When Mr. Oughtred's _Clavis Mathematica_ was printed at Oxford (editio tertia, with additions), Mr. W. O.,[1173] in his preface, gives worthy characters of severall young mathematicians that he enformed, and, amongst others, of John Wallis, who would be so kind to Mr. Oughtred, as to take the paines to correct the presse, which the old gentleman doth with respect there thus acknowledge, after he hath enumerated his titles and preferments; _viri ingenui, pii, industrii, in omni reconditiore literatura versatissimi, in rebus Mathematicis admodum perspicacis, et in enodatione explicationeque scriptorum intricatissimis Zipherarum involucris occultatorum (quod ingenii subtilissimi argumentum est) ad miraculum foelicis_. This last, of the cyphers, was added by Dr. Wallis himselfe; which when, the booke being printed, the old gentleman sawe, he was much vexed at it; and sayd, that he had thought he had given him sufficient prayse, with which he might have rested[1174] contented.
He maried ... and haz a good temporall estate in Kent.... He has only two daughters, handsome young gentle-woemen; one maried to Mr. ... Blencowe, of Middleton-Cheyney, in....
He lives at a well-built house, near New Colledge, in Oxon; is a Justice of the Peace there, and has been 167-, 1679, 1680.
[CK] Aubrey gives in colours the coat, 'gules, a bend ermine.' In MS. Aubr. 8, fol. 6ᵛ, he gives in trick, for John Wallis, the coat, 'ermine, a bend argent.'
[CL] This sentence stood at first:--'The first remarkable passage of his life was that he was an instrument of fetching Laud's (archbishop of Canterbury) head of, by being a witnesse at the tryall.' Then Aubrey noted in the margin:--'Quaere which of these <i.e. Laud's trial, or the king's letters _infra_> was first in time'; and afterwards altered the sentence to what it now is.
[CM] A duplicate draft of this sentence is--'and may stand very gloriously upon his owne basis, and need not be beholding to any man for fame, yet he is so extremely greedy of glorie, that he steales feathers from others to adorne himselfe.'
[1175]Memorandum:--Mr. Freeman (who maried the lady Lake) has the duke of Monmouth's mother's--Mrs. Lucy[1176] Walters, who could deny nobody--picture, very like her, at Stanmore neer Harrow-on-the-hill.