cxviii. 24, requiring us to be thankful and rejoice, as indeed we had

cause.

4th June, 1661. Came Sir Charles Harbord, his Majesty's surveyor, to take an account of what grounds I challenged at Sayes Court.

27th June, 1661. I saw the Portugal ambassador at dinner with his Majesty in state, where was excellent music.

2d July, 1661. I went to see the New Spring-Garden, at Lambeth, a prettily contrived plantation.

[Sidenote: DEPTFORD]

19th July, 1661. We tried our Diving-Bell, or engine, in the water dock at Deptford, in which our curator continued half an hour under water; it was made of cast lead, let down with a strong cable.

3d August, 1661. Came my Lord Hatton, Comptroller of his Majesty's household to visit me.

9th August, 1661. I tried several experiments on the sensitive plant and _humilis_, which contracted with the least touch of the sun through a burning glass, though it rises and opens only when it shines on it.

I first saw the famous Queen Pine brought from Barbadoes, and presented to his Majesty; but the first that were ever seen in England were those sent to Cromwell four years since.

I dined at Mr. Palmer's in Gray's Inn, whose curiosity excelled in clocks and pendules, especially one that had innumerable motions, and played nine or ten tunes on the bells very finely, some of them set in parts: which was very harmonious. It was wound up but once in a quarter. He had also good telescopes and mathematical instruments, choice pictures, and other curiosities. Thence, we went to that famous mountebank, Jo. Punteus.

Sir Kenelm Digby presented every one of us his "Discourse of the Vegetation of Plants"; and Mr. Henshaw, his "History of Saltpeter and Gunpowder." I assisted him to procure his place of French Secretary to the King, which he purchased of Sir Henry De Vic.

I went to that famous physician, Sir Fr. Prujean, who showed me his laboratory, his workhouse for turning, and other mechanics; also many excellent pictures, especially the Magdalen of Caracci; and some incomparable _paysages_ done in distemper; he played to me likewise on the _polythore_, an instrument having something of the harp, lute, and theorbo; by none known in England, nor described by any author, nor used, but by this skillful and learned Doctor.

15th August, 1661. I went to Tunbridge-Wells, my wife being there for the benefit of her health. Walking about the solitudes, I greatly admired the extravagant turnings, insinuations, and growth of certain birch trees among the rocks.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

13th September, 1661. I presented my "_Fumifugium_"[67] dedicated to his Majesty, who was pleased that I should publish it by his special commands, being much gratified with it.

[Footnote 67: This pamphlet having become scarce, was in 1772 reprinted in 4to, and is now incorporated in Evelyn's "Miscellaneous Writings."]

18th September, 1661. This day was read our petition to his Majesty for his royal grant, authorizing our Society to meet as a corporation, with several privileges.

An exceedingly sickly, wet autumn.

1st October, 1661. I sailed this morning with his Majesty in one of his yachts (or pleasure boats), vessels not known among us till the Dutch East India Company presented that curious piece to the King; being very excellent sailing vessels. It was on a wager between his other new pleasure boat, built frigate-like, and one of the Duke of York's; the wager £100; the race from Greenwich to Gravesend and back. The King lost it going, the wind being contrary, but saved stakes in returning. There were divers noble persons and lords on board, his Majesty sometimes steering himself. His barge and kitchen boat attended. I brake fast this morning with the King at return in his smaller vessel, he being pleased to take me and only four more, who were noblemen, with him; but dined in his yacht, where we all ate together with his Majesty. In this passage he was pleased to discourse to me about my book inveighing against the nuisance of the smoke of London, and proposing expedients how, by removing those particulars I mentioned, it might be reformed; commanding me to prepare a Bill against the next session of Parliament, being, as he said, resolved to have something done in it. Then he discoursed to me of the improvement of gardens and buildings, now very rare in England comparatively to other countries. He then commanded me to draw up the matter of fact happening at the bloody encounter which then had newly happened between the French and Spanish Ambassadors near the Tower, contending for precedency, at the reception of the Swedish Ambassador; giving me orders to consult Sir William Compton, Master of the Ordnance, to inform me of what he knew of it, and with his favorite, Sir Charles Berkeley, captain of the Duke's life guard, then present with his troop and three foot companies; with some other reflections and instructions, to be prepared with a declaration to take off the reports which went about of his Majesty's partiality in the affairs, and of his officers' and spectators' rudeness while the conflict lasted. So I came home that night, and went next morning to London, where from the officers of the Tower, Sir William Compton, Sir Charles Berkeley, and others who were attending at this meeting of the Ambassadors three days before, having collected what I could, I drew up a Narrative in vindication of his Majesty, and the carriage of his officers and standers-by.

On Thursday his Majesty sent one of the pages of the back stairs for me to wait on him with my papers, in his cabinet where was present only Sir Henry Bennett (Privy-Purse), when beginning to read to his Majesty what I had drawn up, by the time I had read half a page, came in Mr. Secretary Morice with a large paper, desiring to speak with his Majesty, who told him he was now very busy, and therefore ordered him to come again some other time; the Secretary replied that what he had in his hand was of extraordinary importance. So the King rose up, and, commanding me to stay, went aside to a corner of the room with the Secretary; after a while, the Secretary being dispatched, his Majesty returning to me at the table, a letter was brought him from Madame out of France;[68] this he read and then bid me proceed from where I left off. This I did till I had ended all the narrative, to his Majesty's great satisfaction; and, after I had inserted one or two more clauses, in which his Majesty instructed me, commanded that it should that night be sent to the posthouse, directed to the Lord Ambassador at Paris (the Earl of St. Alban's), and then at leisure to prepare him a copy, which he would publish. This I did, and immediately sent my papers to the Secretary of State, with his Majesty's express command of dispatching them that night for France. Before I went out of the King's closet, he called me back to show me some ivory statues, and other curiosities that I had not seen before.

[Footnote 68: Henrietta Maria.]

3d October, 1661. Next evening, being in the withdrawing-room adjoining the bedchamber, his Majesty espying me came to me from a great crowd of noblemen standing near the fire, and asked me if I had done; and told me he feared it might be a little too sharp, on second thoughts, for he had that morning spoken with the French Ambassador, who it seems had palliated the matter, and was very tame; and therefore directed me where I should soften a period or two, before it was published (as afterward it was). This night also he spoke to me to give him a sight of what was sent, and to bring it to him in his bedchamber; which I did, and received it again from him at dinner, next day. By Saturday, having finished it with all his Majesty's notes, the King being gone abroad, I sent the papers to Sir Henry Bennett (Privy-Purse and a great favorite), and slipped home, being myself much indisposed and harassed with going about, and sitting up to write.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

19th October, 1661. I went to London to visit my Lord of Bristol, having been with Sir John Denham (his Majesty's surveyor) to consult with him about the placing of his palace at Greenwich, which I would have had built between the river and the Queen's house, so as a large square cut should have let in the Thames like a bay; but Sir John was for setting it on piles at the very brink of the water, which I did not assent to; and so came away, knowing Sir John to be a better poet than architect, though he had Mr. Webb (Inigo Jones's man) to assist him.

29th October, 1661. I saw the Lord Mayor pass in his water triumph to Westminster, being the first solemnity of this nature after twenty years.

2d November, 1661. Came Sir Henry Bennett, since Lord Arlington, to visit me, and to acquaint me that his Majesty would do me the honor to come and see my garden; but, it being then late, it was deferred.

3d November, 1661. One Mr. Breton preached his probation sermon at our parish church, and indeed made a most excellent discourse on John i. 29, of God's free grace to penitents, so that I could not but recommend him to the patron.

10th November, 1661. In the afternoon, preached at the Abbey Dr. Basire, that great traveler, or rather French Apostle, who had been planting the Church of England in divers parts of the Levant and Asia. He showed that the Church of England was, for purity of doctrine, substance, decency, and beauty, the most perfect under Heaven; that England was the very land of Goshen.

11th November, 1661. I was so idle as to go to see a play called "Love and Honor." Dined at Arundel House; and that evening discoursed with his Majesty about shipping, in which he was exceedingly skillful.

15th November, 1661. I dined with the Duke of Ormond, who told me there were no moles in Ireland, nor any rats till of late, and that in but one county; but it was a mistake that spiders would not live there, only they were not poisonous. Also, that they frequently took salmon with dogs.

16th November, 1661. I presented my translation of "Naudæus concerning Libraries" to my Lord Chancellor; but it was miserably false printed.

