Chapter V: Part 5

For the rest, my Lord Clifford was a valiant, incorrupt gentleman, ambitious, not covetous; generous, passionate, a most constant, sincere friend, to me in particular, so as when he laid down his office, I was at the end of all my hopes and endeavors. These were not for high matters, but to obtain what his Majesty was really indebted to my father-in-law, which was the utmost of my ambition, and which I had undoubtedly obtained, if this friend had stood. Sir Thomas Osborn, who succeeded him, though much more obliged to my father-in-law and his family, and my long and old acquaintance, being of a more haughty and far less obliging nature, I could hope for little; a man of excellent natural parts; but nothing of generous or grateful.

Taking leave of my Lord Clifford, he wrung me by the hand, and, looking earnestly on me, bid me God-b'ye, adding, "Mr. Evelyn, I shall never see thee more." "No!" said I, "my Lord, what's the meaning of this? I hope I shall see you often, and as great a person again." "No, Mr. Evelyn, do not expect it, I will never see this place, this city, or Court again," or words of this sound. In this manner, not without almost mutual tears, I parted from him; nor was it long after, but the news was that he was dead, and I have heard from some who I believe knew, he made himself away, after an extraordinary melancholy. This is not confidently affirmed, but a servant who lived in the house, and afterward with Sir Robert Clayton, Lord Mayor, did, as well as others, report it, and when I hinted some such thing to Mr. Prideaux, one of his trustees, he was not willing to enter into that discourse.

It was reported with these particulars, that, causing his servant to leave him unusually one morning, locking himself in, he strangled himself with his cravat upon the bed-tester; his servant, not liking the manner of dismissing him, and looking through the keyhole (as I remember), and seeing his master hanging, broke in before he was quite dead, and taking him down, vomiting a great deal of blood, he was heard to utter these words: "Well; let men say what they will, there is a God, a just God above"; after which he spoke no more. This, if true, is dismal. Really, he was the chief occasion of the Dutch war, and of all that blood which was lost at Bergen in attacking the Smyrna fleet, and that whole quarrel.

This leads me to call to mind what my Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury affirmed, not to me only, but to all my brethren the Council of Foreign Plantations, when not long after, this accident being mentioned as we were one day sitting in Council, his Lordship told us this remarkable passage: that, being one day discoursing with him when he was only Sir Thomas Clifford, speaking of men's advancement to great charges in the nation, "Well," says he, "my Lord, I shall be one of the greatest men in England. Don't impute what I say either to fancy, or vanity; I am certain that I shall be a mighty man; but it will not last long; I shall not hold it, but die a bloody death." "What," says my Lord, "your horoscope tells you so?" "No matter for that, it will be as I tell you." "Well," says my Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury, "if I were of that opinion, I either would not be a great man, but decline preferment, or prevent my danger."

This my Lord affirmed in my hearing before several gentlemen and noblemen sitting in council at Whitehall. And I the rather am confident of it, remembering what Sir Edward Walker (Garter King-at-Arms) had likewise affirmed to me a long time before, even when he was first made a Lord; that carrying his pedigree to Lord Clifford on his being created a peer, and, finding him busy, he bade him go into his study and divert himself there till he was at leisure to discourse with him about some things relating to his family; there lay, said Sir Edward, on his table, his horoscope and nativity calculated, with some writing under it, where he read that he should be advanced to the highest degree in the state that could be conferred upon him, but that he should not long enjoy it, but should die, or expressions to that sense; and I think, (but cannot confidently say) a bloody death. This Sir Edward affirmed both to me and Sir Richard Browne; nor could I forbear to note this extraordinary passage in these memoirs.

14th September, 1673. Dr. Creighton, son to the late eloquent Bishop of Bath and Wells, preached to the Household on Isaiah, lvii. 8.

15th September, 1673. I procured £4,000 of the Lords of the Treasury, and rectified divers matters about the sick and wounded.

16th September, 1673. To Council, about choosing a new Secretary.

17th September, 1673. I went with some friends to visit Mr. Bernard Grenville, at Abs Court in Surrey; an old house in a pretty park.

23d September, 1673. I went to see Paradise, a room in Hatton Garden furnished with a representation of all sorts of animals handsomely painted on boards or cloth, and so cut out and made to stand, move, fly, crawl, roar, and make their several cries. The man who showed it, made us laugh heartily at his formal poetry.

15th October, 1673. To Council, and swore in Mr. Locke, secretary, Dr. Worsley being dead.

27th October, 1673. To Council, about sending succors to recover New York: and then we read the commission and instructions to Sir Jonathan Atkins, the new Governor of Barbadoes.

5th November, 1673. This night the youths of the city burned the Pope in effigy, after they had made procession with it in great triumph, they being displeased at the Duke for altering his religion and marrying an Italian lady.

30th November, 1673. On St. Andrew's day I first saw the new Duchess of York, and the Duchess of Modena, her mother.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

1st December, 1673. To Gresham College, whither the city had invited the Royal Society by many of their chief aldermen and magistrates, who gave us a collation, to welcome us to our first place of assembly, from whence we had been driven to give place to the City, on their making it their Exchange on the dreadful conflagration, till their new Exchange was finished, which it now was. The Society having till now been entertained and having met at Arundel House.

2d December, 1673. I dined with some friends, and visited the sick; thence, to an almshouse, where was prayers and relief, some very ill and miserable. It was one of the best days I ever spent in my life.

3d December, 1673. There was at dinner my Lord Lockhart, designed Ambassador for France, a gallant and sober person.

9th December, 1673. I saw again the Italian Duchess and her brother, the Prince Reynaldo.

