This was about the yeare 1626. But there had been a long calme of
peace, and men minded nothing but pleasure and luxury.
"Jam patimur long? pacis mala, s?vior armis
Luxuria incumbit."- LUCAN.
+ [If Aubrey was right in the preceding paragraph in regarding the
stream which rises at "Cubberley" in Gloucestershire as the source
of the Thames, he is wrong in stating that "the Thames" passes by
Ashton Keynes. It is the other brook, from Kemble, which runs through
that village; and the two streams only become united at Cricklade,
which is some distance lower down, to the eastward of Ashton Keynes.-
J. B.]
Knowledge of this kind was not at all in fashion, so that he had no
encouragement to prosecute this noble designe: and no more done but
the meer discovery: and not long after he died, scilicet Anno Domini
1631, January 31st.; and this ingeniose notion had died too and beene
forgotten, but that Mr. Francis Mathew, (formerly of the county
of Dorset, a captain in his majestie King Charles I. service), who was
acquainted with him, and had the hint from him, and after the wars
ceased revived this designe. Hee tooke much paines about it; went into
the countrey and made a mappe of it, and wrote a treatise of it, and
addressed himselfe to Oliver the Protector, and the Parliament. Oliver
was exceedingly pleased with the designe; and, had he lived but a
little longer, he would have had it perfected: but upon his death it
sank.
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