17th November, 1661. Dr. Creighton, a Scot, author of the "Florentine Council," and a most eloquent man and admirable Grecian, preached on Cant. vi. 13, celebrating the return and restoration of the Church and King.

20th November, 1661. At the Royal Society, Sir William Petty proposed divers things for the improvement of shipping; a versatile keel that should be on hinges and concerning sheathing ships with thin lead.

24th November, 1661. This night his Majesty fell into discourse with me concerning bees, etc.

26th November, 1661. I saw "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark" played; but now the old plays began to disgust this refined age, since his Majesty's being so long abroad.

28th November, 1661. I dined at Chiffinch's house-warming, in St. James's Park; he was his Majesty's closet-keeper, and had his new house full of good pictures, etc. There dined with us Russell, Popish Bishop of Cape Verd, who was sent out to negotiate his Majesty's match with the Infanta of Portugal, after the Ambassador was returned.

29th November, 1661. I dined at the Countess of Peterborough's and went that evening to Parson's Green with my Lord Mordaunt, with whom I stayed that night.

1st December, 1661. I took leave of my Lord Peterborough, going now to Tangier, which was to be delivered to the English on the match with Portugal.

3d December, 1661. By universal suffrage of our philosophic assembly, an order was made and registered that I should receive their public thanks for the honorable mention I made of them by the name of Royal Society, in my Epistle dedicatory to the Lord Chancellor, before my Traduction of Naudæus. Too great an honor for a trifle.

4th December, 1661. I had much discourse with the Duke of York, concerning strange cures he affirmed of a woman who swallowed a whole ear of barley, which worked out at her side. I told him of the KNIFE SWALLOWED[69] and the pins.

[Footnote 69: This refers to the Dutchman, _ante_, 28th August, 1641; and to an extraordinary case contained in a "Miraculous Cure of the Prussian Swallow Knife, etc., by Dan Lakin, P. C." quarto, London, 1642, with a woodcut representing the object of the cure and the size of the knife.]

I took leave of the Bishop of Cape Verd, now going in the fleet to bring over our new Queen.

7th December, 1661. I dined at Arundel House, the day when the great contest in Parliament was concerning the restoring the Duke of Norfolk; however, it was carried for him. I also presented my little trifle of Sumptuary Laws, entitled "Tyrannus" [or "The Mode"].

14th December, 1661. I saw otter hunting with the King, and killed one.

16th December, 1661. I saw a French comedy acted at Whitehall.

20th December, 1661. The Bishop of Gloucester preached at the Abbey at the funeral of the Bishop of Hereford, brother to the Duke of Albemarle. It was a decent solemnity. There was a silver miter, with episcopal robes, borne by the herald before the hearse, which was followed by the Duke his brother, and all the bishops, with divers noblemen.

23d December, 1661. I heard an Italian play and sing to the guitar with extraordinary skill before the Duke.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

1st January, 1661-62. I went to London, invited to the solemn foolery of the Prince de la Grange, at Lincoln's-Inn, where came the King, Duke, etc. It began with a grand masque, and a formal pleading before the mock Princes, Grandees, Nobles, and Knights of the Sun. He had his Lord Chancellor, Chamberlain, Treasurer, and other Royal Officers, gloriously clad and attended. It ended in a magnificent banquet. One Mr. Lort was the young spark who maintained the pageantry.

6th January, 1662. This evening, according to custom, his Majesty opened the revels of that night by throwing the dice himself in the privy chamber, where was a table set on purpose, and lost his £100. (The year before he won £1,500.) The ladies also played very deep. I came away when the Duke of Ormond had won about £1,000, and left them still at passage, cards, etc. At other tables, both there and at the groom-porter's, observing the wicked folly and monstrous excess of passion among some losers; sorry am I that such a wretched custom as play to that excess should be countenanced in a Court, which ought to be an example of virtue to the rest of the kingdom.

9th January, 1662. I saw acted "The Third Part of the Siege of Rhodes." In this acted the fair and famous comedian called Roxalana from the part she performed; and I think it was the last, she being taken to be the Earl of Oxford's MISS (as at this time they began to call lewd women). It was in recitative music.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

10th January, 1662. Being called into his Majesty's closet when Mr. Cooper, the rare limner, was crayoning of the King's face and head, to make the stamps for the new milled money now contriving, I had the honor to hold the candle while it was doing, he choosing the night and candlelight for the better finding out the shadows. During this, his Majesty discoursed with me on several things relating to painting and graving.

11th January, 1662. I dined at Arundel House, where I heard excellent music performed by the ablest masters, both French and English, on theorbos, viols, organs, and voices, as an exercise against the coming of the Queen, purposely composed for her chapel. Afterward, my Lord Aubigny (her Majesty's Almoner to be) showed us his elegant lodging, and his wheel-chair for ease and motion, with divers other curiosities; especially a kind of artificial glass, or porcelain, adorned with relievos of paste, hard and beautiful. Lord Aubigny (brother to the Duke of Lennox) was a person of good sense, but wholly abandoned to ease and effeminacy.

I received of Sir Peter Ball, the Queen's attorney, a draft of an Act against the nuisance of the smoke of London, to be reformed by removing several trades which are the cause of it, and endanger the health of the King and his people. It was to have been offered to the Parliament, as his Majesty commanded.

12th January, 1662. At St. James's chapel preached, or rather harangued, the famous orator, Monsieur Morus, in French. There were present the King, Duke, French Ambassador, Lord Aubigny, Earl of Bristol, and a world of Roman Catholics, drawn thither to hear this eloquent Protestant.

15th January, 1662. There was a general fast through the whole nation, and now celebrated in London, to avert God's heavy judgments on this land. Great rain had fallen without any frost, or seasonable cold, not only in England, but in Sweden, and the most northern parts, being here near as warm as at midsummer in some years.

This solemn fast was held for the House of Commons at St. Margaret's. Dr. Reeves, Dean of Windsor, preached on Joshua vii. 12, showing how the neglect of exacting justice on offenders (by which he insinuated such of the old King's murderers as were yet reprieved and in the Tower) was a main cause of God's punishing a land. He brought in that of the Gibeonites, as well as Achan and others, concluding with an eulogy of the Parliament for their loyalty in restoring the Bishops and Clergy, and vindicating the Church from sacrilege.

16th January, 1662. Having notice of the Duke of York's intention to visit my poor habitation and garden this day, I returned, when he was pleased to do me that honor of his own accord, and to stay some time viewing such things as I had to entertain his curiosity. Afterward he caused me to dine with him at the Treasurer of the Navy's house, and to sit with him covered at the same table. There were his Highness, the Duke of Ormond, and several Lords. Then they viewed some of my grounds about a project for a receptacle for ships to be moored in, which was laid aside as a fancy of Sir Nicholas Crisp. After this, I accompanied the Duke to an East India vessel that lay at Blackwall, where we had entertainment of several curiosities. Among other spirituous drinks, as punch, etc., they gave us Canary that had been carried to and brought from the Indies, which was indeed incomparably good. I returned to London with his Highness. This night was acted before his Majesty "The Widow," a lewd play.

18th January, 1662. I came home to be private a little, not at all affecting the life and hurry of Court.

24th January, 1662. His Majesty entertained me with his intentions of building his Palace of Greenwich, and quite demolishing the old one; on which I declared my thoughts.

25th January, 1662. I dined with the Trinity Company at their house, that corporation being by charter fixed at Deptford.

3d February, 1662. I went to Chelsea, to see Sir Arthur Gorges' house.

11th February, 1662. I saw a comedy acted before the Duchess of York at the Cockpit. The King was not at it.

17th February, 1662. I went with my Lord of Bristol to see his house at Wimbledon, newly bought of the Queen-Mother, to help contrive the garden after the modern. It is a delicious place for prospect and the thickets, but the soil cold and weeping clay. Returned that evening with Sir Henry Bennett.

This night was buried in Westminster Abbey the Queen of Bohemia, after all her sorrows and afflictions being come to die in the arms of her nephew, the King; also this night and the next day fell such a storm of hail, thunder, and lightning, as never was seen the like in any man's memory, especially the tempest of wind, being southwest, which subverted, besides huge trees, many houses, innumerable chimneys (among others that of my parlor at Sayes Court), and made such havoc at land and sea, that several perished on both. Divers lamentable fires were also kindled at this time; so exceedingly was God's hand against this ungrateful and vicious nation and Court.

