Brief Lives, Vol. 2

In Short

This work serves as a sprawling, conversational archive of seventeenth-century English life. Rather than delivering formal, sanitized histories, the author records the "brief lives" of his contemporaries and predecessors—capturing their temperaments, physical habits, and private failures. It is a mosaic of human experience, ranging from the inventive genius of mathematicians to the petty grievances of poets. Because it prioritizes the small, revealing detail—the stutter, the favorite drink, the specific cause of a downfall—the book remains a vital, enduring record of how people actually lived during a period of profound social and political upheaval.

The Story

The narrative arc of the book is not a single, linear progression but a collective biography that mirrors the turbulence of the Stuart era. It begins in the halls of Oxford and the bustling markets of London, where the author observes the intersection of high intellect and base reality. We are introduced to inventors like the man behind the London water system, whose credit was usurped by the wealthy, and scholars whose brilliance was frequently eclipsed by their inability to navigate worldly affairs. As the book progresses, the focus shifts to the courtly and the literary—figures like the dancing-master-turned-poet who loses his leg in a courtly masque, or the poets whose jiggish fancies and ballads defined the popular culture of the day.

The story deepens as the country descends into civil strife. The author tracks the fortunes of those caught in the tide of the Restoration, noting the re-emergence of rituals—like the exuberant raising of Maypoles—that had been suppressed during the Commonwealth. Yet, the tone remains consistently grounded in the domestic. We see figures like the mathematician John Pell, whose "shiftless" nature leaves him indigent despite his genius, and the "good" judge who, unlike his peers, does not sound a trumpet for his own charity.

The arc reaches its final movement through the passing of an entire generation. The author records the deaths of his friends and subjects with a recurring, melancholic reflection on the transience of reputation. Whether it is the story of a water-poet who traveled the length of the country in a small skiff, or the tragic end of a physician lost to debt, the narrative concludes with a quiet accounting. It leaves the reader with a sense of the fragility of the human endeavor: the manuscripts that go unfinished, the epitaphs that are never carved, and the fleeting, "jiggish" joys that defined the lives of those who walked the stage of history just before the author himself faded from view.

How It Unfolds

The gathering of evidence The author begins by meticulously collecting testimonies from friends, relatives, and neighbors, often verifying his facts with birth registers and coat-of-arms details. He treats a person’s horoscope or a tavern anecdote with the same historical gravity as a formal title or a scholarly achievement.

The anatomy of the subject Each profile deconstructs a figure by their daily routines, physical appearance, and peculiar character flaws. He describes scholars who write by "jirkes" like a boar, or poets whose handwriting resembles the "scratching of a hen," stripping away the veneer of public persona.

The intersection of genius and poverty The narrative frequently pivots to the material struggle, showing how intellectual or artistic mastery often fails to provide a shield against professional exploitation. We see brilliant men reduced to sweeping yards or languishing in debtors' prisons, their discoveries stolen by the powerful.

The restoration of memory As the book reaches its later entries, it shifts toward preservation, documenting the final days and burial places of friends who have recently passed. The author takes on the role of a keeper of legacies, ensuring that the "good" men—who did not trumpet their own deeds—are at least remembered in ink.

The People

The book is populated by a wide cast, but three types of individuals define its center. First, there are the "projectors" and inventors, such as Mr. Ingelbert, who creates a path for water to reach London only to see the credit stolen by an alderman. These figures represent the ingenuity of the era, standing in stark contrast to the grasping courtiers who ruin them. Second, we find the scholars and scientists, like Dr. John Pell, whose profound grasp of algebra cannot save him from being "cousin'd" out of his own parsonage by his tenants. They are masters of the abstract, yet children in the face of commerce. Finally, there are the "jolly companions" and poets, such as the water-poet John Taylor, whose life is a series of "figgaries" and spirited travels. They bring the warmth of tavern talk and ballad-making into the record. Each figure is trapped between their own potential and the "gothicisms" of their environment, ultimately showing how character dictates fate more than rank ever could.

In Its Own Voice

The author often captures the precise, biting wit of the era, such as when he records a clever redirection of a pompous clergyman:

Abbot (afterwards bishop of Sarum) was then Vice-cancellor, and when Slymaker came out of the pulpit, sends for him, and asked his name: 'Slymaker,' sayd he; 'No,' sayd the Vice-canc., ''tis Lyemaker.'

The physical reality of the academic life is described with similar, unflinching candor:

Dr. Kettle, when he scolded at the idle young boies of his colledge, he used these names, viz. Turds, Tarrarags (these were the worst sort, rude rakells), Rascal-Jacks, Blindcinques, Scobberlotchers.

What It's Really About

At its heart, this work is an investigation into the discrepancy between a person's public legacy and their private reality. The author is obsessed with the "truth" that usually falls out of history books: the physical stature of a man, his bad habits, his specific debts, and the small, mundane accidents that derail his life. It argues that history is not made of large, sweeping movements, but of individual temperaments—the "jiggish" fancies, the "penurious" natures, and the "shiftless" brilliance of real people. It asks why we value the monument over the man, and why, despite our best efforts, the most human parts of our existence are the first to be forgotten by the passage of time.

Why Read It Today

You will love this book if you prefer the messy, vibrant texture of human life over the dry, airbrushed narratives of conventional history. It feels like eavesdropping on a seventeenth-century conversation in a tavern or an Oxford courtyard; the prose is immediate, curious, and remarkably free of the stiff formality one might expect from the period. Reading it requires a tolerance for the author’s idiosyncratic spelling and his period-specific attitudes toward social standing, which can be blunt by modern standards. However, the reward is a rare sense of intimacy with figures who have been dead for three centuries. What stays with you is not the list of facts—the birth dates or the titles—but the author’s warmth toward his subjects. He does not judge them for their failures or their poverty; he records them with the affection of a friend who knows that every life, no matter how obscure, is a treasury of unique stories. It is a deeply humanizing experience, reminding us that every age is filled with people just as complicated, flawed, and spirited as ourselves.