20th December, 1673. I had some discourse with certain strangers, not unlearned, who had been born not far from Old Nineveh; they assured me of the ruins being still extant, and vast and wonderful were the buildings, vaults, pillars, and magnificent fragments;[34] but they could say little of the Tower of Babel that satisfied me. But the description of the amenity and fragrancy of the country for health and cheerfulness, delighted me; so sensibly they spoke of the excellent air and climate in respect of our cloudy and splenetic country.

[Footnote 34: The remarkable discoveries of Mr. Layard give now a
curious interest to this notice by Evelyn.]

24th December, 1673. Visited the prisoners at Ludgate, taking orders about the releasing of some.

30th December, 1673. I gave Almighty God thanks for his infinite goodness to me the year past, and begged his mercy and protection the year following; afterward, invited my neighbors to spend the day with me.

5th January, 1673-74. I saw an Italian opera in music, the first that had been in England of this kind.

9th January, 1674. Sent for by his Majesty to write something against the Hollanders about the duty of the Flag and Fishery. Returned with some papers.

25th March, 1674. I dined at Knightsbridge, with the Bishops of Salisbury, Chester, and Lincoln, my old friends.

29th May, 1674. His Majesty's birthday and Restoration. Mr. Demalhoy, Roger L'Estrange, and several of my friends, came to dine with me on the happy occasion.

27th June, 1674. Mr. Dryden, the famous poet and now laureate, came to give me a visit. It was the anniversary of my marriage, and the first day I went into my new little cell and cabinet, which I built below toward the south court, at the east end of the parlor.

9th July, 1674. Paid £360 for purchase of Dr. Jacombe's son's share in the mill and land at Deptford, which I bought of the Beechers.

22d July, 1674. I went to Windsor with my wife and son to see my daughter Mary, who was there with my Lady Tuke and to do my duty to his Majesty. Next day, to a great entertainment at Sir Robert Holmes's at Cranbourne Lodge, in the Forest; there were his Majesty, the Queen, Duke, Duchess, and all the Court. I returned in the evening with Sir Joseph Williamson, now declared Secretary of State. He was son of a poor clergyman somewhere in Cumberland, brought up at Queen's College, Oxford, of which he came to be a fellow; then traveled with ... and returning when the King was restored, was received as a clerk under Mr. Secretary Nicholas. Sir Henry Bennett (now Lord Arlington) succeeding, Williamson is transferred to him, who loving his ease more than business (though sufficiently able had he applied himself to it) remitted all to his man Williamson; and, in a short time, let him so into the secret of affairs, that (as his Lordship himself told me) there was a kind of necessity to advance him; and so, by his subtlety, dexterity, and insinuation, he got now to be principal Secretary; absolutely Lord Arlington's creature, and ungrateful enough. It has been the fate of this obliging favorite to advance those who soon forgot their original. Sir Joseph was a musician, could play at _Jeu de Goblets_, exceedingly formal, a severe master to his servants, but so inward with my Lord O'Brien, that after a few months of that gentleman's death, he married his widow,[35] who, being sister and heir of the Duke of Richmond, brought him a noble fortune. It was thought they lived not so kindly after marriage as they did before. She was much censured for marrying so meanly, being herself allied to the Royal family.

[Footnote 35: Lady Catherine Stuart, sister and heir to Charles
Stuart, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, the husband of Mrs. Frances
Stuart, one of the most admired beauties of the Court, with whom
Charles II. was so deeply in love that he never forgave the Duke for
marrying her, having already, it is thought, formed some similar
intention himself. He took the first opportunity of sending the Duke
into an honorable exile, as Ambassador to Denmark, where he shortly
after died, leaving no issue by the Duchess.]

[Sidenote: GROOMBRIDGE]

6th August, 1674. I went to Groombridge, to see my old friend, Mr. Packer; the house built within a moat, in a woody valley. The old house had been the place of confinement of the Duke of Orleans, taken by one Waller (whose house it then was) at the battle of Agincourt, now demolished, and a new one built in its place, though a far better situation had been on the south of the wood, on a graceful ascent. At some small distance, is a large chapel, not long since built by Mr. Packer's father, on a vow he made to do it on the return of King Charles I. out of Spain, 1625, and dedicated to St. Charles, but what saint there was then of that name I am to seek, for, being a Protestant, I conceive it was not Borromeo.

I went to see my farm at Ripe, near Lewes.

19th August, 1674. His Majesty told me how exceedingly the Dutch were displeased at my treatise of the "History of Commerce;" that the Holland Ambassador had complained to him of what I had touched of the Flags and Fishery, etc., and desired the book might be called in; while on the other side, he assured me he was exceedingly pleased with what I had done, and gave me many thanks. However, it being just upon conclusion of the treaty of Breda (indeed it was designed to have been published some months before and when we were at defiance), his Majesty told me he must recall it formally; but gave order that what copies should be publicly seized to pacify the Ambassador, should immediately be restored to the printer, and that neither he nor the vender should be molested. The truth is, that which touched the Hollander was much less than what the King himself furnished me with, and obliged me to publish, having caused it to be read to him before it went to press; but the error was, it should have been published before the peace was proclaimed. The noise of this book's suppression made it presently to be bought up, and turned much to the stationer's advantage. It was no other than the preface prepared to be prefixed to my "History of the Whole War;" which I now pursued no further.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

21st August, 1674. In one of the meadows at the foot of the long Terrace below the Castle [Windsor], works were thrown up to show the King a representation of the city of Maestricht, newly taken by the French. Bastians, bulwarks, ramparts, palisadoes, graffs, horn-works, counter-scarps, etc., were constructed. It was attacked by the Duke of Monmouth (newly come from the real siege) and the Duke of York, with a little army, to show their skill in tactics. On Saturday night they made their approaches, opened trenches, raised batteries, took the counter-scarp and ravelin, after a stout defense; great guns fired on both sides, grenadoes shot, mines sprung, parties sent out, attempts of raising the siege, prisoners taken, parleys; and, in short, all the circumstances of a formal siege, to appearance, and, what is most strange all without disorder, or ill accident, to the great satisfaction of a thousand spectators. Being night, it made a formidable show. The siege being over, I went with Mr. Pepys back to London, where we arrived about three in the morning.

