[102]Dr. [Francis[103]] Anthony, the chymist, Londinensis, natus 16 Aprilis, 1550, 1ʰ. P.M., Virgo 0° 3´ ascend.
Quaere A<nthony> W<ood> if of Oxon or Cambridge[104].
Scripsit 2 libros, viz.:--_Aurum potabile_, and his _Defense_ against Dr. <Matthew> Gwyn (who wrote a booke called _Aurum non Aurum_). This is all that Mr. Littlebury, bookeseller, remembers.
He lived in St. Bartholomew's close, London, where he dyed, and is, I suppose, buried there, about 30 yeares since[H], scil. 1652.
He had a sonne who wrote something, I thinke (quaere Mr. Littlebury); and a daughter maried to ... Montague, a bookeseller in Duck-lane, who in Oliver's time was a soldier in Scotland.
[H] Wood notes here 'so that by this reckoning,' i.e. if born in 1550 _ut supra_, 'he was 102.'
[I] i.e., I suppose, in MS. Aubrey 23 (Aubrey's _Collectio Geniturarum_), where at fol. 121, among nativities from Dr. Richard Napier's papers, is:--'Dr. Anthony, Londinensis, who made _aurum potabile_ at London, natus 16 April, 1550, 1ʰ P.M.'
[105]Mr. Archer, rector of Houghton Conquest, was a good scholar in King James's (the 1st) dayes, and one <of> his majestie's chaplains.
He had two thick 4to MSS. of his own collection; one, _joci_ and tales etc., and discourses at dinners; the other, of the weather. I have desired parson Poynter[106], his successor, to enquire after them, but I find him slow in it. No doubt there are delicate things to be found there.
[107]Johannes Escuidus[108], Merton College:--Elias Ashmole, esq., hath the corrected booke by the originall MSS. of Merton College library, now lost, which is mentioned in Mr. William Lilly's almanack 1674, a folio.
Amongst many other rarities he haz a thin folio MS. of Alkindus in Latin.
[109]Johannes Escuidus:--Summa astrologiae judicialis, in folio, Venetiis, 1489.--It is miserably printed, he sayes there; and that he was a student of Merton College Oxford.--Mr. Elias Ashmole has the booke.
[110]Memorandum--the lives of John Dee, Dr. <Richard> Nepier, Sir William Dugdale, William Lilly, Elias Ashmole[111], esq.,--Mr. Ashmole haz and will doe those himselfe: as[112] he told me formerly but nowe he seemes to faile.
[113]Mris. Deborah Aubrey, my honoured mother, was borne at Yatton-Kaynes, _vulgo_ West-Yatton, in the parish of Yatton-Keynel in com. Wilts., January 29ᵗʰ 1609[114], mane.