Volume 2 — THE DIARY OF JOHN EVELYN. (continued 5)

By a special clause in his will, he ordered that his body should be buried in the churchyard under the southeast window of the chancel, adjoining to the burying places of his ancestors, since they came out of Essex into Sayes Court, he being much offended at the novel custom of burying everyone within the body of the church and chancel; that being a favor heretofore granted to martyrs and great persons; this excess of making churches charnel houses being of ill and irreverend example, and prejudicial to the health of the living, besides the continual disturbance of the pavement and seats, and several other indecencies. Dr. Hall, the pious Bishop of Norwich, would also be so interred, as may be read in his testament.

16th March, 1683. I went to see Sir Josiah Child's prodigious cost in planting walnut trees about his seat, and making fish ponds, many miles in circuit, in Epping Forest, in a barren spot, as oftentimes these suddenly monied men for the most part seat themselves. He from a merchant's apprentice, and management of the East India Company's stock, being arrived to an estate (it is said) of £200,000; and lately married his daughter to the eldest son of the Duke of Beaufort, late Marquis of Worcester, with £50,000 portional present, and various expectations.

I dined at Mr. Houblon's, a rich and gentle French merchant, who was building a house in the Forest, near Sir J. Child's, in a place where the late Earl of Norwich dwelt some time, and which came from his lady, the widow of Mr. Baker. It will be a pretty villa, about five miles from Whitechapel.

18th March, 1683. I went to hear Dr. Horneck preach at the Savoy Church, on Phil. ii. 5. He was a German born, a most pathetic preacher, a person of a saint-like life, and hath written an excellent treatise on Consideration.

20th March, 1683. Dined at Dr. Whistler's, at the Physicians' College, with Sir Thomas Millington, both learned men; Dr. W. the most facetious man in nature, and now Censor of the college. I was here consulted where they should build their library; it is a pity this college is built so near Newgate Prison, and in so obscure a hole, a fault in placing most of our public buildings and churches in the city, through the avarice of some few men, and his Majesty not overruling it, when it was in his power after the dreadful conflagration.

LONDON

21st March, 1683. Dr. Tenison preached at Whitehall on 1 Cor. vi. 12; I esteem him to be one of the most profitable preachers in the Church of England, being also of a most holy conversation, very learned and ingenious. The pains he takes and care of his parish will, I fear, wear him out, which would be an inexpressible loss.

24th March, 1683. I went to hear Dr. Charleton's lecture on the heart in the Anatomy Theater at the Physicians' College.

30th March, 1683. To London, in order to my passing the following week, for the celebration of the Easter now approaching, there being in the Holy Week so many eminent preachers officiating at the Court and other places.

LONDON

6th April, 1683. Good Friday. There was in the afternoon, according to custom, a sermon before the King, at Whitehall; Dr. Sprat preached for the Bishop of Rochester.

17th April, 1683. I was at the launching of the last of the thirty ships ordered to be newly built by Act of Parliament, named the "Neptune," a second rate, one of the goodliest vessels of the whole navy, built by my kind neighbor, young Mr. Shish, his Majesty's master shipwright of this dock.

1st May, 1683. I went to Blackheath, to see the new fair, being the first procured by the Lord Dartmouth. This was the first day, pretended for the sale of cattle, but I think in truth to enrich the new tavern at the bowling-green, erected by Snape, his Majesty's farrier, a man full of projects. There appeared nothing but an innumerable assembly of drinking people from London, peddlars, etc., and I suppose it too near London to be of any great use to the country.

March was unusually hot and dry, and all April excessively wet.

I planted all the out limits of the garden and long walks with holly.50

9th May, 1683. Dined at Sir Gabriel Sylvius's and thence to visit the Duke of Norfolk, to ask whether he would part with any of his cartoons and other drawings of Raphael, and the great masters; he told me if he might sell them all together he would, but that the late Sir Peter Lely (our famous painter) had gotten some of his best. The person who desired me to treat for them was Vander Douse, grandson to that great scholar, contemporary and friend of Joseph Scaliger.

16th May, 1683. Came to dinner and visited me Sir Richard Anderson, of Pendley, and his lady, with whom I went to London.