15th September, 1674. To Council, about fetching away the English left at Surinam, etc., since our reconciliation with Holland.

21st September, 1674. I went to see the great loss that Lord Arlington had sustained by fire at Goring House, this night consumed to the ground, with exceeding loss of hangings, plate, rare pictures, and cabinets; hardly anything was saved of the best and most princely furniture that any subject had in England. My lord and lady were both absent at the Bath.

6th October, 1674. The Lord Chief Baron Turner, and Sergeant Wild, Recorder of London, came to visit me.

20th October, 1674. At Lord Berkeley's, I discoursed with Sir Thomas Modiford, late Governor of Jamaica, and with Colonel Morgan, who undertook that gallant exploit from Nombre de Dios to Panama, on the Continent of America; he told me 10,000 men would easily conquer all the Spanish Indies, they were so secure. They took great booty, and much greater had been taken, had they not been betrayed and so discovered before their approach, by which the Spaniards had time to carry their vast treasure on board ships that put off to sea in sight of our men, who had no boats to follow. They set fire to Panama, and ravaged the country sixty miles about. The Spaniards were so supine and unexercised, that they were afraid to fire a great gun.

31st October, 1674. My birthday, 54th year of my life. Blessed be God! It was also preparation day for the Holy Sacrament, in which I participated the next day, imploring God's protection for the year following, and confirming my resolutions of a more holy life, even upon the Holy Book. The Lord assist and be gracious unto me! Amen.

15th November, 1674. The anniversary of my baptism: I first heard that famous and excellent preacher, Dr. Burnet, author of the "History of the Reformation" on Colossians iii. 10, with such flow of eloquence and fullness of matter, as showed him to be a person o£ extraordinary parts.

Being her Majesty's birthday, the Court was exceeding splendid in clothes and jewels, to the height of excess.

17th November, 1674. To Council, on the business of Surinam, where the Dutch had detained some English in prison, ever since the first war, 1665.

19th November, 1674. I heard that stupendous violin, Signor Nicholao (with other rare musicians), whom I never heard mortal man exceed on that instrument. He had a stroke so sweet, and made it speak like the voice of a man, and, when he pleased, like a concert of several instruments. He did wonders upon a note, and was an excellent composer. Here was also that rare lutanist, Dr. Wallgrave; but nothing approached the violin in Nicholao's hand. He played such ravishing things as astonished us all.

2d December, 1674. At Mr. Slingsby's, master of the mint, my worthy friend, a great lover of music. Heard Signor Francisco on the harpsichord, esteemed one of the most excellent masters in Europe on that instrument; then, came Nicholao with his violin, and struck all mute, but Mrs. Knight, who sung incomparably, and doubtless has the greatest reach of any English woman; she had been lately roaming in Italy, and was much improved in that quality.

15th December, 1674. Saw a comedy at night, at Court, acted by the ladies only, among them Lady Mary and Ann, his Royal Highness' two daughters, and my dear friend Mrs. Blagg, who, having the principal part, performed it to admiration. They were all covered with jewels.

22d December, 1674. Was at the repetition of the "Pastoral," on which occasion Mrs. Blagg had about her near £20,000 worth of jewels, of which she lost one worth about £80, borrowed of the Countess of Suffolk. The press was so great, that it is a wonder she lost no more. The Duke made it good.

20th January, 1674-75. Went to see Mr. Streeter, that excellent painter of perspective and landscape, to comfort and encourage him to be cut for the stone, with which that honest man was exceedingly afflicted.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

22d March, 1675. Supped at Sir William Petty's, with the Bishop of Salisbury, and divers honorable persons. We had a noble entertainment in a house gloriously furnished; the master and mistress of it were extraordinary persons. Sir William was the son of a mean man somewhere in Sussex, and sent from school to Oxford, where he studied Philosophy, but was most eminent in Mathematics and Mechanics; proceeded Doctor of Physic, and was grown famous, as for his learning so for his recovering a poor wench that had been hanged for felony; and her body having been begged (as the custom is) for the anatomy lecture, he bled her, put her to bed to a warm woman, and, with spirits and other means, restored her to life. The young scholars joined and made a little portion, and married her to a man who had several children by her, she living fifteen years after, as I have been assured. Sir William came from Oxford to be tutor to a neighbor of mine; thence, when the rebels were dividing their conquests in Ireland, he was employed by them to measure and set out the land, which he did on an easy contract, so much per acre. This he effected so exactly, that it not only furnished him with a great sum of money; but enabled him to purchase an estate worth £4,000 a year. He afterward married the daughter of Sir Hardress Waller; she was an extraordinary wit as well as beauty, and a prudent woman.

Sir William, among other inventions, was author of the double-bottomed ship, which perished, and he was censured for rashness, being lost in the Bay of Biscay in a storm, when, I think, fifteen other vessels miscarried. This vessel was flat-bottomed, of exceeding use to put into shallow ports, and ride over small depths of water. It consisted of two distinct keels cramped together with huge timbers, etc., so as that a violent stream ran between; it bore a monstrous broad sail, and he still persists that it is practicable, and of exceeding use; and he has often told me he would adventure himself in such another, could he procure sailors, and his Majesty's permission to make a second Experiment; which name the King gave the vessel at the launching.