20th February, 1662. I returned home to repair my house, miserably shattered by the late tempest.

24th March, 1662. I returned home with my whole family, which had been most part of the winter, since October, at London, in lodgings near the Abbey of Westminster.

6th April, 1662. Being of the Vestry, in the afternoon we ordered that the communion-table should be set (as usual) altar-wise, with a decent rail in front, as before the Rebellion.

17th April, 1662. The young Marquis of Argyle, whose turbulent father was executed in Scotland, came to see my garden. He seemed a man of parts.

7th May, 1662. I waited on Prince Rupert to our Assembly where were tried several experiments in Mr. Boyle's VACUUM. A man thrusting in his arm, upon exhaustion of the air, had his flesh immediately swelled so as the blood was near bursting the veins: he drawing it out, we found it all speckled.

14th May, 1662. To London, being chosen one of the Commissioners for reforming the buildings, ways, streets, and incumbrances, and regulating the hackney coaches in the city of London, taking my oath before my Lord Chancellor, and then went to his Majesty's Surveyor's office, in Scotland Yard, about naming and establishing officers, adjourning till the 16th, when I went to view how St. Martin's Lane might be made more passable into the Strand. There were divers gentlemen of quality in this commission.

25th May, 1662. I went this evening to London, in order to our journey to Hampton Court, to see the Queen; who, having landed at Portsmouth, had been married to the King a week before by the Bishop of London.

30th May, 1662. The Queen arrived with a train of Portuguese ladies in their monstrous fardingales, or guard-infantes, their complexions olivader[70] and sufficiently unagreeable. Her Majesty in the same habit, her foretop long and turned aside very strangely. She was yet of the handsomest countenance of all the rest, and, though low of stature, prettily shaped, languishing and excellent eyes, her teeth wronging her mouth by sticking a little too far out; for the rest, lovely enough.

[Footnote 70: Of a dark olive complexion. It has been noticed in other accounts that Katharine of Braganza's Portuguese Ladies of Honor, who came over with her, were uncommonly ill-favored, and disagreeable in their appearance. See Faithorne's curious print of the Queen in the costume here described.]

31st May, 1662. I saw the Queen at dinner; the Judges came to compliment her arrival, and, after them, the Duke of Ormond brought me to kiss her hand.

2d June, 1662. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen made their addresses to the Queen, presenting her £1,000 in gold. Now saw I her Portuguese ladies, and the Guardadamas, or mother of her maids,[71] and the old knight, a lock of whose hair quite covered the rest of his bald pate, bound on by a thread, very oddly. I saw the rich gondola sent to his Majesty from the State of Venice; but it was not comparable for swiftness to our common wherries, though managed by Venetians.

[Footnote 71: The Maids of Honor had a mother at least as early as the reign of Elizabeth. The office is supposed to have been abolished about the period of the Revolution of 1688.]

4th June, 1662. Went to visit the Earl of Bristol, at Wimbledon.

8th June, 1662. I saw her Majesty at supper privately in her bedchamber.

9th June, 1662. I heard the Queen's Portugal music, consisting of pipes, harps, and very ill voices.

[Sidenote: HAMPTON COURT]

Hampton Court is as noble and uniform a pile, and as capacious as any Gothic architecture can have made it. There is an incomparable furniture in it, especially hangings designed by Raphael, very rich with gold; also many rare pictures, especially the Cæsarean Triumphs of Andrea Mantegna, formerly the Duke of Mantua's; of the tapestries, I believe the world can show nothing nobler of the kind than the stories of Abraham and Tobit. The gallery of horns is very particular for the vast beams of stags, elks, antelopes, etc. The Queen's bed was an embroidery of silver on crimson velvet, and cost £8,000, being a present made by the States of Holland when his Majesty returned, and had formerly been given by them to our King's sister, the Princess of Orange, and, being bought of her again, was now presented to the King. The great looking-glass and toilet, of beaten and massive gold, was given by the Queen-Mother. The Queen brought over with her from Portugal such Indian cabinets as had never before been seen here. The great hall is a most magnificent room. The chapel roof excellently fretted and gilt. I was also curious to visit the wardrobe and tents, and other furniture of state. The park, formerly a flat and naked piece of ground, now planted with sweet rows of lime trees; and the canal for water now near perfected; also the air-park. In the garden is a rich and noble fountain, with Sirens, statues, etc., cast in copper, by Fanelli; but no plenty of water. The cradle-work of horn beam in the garden is, for the perplexed twining of the trees, very observable. There is a parterre which they call Paradise, in which is a pretty banqueting-house set over a cave, or cellar. All these gardens might be exceedingly improved, as being too narrow for such a palace.

10th June, 1662. I returned to London, and presented my "History of Chalcography" (dedicated to Mr. Boyle) to our Society.[72]

[Footnote 72: See Evelyn's "Miscellaneous Writings."]

19 June, 1662. I went to Albury, to visit Mr. Henry Howard, soon after he had procured the Dukedom to be restored. This gentleman had now compounded a debt of £200,000, contracted by his grandfather. I was much obliged to that great virtuoso, and to this young gentleman, with whom I stayed a fortnight.

2d July, 1662. We hunted and killed a buck in the park, Mr. Howard inviting most of the gentlemen of the country near him.

3d July, 1662. My wife met me at Woodcot, whither Mr. Howard accompanied me to see my son John, who had been much brought up among Mr. Howard's children at Arundel House, till, for fear of their perverting him in the Catholic religion, I was forced to take him home.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

8th July, 1662. To London, to take leave of the Duke and Duchess of Ormond, going then into Ireland with an extraordinary retinue.

13th July, 1662. Spent some time with the Lord Chancellor, where I had discourse with my Lord Willoughby, Governor of Barbadoes, concerning divers particulars of that colony.

28th July, 1662. His Majesty going to sea to meet the Queen-Mother, now coming again for England, met with such ill weather as greatly endangered him. I went to Greenwich, to wait on the Queen, now landed.

30th July, 1662. To London, where was a meeting about Charitable Uses, and particularly to inquire how the city had disposed of the revenues of Gresham College, and why the salaries of the professors there were no better improved. I was on this commission, with divers Bishops and Lords of the Council; but little was the progress we could make.

31st July, 1662. I sat with the Commissioners about reforming buildings and streets of London, and we ordered the paving of the way from St. James's North, which was a quagmire, and also of the Haymarket about Piqudillo [Piccadilly], and agreed upon instructions to be printed and published for the better keeping the streets clean.

1st August, 1662. Mr. H. Howard, his brothers Charles, Edward, Bernard, Philip,[73] now the Queen's Almoner (all brothers of the Duke of Norfolk, still in Italy), came with a great train, and dined with me; Mr. H. Howard leaving with me his eldest and youngest sons, Henry and Thomas, for three or four days, my son, John, having been sometime bred up in their father's house.

[Footnote 73: Since Cardinal at Rome. "Evelyn's Note."]

4th August, 1662. Came to see me the old Countess of Devonshire, with that excellent and worthy person, my Lord her son, from Roehampton.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

5th August, 1662. To London, and next day to Hampton Court, about my purchase, and took leave of Sir R. Fanshawe, now going Ambassador to Portugal.

13th August, 1662. Our Charter being now passed under the broad Seal, constituting us a corporation under the name of the Royal Society for the improvement of natural knowledge by experiment, was this day read and was all that was done this afternoon, being very large.

14th August, 1662. I sat on the commission for Charitable Uses, the Lord Mayor and others of the Mercers' Company being summoned, to answer some complaints of the Professors, grounded on a clause in the will of Sir Thomas Gresham, the founder.

This afternoon, the Queen-Mother, with the Earl of St. Alban's and many great ladies and persons, was pleased to honor my poor villa with her presence, and to accept of a collation. She was exceedingly pleased, and staid till very late in the evening.

15th August, 1662. Came my Lord Chancellor (the Earl of Clarendon) and his lady, his purse and mace borne before him, to visit me. They were likewise collationed with us, and were very merry. They had all been our old acquaintance in exile, and indeed this great person had ever been my friend. His son, Lord Cornbury, was here, too.

17th August, 1662. Being the Sunday when the Common Prayer Book, reformed and ordered to be used for the future, was appointed to be read, and the solemn League and Covenant to be abjured by all the incumbents of England under penalty of losing their livings; our vicar read it this morning.

