that he could not abide Wits; ‘when a young scholar was recommended to him for a good witt, Out upon him, says he, I’ll have nothing to do with him; give me the plodding student. If I would look for witts I would goe to Newgate, there be the witts.’ Again, he tells how Sir Walter Raleigh, dining with his graceless son at a nobleman’s table, when his son made a profane and immodest speech, struck him over the face. ‘His son, as rude as he was, would not strike his father, but strikes over the face the gentleman that sate next to him, and sayd: “Box about: ’twill come to my father anon.”’
Aubrey takes as keen a delight as Samuel Pepys himself in the use of his natural senses, and his zest in observation sometimes gives an air of exaggeration to his recorded impressions. Of Sir Henry Savile he says, ‘He was an extraordinary handsome and beautiful man; no lady had a finer complexion.’ Of Sir William Petty, ‘He is a proper handsome man, measured six foot high, good head of browne haire moderately turning up…. His eies are a kind of goose-grey, but very short-sighted, and, as to aspect, beautifull, and promise sweetnes of nature, and they do not deceive, for he is a marveillous good-natured person.’ Aubrey's unbounded faculty for enjoyment and admiration is seen even in his description of the mechanical contrivances and scientific inventions that were shown to him by his friends. Now it is a new kind of well—‘the most ingenious and useful bucket well that ever I saw…. ’Tis extremely well worth the seeing.’ Or it is a device for relieving those who are troubled with phlegm—‘a fine tender sprig,’ with a rag tied at the end to put down the throat of the patient. ‘I could never make it