The Map of Ireland made by Sir William Petty is believed to be the most exact that ever yet was made of any country. He did promise to publish it; and I am told it has cost him near £1,000 to have it engraved at Amsterdam. There is not a better Latin poet living, when he gives himself that diversion; nor is his excellence less in Council and prudent matters of state; but he is so exceedingly nice in sifting and examining all possible contingencies, that he adventures at nothing which is not demonstration. There was not in the whole world his equal for a superintendent of manufacture and improvement of trade, or to govern a plantation. If I were a Prince, I should make him my second Counsellor, at least. There is nothing difficult to him. He is, besides, courageous; on which account, I cannot but note a true story of him, that when Sir Aleyn Brodrick sent him a challenge upon a difference between them in Ireland, Sir William, though exceedingly purblind, accepted the challenge, and it being his part to propound the weapon, desired his antagonist to meet him with a hatchet, or axe, in a dark cellar; which the other, of course, refused.

Sir William was, with all this, facetious and of easy conversation, friendly and courteous, and had such a faculty of imitating others, that he would take a text and preach, now like a grave orthodox divine, then falling into the Presbyterian way, then to the fanatical, the Quaker, the monk and friar, the Popish priest, with such admirable action, and alteration of voice and tone, as it was not possible to abstain from wonder, and one would swear to hear several persons, or forbear to think he was not in good earnest an enthusiast and almost beside himself; then, he would fall out of it into a serious discourse; but it was very rarely he would be prevailed on to oblige the company with this faculty, and that only among most intimate friends. My Lord Duke of Ormond once obtained it of him, and was almost ravished with admiration; but by and by, he fell upon a serious reprimand of the faults and miscarriages of some Princes and Governors, which, though he named none, did so sensibly touch the Duke, who was then Lieutenant of Ireland, that he began to be very uneasy, and wished the spirit laid which he had raised, for he was neither able to endure such truths, nor could he but be delighted. At last, he melted his discourse to a ridiculous subject, and came down from the joint stool on which he had stood; but my lord would not have him preach any more. He never could get favor at Court, because he outwitted all the projectors that came near him. Having never known such another genius, I cannot but mention these particulars, among a multitude of others which I could produce. When I, who knew him in mean circumstances, have been in his splendid palace, he would himself be in admiration how he arrived at it; nor was it his value or inclination for splendid furniture and the curiosities of the age, but his elegant lady could endure nothing mean, or that was not magnificent. He was very negligent himself, and rather so of his person, and of a philosophic temper. "What a to-do is here!" would he say, "I can lie in straw with as much satisfaction."

He is author of the ingenious deductions from the bills of mortality, which go under the name of Mr. Graunt; also of that useful discourse of the manufacture of wool, and several others in the register of the Royal Society. He was also author of that paraphrase on the 104th Psalm in Latin verse, which goes about in MS., and is inimitable. In a word, there is nothing impenetrable to him.

26th March, 1675. Dr. Brideoak was elected Bishop of Chichester, on the translation of Dr. Gunning to Ely.

30th March, 1675. Dr. Allestree preached on Romans, vi. 3, the necessity of those who are baptized to die to sin; a very excellent discourse from an excellent preacher.

25th April, 1675. Dr. Barrow, that excellent, pious, and most learned man, divine, mathematician, poet, traveler, and most humble person, preached at Whitehall to the household, on Luke xx. 27, of love and charity to our neighbors.

29th April, 1675. I read my first discourse, "Of Earth and Vegetation," before the Royal Society as a lecture in course, after Sir Robert Southwell had read his, the week before, "On Water." I was commanded by our President and the suffrage of the Society, to print it.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

16th May, 1675. This day was my dear friend, Mrs. Blagg, married at the Temple Church to my friend, Mr. Sidney Godolphin, Groom of the Bedchamber to his Majesty.

18th May, 1675. I went to visit one Mr. Bathurst, a Spanish merchant, my neighbor.

31st May, 1675. I went with Lord Ossory to Deptford, where we chose him Master of the Trinity Company.

2d June, 1675. I was at a conference of the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber, on a difference about imprisoning some of their members; and on the 3d, at another conference, when the Lords accused the Commons for their transcendent misbehavior, breach of privilege, Magna Charta, subversion of government, and other high, provoking, and diminishing expressions, showing what duties and subjection they owed to the Lords in Parliament, by record of Henry IV. This was likely to create a notable disturbance.

15th June, 1675. This afternoon came Monsieur Querouaille and his lady, parents to the famous beauty and ... favorite at Court, to see Sir R. Browne, with whom they were intimately acquainted in Bretagne, at the time Sir Richard was sent to Brest to supervise his Majesty's sea affairs, during the latter part of the King's banishment. This gentleman's house was not a mile from Brest; Sir Richard made an acquaintance there, and, being used very civilly, was obliged to return it here, which we did. He seemed a soldierly person and a good fellow, as the Bretons generally are; his lady had been very handsome, and seemed a shrewd understanding woman. Conversing with him in our garden, I found several words of the Breton language the same with our Welsh. His daughter was now made Duchess of Portsmouth, and in the height of favor; but he never made any use of it.

27th June, 1675. At Ely House, I went to the consecration of my worthy friend, the learned Dr. Barlow, Warden of Queen's College, Oxford, now made Bishop of Lincoln. After it succeeded a magnificent feast, where were the Duke of Ormond, Earl of Lauderdale, the Lord Treasurer, Lord Keeper, etc.

