The Natural History of Wiltshire Part 2

The story concerning the drawing out the nail driven crosse the wood- p.e.c.k.e.r's hole is without doubt a fable.

a.s.severes and vesicates are unusuall words, and I know not whether the wits will allow them.

[The name of John Ray holds a pre-eminent place amongst the naturalists of Great Britain. He was the first in this country who attempted a cla.s.sification of the vegetable kingdom, and his system possessed many important and valuable characteristics. Ray was the son of a blacksmith at Black Notley, near Braintree, in Ess.e.x, where he was born, in 1627. The letter here printed sufficiently indicates his natural shrewdness and intelligence. One of his works here referred to is ent.i.tled "Three Physico-Theological Discourses concerning Chaos, the Deluge, and the Dissolution of the World," 1692. There is a well- written memoir of Ray in the "Penny CyclopEedia," Aubrey's portrait, by the celebrated miniature-painter Samuel Cooper, alluded to above, is not now extant; but another portrait of him by Faithorne is preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, and has been several times engraved. A print from the latter drawing accompanied the "Memoirs of Aubrey," published by the Wilts.h.i.+re Topographical Society. Cooper died in 1672, and was buried in the old church of St. Pancras, London. Ray visited Italy between the years 1663 and 1666. J. B.]

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

CHOROGRAPHIA.

[IT has been thought sufficient to print only a few brief extracts from this Introductory Chapter, which in the original is of considerable length. Its t.i.tle (derived from the Greek words {Gk:choros} and {Gk: grapho}) is a.n.a.logous to Geography. By far the greater portion of it has no application to Wilts.h.i.+re, but, on the contrary, consists of Aubrey's notes, chiefly geological and botanical, on every part of England which he had visited; embracing many of the counties.

His observations shew him to have been a minute observer of natural appearances and phenomena, and in scientific knowledge not inferior to many of his contemporaries; but, in the present state of science, some of his remarks would be justly deemed erroneous and trivial.

It will be seen that he contends strongly for the influence of the soil and air upon the mental and intellectual faculties or "wits", of individuals; on which point some of his remarks are curious. Ray's comments on this part of his subject will be found in the letter already printed (page 7). "The temper of the earth and air", in the opinion of Aubrey, caused the variance in "provincial p.r.o.nunciation".

The author's theory of the formation and structure of the earth, which is here incidentally noticed, will be adverted to in the description of Chapter VIII. - J. B.]

PETRIFIED Sh.e.l.lS.-As you ride from Cricklad to Highworth, Wiltsh., you find frequently roundish stones, as big,, or bigger than one's head, which (I thinke) they call braine stones, for on the outside they resemble the ventricles of the braine; they are petrified sea mushromes. [Fossil Madrepores ?-J. B.]

The free-stone of Haselbury [near Box] hath, amongst severall other sh.e.l.ls, perfect petrified scalop-sh.e.l.ls. The rough stone about Chippenham (especially at c.o.c.kleborough) is full of petrified c.o.c.kles.

But all about the countrey between that and Tedbury, and about Malmesbury hundred, the rough stones are full of small sh.e.l.ls like little c.o.c.kles, about the bigness of a halfpenny.

At Dinton, on the hills on both sides, are perfect petrified sh.e.l.ls in great abundance, something like c.o.c.kles, but neither striated, nor invecked, nor any counter-sh.e.l.l to meet, but plaine and with a long neck of a reddish gray colour, the inside part petrified sand; of which sort I gave a quant.i.ty to the R. Society about twenty yeares since; the species whereof Mr. Hooke says is now lost.

On Bannes-downe, above Ben-Eston near Bathe, [Banner-downe, near Bath- Easton.- J. B.] where a battle of king Arthur was fought, are great stones scattered in the same manner as they are on Durnham-downe, about Bristow, which was a.s.suredly the work of an earthquake, when these great cracks and vallies were made.