8th June, 1683. On my return home from the Royal Society, I found Mr. Wilbraham, a young gentleman of Cheshire.

11th June, 1683. The Lord Dartmouth was elected Master of the Trinity House; son to George Legge, late Master of the Ordnance, and one of the grooms of the bedchamber; a great favorite of the Duke's, an active and understanding gentleman in sea affairs.

13th June, 1683. To our Society, where we received the Count de Zinzendorp, Ambassador from the Duke of Saxony, a fine young man; we showed him divers experiments on the magnet, on which subject the Society were upon.

16th June, 1683. I went to Windsor, dining by the way at Chiswick, at Sir Stephen Fox's, where I found Sir Robert Howard (that universal pretender), and Signor Verrio, who brought his draught and designs for the painting of the staircase of Sir Stephen's new house.

That which was new at Windsor since I was last there, and was surprising to me, was the incomparable fresco painting in St. George's Hall, representing the legend of St. George, and triumph of the Black Prince, and his reception by Edward III.; the volto, or roof, not totally finished; then the Resurrection in the Chapel, where the figure of the Ascension is, in my opinion, comparable to any paintings of the most famous Roman masters; the Last Supper, also over the altar. I liked the contrivance of the unseen organ behind the altar, nor less the stupendous and beyond all description the incomparable carving of our Gibbons, who is, without controversy, the greatest master both for invention and rareness of work, that the world ever had in any age; nor doubt I at all that he will prove as great a master in the statuary art.

Verrio's invention is admirable, his ordnance full and flowing, antique and heroical; his figures move; and, if the walls hold (which is the only doubt by reason of the salts which in time and in this moist climate prejudice), the work will preserve his name to ages.

There was now the terrace brought almost round the old castle; the grass made clean, even, and curiously turfed; the avenues to the new park, and other walks, planted with elms and limes, and a pretty canal, and receptacle for fowl; nor less observable and famous is the throwing so huge a quantity of excellent water to the enormous height of the castle, for the use of the whole house, by an extraordinary invention of Sir Samuel Morland.

17th June, 1683. I dined at the Earl of Sunderland's with the Earls of Bath, Castlehaven, Lords Viscounts Falconberg, Falkland, Bishop of London, the Grand Master of Malta, brother to the Duke de Vendôme (a young wild spark), and Mr. Dryden, the poet. After evening prayer, I walked in the park with my Lord Clarendon, where we fell into discourse of the Bishop of Salisbury (Dr. Seth Ward), his subtlety, etc. Dr. Durell, late Dean of Windsor, being dead, Dr. Turner, one of the Duke's chaplains was made dean.

I visited my Lady Arlington, groom of the stole to her Majesty, who being hardly set down to supper, word was brought her that the Queen was going into the park to walk, it being now near eleven at night; the alarm caused the Countess to rise in all haste, and leave her supper to us.

By this one may take an estimate of the extreme slavery and subjection that courtiers live in, who had not time to eat and drink at their pleasure. It put me in mind of Horace's "Mouse," and to bless God for my own private condition.

Here was Monsieur de l'Angle, the famous minister of Charenton, lately fled from the persecution in France, concerning the deplorable condition of the Protestants there.

LONDON

18th June, 1683. I was present, and saw and heard the humble submission and petition of the Lord Mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen, on behalf of the city of London, on the quo warranto against their charter which they delivered to his Majesty in the presence chamber. It was delivered kneeling, and then the King and Council went into the council chamber, the mayor and his brethren attending still in the presence chamber. After a short space they were called in, and my Lord Keeper made a speech to them, exaggerating the disorderly and riotous behavior in the late election, and polling for Papillon and Du Bois after the Common hall had been formally dissolved: with other misdemeanors, libels on the government, etc., by which they had incurred his Majesty's high displeasure: and that but for this submission, and under such articles as the King should require their obedience to, he would certainly enter judgment against them, which hitherto he had suspended. The things required were as follows: that they should neither elect mayor, sheriffs, aldermen, recorder, common Serjeant town clerk, coroner, nor steward of Southwark, without his Majesty's approbation; and that if they presented any his Majesty did not like, they should proceed in wonted manner to a second choice; if that was disapproved, his Majesty to nominate them; and if within five days they thought good to assent to this, all former miscarriages should be forgotten. And so they tamely parted with their so ancient privileges after they had dined and been treated by the King. This was a signal and most remarkable period. What the consequences will prove, time will show. Divers of the old and most learned lawyers and judges were of opinion that they could not forfeit their charter, but might be personally punished for their misdemeanors; but the plurality of the younger judges and rising men judged it otherwise.

