For the merrier ladies, Aubrey's own pages must be consulted, since one may no longer write all one would; but here is his account of the wife of the great Falkland:--"At length, when she [Letice Cary] could not prevaile on him [her husband], she would say that, 'I warrant you, for all this, I will obtaine it of my lord; _it will cost me but the expence of a few teares_.'" Aubrey's pen now and then could etch almost like Rembrandt. Here is Sir John Birkenhead:--"He was exceedingly confident, witty, and very grateful to his benefactors, would lye damnably. He was of middling stature, great goggli eies, not of a sweet aspect"; and Sir John Denham's eye is made again to shine too, though it has been shut these many years:--"His eie was a kind of light goose grey, not big; but it had a strange piercingness, not as to shining and glory, but (like a Thomas) when he conversed with you he look't into your very thoughts." It was Sir John Denham (author of _Cooper's Hill_) who wrote to King Charles II. begging for George Wither's life to be spared, because "whilest G.W. lived he (Denham) should not be the worst poet in England." Aubrey indeed had a special gift for the salient trait. Thus, of my dear Thomas Fuller, of the _Worthies_, he writes:--"He was of a middle stature; strong sett; curled haire; a very working head, in so much that, walking and meditating before dinner, he would eate-up a penny loafe, not knowing that he did it." That tells more than chapters might. Whether or not Aubrey told the truth, we shall, I suppose, never know, but he reads like fact. One sees, at any rate, that he wanted the truth; other things did not interest him. His account of Milton may be taken as an example. One did not quite expect it, and yet one believes it:--"His harmonicall and ingeniose soul did lodge in a beautifull and well-proportioned body.... He had abroun hayre. His complexion exceeding faire--he was so faire that they called him _the lady of Christ's College_. Ovall face. His eie a darke gray. He had a delicate tuneable voice, and had good skill. His father instructed him. He had an organ in his howse; he played on that most. Of a very cheerfull humour. He would be chearfull even in his gowte-fitts, and sing." One does not think of the blind Milton as cheerfully singing; and yet I believe it if Aubrey says so. Milton's friend, Andrew Marvell, comes very engagingly out of these pages:--"He was of a middling stature, pretty strong sett, roundish faced, cherry cheek't, hazell eie, browne haire. He was in his conversation very modest, and of very few words; and though he loved wine he would never drinke hard in company, and was wont to say that _he would not play the good fellow in any man's company in whose hands he would not trust his life_. He kept bottles of wine at his lodgeing, and many times he would drinke liberally by himselfe to refresh his spirits, and exalt his muse."