20th August, 1662. There were strong guards in the city this day, apprehending some tumults, many of the Presbyterian ministers not conforming. I dined with the Vice-Chamberlain, and then went to see the Queen-Mother, who was pleased to give me many thanks for the entertainment she received at my house, when she recounted to me many observable stories of the sagacity of some dogs she formerly had.

21st August, 1662. I was admitted and then sworn one of the Council of the Royal Society, being nominated in his Majesty's original grant to be of this Council for the regulation of the Society, and making laws and statutes conducible to its establishment and progress, for which we now set apart every Wednesday morning till they were all finished. Lord Viscount Brouncker (that excellent mathematician) was also by his Majesty, our founder, nominated our first President. The King gave us the arms of England to be borne in a canton in our arms, and sent us a mace of silver gilt, of the same fashion and size as those carried before his Majesty, to be borne before our president on meeting days. It was brought by Sir Gilbert Talbot, master of his Majesty's jewel house.

22d August, 1662. I dined with my Lord Brouncker and Sir Robert Murray, and then went to consult about a newly modeled ship at Lambeth, the intention being to reduce that art to as certain a method as any other part of architecture.

23d August, 1662. I was spectator of the most magnificent triumph that ever floated on the Thames, considering the innumerable boats and vessels, dressed and adorned with all imaginable pomp, but, above all, the thrones, arches, pageants, and other representations, stately barges of the Lord Mayor and companies, with various inventions, music, and peals of ordnance both from the vessels and the shore, going to meet and conduct the new Queen from Hampton Court to Whitehall, at the first time of her coming to town. In my opinion, it far exceeded all the Venetian Bucentoras, etc., on the Ascension, when they go to espouse the Adriatic. His Majesty and the Queen came in an antique-shaped open vessel, covered with a state, or canopy, of cloth of gold, made in form of a cupola, supported with high Corinthian pillars, wreathed with flowers, festoons and garlands. I was in our newly built vessel, sailing among them.

29th August, 1662. The Council and Fellows of the Royal Society went in a body to Whitehall, to acknowledge his Majesty's royal grace in granting our Charter, and vouchsafing to be himself our founder; when the President made an eloquent speech, to which his Majesty gave a gracious reply and we all kissed his hand. Next day we went in like manner with our address to my Lord Chancellor, who had much promoted our patent: he received us with extraordinary favor. In the evening I went to the Queen-Mother's Court, and had much discourse with her.

1st September, 1662. Being invited by Lord Berkeley, I went to Durdans, where dined his Majesty, the Queen, Duke, Duchess, Prince Rupert, Prince Edward, and abundance of noblemen. I went, after dinner, to visit my brother of Woodcot, my sister having been delivered of a son a little before, but who had now been two days dead.

4th September, 1662. Commission for Charitable Uses, my Lord Mayor and Aldermen being again summoned, and the improvements of Sir Thomas Gresham's estate examined. There were present the Bishop of London, the Lord Chief Justice, and the King's attorney.

6th September, 1662. Dined with me Sir Edward Walker, Garter King-at-Arms, Mr. Slingsby, master of the Mint, and several others.

17th September, 1662. We now resolved that the Arms of the Society should be a field argent, with a canton of the arms of England; the supporters two talbots argent; crest, an eagle Or holding a shield with the like arms of England, viz, three lions. The words "_Nullius in verbâ_." It was presented to his Majesty for his approbation, and orders given to Garter King-at-Arms to pass the diploma of their office for it.

20th September, 1662. I presented a petition to his Majesty about my own concerns, and afterward accompanied him to Monsieur Febure his chemist (and who had formerly been my master in Paris), to see his accurate preparation for the composing Sir Walter Raleigh's rare cordial: he made a learned discourse before his Majesty in French on each ingredient.

27th September, 1662. Came to visit me Sir George Saville, grandson to the learned Sir Henry Saville, who published St. Chrysostom. Sir George was a witty gentleman, if not a little too prompt and daring.

3d October, 1662. I was invited to the College of Physicians, where Dr. Meret, a learned man and library-keeper, showed me the library, theater for anatomy, and divers natural curiosities; the statue and epigram under it of that renowned physician, Dr. Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood. There I saw Dr. Gilbert, Sir William Paddy's and other pictures of men famous in their faculty.

Visited Mr. Wright, a Scotchman, who had lived long at Rome, and was esteemed a good painter. The pictures of the Judges at Guildhall are of his hand, and so are some pieces in Whitehall, as the roof in his Majesty's old bedchamber, being Astræa, the St. Catherine, and a chimney-piece in the Queen's privy chamber; but his best, in my opinion, is Lacy, the famous Roscius or comedian, whom he has painted in three dresses, as a gallant, a Presbyterian minister, and a Scotch highlander in his plaid. It is in his Majesty's dining room at Windsor. He had at his house an excellent collection, especially that small piece of Correggio, Scotus of de la Marca, a design of Paulo; and, above all, those ruins of Polydore, with some good agates and medals, especially a Scipio, and a Cæsar's head of gold.

15th October, 1662. I this day delivered my "Discourse concerning Forest Trees" to the Society, upon occasion of certain queries sent to us by the Commissioners of his Majesty's Navy, being the first book that was printed by order of the Society, and by their printer, since it was a corporation.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

16th October, 1662. I saw "_Volpone_" acted at Court before their Majesties.

21st October, 1662. To the Queen-Mother's Court, where her Majesty related to us divers passages of her escapes during the Rebellion and wars in England.

28th October, 1662. To Court in the evening where the Queen-Mother, the Queen-Consort, and his Majesty being advertised of some disturbance, forbore to go to the Lord Mayor's show and feast appointed next day, the new Queen not having yet seen that triumph.

29th October, 1662. Was my Lord Mayor's show, with a number of sumptuous pageants, speeches, and verses. I was standing in a house in Cheapside against the place prepared for their Majesties. The Prince and heir of Denmark was there, but not our King. There were also the maids of honor. I went to Court this evening, and had much discourse with Dr. Basiers, one of his Majesty's chaplains, the great traveler, who showed me the syngraphs and original subscriptions of divers eastern patriarchs and Asian churches to our confession.

4th November, 1662. I was invited to the wedding of the daughter of Sir George Carteret (The Treasurer of the Navy and King's Vice-Chamberlain), married to Sir Nicholas Slaning, Knight of the Bath, by the Bishop of London, in the Savoy chapel; after which was an extraordinary feast.

5th November, 1662. The Council of the Royal Society met to amend the Statutes, and dined together; afterward meeting at Gresham College, where was a discourse suggested by me, concerning planting his Majesty's Forest of Dean with oak, now so much exhausted of the choicest ship timber in the world.

20th November, 1662. Dined with the Comptroller, Sir Hugh Pollard; afterward saw "The Young Admiral" acted before the King.

21st November, 1662. Spent the evening at Court, Sir Kenelm Digby giving me great thanks for my "Sylva."

[Sidenote: LONDON]

27th November, 1662. Went to London to see the entrance of the Russian Ambassador, whom his Majesty ordered to be received with much state, the Emperor not only having been kind to his Majesty in his distress, but banishing all commerce with our nation during the Rebellion.

First, the city companies and trained bands were all in their stations: his Majesty's army and guards in great order. His Excellency came in a very rich coach, with some of his chief attendants; many of the rest on horseback, clad in their vests, after the Eastern manner, rich furs, caps, and carrying the presents, some carrying hawks, furs, teeth, bows, etc. It was a very magnificent show.

I dined with the Master of the Mint, where was old Sir Ralph Freeman;[74] passing my evening at the Queen-Mother's Court; at night, saw acted "The Committee," a ridiculous play of Sir R. Howard, where the mimic, Lacy, acted the Irish footman to admiration.

[Footnote 74: Of Betchworth, in Surrey.]

30th November, 1662. St. Andrew's day. Invited by the Dean of Westminster to his consecration dinner and ceremony, on his being made Bishop of Worcester. Dr. Bolton preached in the Abbey Church; then followed the consecration by the Bishops of London, Chichester, Winchester, Salisbury, etc. After this, was one of the most plentiful and magnificent dinners that in my life I ever saw; it cost near £600 as I was informed. Here were the judges, nobility, clergy, and gentlemen innumerable, this Bishop being universally beloved for his sweet and gentle disposition. He was author of those Characters which go under the name of Blount. He translated his late Majesty's "Icon" into Latin, was Clerk of his Closet, Chaplain, Dean of Westminster, and yet a most humble, meek, and cheerful man, an excellent scholar, and rare preacher. I had the honor to be loved by him. He married me at Paris, during his Majesty's and the Church's exile. When I took leave of him, he brought me to the cloisters in his episcopal habit. I then went to prayers at Whitehall, where I passed that evening.