The Popish Plot also, which had hitherto made such a noise, began now sensibly to dwindle, through the folly, knavery, impudence, and giddiness of Oates, so as the Papists began to hold up their heads higher than ever, and those who had fled, flocked to London from abroad. Such sudden changes and eager doings there had been without anything steady or prudent, for these last seven years.

19th June, 1683. I returned to town in a coach with the Earl of Clarendon, when passing by the glorious palace of his father, built but a few years before, which they were now demolishing, being sold to certain undertakers, I turned my head the contrary way till the coach had gone past it, lest I might minister occasion of speaking of it; which must needs have grieved him, that in so short a time their pomp was fallen.

28th June, 1683. After the Popish Plot, there was now a new and (as they called it) a Protestant Plot discovered, that certain Lords and others should design the assassination of the King and the Duke as they were to come from Newmarket, with a general rising of the nation, and especially of the city of London, disaffected to the present Government. Upon which were committed to the Tower, the Lord Russell, eldest son of the Earl of Bedford, the Earl of Essex, Mr. Algernon Sidney, son to the old Earl of Leicester, Mr. Trenchard, Hampden, Lord Howard of Escrick, and others. A proclamation was issued against my Lord Grey, the Duke of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Armstrong, and one Ferguson, who had escaped beyond sea; of these some were said to be for killing the King, others for only seizing on him, and persuading him to new counsels, on the pretense of the danger of Popery, should the Duke live to succeed, who was now again admitted to the councils and cabinet secrets. The Lords Essex and Russell were much deplored, for believing they had any evil intention against the King, or the Church; some thought they were cunningly drawn in by their enemies for not approving some late counsels and management relating to France, to Popery, to the persecution of the Dissenters, etc. They were discovered by the Lord Howard of Escrick and some false brethren of the club, and the design happily broken; had it taken effect, it would, to all appearance, have exposed the Government to unknown and dangerous events; which God avert!

Was born my granddaughter at Sayes Court, and christened by the name of Martha Maria, our Vicar officiating. I pray God bless her, and may she choose the better part!

LONDON

13th July, 1683. As I was visiting Sir Thomas Yarborough and his Lady, in Covent Garden, the astonishing news was brought to us of the Earl of Essex having cut his throat, having been but three days a prisoner in the Tower, and this happened on the very day and instant that Lord Russell was on his trial, and had sentence of death. This accident exceedingly amazed me, my Lord Essex being so well known by me to be a person of such sober and religious deportment, so well at his ease, and so much obliged to the King. It is certain the King and Duke were at the Tower, and passed by his window about the same time this morning, when my Lord asking for a razor, shut himself into a closet, and perpetrated the horrid act. Yet it was wondered by some how it was possible he should do it in the manner he was found, for the wound was so deep and wide, that being cut through the gullet, windpipe, and both the jugulars, it reached to the very vertebræ of the neck, so that the head held to it by a very little skin as it were; the gapping too of the razor, and cutting his own fingers, was a little strange; but more, that having passed the jugulars he should have strength to proceed so far, that an executioner could hardly have done more with an ax. There were odd reflections upon it.

