Chapter III: Aim of This Edition

In presenting a text of Aubrey's 'Lives,' an editor, on more than one important point, has to decide between alternatives.

1. Shall all, or some only, of the lives be given?

It is plain, from a glance over the MSS., that many of the
lives are of little interest; in some cases, because they
contain more marks of omission than statements of fact; in
other cases, because they give mainly excerpts from prefaces of
books; and so on. A much more interesting, as well as handier,
book would be produced, if the editor were to reject all lives
in which Aubrey has nothing of intrinsic value to show.

2. In the lives selected, shall the whole, or parts only, of
what Aubrey has written be given?

Many sentences occur, which declare only Aubrey's ignorance of
a date, or a place, or the title of a book. In other cases,
dull and imperfect catalogues of writings are given. The
omission of these would be a service to the whole, like the
cutting of dead branches out of a shrub.

3. In constituting the text, how much, or how little, notice is
to be taken of the imperfections of Aubrey's copy?

The simplest, and, from some points of view, the most
effective, course would be to treat Aubrey's rough draft as if
it were one's own, rejecting (without comment) one or other
of two alternatives, supplying (without mark) a missing word
or date, omitting a second version (though having some minor
peculiarities) of a statement, and so on. In this way, with
a minimum of trouble to the editor, a smooth text would be
produced, which would spare the reader much irritation.

4. How far is the text to be annotated, the editor supplying
Aubrey's abundant omissions, and correcting his many mistakes?

In respect of all these questions, the aim of the present edition, and the reasons for the decision taken in each case, can be stated very briefly and decidedly.

1, and 2. This edition seeks to give in full all that Aubrey
has written in his four chief MSS. of biographies, MSS. Aubrey
6, 7, 8, and 9.

The entire contents of these MSS. will thus be placed beyond
that risk of perishing, to which they must have remained liable
so long as they were found only in MS., and they will, for what
they are worth, henceforth be accessible to all.

Some things in Aubrey's writing offend not merely against our
present canons of good taste, but against good morals. The
conversation of the people among whom Aubrey moved, although
they were gentry both in position and in education, was often
vulgar, and occasionally foul, as judged by us. I have dealt
with these lives as historical documents, leaving them, with a
very few excisions, to bear, unchecked, their testimony as to
the manners and morals of Restoration England.

3. This edition seeks to present faithfully Aubrey's text as he
wrote it, neglecting only absolute minutiae.

(_a_) A plain text is given of what Aubrey wrote, taking,
as seemed most convenient, sometimes his first version of
a sentence or a word, sometimes his alternative version.
The rejected alternatives are given in the textual notes,
as 'duplicate with'; and occasionally the erasures, as
'substituted for.' Many of these notes are very trivial; but
their presence, which after all gives little trouble, provides
a complete view of the MS. text. I believe also that in this
way I have preserved for the collector of words some quaint
forms and expressions for which he will thank me, and provided
the student of English style with some apt instances of the way
in which terse native words have been replaced in our written
language by feebler Latinisms.

(_b_) I have been careful to give, in every case, Aubrey's own
spelling, with or without final or medial 'e,' with single or
double letters, 'ie' or other diphthong where we write 'ei,'
and the like. The English of Aubrey's age is so like our own
that it is not unimportant to mark even its minor differences.

All merely artificial tricks of writing (wᶜʰ for which, and the
like) have been neglected.

(_c_) Where a date, a word, or a name has been inserted, the
insertion is enclosed in angular brackets < >. Where it seemed
requisite to mark that a word or phrase was added at a later
date, or by another hand, square brackets have been used [].
The use of these symbols, borrowed from Vahlen's edition of
Aristotle's _Poetics_, has been censured as pedantic, but I
know of no clearer or shorter way of making plain in a printed
text just what is, and what is not, in the MS. text.

(_d_) Punctuation is generally absent in Aubrey's text,
as might be expected, and where it is found, it is often
misleading. The points and marks in this edition are therefore
such as seemed to make the meaning clear to myself, and
therefore, I hope, to others.

(_e_) As regards the order of the paragraphs, Aubrey's text
has been given, where convenient, sentence by sentence, and
page by page. But I have taken full liberty to bring into their
proper place _marginalia_, interlinear notes, _addenda_ on
opposite pages, &c. In some cases, indeed, to give in print the
MS. text sentence by sentence is to do it injustice. In the
MS., the difference of inks between earlier and later notes,
the difference of pen-strokes (on one day with a firm pen, on
another with a scratchy quill), and similar nuances, impress
the eye with a sequence of paragraphs which in print can be
shown only by redistribution. For example, I claim that the
life of Milton, in this edition, is, from its bolder treatment,
truer to the MS., than the servile version in the old edition.

4. As regards notes and explanations. Aubrey's lives supply
an inviting field for comment, correction, and addition. But,
even so treated, they will never be a biographical dictionary.
Their value lies not in statement of bibliographical or other
facts, but in their remarkably vivid personal touches, in what
Aubrey had seen himself and what his friends had told him. The
notes therefore seek to supply no more than indications of
outstanding features of the text, identifications of Aubrey's
informants, or necessary parallels from his letters.