a daughter maried to ... Montague, a bookeseller in Duck-lane, who in Oliver's time was a soldier in Scotland.

Notes.

[H] Wood notes here 'so that by this reckoning,' i.e. if born in 1550 ut supra, 'he was 102.'

[I] i.e., I suppose, in MS. Aubrey 23 (Aubrey's Collectio Geniturarum), where at fol. 121, among nativities from Dr. Richard Napier's papers, is:—'Dr. Anthony, Londinensis, who made aurum potabile at London, natus 16 April, 1550, 1h P.M.'