The fatal news coming to Hicks's Hall upon the article of my Lord Russell's trial, was said to have had no little influence on the Jury and all the Bench to his prejudice. Others said that he had himself on some occasions hinted that in case he should be in danger of having his life taken from him by any public misfortune, those who thirsted for his estate should miss of their aim; and that he should speak favorably of that Earl of Northumberland,51 and some others, who made away with themselves; but these are discourses so unlike his sober and prudent conversation that I have no inclination to credit them. What might instigate him to this devilish act, I am not able to conjecture. My Lord Clarendon, his brother-in-law, who was with him but the day before, assured me he was then very cheerful, and declared it to be the effect of his innocence and loyalty; and most believe that his Majesty had no severe intentions against him, though he was altogether inexorable as to Lord Russell and some of the rest. For my part, I believe the crafty and ambitious Earl of Shaftesbury had brought them into some dislike of the present carriage of matters at Court, not with any design of destroying the monarchy (which Shaftesbury had in confidence and for unanswerable reasons told me he would support to his last breath, as having seen and felt the misery of being under mechanic tyranny), but perhaps of setting up some other whom he might govern, and frame to his own platonic fancy, without much regard to the religion established under the hierarchy, for which he had no esteem; but when he perceived those whom he had engaged to rise, fail of his expectations, and the day past, reproaching his accomplices that a second day for an exploit of this nature was never successful, he gave them the slip, and got into Holland, where the fox died, three months before these unhappy Lords and others were discovered or suspected. Every one deplored Essex and Russell, especially the last, as being thought to have been drawn in on pretense only of endeavoring to rescue the King from his present councilors, and secure religion from Popery, and the nation from arbitrary government, now so much apprehended; while the rest of those who were fled, especially Ferguson and his gang, had doubtless some bloody design to get up a Commonwealth, and turn all things topsy-turvy. Of the same tragical principles is Sydney.

I had this day much discourse with Monsieur Pontaq, son to the famous and wise prime President of Bordeaux. This gentleman was owner of that excellent vignoble of Pontaq and O'Brien, from whence come the choicest of our Bordeaux wines; and I think I may truly say of him, what was not so truly said of St. Paul, that much learning had made him mad. He had studied well in philosophy, but chiefly the Rabbins, and was exceedingly addicted to cabalistical fancies, an eternal hablador [romancer], and half distracted by reading abundance of the extravagant Eastern Jews. He spoke all languages, was very rich, had a handsome person, and was well bred, about forty-five years of age.

14th July, 1683. I visited Mr. Fraser, a learned Scotch gentleman, whom I had formerly recommended to Lord Berkeley for the instruction and government of his son, since dead at sea. He had now been in Holland at the sale of the learned Heinsius's library, and showed me some very rare and curious books, and some MSS., which he had purchased to good value. There were three or four Herbals in miniature, accurately done, divers Roman antiquities of Verona, and very many books of Aldus's impression.

15th July, 1683. A stranger, an old man, preached on Jerem. vi. 8, the not hearkening to instruction, portentous of desolation to a people; much after Bishop Andrew's method, full of logical divisions, in short and broken periods, and Latin sentences, now quite out of fashion in the pulpit, which is grown into a far more profitable way, of plain and practical discourses, of which sort this nation, or any other, never had greater plenty or more profitable (I am confident); so much has it to answer for thriving no better on it.

The public was now in great consternation on the late plot and conspiracy; his Majesty very melancholy, and not stirring without double guards; all the avenues and private doors about Whitehall and the Park shut up, few admitted to walk in it. The Papists, in the meantime, very jocund; and indeed with reason, seeing their own plot brought to nothing, and turned to ridicule, and now a conspiracy of Protestants, as they called them.

The Turks were likewise in hostility against the German Emperor, almost masters of the Upper Hungary, and drawing toward Vienna. On the other side, the French King (who it is believed brought in the infidels) disturbing his Spanish and Dutch neighbors, having swallowed up almost all Flanders, pursuing his ambition of a fifth universal monarchy; and all this blood and disorder in Christendom had evidently its rise from our defections at home, in a wanton peace, minding nothing but luxury, ambition, and to procure money for our vices. To this add our irreligion and atheism, great ingratitude, and self-interest; the apostacy of some, and the suffering the French to grow so great, and the Hollanders so weak. In a word, we were wanton, mad, and surfeiting with prosperity; every moment unsettling the old foundations, and never constant to anything. The Lord in mercy avert the sad omen, and that we do not provoke him till he bear it no longer!

This summer did we suffer twenty French men-of-war to pass our Channel toward the Sound, to help the Danes against the Swedes, who had abandoned the French interest, we not having ready sufficient to guard our coasts, or take cognizance of what they did; though the nation never had more, or a better navy, yet the sea had never so slender a fleet.