1st December, 1662. Having seen the strange and wonderful dexterity of the sliders on the new canal in St. James's Park, performed before their Majesties by divers gentlemen and others with skates, after the manner of the Hollanders, with what swiftness they pass, how suddenly they stop in full career upon the ice; I went home by water, but not without exceeding difficulty, the Thames being frozen, great flakes of ice encompassing our boat.

17th December, 1662, I saw acted before the King "The Law against Lovers."[75]

[Footnote 75: By Sir William Davenant, a hotch-potch out of "Measure for Measure" and "Much Ado about Nothing."]

21st December, 1662. One of his Majesty's chaplains preached; after which, instead of the ancient, grave, and solemn wind music accompanying the organ, was introduced a concert of twenty-four violins between every pause, after the French fantastical light way, better suiting a tavern, or playhouse, than a church. This was the first time of change, and now we no more heard the cornet which gave life to the organ; that instrument quite left off in which the English were so skillful. I dined at Mr. Povey's, where I talked with Cromer, a great musician.

23d December, 1662. I went with Sir George Tuke, to hear the comedians con and repeat his new comedy, "The Adventures of Five Hours," a play whose plot was taken out of the famous Spanish poet, Calderon.

27th December, 1662. I visited Sir Theophilus Biddulph.

29th December, 1662. Saw the audience of the Muscovy Ambassador, which was with extraordinary state, his retinue being numerous, all clad in vests of several colors, with buskins, after the Eastern manner! their caps of fur; tunics, richly embroidered with gold and pearls, made a glorious show. The King being seated under a canopy in the Banqueting House, the Secretary of the Embassy went before the Ambassador in a grave march, holding up his master's letters of credence in a crimson taffeta scarf before his forehead. The Ambassador then delivered it with a profound reverence to the King, who gave it to our Secretary of State: it was written in a long and lofty style. Then came in the presents, borne by 165 of his retinue, consisting of mantles and other large pieces lined with sable, black fox, and ermine; Persian carpets, the ground cloth of gold and velvet; hawks, such as they said never came the like; horses said to be Persian; bows and arrows, etc. These borne by so long a train rendered it very extraordinary. Wind music played all the while in the galleries above. This finished, the Ambassador was conveyed by the master of the ceremonies to York House, where he was treated with a banquet, which cost £200, as I was assured.

7th January, 1663. At night I saw the ball, in which his Majesty danced with several great ladies.

8th January, 1663. I went to see my kinsman, Sir George Tuke's, comedy acted at the Duke's theater, which took so universally, that it was acted for some weeks every day, and it was believed it would be worth to the comedians £400 or £500. The plot was incomparable; but the language stiff and formal.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

10th January, 1663. I saw a ball again at Court, danced by the King, the Duke, and ladies, in great pomp.

21st January, 1663. Dined at Mr. Treasurer's, of the Household, Sir Charles Berkeley's, where were the Earl of Oxford, Lord Bellassis, Lord Gerard, Sir Andrew Scrope, Sir William Coventry, Dr. Fraser, Mr. Windham, and others.

5th February, 1663. I saw "The Wild Gallant," a comedy;[76] and was at the great ball at Court, where his Majesty, the Queen, etc., danced.

[Footnote 76: By Dryden. It was unsuccessful on the first representation, but was subsequently altered to the form in which it now appears.]

6th February, 1663. Dined at my Lord Mayor's, Sir John Robinson, Lieutenant of the Tower.

15th February, 1663. This night some villains broke into my house and study below, and robbed me to the value of £60 in plate, money and goods:--this being the third time I have been thus plundered.

26th March, 1663. I sat at the Commission of Sewers, where was a great case pleaded by his Majesty's counsel; he having built a wall over a water course, denied the jurisdiction of the Court. The verdict went for the plaintiff.[77]

[Footnote 77: That is against the King.]

30th April, 1663. Came his Majesty to honor my poor villa with his presence, viewing the gardens, and even every room of the house, and was pleased to take a small refreshment. There were with him the Duke of Richmond, Earl of St. Alban's, Lord Lauderdale, and several persons of quality.

14th May, 1663. Dined with my Lord Mordaunt, and thence went to Barnes, to visit my excellent and ingenious friend, Abraham Cowley.

17th May, 1663. I saluted the old Bishop of Durham, Dr. Cosin, to whom I had been kind, and assisted in his exile; but which he little remembered in his greatness.

29th May, 1663. Dr. Creighton preached his extravagant sermon at St. Margaret's, before the House of Commons.

30th May, 1663. This morning was passed my lease of Sayes Court from the Crown, for the finishing of which I had been obliged to make such frequent journeys to London. I returned this evening, having seen the Russian Ambassador take leave of their Majesties with great solemnity.

2d July, 1663. I saw the great Masque at Court, and lay that night at Arundel House.

4th July, 1663. I saw his Majesty's Guards, being of horse and foot 4,000, led by the General, the Duke of Albemarle, in extraordinary equipage and gallantry, consisting of gentlemen of quality and veteran soldiers, excellently clad, mounted, and ordered, drawn up in battalia before their Majesties in Hyde Park, where the old Earl of Cleveland trailed a pike, and led the right-hand file in a foot company, commanded by the Lord Wentworth, his son; a worthy spectacle and example, being both of them old and valiant soldiers. This was to show the French Ambassador, Monsieur Comminges; there being a great assembly of coaches, etc., in the park.

7th July, 1663. Dined at the Comptroller's; after dinner we met at the Commission about the streets, and to regulate hackney coaches, also to make up our accounts to pass the Exchequer.

16th July, 1663. A most extraordinary wet and cold season.

Sir George Carteret, Treasurer of the Navy, had now married his daughter, Caroline, to Sir Thomas Scott, of Scott's Hall, in Kent. This gentleman was thought to be the son of Prince Rupert.

2d August, 1663. This evening I accompanied Mr. Treasurer and Vice-Chamberlain Carteret to his lately married son-in-law's, Sir Thomas Scott, to Scott's Hall. We took barge as far as Gravesend, and thence by post to Rochester, whence in coach and six horses to Scott's Hall; a right noble seat, uniformly built, with a handsome gallery. It stands in a park well stored, the land fat and good. We were exceedingly feasted by the young knight, and in his pretty chapel heard an excellent sermon by his chaplain. In the afternoon, preached the learned Sir Norton Knatchbull (who has a noble seat hard by, and a plantation of stately fir trees). In the churchyard of the parish church I measured an overgrown yew tree, that was eighteen of my paces in compass, out of some branches of which, torn off by the winds, were sawed divers goodly planks.

10th August, 1663. We returned by Sir Norton's, whose house is likewise in a park. This gentleman is a worthy person, and learned critic, especially in Greek and Hebrew. Passing by Chatham, we saw his Majesty's Royal Navy, and dined at Commissioner Pett's,[78] master-builder there, who showed me his study and models, with other curiosities belonging to his art. He is esteemed for the most skillful shipbuilder in the world. He hath a pretty garden and banqueting house, pots, statues, cypresses, resembling some villas about Rome. After a great feast we rode post to Gravesend, and, sending the coach to London, came by barge home that night.

[Footnote 78: A monument to him in Deptford Church bears a most pompous inscription: "_Qui fuit patriæ decus, patriæ suæ magnum munimentum_;" to the effect that he had not only restored our naval affairs, but he invented that excellent and new ornament of the Navy which we call Frigate, formidable to our enemies, to us most useful and safe: he was to be esteemed, indeed, by this invention, the Noah of his age, which, like another Ark, had snatched from shipwreck our rights and our dominion of the seas.]

[Sidenote: LONDON]

18th August, 1663. To London, to see my Lord Chancellor, where I had discourse with my Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Winchester, who enjoined me to write to Dr. Pierce, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, about a letter sent him by Dr. Goffe, a Romish Oratorian, concerning an answer to Dean Cressy's late book.