8th July, 1675. I went with Mrs. Howard and her two daughters toward Northampton Assizes, about a trial at law, in which I was concerned for them as a trustee. We lay this night at Henley-on-the Thames, at our attorney, Mr. Stephens's, who entertained us very handsomely. Next day, dining at Shotover, at Sir Timothy Tyrill's, a sweet place, we lay at Oxford, where it was the time of the Act. Mr. Robert Spencer, uncle to the Earl of Sunderland, and my old acquaintance in France, entertained us at his apartment in Christ Church with exceeding generosity.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

10th July, 1675. The Vice Chancellor Dr. Bathurst (who had formerly taken particular care of my son), President of Trinity College invited me to dinner, and did me great honor all the time of my stay. The next day, he invited me and all my company, though strangers to him, to a very noble feast. I was at all the academic exercises.--Sunday, at St. Mary's, preached a Fellow of Brasen-nose, not a little magnifying the dignity of Churchmen.

11th July, 1675. We heard the speeches, and saw the ceremony of creating doctors in Divinity, Law and Physic. I had, early in the morning, heard Dr. Morison, Botanic Professor, read on divers plants in the Physic Garden; and saw that rare collection of natural curiosities of Dr. Plot's, of Magdalen Hall, author of "The Natural History of Oxfordshire," all of them collected in that shire, and indeed extraordinary, that in one county there should be found such variety of plants, shells, stones, minerals, marcasites, fowls, insects, models of works, crystals, agates, and marbles. He was now intending to visit Staffordshire, and, as he had of Oxfordshire, to give us the natural, topical, political, and mechanical history. Pity it is that more of this industrious man's genius were not employed so to describe every county of England; it would be one of the most useful and illustrious works that was ever produced in any age or nation.

I visited also the Bodleian Library and my old friend, the learned Obadiah Walker, head of University College, which he had now almost rebuilt, or repaired. We then proceeded to Northampton, where we arrived the next day.

In this journey, went part of the way Mr. James Graham (since Privy Purse to the Duke), a young gentleman exceedingly in love with Mrs. Dorothy Howard, one of the maids of honor in our company. I could not but pity them both, the mother not much favoring it. This lady was not only a great beauty, but a most virtuous and excellent creature, and worthy to have been wife to the best of men. My advice was required, and I spoke to the advantage of the young gentleman, more out of pity than that she deserved no better match; for, though he was a gentleman of good family, yet there was great inequality.

14th July, 1675. I went to see my Lord Sunderland's Seat at Althorpe, four miles from the ragged town of Northampton (since burned, and well rebuilt). It is placed in a pretty open bottom, very finely watered and flanked with stately woods and groves in a park, with a canal, but the water is not running, which is a defect. The house, a kind of modern building, of freestone, within most nobly furnished; the apartments very commodious, a gallery and noble hall; but the kitchen being in the body of the house, and chapel too small, were defects. There is an old yet honorable gatehouse standing awry, and out-housing mean, but designed to be taken away. It was moated round, after the old manner, but it is now dry, and turfed with a beautiful carpet. Above all, are admirable and magnificent the several ample gardens furnished with the choicest fruit, and exquisitely kept. Great plenty of oranges, and other curiosities. The park full of fowl, especially herons, and from it a prospect to Holmby House, which being demolished in the late civil wars, shows like a Roman ruin shaded by the trees about it, a stately, solemn, and pleasing view.

15th July, 1675. Our cause was pleaded in behalf of the mother, Mrs. Howard and her daughters, before Baron Thurland, who had formerly been steward of Courts for me; we carried our cause, as there was reason, for here was an impudent as well as disobedient son against his mother, by instigation, doubtless, of his wife, one Mrs. Ogle (an ancient maid), whom he had clandestinely married, and who brought him no fortune, he being heir-apparent to the Earl of Berkshire. We lay at Brickhill, in Bedfordshire, and came late the next day to our journey's end.

This was a journey of adventures and knight-errantry. One of the lady's servants being as desperately in love with Mrs. Howard's woman, as Mr. Graham was with her daughter, and she riding on horseback behind his rival, the amorous and jealous youth having a little drink in his pate, had here killed himself had he not been prevented; for, alighting from his horse, and drawing his sword, he endeavored twice or thrice to fall on it, but was interrupted by our coachman, and a stranger passing by. After this, running to his rival, and snatching his sword from his side (for we had beaten his own out of his hand), and on the sudden pulling down his mistress, would have run both of them through; we parted them, not without some blood. This miserable creature poisoned himself for her not many days after they came to London.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

19th July, 1675. The Lord Treasurer's Chaplain preached at Wallingford House.

9th August, 1675. Dr. Sprat, prebend of Westminster, and Chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham, preached on the 3d Epistle of Jude, showing what the primitive faith was, how near it and how excellent that of the Church of England, also the danger of departing from it.

27th August, 1675. I visited the Bishop of Rochester, at Bromley, and dined at Sir Philip Warwick's, at Frogpoole [Frognall].

2d September, 1675. I went to see Dulwich College, being the pious foundation of one Alleyn, a famous comedian, in King James's time. The chapel is pretty, the rest of the hospital very ill contrived; it yet maintains divers poor of both sexes. It is in a melancholy part of Camberwell parish. I came back by certain medicinal Spa waters, at a place called Sydenham Wells, in Lewisham parish, much frequented in summer.

10th September, 1675. I was casually shown the Duchess of Portsmouth's splendid apartment at Whitehall, luxuriously furnished, and with ten times the richness and glory beyond the Queen's; such massy pieces of plate, whole tables, and stands of incredible value.