19th July, 1683. George, Prince of Denmark, who had landed this day, came to marry the Lady Anne, daughter to the Duke; so I returned home, having seen the young gallant at dinner at Whitehall.

20th July, 1683. Several of the conspirators of the lower form were executed at Tyburn; and the next day,

LONDON

21st July, 1683. Lord Russell was beheaded in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the executioner giving him three butcherly strokes. The speech he made, and the paper which he gave the Sheriff declaring his innocence, the nobleness of the family, the piety and worthiness of the unhappy gentleman, wrought much pity, and occasioned various discourses on the plot.

25th July, 1683. I again saw Prince George of Denmark: he had the Danish countenance, blonde, of few words, spoke French but ill, seemed somewhat heavy, but reported to be valiant, and indeed he had bravely rescued and brought off his brother, the King of Denmark, in a battle against the Swedes, when both these Kings were engaged very smartly.

28th July, 1683. He was married to the Lady Anne at Whitehall. Her Court and household to be modeled as the Duke's, her father, had been, and they to continue in England.

1st August, 1683. Came to see me Mr. Flamsted, the famous astronomer, from his Observatory at Greenwich, to draw the meridian from my pendule, etc.

2d August, 1683. The Countesses of Bristol and Sunderland, aunt and cousin-german of the late Lord Russell, came to visit me, and condole his sad fate. The next day, came Colonel Russell, uncle to the late Lord Russell, and brother to the Earl of Bedford, and with him Mrs. Middleton, that famous and indeed incomparable beauty, daughter to my relation, Sir Robert Needham.

19th August, 1683. I went to Bromley to visit our Bishop, and excellent neighbor, and to congratulate his now being made Archbishop of York. On the 28th, he came to take his leave of us, now preparing for his journey and residence in his province.

28th August, 1683. My sweet little grandchild, Martha Maria, died, and on the 29th was buried in the parish church.

2d September, 1683. This morning, was read in the church, after the office was done, the Declaration setting forth the late conspiracy against the King's person.

3d September, 1683. I went to see what had been done by the Duke of Beaufort on his lately purchased house at Chelsea, which I once had the selling of for the Countess of Bristol, he had made great alterations, but might have built a better house with the materials and the cost he had been at.

Saw the Countess of Monte Feltre, whose husband I had formerly known, he was a subject of the Pope's, but becoming a Protestant he resided in England, and married into the family of the Savilles, of Yorkshire. The Count, her late husband, was a very learned gentleman, a great politician, and a goodly man. She was accompanied by her sister, exceedingly skilled in painting, nor did they spare for color on their own faces. They had a great deal of wit.

9th September, 1683. It being the day of public thanksgiving for his Majesty's late preservation, the former Declaration was again read, and there was an office used, composed for the occasion. A loyal sermon was preached on the divine right of Kings, from Psalm cxliv. 10. "Thou hast preserved David from the peril of the sword."

15th September, 1683. Came to visit me the learned anatomist, Dr. Tyson,52 with some other Fellows of our Society.

16th September, 1683. At the elegant villa and garden of Mr. Bohun, at Lee. He showed me the zinnar tree, or platanus, and told me that since they had planted this kind of tree about the city of Ispahan, in Persia, the plague, which formerly much infested the place, had exceedingly abated of its mortal effects, and rendered it very healthy.

LONDON

18th September, 1683. I went to London to visit the Duchess of Grafton, now great with child, a most virtuous and beautiful lady. Dining with her at my Lord Chamberlain's, met my Lord of St. Alban's, now grown so blind, that he could not see to take his meat. He has lived a most easy life, in plenty even abroad, while his Majesty was a sufferer; he has lost immense sums at play, which yet, at about eighty years old, he continues, having one that sits by him to name the spots on the cards. He ate and drank with extraordinary appetite. He is a prudent old courtier, and much enriched since his Majesty's return.

