38 AUBREY'S NATURAL HISTOBY OF WILTSHIRE. 



pitched causeway lay neglected in the late troubles, and not weeded : so at lengthe it became 

 overgrown and lost : and I remember about 1656, goeing to pave it, they found, .... inches deep, 

 a good pavement to their hands. 



In the court of my honoured friend Edm. Wyld Esq., at Houghton in Bedfordshire, in twenty-four 

 yeares, viz. from 1656 to 1680, the ground increased nine inches, only by rotting grasse upon grasse. 

 Tis a rich soile, and reddish ; worth xx*. per acre. 



The spring after the conflagration at London all the mines were overgrown with an herbe or two ; 

 but especially one with a yellow flower : and on the south side of S*. Paul's Church it grew as thick 

 as could be ; nay, on the very top of the tower. The herbalists call it Ericolevis Neapolitana, 

 small bank cresses of Naples ; which plant Tho. Wilhs told me he knew before but in one place * 

 about the towne ; and that was at Battle Bridge by the Pindar of Wakefield, and that in no great 

 quantity. [The Pindar of Wakefield is still a public-house, under the same sign, in Gray's Inn 

 Road, in the parish of St. Pancras, London. J. B.] 



Sir Jolm Danvers, of Chelsey, did assure me to his knowledge that my Lord Chancellor Bacon 

 was wont to compound severall sorts of earths, digged up very deep, to produce severall sorts of 

 plants. This he did in the garden at Yorke House, where he lived when he was Lord Chancellor. 

 (See Sir Ken. Digby, concerning his composition of earth of severall places.) 



Edmund Wyld, Esq. R.S.S. hath had a pott of composition in his garden these seven yeares that 

 beares notliing at all, not so much as grasse or mosse. He makes liis challenge, if any man will give 

 him xx 11 . he will give him an hundred if it doth not beare wheate spontaneously ; and the party 

 shall keep the key, and lie shall sift the earth composition through a fine sieve, so that he may be 

 sure there arc no graines of wheat in it. He hath also a composition for pease ; but that he will 

 not warrant, not having yet tryed it. 



Pico's [Peaks.] In this county are Clay-hill, near Wanninster ; the Castle-hill at Mere, and Knoll- 

 hill, near Kilmanton, which is half in Wilts, and half in Somersetshire ; all which seem to have been 

 raised (like great blisters) by earthquakes. [Bishop TANNER adds in a note, " Suthbury hill, neer 

 Collingburn, which I take to be the highest hill in Wiltshire."] That great vertuoso, Mr. Francis 

 Potter, author of the " Interpretation of 666,"f Rector of Kilmanton, took great delight in this Knoll- 

 hill. It gives an admirable prospect every way ; from hence one may see the foss-way between 

 Cyrencester and Glocester, which is fourty miles from this place. You may see the Isle of Wight, 

 Salisbury steeple, the Severne sea, &c. It would be an admirable station for him that shall make a 

 geographical description of Wilts, Somersett, &c. 



* It growes abundantly by y waysides between London and Kensington. [J. RAT.] 



t [The full title of the work referred to is a curiosity in literature. It exemplifies forcibly the abstruse and mystical researches 

 in which the literati of the seventeenth century indulged. " An Interpretation of the Number 666 ; wherein not only the manner 

 how this Number ought to be interpreted is clearly proved and demonstrated ; but it is also shewed that this Number is an 

 exquisite and perfect character, truly, exactly, and essentially describing that state of government to which all other notes of 

 Antichrist do agree ; with all knowne objections solidly and fully answered that can be materially made against it." (Oxford, 

 1642, 4to.) So general were studies of this nature at the time, that Potter's volume was translated into French, Dutch, and Latin. 

 The author, though somewhat visionary, was a profound mathematician, and invented several ingenious mechanical instruments. 

 In Aubrey's "Lives," appended to the Lettert from the Bodleian, 8vo. 1813, will be found an interesting biographical notice of 

 him. J. B.] 