29th September, 1675. I saw the Italian Scaramuccio act before the King at Whitehall, people giving money to come in, which was very scandalous, and never so before at Court diversions. Having seen him act before in Italy, many years past, I was not averse from seeing the most excellent of that kind of folly.

14th October, 1675. Dined at Kensington with my old acquaintance, Mr. Henshaw, newly returned from Denmark, where he had been left resident after the death of the Duke of Richmond, who died there Ambassador.

15th October, 1675. I got an extreme cold, such as was afterward so epidemical, as not only to afflict us in this island, but was rife over all Europe, like a plague. It was after an exceedingly dry summer and autumn.

I settled affairs, my son being to go into France with my Lord Berkeley, designed Ambassador-extraordinary for France and Plenipotentiary for the general treaty of peace at Nimeguen.

24th October, 1675. Dined at Lord Chamberlain's with the Holland Ambassador L. Duras, a valiant gentleman whom his Majesty made an English Baron, of a cadet, and gave him his seat of Holmby, in Northamptonshire.

27th October, 1675. Lord Berkeley coming into Council, fell down in the gallery at Whitehall, in a fit of apoplexy, and being carried into my Lord Chamberlain's lodgings, several famous doctors were employed all that night, and with much ado he was at last recovered to some sense, by applying hot fire pans and spirit of amber to his head; but nothing was found so effectual as cupping him on the shoulders. It was almost a miraculous restoration. The next day he was carried to Berkeley House. This stopped his journey for the present, and caused my stay in town. He had put all his affairs and his whole estate in England into my hands during his intended absence, which though I was very unfit to undertake, in regard of many businesses which then took me up, yet, upon the great importunity of my lady and Mr. Godolphin (to whom I could refuse nothing) I did take it on me. It seems when he was Deputy in Ireland, not long before, he had been much wronged by one he left in trust with his affairs, and therefore wished for some unmercenary friend who would take that trouble on him; this was to receive his rents, look after his houses and tenants, solicit supplies from the Lord Treasurer, and correspond weekly with him, more than enough to employ any drudge in England; but what will not friendship and love make one do?

31st October, 1675. Dined at my Lord Chamberlain's, with my son. There were the learned Isaac Vossius, and Spanhemius, son of the famous man of Heidelberg; nor was this gentleman less learned, being a general scholar. Among other pieces, he was author of an excellent treatise on Medals.

10th November, 1675. Being the day appointed for my Lord Ambassador to set out, I met them with my coach at New Cross. There were with him my Lady his wife, and my dear friend, Mrs. Godolphin, who, out of an extraordinary friendship, would needs accompany my lady to Paris, and stay with her some time, which was the chief inducement for permitting my son to travel, but I knew him safe under her inspection, and in regard my Lord himself had promised to take him into his special favor, he having intrusted all he had to my care.

Thus we set out three coaches (besides mine), three wagons, and about forty horses. It being late, and my Lord as yet but valetudinary, we got but to Dartford, the first day, the next to Sittingbourne.

At Rochester, the major, Mr. Cony, then an officer of mine for the sick and wounded of that place, gave the ladies a handsome refreshment as we came by his house.

[Sidenote: DOVER]

12th November, 1675. We came to Canterbury: and, next morning, to Dover.

There was in my Lady Ambassadress's company my Lady Hamilton, a sprightly young lady, much in the good graces of the family, wife of that valiant and worthy gentleman, George Hamilton, not long after slain in the wars. She had been a maid of honor to the Duchess, and now turned Papist.

14th November, 1675. Being Sunday, my Lord having before delivered to me his letter of attorney, keys, seal, and his Will, we took a solemn leave of one another upon the beach, the coaches carrying them into the sea to the boats, which delivered them to Captain Gunman's yacht, the "Mary." Being under sail, the castle gave them seventeen guns, which Captain Gunman answered with eleven. Hence, I went to church, to beg a blessing on their voyage.

2d December, 1675. Being returned home, I visited Lady Mordaunt at Parson's Green, my Lord, her son, being sick. This pious woman delivered to me £100 to bestow as I thought fit for the release of poor prisoners, and other charitable uses.

21st December, 1675. Visited her Ladyship again, where I found the Bishop of Winchester, whom I had long known in France; he invited me to his house at Chelsea.

23d December, 1675. Lady Sunderland gave me ten guineas, to bestow in charities.

20th February, 1675-76. Dr. Gunning, Bishop of Ely, preached before the King from St. John xx. 21, 22, 23, chiefly against an anonymous book, called "Naked Truth," a famous and popular treatise against the corruption in the Clergy, but not sound as to its quotations, supposed to have been the Bishop of Hereford's and was answered by Dr. Turner, it endeavoring to prove an equality of order of Bishop and Presbyter.

27th February, 1676. Dr. Pritchard, Bishop of Gloucester, preached at Whitehall, on Isaiah v. 5, very allegorically, according to his manner, yet very gravely and wittily.

29th February, 1676. I dined with Mr. Povey, one of the Masters of Requests, a nice contriver of all elegancies, and exceedingly formal. Supped with Sir J. Williamson, where were of our Society Mr. Robert Boyle, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir William Petty, Dr. Holden, subdean of his Majesty's Chapel, Sir James Shaen, Dr. Whistler, and our Secretary, Mr. Oldenburg.

4th March, 1676. Sir Thomas Linch was returned from his government of Jamaica.

16th March, 1676. The Countess of Sunderland and I went by water to Parson's Green, to visit my Lady Mordaunt, and to consult with her about my Lord's monument. We returned by coach.

19th March, 1676. Dr. Lloyd, late Curate of Deptford, but now Bishop of Llandaff, preached before the King, on 1 Cor. xv. 57, that though sin subjects us to death, yet through Christ we become his conquerors.