After dinner, I walked to survey the sad demolition of Clarendon House, that costly and only sumptuous palace of the late Lord Chancellor Hyde, where I have often been so cheerful with him, and sometimes so sad: happening to make him a visit but the day before he fled from the angry Parliament, accusing him of maladministration, and being envious at his grandeur, who from a private lawyer came to be father-in-law to the Duke of York, and as some would suggest, designing his Majesty's marriage with the Infanta of Portugal, not apt to breed. To this they imputed much of our unhappiness; and that he, being sole minister and favorite at his Majesty's restoration, neglected to gratify the King's suffering party, preferring those who were the cause of our troubles. But perhaps as many of these things were injuriously laid to his charge, so he kept the government far steadier than it has proved since. I could name some who I think contributed greatly to his ruin,—the buffoons and the MISSIS, to whom he was an eye-sore. It is true he was of a jolly temper, after the old English fashion; but France had now the ascendant, and we were become quite another nation. The Chancellor gone, and dying in exile, the Earl his successor sold that which cost £50,000 building, to the young Duke of Albemarle for £25,000, to pay debts which how contracted remains yet a mystery, his son being no way a prodigal. Some imagine the Duchess his daughter had been chargeable to him. However it were, this stately palace is decreed to ruin, to support the prodigious waste the Duke of Albemarle had made of his estate, since the old man died. He sold it to the highest bidder, and it fell to certain rich bankers and mechanics, who gave for it and the ground about it, £35,000; they design a new town, as it were, and a most magnificent piazza [square]. It is said they have already materials toward it with what they sold of the house alone, more worth than what they paid for it. See the vicissitudes of earthly things! I was astonished at this demolition, nor less at the little army of laborers and artificers leveling the ground, laying foundations, and contriving great buildings at an expense of £200,000, if they perfect their design.

19th September, 1683. In my walks I stepped into a goldbeater's workhouse, where he showed me the wonderful ductility of that spreading and oily metal. He said it must be finer than the standard, such as was old angel-gold, and that of such he had once to the value of £100 stamped with the agnus dei, and coined at the time of the holy war; which had been found in a ruined wall somewhere in the North, near to Scotland, some of which he beat into leaves, and the rest sold to the curiosi in antiquities and medals.

23d September, 1683. We had now the welcome tidings of the King of Poland raising the siege of Vienna, which had given terror to all Europe, and utmost reproach to the French, who it is believed brought in the Turks for diversion, that the French King might the more easily swallow Flanders, and pursue his unjust conquest on the empire, while we sat unconcerned and under a deadly charm from somebody.

There was this day a collection for rebuilding Newmarket, consumed by an accidental fire, which removing his Majesty thence sooner than was intended, put by the assassins, who were disappointed of their rendezvous and expectation by a wonderful providence. This made the King more earnest to render Winchester the seat of his autumnal field diversions for the future, designing a palace there, where the ancient castle stood; infinitely indeed preferable to Newmarket for prospects, air, pleasure, and provisions. The surveyor has already begun the foundation for a palace, estimated to cost £35,000, and his Majesty is purchasing ground about it to make a park, etc.

LONDON

4th October, 1683. I went to London, on receiving a note from the Countess of Arlington, of some considerable charge or advantage I might obtain by applying myself to his Majesty on this signal conjuncture of his Majesty entering up judgment against the city charter; the proposal made me I wholly declined, not being well satisfied with these violent transactions, and not a little sorry that his Majesty was so often put upon things of this nature against so great a city, the consequence whereof may be so much to his prejudice; so I returned home. At this time, the Lord Chief-Justice Pemberton was displaced. He was held to be the most learned of the judges, and an honest man. Sir George Jeffreys was advanced, reputed to be most ignorant, but most daring. Sir George Treby, Recorder of London, was also put by, and one Genner, an obscure lawyer, set in his place. Eight of the richest and chief aldermen were removed and all the rest made only justices of the peace, and no more wearing of gowns, or chains of gold; the Lord Mayor and two sheriffs holding their places by new grants as custodes, at the King's pleasure. The pomp and grandeur of the most august city in the world thus changed face in a moment; which gave great occasion of discourse and thoughts of hearts, what all this would end in. Prudent men were for the old foundations.