20th August, 1663. I dined at the Comptroller's [of the Household] with the Earl of Oxford and Mr. Ashburnham; it was said it should be the last of the public diets, or tables, at Court, it being determined to put down the old hospitality, at which was great murmuring, considering his Majesty's vast revenue and the plenty of the nation. Hence, I went to sit in a Committee, to consider about the regulation of the Mint at the Tower; in which some small progress was made.

27th August, 1663. Dined at Sir Philip Warwick's, Secretary to my Lord Treasurer, who showed me the accounts and other private matters relating to the revenue. Thence, to the Commissioners of the Mint, particularly about coinage, and bringing his Majesty's rate from fifteen to ten shillings for every pound weight of gold.

31st August, 1663. I was invited to the translation of Dr. Sheldon, Bishop of London, from that see to Canterbury, the ceremony performed at Lambeth. First, went his Grace's mace bearer, steward, treasurer, comptroller, all in their gowns, and with white staves; next, the bishops in their habits, eight in number; Dr. Sweate, Dean of the Arches, Dr. Exton, Judge of the Admiralty, Sir William Merick, Judge of the Prerogative Court, with divers advocates in scarlet. After divine service in the chapel, performed with music extraordinary, Dr. French and Dr. Stradling (his Grace's chaplains) said prayers. The Archbishop in a private room looking into the chapel, the bishops, who were commissioners, went up to a table placed before the altar, and sat round it in chairs. Then Dr. Chaworth presented the commission under the broad seal to the Bishop of Winchester, and it was read by Dr. Sweate. After which, the Vicar-General went to the vestry, and brought his Grace into the chapel, his other officers marching before. He being presented to the Commissioners, was seated in a great armchair at one end of the table, when the definitive sentence was read by the Bishop of Winchester, and subscribed by all the bishops, and proclamation was three times made at the chapel door, which was then set open for any to enter, and give their exceptions; if any they had. This done, we all went to dinner in the great hall to a mighty feast. There were present all the nobility in town, the Lord Mayor of London, Sheriffs, Duke of Albemarle, etc. My Lord Archbishop did in particular most civilly welcome me. So going to visit my Lady Needham, who lived at Lambeth, I went over to London.

10th September, 1663. I dined with Mr. Treasurer of the Navy, where, sitting by Mr. Secretary Morice, we had much discourse about books and authors, he being a learned man, and had a good collection.

24th October, 1663. Mr. Edward Phillips came to be my son's preceptor: this gentleman was nephew to Milton, who wrote against Salmasius's "_Defensio_"; but was not at all infected with his principles, though brought up by him.

5th November, 1663. Dr. South, my Lord Chancellor's chaplain, preached at Westminster Abbey an excellent discourse concerning obedience to magistrates, against the pontificians and sectaries. I afterward dined at Sir Philip Warwick's, where was much company.

6th November, 1663. To Court, to get Sir John Evelyn, of Godstone, off from being Sheriff of Surrey.

30th November, 1663. Was the first anniversary of our Society for the choice of new officers, according to the tenor of our patent and institution. It being St. Andrew's day, who was our patron, each fellow wore a St. Andrew's cross of ribbon on the crown of his hat. After the election we dined together, his Majesty sending us venison.

16th December, 1663. To our Society, where Mr. P. Balle, our treasurer at the late election, presented the Society with an iron chest, having three locks, and in it £100 as a gift.

18th December, 1663. Dined with the gentlemen of his Majesty's bedchamber at Whitehall.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

2d January, 1663-64. To Barn Elms, to see Abraham Cowley after his sickness; and returned that evening to London.

4th February, 1664. Dined at Sir Philip Warwick's; thence, to Court, where I had discourse with the King about an invention of glass-grenades, and several other subjects.

5th February, 1664. I saw "The Indian Queen" acted, a tragedy well written,[79] so beautiful with rich scenes as the like had never been seen here, or haply (except rarely) elsewhere on a mercenary theater.

[Footnote 79: By Sir Robert Howard and Dryden.]

16th February, 1664. I presented my "Sylva" to the Society; and next day to his Majesty, to whom it was dedicated; also to the Lord Treasurer and the Lord Chancellor.

24th February, 1664. My Lord George Berkeley, of Durdans, and Sir Samuel Tuke came to visit me. We went on board Sir William Petty's double-bottomed vessel, and so to London.

26th February, 1664. Dined with my Lord Chancellor; and thence to Court, where I had great thanks for my "Sylva," and long discourse with the King of divers particulars.

2d March, 1664. Went to London to distribute some of my books among friends.

4th March, 1664. Came to dine with me the Earl of Lauderdale, his Majesty's great favorite, and Secretary of Scotland; the Earl of Teviot; my Lord Viscount Brouncker, President of the Royal Society; Dr. Wilkins, Dean of Ripon; Sir Robert Murray, and Mr. Hooke, Curator to the Society.

This spring I planted the Home field and West field about Sayes Court with elms, being the same year that the elms were planted by his Majesty in Greenwich Park.

9th March, 1664. I went to the Tower, to sit in commission about regulating the Mint; and now it was that the fine new-milled coin, both of white money and guineas, was established.

26th March, 1664. It pleased God to take away my son, Richard, now a month old, yet without any sickness of danger perceivably, being to all appearance a most likely child; we suspected much the nurse had overlain him; to our extreme sorrow, being now again reduced to one: but God's will be done.

29th March, 1664. After evening prayers, was my child buried near the rest of his brothers--my very dear children.

27th April, 1664. Saw a facetious comedy, called "Love in a Tub"; and supped at Mr. Secretary Bennett's.

3d May, 1664. Came the Earl of Kent, my kinsman, and his Lady, to visit us.

5th May, 1664. Went with some company a journey of pleasure on the water, in a barge, with music, and at Mortlake had a great banquet, returning late. The occasion was, Sir Robert Carr now courting Mrs. Bennett, sister to the Secretary of State.

6th May, 1664. Went to see Mr. Wright the painter's collection of rare shells, etc.

8th June, 1664. To our Society, to which his Majesty had sent that wonderful horn of the fish which struck a dangerous hole in the keel of a ship in the India sea, which, being broken off with the violence of the fish, and left in the timber, preserved it from foundering.

9th June, 1664. Sir Samuel Tuke[80] being this morning married to a lady, kinswoman to my Lord Arundel of Wardour, by the Queen's Lord Almoner, L. Aubigny in St. James's chapel, solemnized his wedding night at my house with much company.

[Footnote 80: A Roman Catholic.]

22d June, 1664. One Tomson, a Jesuit, showed me such a collection of rarities, sent from the Jesuits of Japan and China to their Order at Paris, as a present to be reserved in their repository, but brought to London by the East India ships for them, as in my life I had not seen. The chief things were, rhinoceros's horns; glorious vests, wrought and embroidered on cloth of gold, but with such lively colors, that for splendor and vividness we have nothing in Europe that approaches it; a girdle studded with agates and rubies of great value and size; knives, of so keen an edge as one could not touch them, nor was the metal of our color, but more pale and livid; fans, like those our ladies use, but much larger, and with long handles curiously carved and filled with Chinese characters; a sort of paper very broad, thin, and fine, like abortive parchment, and exquisitely polished, of an amber yellow, exceedingly glorious and pretty to look on, and seeming to be like that which my Lord Verulam describes in his "_Nova Atlantis_"; several other sorts of paper, some written, others printed; prints of landscapes, their idols, saints, pagods, of most ugly serpentine monstrous and hideous shapes, to which they paid devotion; pictures of men and countries, rarely painted on a sort of gummed calico, transparent as glass; flowers, trees, beasts, birds, etc., excellently wrought in a kind of sleeve silk, very natural; divers drugs that our druggists and physicians could make nothing of, especially one which the Jesuit called _Lac Tigridis_: it looked like a fungus, but was weighty like metal, yet was a concretion, or coagulation, of some other matter; several book MSS.; a grammar of the language written in Spanish; with innumerable other rarities.

1st July, 1664. Went to see Mr. Povey's elegant house in Lincoln's-Inn Fields, where the perspective in his court, painted by Streeter, is indeed excellent, with the vases in imitation of porphyry, and fountains; the inlaying of his closet; above all, his pretty cellar and ranging of his wine bottles.

7th July, 1664. To Court, where I subscribed to Sir Arthur Slingsby's lottery, a desperate debt owing me long since in Paris.

