Page:Six Essays on Johnson.djvu/111

Rh ,’ he adds, ‘would be quite forgott, did not such idle fellowes as I am putt them downe!’

We owe to Aubrey a world of anecdote that but for his idleness would have been lost. He has the quickest eye for the odd humours and tricks of thought and gesture which distinguish one man from another. He was credulous, no doubt, for he was insatiably inquisitive, and the possibilities of human nature seemed to him to be inexhaustible. Character is what he loves, and he found the characters of men to be full of novelties and surprises. To him we owe the portrait of Hobbes the philosopher, at the age of ninety, lying in bed, and, when he was sure that the doors were barred and nobody heard him (for he had not a good voice), singing from a printed book of airs, to strengthen his lungs and prolong his life. Again, he tells how Thomas Fuller, the historian, had a memory so good that ‘he would repeate to you forwards and backwards all the signes from Ludgate to Charing Crosse.’ Or how Sir John Suckling, the poet, when he was at his lowest ebb in gaming, ‘would make himselfe most glorious in apparell, and sayd that it exalted his spirits.’ Or how William Prynne, the Puritan chastiser of the theatre, studied after this manner: ‘He wore a long quilt cap, which came 2 or 3, at least, inches over his eies, which served him as an umbrella to defend his eies from the light. About every 3 houres his man was to bring him a roll and a pott of ale to refocillate his wasted spirits. So he studied and dranke and munched some bread: and this maintained him till night; and then he made a good supper.’ Sometimes it is a witty saying or happy retort that sticks in Aubrey’s memory. So he relates of Sir Henry Savile, Provost of Eton,