John Aubrey's racy portraits of the great figures of 17th-centuryEngland stand alongside Pepys's diary as a vivid evocation of theperiod. Aubrey was born in 1626, the son of a Wiltshire squire; at theage of 26 he inherited a family estate encumbered with debt, andfinally went bankrupt in the 1670s. From then on he led a sociable, rootless existence at the houses of friends -- from Oxford and theMiddle Temple --pursuing the antiquarian studies which had alwaysobsessed him. At his death in 1697 he left a mass of notes andmanuscripts, among them the material for Brief Lives. He nevermanaged to...