TRIVIA.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20104, 6 December 1930, Page 15

TRIVIA.

Di^rt hOU f Id J- lio t0 b ° rrOW a bcok: the he '-; US Ashmo!a - lfc pubhod ln 1/17> „ nd repi .. nted . n \ 774 r 0 ., a,,10bu) K' - aphy of the astroi,]". '. Jl J ' Sl ' ,,c<s when it seems to *■<-- *. ji.-en out 01 priii t.

Elia.s _ Ashmole (IGI7-1092), whose •te 13 introduced in the D. N. B. with H. quoted tribute, "the greatest viroso an curioso that ever was known luU °f in hngland bel'ore his time," jekm-s (like .Samuel Johnson) to Lich- < . iio was educated at the gram mar school there, was a chorister in vVf-'li ' ,Ullct .V: al ; •' uu l became a solicitor, In ilw'"A- , in^;^ eroufc K«od practice." ! ~, Wars he took the Royalist i dKI W<i " out ° r lL ; for l»o I t VL( *.\^ t l JOlu^ niC;I1 ts in threat variety, V»' j !'. lllltai T, and fiscal, and still •uiid tune to widen liis intellectual '■ '< ( ! oor ge Wharton turned . n towards alchemy and astrology. n in'ii >7 IU-Clltl U - Cllt tllo . u ' ,on « way and terI , !" s «\'»»'issions under Charles it , at V lO Restoration he was rr , n T ousl >- n " lva rd °d lor a loyalty . ' 5 never been severely tested. Ho became Windsor herald, "and had i • s closet assigned for my | M ' , appointed fh-st comptroller and then accountant-general of oxfi.se , and at the same time he was 'ommissioner lor .Surinam and comptroller of the White ollice. When ho retired lrom the herald's ollice be was Riven a pension of £'4oo But even 'I. the interval between the fall of X.oicester and the Hestoration be was well oil, Ahether because bis early nppo.ntments or the first of bis marriages l.ad been profitable. Asbmole was newly a widower when he decided to support the Royalist cause. On its failure his retirement in Cheshire lasted only three months. Then he was back in London, consorting liappil.v with the astrologers Lilly and Hooker and attending "the mathematical least at the White Hart," and b>- recorded that ";t pleased God to put me in mind that 1 was now placed in the condition I had always desired, which was that I might be enabled t'> live to mysell and studies without being forced to take pains for a livelihood in the world." Still, he fortified his condition by successfully wooing l.adv Mainwarmg soon after, a ladv t'u enty years Irs senior and herself the survivor of three lmshands. Her .' ami]v disliked the match. Her second H;tl protested- -lie "broke into my chamber " says Ashmole, "and had like to have killed me"—but i?i vain. Tile marriage was celebrated. Asbmole ■'enjoyed liis wife's estate," but not without being harassed. She pursued a separation and alimonv:

ihe cause between me and mv wife vaK heard where Mr Serjeant Mavnard observed to the Court that ther.» were 800 sheets of depositions on my wife's part and not one word proved me of using her ill nor ever her a bad ur provokinc word.

Knormously querulous though she was, she madu the best of things and returned to Ashmole lor ten or eleven years. Ihen she died. lie at onco married his friend Dugdalc'.s daughter, rind lived in preat felicity for twentyfour years more.

During iii,; reign of Charles J. one oi: the popular shows of JLoiidon was the Tradescanls ' "urk"—so it was called—of natural curiosities. John Tradescaut left this museum to Ashmoie, who added coins and pictures and otlier things, and some years later decided to give it to the University of Oxford. When the transfer was made, according to Anthony a, Wood there were twelve waggon-loads of stuff. Ashmole himself, on February 7th, 3G83, wrote in liis diary:

