Elias Ashmole (1617–1692). His Autobiographical and Historical Notes, his Correspondence, and Other Contemporary Sources Relating to his Life and Work

Elias Ashmole (1617-1692). His Autobiographical and Historical Notes, his Correspondence, and Other Contemporary Sources Relating to his Life and Work, ed. with a biographical introduction, by C. H. JOSTEN, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1966, 5 vols., pp. xx, 2065, illus., £18. 18s. Od. per set. This beautifully produced, well-illustrated edition of Elias Ashmole's diary notes and letters including a whole volume of introduction by the editor and an index volume fills a much-needed gap in our knowledge of the seventeenth century and its personalities in England. It has been attacked on the grounds that too much uninteresting detail had been included when nearly all available material was published and, secondly, that the introductory volume repeats the contents of the diary notes and letters in a more concise form. But nothing less than the whole text will satisfy the scholar who may, on the contrary, regret that only that astrological material which has a bearing on Ashmole's life has been included. What he wants is to have as many relevant facts as possible set before him so that he can make his own evaluation. A detail that seems insignificant to one reader may be vital to the special study of another. To the present reviewer, in any case, the vain, litigious, ambitious, much-married historiographer, antiquarian and collector with his philosophy of life based on the tenets of astrology and with his leanings towards the study of alchemy is so intriguing that no detail about him seems totally uninteresting. For instance, the medical historian may be grateful for his detailed account of his illnesses and cures though recorded for purposes of medical astrology. C. H. Josten's introductory volume should prove helpful to those who wish to read in detail on only certain aspects of Ashmole's life and thought, as it is at every stage provided with references to the pages where the subject is set out in detail in the diary notes and letters and in the editor's excellent explanatory footnotes. The worldly aspect of the public figure, Comptroller of Excise, author of a comprehensive history of the Order of the Garter, honoured by English noblemen and foreign potentates, student and designer of heraldry, comes out clearly from these pages. If this is added to his curiosity about the workings of Nature and a personality which seems to have attracted the best men and rich widows of his time alike, he seems predestined to have become in 1663 one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society. Probably under Thomas Wharton's influence he became interested in medicine, and in 1649 he learned to dissect a body. Conversely, he gave astrological advice to Wharton on such matters as whether a patient was going to die or not. In 1650 he began to study medicine, probably from the many medical manuscripts in his possession. The same curiosity prompted him to learn the techniques of a goldsmith's work and to learn Hebrew from a Sephardic Jew. In the same spirit of enquiry he became acquainted with alchemical literature. As can be seen from his prologue to the English translation of Arthur Dee's Fasciculus Chemicus of 1650, to him 'perspective opticks ... and the devices in navigation and of printing' were 'not less unlikely than the promises of Alchemy' (Josten, p. 67). At the age of twenty-seven he began to study astrology, and amongst his best friends he was to count later the astrologers William Lilly and George Wharton. His diary notes from then on relate all events to the position of the sun, moon and planets at the time. While Ashmole was not given much to reflection we hear all about the deliberations in his mind from the often daily horary