23d March, 1676. To Twickenham Park, Lord Berkeley's country seat, to examine how the bailiffs and servants ordered matters.

24th March, 1676. Dr. Brideoake, Bishop of Chichester, preached a mean discourse for a Bishop. I also heard Dr. Fleetwood, Bishop of Worcester, on Matt. xxvi. 38, of the sorrows of Christ, a deadly sorrow caused by our sins; he was no great preacher.

30th March, 1676. Dining with my Lady Sunderland, I saw a fellow swallow a knife, and divers great pebble stones, which would make a plain rattling one against another. The knife was in a sheath of horn.

Dr. North, son of my Lord North, preached before the King, on Isaiah liii. 57, a very young but learned and excellent person. Note. This was the first time the Duke appeared no more in chapel, to the infinite grief and threatened ruin of this poor nation.

2d April, 1676. I had now notice that my dear friend Mrs. Godolphin, was returning from Paris. On the 6th, she arrived to my great joy, whom I most heartily welcomed.

28th April, 1676. My wife entertained her Majesty at Deptford, for which the Queen gave me thanks in the withdrawing room at Whitehall.

The University of Oxford presented me with the "_Marmora Oxoniensia Arundeliana_"; the Bishop of Oxford writing to desire that I would introduce Mr. Prideaux, the editor (a young man most learned in antiquities) to the Duke of Norfolk, to present another dedicated to his Grace, which I did, and we dined with the Duke at Arundel House, and supped at the Bishop of Rochester's with Isaac Vossius.

7th May, 1676. I spoke to the Duke of York about my Lord Berkeley's going to Nimeguen. Thence, to the Queen's Council at Somerset House, about Mrs. Godolphin's lease of Spalding, in Lincolnshire.

11th May, 1676. I dined with Mr. Charleton, and went to see Mr. Montague's new palace, near Bloomsbury, built by Mr. Hooke, of our Society, after the French manner.[36]

[Footnote 36: Now the British Museum.]

13th May, 1676. Returned home, and found my son returned from France; praised be God!

22d May, 1676. Trinity Monday. A chaplain of my Lord Ossory's preached, after which we took barge to Trinity House in London. Mr. Pepys (Secretary of the Admiralty) succeeded my Lord as Master.

[Sidenote: ENFIELD]

2d June, 1676. I went with my Lord Chamberlain to see a garden, at Enfield town; thence, to Mr. Secretary Coventry's lodge in the Chase. It is a very pretty place, the house commodious, the gardens handsome, and our entertainment very free, there being none but my Lord and myself. That which I most wondered at was, that, in the compass of twenty-five miles, yet within fourteen of London, there is not a house, barn, church, or building, besides three lodges. To this Lodge are three great ponds, and some few inclosures, the rest a solitary desert, yet stored with no less than 3,000 deer. These are pretty retreats for gentlemen, especially for those who are studious and lovers of privacy.

We returned in the evening by Hampstead, to see Lord Wotton's house and garden (Bellsize House), built with vast expense by Mr. O'Neale, an Irish gentleman who married Lord Wotton's mother, Lady Stanhope. The furniture is very particular for Indian cabinets, porcelain, and other solid and noble movables. The gallery very fine, the gardens very large, but ill kept, yet woody and chargeable. The soil a cold weeping clay, not answering the expense.

12th June, 1676. I went to see Sir Thomas Bond's new and fine house by Peckham; it is on a flat, but has a fine garden and prospect through the meadows to London.

2d July, 1676. Dr. Castillion, Prebend of Canterbury, preached before the King, on John xv. 22, at Whitehall.

19th July, 1676. Went to the funeral of Sir William Sanderson, husband to the Mother of the Maids, and author of two large but mean histories of King James and King Charles I. He was buried at Westminster.

1st August, 1676. In the afternoon, after prayers at St. James's Chapel, was christened a daughter of Dr. Leake's, the Duke's Chaplain: godmothers were Lady Mary, daughter of the Duke of York, and the Duchess of Monmouth: godfather, the Earl of Bath.

15th August, 1676. Came to dine with me my Lord Halifax, Sir Thomas Meeres, one of the Commissioners of the Admiralty, Sir John Clayton, Mr. Slingsby, Mr. Henshaw, and Mr. Bridgeman.

25th August, 1676. Dined with Sir John Banks at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, on recommending Mr. Upman to be tutor to his son going into France. This Sir John Banks was a merchant of small beginning, but had amassed £100,000.

26th August, 1676. I dined at the Admiralty with Secretary Pepys, and supped at the Lord Chamberlain's. Here was Captain Baker, who had been lately on the attempt of the Northwest passage. He reported prodigious depth of ice, blue as a sapphire, and as transparent. The thick mists were their chief impediment, and cause of their return.

2d September, 1676. I paid £1,700 to the Marquis de Sissac, which he had lent to my Lord Berkeley, and which I heard the Marquis lost at play in a night or two.

The Dean of Chichester preached before the King, on Acts xxiv. 16; and Dr. Crichton preached the second sermon before him on Psalm xc. 12, of wisely numbering our days, and well employing our time.

3d September, 1676. Dined at Captain Graham's, where I became acquainted with Dr. Compton (brother to the Earl of Northampton), now Bishop of London, and Mr. North, son to the Lord North, brother to the Lord Chief-Justice and Clerk of the Closet, a most hopeful young man. The Bishop had once been a soldier, had also traveled in Italy, and became a most sober, grave, and excellent prelate.