Tug last I"ad of my raritic; wa» .-.ent to thoua ri:-', and th aiturnon X re'up.-ed into the £i>ut. The special building which Ashinole had stipulated for is still, of course, the Ashmolean, although the collection is no longer there, but divided between the museum in the parks—sad memorial to Buskin's architectural ideas—and the Xcw Ashmolean in Beaumont street. Perhaps Ashmole reserved some of tho "rarities." At any rate, he counted among them "an umbrella, a dodo from Mauritius, and a squeede from Scotland," and (so Mr Falconer Madan, Bodley's Librarian, said a few years ago) tho "squeede" has never been traced. Nor has anybody the least idea what it was. Whether tho umbrella and the dodo still visibly testify t>> the pleasing diversity of Ashmole's interests I do not know; but there appears to be consolation in the museum library for the loss of an emporium of umbrellas and a wilderness of dodos. John Aubrey, in his "Miscellanies," for instance, says that "Elias Ashmole, Esq." had all the papers of Dr. Kic.hard Ncpier, containing "all his practice for about fifty years; which ho, Mr Ashmole, carefully bound up, according to the year of our Lord, in volumes in folio; which are now reposited in the Library of the Musseum in Oxford." This Dr. Richard Nepier, Aubrej' tells us, was "a person of great abstineuce, innocence, and piety."

He spent cwry day two hours in family prayer: when a patient or querent came to him, he presently went to his closet to pray: and told to admiration the recovery or death of the patient. It appears by his papers, that he did converse with the angel Raphael, who gave him the responses. . . . Before the response? stands this mark, viz. It. Ris. which Mr Ashmolo said was "Hesponsum Raphaelis.''

He was rector of Lynford in Bucks, and "did practise physic; but gave most tc the poor that lie got by it." He exactly foretold the da}' and hour of his own death, which came as he was on his knees at prayer, "being of a very great age, April 1, 1634." nis knees, adds Aubrey, "were horny with frequent pra3'ing."

In [his] papers aro many excellent remedies, or receipts for several diseases that his patients had; arid before some of them is the aforesaid mark. Mr Ashmole t£ok the pains to transcribe fairly with his own hand all the receipts; they are about a quire and a half of paper in folio, which since h : s death were bought of his relict by E. \V. Esq. 11.5.5. The angel told him if the patient Tvere curable or incurable. There aro also several other queries to the angel, as to religion, transubstantiation, etc., which I have forgot. I remember one is, whether the good spirits or the bad bo most in number. R. Ria. The good. It is to hj» found there, that he told John Prideaux, DT). anno 1621, that twenty years hence (164*) he would be a bishop, and he was so. sc. bishop of Worcester. Ris. did resolve him, that Mr Booth, _ in Ohoshire. .should n son thnt should mho7"it three years hence, [sc. £ir (Veorge Booth, from 1619, Sir George Booth aforesaid was born. December ISlh, anno 1622. This T extracted out of Dr. Xepier's original diary, then in possession cf ilr A shmole, , T hen T.. W. Esq. was about ei<?ht year? o'd. he wns troubled with fa childish comnjatnt]. His grandfather carried him to Dr. Nepier at I-ynford. Mr E.W. peeped in ;it thf olosnt at the end of the gallery, and trm nnon hi* knees at prayer. The Doctor fold Sir Francis that at fourteen vears old h : s grandson would be freed from that distemper; and he was so. The median 6 he prescribed was, to drink a little OT-att~hr of Muscadine in the morning. 'Twas about 1625. It is impossible that the "prediction of Sir 7° Booth's birth could be found any other way, but by angelical revelation. * Ashmoie must have relished the reCord of Dr. Nepier's medical practice;

he took so careful a note of his own disorders.

A boyle broke out of my tiiroat under my ear.

This night about one of the clock I fell ill of a surfeit occasioned by drinking -water after venison. I was greatly oppressed in my stomachy and next day Mr feaunders the A.strologian sent me a piece of Briony root to hold in my hand and within a quarter of an hour my stomach way freed of that great oppression.

i took cany in the morning a good dose of lUixir anil hung threo spiders about my neck and tliey drove my ague awav. l)co gratiass.

The D. N. B. article reminds us "how on the ever-memorable 14th Feb.. 1077, 'I took cold in my right ear' and Mr Arthur Ponsonby mentions that Ashmolo suffered "constant toothache. " This is strange, because he knew an excellent cure. John Aubrey quotes it in the section of his "Miscellanies" entitled "Magick":

To cure tlio Tootli-Acli: out of Mr Ashinole's manuscript writ with his own hand.

Murs, bur abursa, aburse ,Te.su Christ for Mary's .sake T;ike away this Tooth-Ach.

Write the words three times; and as you say the words, lot the party burn one paper, then another, nml then the last. "He says, he saw it experimented, and the party immediately cured."