The like dispersion of great stones is upon the hills by Chedar rocks, as all about Charter House, [Somersets.h.i.+re,] and the like at the forest at Fountain-Bleau, in France; and so in severall parts of England, and yet visible the remarques of earthquakes and volcanoes; but in time the husbandmen will cleare their ground of them, as at Durnham-downe they are exceedingly diminished since my remembrance, by making lime of them.

The great inequality of the surface of the earth was rendred so by earthquakes: which when taking fire, they ran in traines severall miles according to their cavernes; so for instance at Yatton Keynell, Wilts, a crack beginnes which runnes to Longdeanes, in the parish, and so to Slaughtonford, where are high steep cliffs of freestone, and opposite to it at Colern the like cliffs; thence to Bathe, where on the south side appeare Claverdon, on the north, Lansdon cliffs, both downes of the same piece; and it may be at the same tune the crack was thus made at St. Vincent's rocks near Bristow, as likewise Chedar rocks, like a street. From Castle Combe runnes a valley or crack to Ford, where it shootes into that that runnes from Yatton to Bathe.

Edmund Waller, Esq., the poet, made a quaere, I remember, at the Royal Society, about 1666, whether Salisbury plaines were always plaines ?

In Jamaica, and in other plantations of America, e. g. in Virginia, the natives did burn down great woods, to cultivate the soil with maiz and potato-rootes, which plaines were there made by firing the woods to sowe corne. They doe call these plaines Savannas. Who knowes but Salisbury plaines, &c. might be made long time ago, after this manner, and for the same reason ?

I have oftentimes wished for a mappe of England coloured according to the colours of the earth; with markes of the fossiles and minerals.

[Geological maps, indicating, by different colours, the formations of various localities, are now familiar to the scientific student. The idea of such a map seems to have been first suggested by Dr. Martin Lister, in a paper on "New Maps of Countries, with Tables of Sands, Clays, &c." printed in the Philosophical Transactions, in 1683. The Board of Agriculture published a few maps in 1794, containing delineations of soils, &c.; and in 1815 Mr. William Smith produced the first map of the strata of England and Wales. Since then G. B.

Greenough, Esq. has published a similar map, but greatly improved; and numerous others, representing different countries and districts, have subsequently appeared. - J. B.]

The great snailes* on the downes at Albery in Surrey (twice as big as ours) were brought from Italy by ..-.., Earle Marshal about 1638.

OF THE INDOLES OF THE IRISH. - Mr. J. Stevens went from, Trinity College in Oxford, 1647-8, to instruct the Lord Buckhurst in grammar; afterwards he was schoolmaster of the Free Schoole at Camberwell; thence he went to be master of Merchant Taylors' Schoole; next he was master of the schoole at Charter House; thence he went to the Free Schoole at Lever Poole, from whence he was invited to be a schoole master of the great schoole at Dublin, in Ireland; when he left that he was schoolmaster of Blandford, in Dorset; next of Shaftesbury; from whence he was invited by the city of Bristoll to be master of the Free Schoole there; from thence he went to be master of the Free Schoole of Dorchester in Dorset, and thence he removed to be Rector of Wyley in Wilts, 1666.

* Bavoli, (i.e.) drivelers.-J. EVELYN.

CHOROGRAPHIA: LOCAL INFLUENCES. 11

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 Somersetts.h.i.+re 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.

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.

In North Wilts.h.i.+re, and like the vale of Gloucesters.h.i.+re (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 circ.u.mstances 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 Glocesters.h.i.+re, and Somersets.h.i.+re. 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 mult.i.tude of enthusiastes. Capt. Stokes, in his "Wilts.h.i.+re 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 t.i.tle: "The Wilts.h.i.+re 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.]

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 Wilts.h.i.+re 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 Ma.n.u.script, as follows:-]

THE CHAPTERS.

PART I.

1. Air.

2. Springs Medicinall.

3. Rivers.