Peter Davidson reminds us that this month is the 400th anniversary of John Aubrey’s birth.
In Davidson’s telling, Aubrey was a patron saint of observers, collectors and notetakers. If you’ve read Aubrey and visit a place he wrote about, you think about what he saw and how he saw it. Davidson says that Aubrey’s writings “enchant the township.”
A writer who does that is a good writer.
I’ve read little of Aubrey’s Brief Lives. Davidson convinced me that I’ve not read nearly enough.
I caught Aubrey’s love of gossip and anecdote. I missed his interest in archeology, antiquities and what we’d now call anthropology.
Davidson paints him as a fellow of endless curiosity. If Aubrey were alive today, he’d probably be collecting notes in notebooks and publishing a few online.
• Source: Peter Davidson, “Speaking Through the Ages: John Aubrey at four hundred”; The Literary Review, March 2026. It’s here:
https://literaryreview.co.uk/speaking-through-the-ages
Aubrey was born March 12, 1626, in Wiltshire. I don’t know him well as a writer and missed marking the day. The month will have to do.
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