Aubrey heard of two more marvellous cures from Ashmole.

William Backhouse, of SwailowfioM in Berkshire, l'.sq. had an ujjly scab that yrew on the middle of his forehead, which bad been there for some yeur.s, and he could not bo cured; it became so nauseous, that he would see none but his intimate friends: he was a learned gentleman, a chymist, and antiquary his custom was, once every summer to travel to see Cathedrals, Abbeys, CaMle«, etc. In his journey, being come to Peterborough, he dreamt there, that he was in a church and saw a hearse, and that one did bid him liis scab, with the drops of the marble. The next day he went to morningservice and afterwards going about the church, lie saw the very hoarse (which was of black say, for Queen Kathcrine. wife to Kins; Hnnrv VIII.\ and the marble graven sfono by. He found drops on the marble, and there were some cavities wherein he dipt his finger, and wetted the scab: in seven days it was perfectly cured. This accurate and certain information I had from my worthy friend Klias Ashmole. Ksij. who called Mr Backhouse father. and had this account from his own mouth. May-Dew is a great dissolvent.

Arise h*wl a fungous nose, nml said, it was revealed to hirn, that, the King's hnnd would nirt him, and nt the first coming of King Charles fj. into St. James's Pari:, he kissed the Rinrr's hand, and rubbed his riose with it. which d ; s(nrbed the King, but cured him. Mr Ashmole told it me.

Astrologers jostle o:teh other in Ashmole's story. "liia addiction to astrology," says the 1). N. 8., ''was no mark of weakness in that, ape; he enn hanllv hnve been move attached to it than Pryden or Shnftesbury, but lie lind more leisure and persoveninee for its pursuit." In Tjomlon be regularly nt--1 ended "the A rnlo<*ers ' feast. " We have poen how Mr Rrninders relieved him of the nlnrming oppression of hi® stomach. He erected monuments to two of the most eminent. "Astrolopians,M Lilly and Booker. Hut his £rent"st intimate was the Mr William Backhouse, mentioned above, a Hosier lie inn philosopher, alchemist, and nstrologer, who greatly encouraged an<l helped him to ndwuice in the occult sciences. Ashmole *s diary shows how close the two were:

Ho April. IGSI : Mr William Backhouse, of Swallow/ieM. in coin. Berks, cauhed me to call him father thenceforward.

10 June, 1051: Mr Backhouse told me I must now needs be bin son, because he had communicated fo many secrets to me.

10 March, 1052: Th:r* morning mv father Backhouse upc-ned himtclf v« ry freely, touching the &reat bocrt"..

IS May, 1Bj3: Mv father Backhouse I'm:; sick in Fleet Street, over npninst St. Dunfitan'ft Church, and not knowing whether lie should livo or die, about eleven of the dor]; told me. in syllables, the true matter of the Philosopher's Stone, which he bequeathed to me as a legacy. Most regrettably, Asumole neglected to transmit this secret, even in syllables. Backhouse also carried it to the grave, though he had at least one capital opportunity to disclose it in writing. lie left among his manuscripts, number 1000 in the Aslimolean collection, -The Golden Fleece. cr _ the Flower of Trcasuros; in which is succinctly and methodically handled the stone of the philosophers, his excellent effectes and admirable vertues; arid, the better to ntfaine to the and true mealies of perfection, inriehed with Ficures representing the proper colours to lyfe ns they successively appore in the pratise of this blessed worke. liy that preat philosopher, Solomon Trismosin, Master of ParaeelIt would have been better liad Backhouse inriehed this translation from tlie French with a note, succinctly and methodically revealing his own mastery of the true matter.

Ashmole's magnum opu3, of course, is the "Institution. Laws, and Ceremonies of the Order of the Carter," which the D. N. B. calls "a noble example of antiquarian real and research."

Most of the facts above come from the D. Ts. B. articles on Ashmole and Backhouse, a few from Wells's "Oxford and Its Colleges." Tho quotations are from the same two sources, from Aubrey, from Ponronby's "English Diaiies," wfyich contains only a disappointing llutter of two or 'hree pages, and from an odd cutting or two. There is not nearly enough of Ashmole himself anywhere outside his diary, which I cannot get. I should like to borrow it. Failing a loan, if a publisher will reprint it I am willing even to buy a copv. —J.II.E.S.