AUBREY'S BRIEF LIVES
So, brief means violent as well as short :
This one was disembowelled and that one died Unravelled in the agony of death : And some lascivious madcaps chased, and caught, The various poxes. Others, suicide.
It seemed mere chance who claimed one's latest breath.
But not all perished thus. Some learned men Played strenuously with several elements, Perpetual motion or a stocking-loom : Science was toys, or else a discipline Grafted upon a child's incompetence. Fate opened up a new, eccentric room.
Yet buried in the anecdotes there lie A few who lived out bland and humdrum days— One, of prodigious wit, inclined to act, Writer of plays (and yet good company). Aubrey found little here to blame or praise. But violence made Lear and Hamlet fact.
ANTHONY THWAITE
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