14th July, 1664. I went to take leave of the two Mr. Howards, now going to Paris, and brought them as far as Bromley; thence to Eltham, to see Sir John Shaw's new house, now building; the place is pleasant, if not too wet, but the house not well contrived; especially the roof and rooms too low pitched, and the kitchen where the cellars should be; the orangery and aviary handsome, and a very large plantation about it.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

19th July, 1664. To London, to see the event of the lottery which his Majesty had permitted Sir Arthur Slingsby to set up for one day in the Banqueting House, at Whitehall; I gaining only a trifle, as well as did the King, Queen-Consort, and Queen-Mother, for near thirty lots; which was thought to be contrived very unhandsomely by the master of it, who was, in truth, a mere shark.

21st July, 1664. I dined with my Lord Treasurer at Southampton House, where his Lordship used me with singular humanity. I went in the afternoon to Chelsea, to wait on the Duke of Ormond, and returned to London.

28th July, 1664. Came to see me Monsieur Zuylichen, Secretary to the Prince of Orange, an excellent Latin poet, a rare lutinist, with Monsieur Oudart.

3d August, 1664. To London; a concert of excellent musicians, especially one Mr. Berkenshaw, that rare artist, who invented a mathematical way of composure very extraordinary, true as to the exact rules of art, but without much harmony.

8th August, 1664. Came the sad and unexpected news of the death of Lady Cotton, wife to my brother George, a most excellent lady.

9th August, 1664. Went with my brother Richard to Wotton, to visit and comfort my disconsolate brother; and on the 13th saw my friend, Mr. Charles Howard, at Dipden, near Dorking.

16th August, 1664. I went to see Sir William Ducie's house at Charlton; which he purchased of my excellent friend, Sir Henry Newton, now nobly furnished.

22d August, 1664. I went from London to Wotton, to assist at the funeral of my sister-in-law, the Lady Cotton, buried in our dormitory there, she being put up in lead. Dr. Owen made a profitable and pathetic discourse, concluding with an eulogy of that virtuous, pious, and deserving lady. It was a very solemn funeral, with about fifty mourners. I came back next day with my wife to London.

2d September, 1664. Came Constantine Huygens, Signor de Zuylichen, Sir Robert Morris, Mr. Oudart, Mr. Carew, and other friends, to spend the day with us.

5th October, 1664. To our Society. There was brought a newly-invented instrument of music, being a harpsichord with gut-strings, sounding like a concert of viols with an organ, made vocal by a wheel, and a zone of parchment that rubbed horizontally against the strings.

6th October, 1664. I heard the anniversary oration in praise of Dr. Harvey, in the Anatomy Theatre in the College of Physicians; after which I was invited by Dr. Alston, the President, to a magnificent feast.

7th October, 1664. I dined at Sir Nicholas Strood's, one of the Masters of Chancery, in Great St. Bartholomew's; passing the evening at Whitehall, with the Queen, etc.

8th October, 1664. Sir William Curtius, his Majesty's Resident in Germany, came to visit me; he was a wise and learned gentleman, and, as he told me, scholar to Henry Alstedius, the Encyclopedist.

15th October, 1664. Dined at the Lord Chancellor's, where was the Duke of Ormond, Earl of Cork, and Bishop of Winchester. After dinner, my Lord Chancellor and his lady carried me in their coach to see their palace (for he now lived at Worcester-House in the Strand), building at the upper end of St. James's street, and to project the garden. In the evening, I presented him with my book on Architecture,[81] as before I had done to his Majesty and the Queen-Mother. His lordship caused me to stay with him in his bedchamber, discoursing of several matters very late, even till he was going into his bed.

[Footnote 81: "Parallel between Ancient and Modern Architecture, originally written in French, by Roland Freart, Sieur de Chambray," and translated by Evelyn. See his "Miscellaneous Writings."]

17th October, 1664. I went with my Lord Viscount Cornbury, to Cornbury, in Oxfordshire, to assist him in the planting of the park, and bear him company, with Mr. Belin and Mr. May, in a coach with six horses; dined at Uxbridge, lay at Wycombe.

[Sidenote: OXFORD]

18th October, 1664. At Oxford. Went through Woodstock, where we beheld the destruction of that royal seat and park by the late rebels, and arrived that evening at Cornbury, a house lately built by the Earl of Denbigh, in the middle of a sweet park, walled with a dry wall. The house is of excellent freestone, abounding in that part, (a stone that is fine, but never sweats, or casts any damp); it is of ample dimensions, has goodly cellars, the paving of the hall admirable for its close laying. We designed a handsome chapel that was yet wanting: as Mr. May had the stables, which indeed are very fair, having set out the walks in the parks and gardens. The lodge is a pretty solitude, and the ponds very convenient; the park well stored.

20th October, 1664. Hence, to see the famous wells, natural and artificial grots and fountains, called Bushell's Wells, at Enstone. This Bushell had been Secretary to my Lord Verulam. It is an extraordinary solitude. There he had two mummies; a grot where he lay in a hammock, like an Indian. Hence, we went to Dichley, an ancient seat of the Lees, now Sir Henry Lee's; it is a low ancient timber-house, with a pretty bowling-green. My Lady gave us an extraordinary dinner. This gentleman's mother was Countess of Rochester, who was also there, and Sir Walter St. John. There were some pictures of their ancestors, not ill painted; the great-grandfather had been Knight of the Garter; there was a picture of a Pope, and our Savior's head. So we returned to Cornbury.

24th October, 1664. We dined at Sir Timothy Tyrill's at Shotover. This gentleman married the daughter and heir of Dr. James Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, that learned prelate. There is here in the grove a fountain of the coldest water I ever felt, and very clear. His plantation of oaks and other timber is very commendable. We went in the evening to Oxford, lay at Dr. Hyde's, principal of Magdalen-Hall (related to the Lord Chancellor), brother to the Lord Chief Justice and that Sir Henry Hyde, who lost his head for his loyalty. We were handsomely entertained two days. The Vice-Chancellor, who with Dr. Fell, Dean of Christ Church, the learned Dr. Barlow, Warden of Queen's, and several heads of houses, came to visit Lord Cornbury (his father being now Chancellor of the University), and next day invited us all to dinner. I went to visit Mr. Boyle (now here), whom I found with Dr. Wallis and Dr. Christopher Wren, in the tower of the schools, with an inverted tube, or telescope, observing the discus of the sun for the passing of Mercury that day before it; but the latitude was so great that nothing appeared; so we went to see the rarities in the library, where the keepers showed me my name among the benefactors. They have a cabinet of some medals, and pictures of the muscular parts of man's body. Thence, to the new theater, now building at an exceeding and royal expense by the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury [Sheldon], to keep the Acts in for the future, till now being in St. Mary's Church. The foundation had been newly laid, and the whole designed by that incomparable genius my worthy friend, Dr. Christopher Wren, who showed me the model, not disdaining my advice in some particulars. Thence, to see the picture on the wall over the altar of All Souls, being the largest piece of fresco painting (or rather in imitation of it, for it is in oil of turpentine) in England, not ill designed by the hand of one Fuller; yet I fear it will not hold long. It seems too full of nakeds for a chapel.

Thence, to New College, and the painting of Magdalen chapel, which is on blue cloth in _chiar oscuro_, by one Greenborow, being a _Coena Domini_, and a "Last Judgment" on the wall by Fuller, as in the other, but somewhat varied.

Next to Wadham, and the Physic Garden, where were two large locust trees, and as many platani (plane trees), and some rare plants under the culture of old Bobart.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

26th October, 1664. We came back to Beaconsfield; next day to London, where we dined at the Lord Chancellor's, with my Lord Bellasis.

27th October, 1664. Being casually in the privy gallery at Whitehall, his Majesty gave me thanks before divers lords and noblemen for my book of "Architecture," and again for my "_Sylva_" saying they were the best designed and useful for the matter and subject, the best printed and designed (meaning the _taille-douces_ of the Parallel of Architecture) that he had seen. He then caused me to follow him alone to one of the windows, and asked me if I had any paper about me unwritten, and a crayon; I presented him with both, and then laying it on the window-stool, he with his own hands designed to me the plot for the future building of Whitehall, together with the rooms of state, and other particulars. After this, he talked with me of several matters, asking my advice, in which I find his Majesty had an extraordinary talent becoming a magnificent prince.

