Aubrey's Brief Lives by John Aubrey

Author:John Aubrey
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781473521735
Publisher: Random House

EDWARD HERBERT: LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY

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[Born 1583. Philosopher and historian. At the age of sixteen, he married a kinswoman four years his senior, while he was at the University. At his coronation in 1603, James I made him a Knight of the Bath and, in 1608, he went to the Continent, where for some years he was engaged in military and diplomatic affairs, not without his share of troubles. In 1624 he was created an Irish, and a few years later an English, peer, as Baron Herbert of Cherbury. It was in 1624 also that he wrote his treatise De Veritate, in which truth is distinguished from (i) revelation, (ii) the probable, (iii) the possible and (iv) the false. This was the first purely metaphysical work written by an Englishman and gave rise to much controversy. His other chief philosophical work was De Religione Gentilium (1663) which has been called the charter of the Deists, and was intended to prove that all religions recognise the same five main articles. He also wrote a Life of Henry VIII (1649) and his Autobiography, besides some poems of a metaphysical cast. On the outbreak of the Civil War he sided, though somewhat half-heartedly, with the Royalists, but in 1644 he surrendered to the Parliament, received a pension, and held various offices. Died 1648.]

I HAVE SEEN him severall times with Sir John Danvers; he was a black man.

The Castle of Montgomery was a most Romancy seate: It stood upon a high Promontory, the north side 30+ feete high. From hence is a most delightsome prospect, 4 severall wayes. Southwards, without the Castle, is Prim-rose-hill: vide Donne’s Poem:—

Upon this Prim-rose-hill,

Where, if Heaven would distill

A Showre of raine, each severall drop might goe

To his owne Prim-rose, and grow Manna so;

And where their forme, and their infinitie

Make a terrestiall Galaxie,

As the small starres doe in the Skie:

In this pleasant Solitude did this noble Lord enjoy his Muse.

This stately Castle was demolished since the late Warres at the Chardge of the Countrey.

Mr. Fludd tells me he had constantly prayers twice a day in his howse, and Sundayes would have his Chaplayne, Dr. Coote (a Cambridge scholar and a learned) read one of Smyth’s Sermons.

James Usher, Lord Primate of Ireland, was sent for by him, when in his death-bed, and he would have received the sacrament. He sayd indifferently of it that if there was good in any-thing ’twas in that, or if it did no good ’twould doe no hurt. The Primate refused it, for which many blamed him. He then turned his head to the other side and expired very serenely.

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