6th September, 1676. Supped at the Lord Chamberlain's, where also supped the famous beauty and errant lady, the Duchess of Mazarine (all the world knows her story), the Duke of Monmouth, Countess of Sussex (both natural children of the King by the Duchess of Cleveland[37]), and the Countess of Derby, a virtuous lady, daughter to my best friend, the Earl of Ossory.

[Footnote 37: Evelyn makes a slip here. The Duke of Monmouth's
mother was, it is well known, Lucy Walters, sometimes called Mrs.
Barlow, and heretofore mentioned in the "Diary." Nor is he more
correct as to the Countess of Sussex. Lady Anne Fitzroy, as she is
called in the Peerage books, was married to Lennard Dacre, Earl of
Sussex, by whom she left a daughter only, who succeeded on her
father's death to the Barony of Dacre. On the other hand, the Duke
of Southampton, the Duke of Grafton, and the Duke of Northumberland,
were all of them children of Charles II. by the Duchess of
Cleveland.]

10th September, 1676. Dined with me Mr. Flamsted, the learned astrologer and mathematician, whom his Majesty had established in the new Observatory in Greenwich Park, furnished with the choicest instruments. An honest, sincere man.

12th September, 1676. To London, to take order about the building of a house, or rather an apartment, which had all the conveniences of a house, for my dear friend, Mr. Godolphin and lady, which I undertook to contrive and survey, and employ workmen until it should be quite finished; it being just over against his Majesty's wood-yard by the Thames side, leading to Scotland Yard.

19th September, 1676. To Lambeth, to that rare magazine of marble, to take order for chimney-pieces, etc., for Mr. Godolphin's house. The owner of the works had built for himself a pretty dwelling house; this Dutchman had contracted with the Genoese for all their marble. We also saw the Duke of Buckingham's glasswork, where they made huge vases of metal as clear, ponderous, and thick as crystal; also looking-glasses far larger and better than any that come from Venice.

9th October, 1676. I went with Mrs. Godolphin and my wife to Blackwall, to see some Indian curiosities; the streets being slippery, I fell against a piece of timber with such violence that I could not speak nor fetch my breath for some space; being carried into a house and let blood, I was removed to the water-side and so home, where, after a day's rest, I recovered. This being one of my greatest deliverances, the Lord Jesus make me ever mindful and thankful!

31st October, 1676. Being my birthday, and fifty-six years old, I spent the morning in devotion and imploring God's protection, with solemn thanksgiving for all his signal mercies to me, especially for that escape which concerned me this month at Blackwall. Dined with Mrs. Godolphin, and returned home through a prodigious and dangerous mist.

9th November, 1676. Finished the lease of Spalding, for Mr. Godolphin.

16th November, 1676. My son and I dining at my Lord Chamberlain's, he showed us among others that incomparable piece of Raphael's, being a Minister of State dictating to Guicciardini, the earnestness of whose face looking up in expectation of what he was next to write, is so to the life, and so natural, as I esteem it one of the choicest pieces of that admirable artist. There was a woman's head of Leonardo da Vinci; a Madonna of old Palma, and two of Vandyke's, of which one was his own picture at length, when young, in a leaning posture; the other, an eunuch, singing. Rare pieces indeed!

4th December, 1676. I saw the great ball danced by all the gallants and ladies at the Duchess of York's.

10th December, 1676. There fell so deep a snow as hindered us from church.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

12th December, 1676. To London, in so great a snow, as I remember not to have seen the like.

17th December, 1676. More snow falling, I was not able to get to church.

8th February, 1676-77. I went to Roehampton, with my Lady Duchess of Ormond. The garden and perspective is pretty, the prospect most agreeable.

15th May, 1677. Came the Earl of Peterborough, to desire me to be a trustee for Lord Viscount Mordaunt and the Countess, for the sale of certain lands set out by Act of Parliament, to pay debts.

12th June, 1677. I went to London, to give the Lord Ambassador Berkeley (now returned from the treaty at Nimeguen) an account of the great trust reposed in me during his absence, I having received and remitted to him no less than £20,000 to my no small trouble and loss of time, that during his absence, and when the Lord Treasurer was no great friend [of his] I yet procured him great sums, very often soliciting his Majesty in his behalf; looking after the rest of his estates and concerns entirely, without once accepting any kind of acknowledgment, purely upon the request of my dear friend, Mr. Godolphin. I returned with abundance of thanks and professions from my Lord Berkeley and my Lady.

29th June, 1677. This business being now at an end, and myself delivered from that intolerable servitude and correspondence, I had leisure to be somewhat more at home and to myself.

3d July, 1677. I sealed the deeds of sale of the manor of Blechingley to Sir Robert Clayton, for payment of Lord Peterborough's debts, according to the trust of the Act of Parliament.

[Sidenote: WOTTON]

16th July, 1677. I went to Wotton.--22d. Mr. Evans, curate of Abinger, preached an excellent sermon on Matt. v. 12. In the afternoon, Mr. Higham at Wotton catechised.

26th July, 1677. I dined at Mr. Duncomb's, at Sheere, whose house stands environed with very sweet and quick streams.

29th July, 1677. Mr. Bohun, my Son's late tutor, preached at Abinger, on Phil., iv. 8, very elegantly and practically.

5th August, 1677. I went to visit my Lord Brounker, now taking the waters at Dulwich.

9th August, 1677. Dined at the Earl of Peterborough's the day after the marriage of my Lord of Arundel to Lady Mary Mordaunt, daughter of the Earl of Peterborough.

28th August, 1677. To visit my Lord Chamberlain, in Suffolk; he sent his coach and six to meet and bring me from St. Edmund's Bury to Euston.

29th August, 1677. We hunted in the Park and killed a very fat buck.

31st August, 1677. I went a hawking.