WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Brief Lives, Vol. 2 cover

Brief Lives, Vol. 2

Chapter 198: Note.
By John Aubrey
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

BiographiesBritish LiteratureHistory - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)

About This Book

A collection of concise biographical sketches of contemporaries and earlier figures recorded by an antiquarian observer, combining factual entries—births, offices, publications, and inscriptions—with personal anecdotes, hearsay, heraldic and parish-register notes, bibliographic references, and occasional critical judgments. Entries range from terse records to extended reminiscences, often citing documentary sources or witness statements, and reflect an informal, detail-driven approach aimed at preserving lives, reputations, and local traditions for reference and remembrance.

Laurence Rooke (1623-1662).

[903]Laurence Rooke, borne at ... in Kent, was of <King's> Colledge in Cambridge, a good mathematician and a very good man, an intimate friend of Dr. Seth Ward (now lord bishop of Sarum).

I heard him reade at Gresham College on the sixth chapter of Clavis Mathematica, an excellent lecture: quaere for his papers which the bishop of Sarum haz.

He was a temperate man and of strong constitution, but tooke his sicknesse of which he dyed by setting up often for astronomicall observations. He lyes buried in the church of St. Bennet Finke in London, neer the Old Exchange.

His deare friend the bishop (then of Exon) gave to the Royall Societie a very faire pendulum clock, dedicated to Mr. Rooke's memory, with this inscription[904]:—

Societati Regali ad scientiam naturalem
promovendam institutae
dono dedit
Reverendus in Christo pater, Sethus, episcopus
Exon, ejusdem societatis sodalis
in memoriam
Laurentii Rook
viri omni literarum genere instructissimi
in Collegio Greshamensi primum Astronomiae
deinde Geometriae professoris
dictaeque societatis nuper sodalis,
qui obiit Jun. 26, 1662.

Seth <Ward>, now lord bishop of Salisbury, hath all Mr. Rooke's papers: quod N.B.

[905]M.S.
Hic subtus sive dormit sive contemplatur
 Qui jamdudum animo metitus est
 Quicquid aut vita aut mors habet
 V.C. Laurentius Rooke e Cantio oriundus
 In Collegio Greshamensi
 Astronomiae primo, dein Geometriae professor,
 Utriusque ornamentum et spes maxima,
 Quem altissima indoles, artesque omnifariae,
 Mores pellucidi, et ad amussim probi,
 Consuetudo facilis et accommoda,
 Bonis doctisque omnibus fecere commendatissimum:
 Vir totus teres et sui plenus
 Cui virtus et pietas et summa ratio
 Desideria metusque omnes sub pedibus dabant.
 Ne se penitus saeculo subducere mortuus possit
 Qui iniquissima modestia vixerat
 Sethus Ward episcopus Exon
 Sodalis et symmystae desideratissimi
 Longas suavesque amicitias
 Hoc saxo prosecutus est.
Obiit Junii XXVII, A.D. MDCLXII, aetat. XL.
 M.S.

This inscription was never set up; made, I thinke, by Ralph Bathurst; quaere Mr. Abraham Hill.

Note.

In MS. Aubr. 6, fol. 117, attached to the notice of William Camden, are pp. 17-24 of Lewis du Moulin's Latin orations, 1652. On p. 18 of this, Aubrey writes: 'I found this fragment amongst the papers of Mr. Laurence Rooke in bishop Seth Ward's study after his death.' Page 19 begins: 'Oratio in laudem ... Cambdeni,' July 10, 1652, beginning: 'Cum muneris ratio postulet.'