The same day at Council, there being Commissioners to be made to take care of such sick and wounded and prisoners of war, as might be expected upon occasion of a succeeding war and action at sea, war being already declared against the Hollanders, his Majesty was pleased to nominate me to be one, with three other gentlemen, Parliament men, viz, Sir William Doily, Knt. and Bart., Sir Thomas Clifford, and Bullein Rheymes, Esq.; with a salary of £1,200 a year among us, besides extraordinaries for our care and attention in time of station, each of us being appointed to a particular district, mine falling out to be Kent and Sussex, with power to constitute officers, physicians, chirurgeons, provost-marshals, and to dispose of half of the hospitals through England. After the Council, we kissed his Majesty's hand. At this Council I heard Mr. Solicitor Finch plead most elegantly for the merchants trading to the Canaries, praying for a new Charter.

29th October, 1664. Was the most magnificent triumph by water and land of the Lord Mayor. I dined at Guildhall at the upper table, placed next to Sir H. Bennett, Secretary of State, opposite to my Lord Chancellor and the Duke of Buckingham, who sat between Monsieur Comminges, the French Ambassador, Lord Treasurer, the Dukes of Ormond and Albemarle, Earl of Manchester, Lord Chamberlain, and the rest of the great officers of state. My Lord Mayor came twice up to us, first drinking in the golden goblet his Majesty's health, then the French King's as a compliment to the Ambassador; we returned my Lord Mayor's health, the trumpets and drums sounding. The cheer was not to be imagined for the plenty and rarity, with an infinite number of persons at the tables in that ample hall. The feast was said to cost £1,000. I slipped away in the crowd, and came home late.

31st October, 1664. I was this day 44 years of age; for which I returned thanks to Almighty God, begging his merciful protection for the year to come.

2d November, 1664. Her Majesty, the Queen-Mother, came across the gallery in Whitehall to give me thanks for my book of "Architecture," which I had presented to her, with a compliment that I did by no means deserve.

16th November, 1664. We chose our treasurer, clerks, and messengers, and appointed our seal, which I ordered should be the good Samaritan, with this motto, "_Fac similiter_." Painters' Hall was lent us to meet in. In the great room were divers pictures, some reasonably good, that had been given to the Company by several of the wardens and masters of the Company.

23d November, 1664. Our statutes now finished, were read before a full assembly of the Royal Society.

24th November, 1664. His Majesty was pleased to tell me what the conference was with the Holland Ambassador, which, as after I found, was the heads of the speech he made at the reconvention of the Parliament, which now began.

2d December, 1664. We delivered the Privy Council's letters to the Governors of St. Thomas's Hospital, in Southwark, that a moiety of the house should be reserved for such sick and wounded as should from time to time be sent from the fleet during the war. This being delivered at their Court, the President and several Aldermen, Governors of that Hospital, invited us to a great feast in Fishmongers' Hall.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

20th December, 1664. To London, our last sitting, taking order for our personal visiting our several districts. I dined at Captain Cocke's (our treasurer), with that most ingenious gentleman, Matthew Wren, son to the Bishop of Ely, and Mr. Joseph Williamson, since Secretary of State.

22d December, 1664. I went to the launching of a new ship of two bottoms, invented by Sir William Petty, on which were various opinions; his Majesty being present, gave her the name of the "Experiment": so I returned home, where I found Sir Humphry Winch, who spent the day with me.

This year I planted the lower grove next the pond at Sayes Court. It was now exceedingly cold, and a hard, long, frosty season, and the comet was very visible.

28th December, 1664. Some of my poor neighbors dined with me, and others of my tenants, according to my annual custom.

31st December, 1664. Set my affairs in order, gave God praise for His mercies the past year, and prepared for the reception of the Holy Sacrament, which I partook of the next day, after hearing our minister on the 4th of Galatians, verses 4, 5, of the mystery of our Blessed Savior's Incarnation.

Transcriber's Note

Page headers in the original text indicated the location of the author. I have converted these to sidenotes. When the location did not change over several pages, only one sidenote was used.

"[)u]" is used in the text to represent "u" with a breve above it.

"^" is used in the text to represent superscripts.

"[~C~]" is used to represent a backwards "C"

Footnotes have been moved below the paragraph to which they relate.

Inconsistencies have been retained in spelling, hyphenation, punctuation, and grammar, except where indicated in the list below:

- Comma removed after "King" on Page xxii - Comma removed after "ARTIBUS" and word was moved to the start of following line on Page 17 - "extrordinary" changed to "extraordinary" on Page 22 - Period changed to comma after "considerable" on Page 50 - Colon changed to semicolon after "good" on Page 57 - "Cum-anno" changed to "Cum anno" on Page 60 - "ceörcuit" changed to "coërcuit" on Page 60 - Period added after "capital" on Page 66 - Comma changed to a period added after "head" on Page 68 - Comma added after "churches" on Page 70 - Period added after "Paris" on Page 73 - Period changed to a colon after after "vetustiss" on Page 98 - "qu" changed to "qui" on Page 99 - "suffiently" changed to "sufficiently" on Page 100 - "theorboes" changed to "theorbos" on Page 107 - "hicerigi" changed to "hic erigi" on Page 112 - "d Arpino" changed to "d'Arpino" on Page 119 - "Mosiac" changed to "Mosaic" on Page 123 - "Sextns" changed to "Sextus" on Page 124 - "S.P. Q.R.D.D." changed to "S.P.Q.R.D.D." on Page 124 - "tune" changed to "tunc" on Page 124 - "Mosiac" changed to "Mosaic" on Page 132 - "viz." changed to "viz" on Page 138 - Period added after "grosse" on Page 138 - Semicolon added after "Cybel" on Page 140 - "Scipio'o" changed to "Scipio's" on Page 140 - "forman" changed to "formam" on Page 144 - Quote added before "Inclyta" on Page 146 - "cinceres" changed to "cineres" on Page 153 - Colon changed to a semicolon after "brass" on Page 161 - Round bracket added after "excepted" on Page 164 - "Lanframe" changed to "Lanfranc" on Page 166 - Comma changed to a period after "VIII" on Page 167 - "sinking" changed to "stinking" on Page 178 - "suphurous" changed to "sulphurous" on Page 178 - Comma added after "Pegasus" on Page 178 - "gread" changed to "great" on Page 179 - Colon changed to semicolon after "mummy" on Page 182 - Period changed to comma after "ordnance" on Page 187 - Comma changed to a semicolon after "marble" on Page 200 - Period added after "October" on Page 212 - "thought" changed to "taught" on Page 213 - Extra "to" removed on Page 214 - Extra "of" removed on Page 217 - "Poti" changed to "Pot."-- on Page 223 - Comma added after "August" on Page 243 - "father s" changed to "father's" on Page 251 - "Cecilia's" changed to "Cecilia's" on Page 259 - "Musician's" changed to "Musicians" on Page 259 - Extra "the" removed on Page 264 - "captan" changed to "captain" on Page 265 - "taffet" changed to "taffeta" on Page 265 - "Febur's" changed to "Febure's" on Page 269 - "Cromwells" changed to "Cromwell's" on Page 274 - "Condè's" changed to "Condé's" on Page 275 - Period added after "1653" on Page 281 - Period added after "1653" on Page 281 - Duplicate "the" removed on Page 284 - Comma changed to a period after "Mr" on Page 284 - "delighful" changed to "delightful" on Page 285 - "Pophams" changed to "Popham's" on Page 285 - "June" changed to "July" on Page 287 - "June" changed to "July" on Page 287 - Comma added after "music" on Page 287 - "MSS." changed to "MS." on Page 288 - "meantine" changed to "meantime" on Page 290 - Period added after "prospect" on Page 296 - Comma added after "December" on Page 302 - Comma changed to a period after "it" on Page 308 - "indiffierently" changed to "indifferently" on Page 314 - "January" changed to "February" on Page 314 - "January" changed to "February" on Page 315 - "deperate" changed to "desperate" on Page 317 - Period added after "1657" on Page 317 - Period added after "country" on Page 317 - "commisioners" changed to "commissioners" on Page 326 - Comma added after "November" on Page 328 - "1650" changed to "1660" on Page 336 - Period added after "Crisp" on Page 356 - Comma changed to a period after "modern" on Page 356 - Period added after "St" on Page 360 - Extra "the" removed on Page 362 - Comma changed to a period after "St" on Page 364 - Period added after "Sylva" on Page 365 - "October" changed to "November" on Page 366 - Period added after "Worcester" on Page 366 - Period added after "St" on Page 366 - Comma changed to a period after "1664" on Page 376 - "againt" changed to "against" on Page 378