Following his Majesty this morning through the gallery, I went with the few who attended him, into the Duchess of Portmouth's DRESSING ROOM within her bedchamber, where she was in her morning loose garment, her maids combing her, newly out of her bed, his Majesty and the gallants standing about her; but that which engaged my curiosity, was the rich and splendid furniture of this woman's apartment, now twice or thrice pulled down and rebuilt to satisfy her prodigal and expensive pleasures, while her Majesty's does not exceed some gentlemen's ladies in furniture and accommodation. Here I saw the new fabric of French tapestry, for design, tenderness of work, and incomparable imitation of the best paintings, beyond anything I had ever beheld. Some pieces had Versailles, St. Germains, and other palaces of the French King, with huntings, figures, and landscapes, exotic fowls, and all to the life rarely done. Then for Japan cabinets, screens, pendule clocks, great vases of wrought plate, tables, stands, chimney-furniture, sconces, branches, braseras, etc., all of massy silver and out of number, besides some of her Majesty's best paintings.

Surfeiting of this, I dined at Sir Stephen Fox's and went contented home to my poor, but quiet villa. What contentment can there be in the riches and splendor of this world, purchased with vice and dishonor?

10th October, 1683. Visited the Duchess of Grafton, not yet brought to bed, and dining with my Lord Chamberlain (her father), went with them to see Montague House, a palace lately built by Lord Montague, who had married the most beautiful Countess of Northumberland. It is a stately and ample palace. Signor Verrio's fresco paintings, especially the funeral pile of Dido, on the staircase, the labors of Hercules, fight with the Centaurs, his effeminacy with Dejanira, and Apotheosis or reception among the gods, on the walls and roof of the great room above,—I think exceeds anything he has yet done, both for design, coloring, and exuberance of invention, comparable to the greatest of the old masters, or what they so celebrate at Rome. In the rest of the chamber are some excellent paintings of Holbein, and other masters. The garden is large, and in good air, but the fronts of the house not answerable to the inside. The court at entry, and wings for offices seem too near the street, and that so very narrow and meanly built, that the corridor is not in proportion to the rest, to hide the court from being overlooked by neighbors; all which might have been prevented, had they placed the house further into the ground, of which there was enough to spare. But on the whole it is a fine palace, built after the French pavilion-way, by Mr. Hooke, the Curator of the Royal Society. There were with us my Lady Scroope, the great wit, and Monsieur Chardine, the celebrated traveler.

13th October, 1683. Came to visit me my old and worthy friend, Mr. Packer, bringing with him his nephew Berkeley, grandson to the honest judge. A most ingenious, virtuous, and religious gentleman, seated near Worcester, and very curious in gardening.

17th October, 1683. I was at the court-leet of this manor, my Lord Arlington his Majesty's High Steward.

26th October, 1683. Came to visit and dine with me, Mr. Brisbane, Secretary to the Admiralty, a learned and agreeable man.

30th October, 1683. I went to Kew to visit Sir Henry Capell, brother to the late Earl of Essex; but he being gone to Cashiobury, after I had seen his garden and the alterations therein, I returned home. He had repaired his house, roofed his hall with a kind of cupola, and in a niche was an artificial fountain; but the room seems to me over-melancholy, yet might be much improved by having the walls well painted á fresco. The two green houses for oranges and myrtles, communicating with the rooms below, are very well contrived. There is a cupola made with pole-work between two elms at the end of a walk, which being covered by plashing the trees to them, is very pretty; for the rest there are too many fir trees in the garden.

LONDON

17th November, 1683. I took a house in Villiers Street, York Buildings, for the winter, having many important concerns to dispatch, and for the education of my daughters.

23d November, 1683. The Duke of Monmouth, till now proclaimed traitor on the pretended plot for which Lord Russell was lately beheaded, came this evening to Whitehall and rendered himself, on which were various discourses.

26th November, 1683. I went to compliment the Duchess of Grafton, now lying-in of her first child, a son, which she called for, that I might see it. She was become more beautiful, if it were possible, than before, and full of virtue and sweetness. She discoursed with me of many particulars, with great prudence and gravity beyond her years.

29th November, 1683. Mr. Forbes showed me the plot of the garden making at Burleigh, at my Lord Exeter's, which I looked on as one of the most noble that I had seen.

The whole court and town in solemn mourning for the death of the King of Portugal, her Majesty's brother.

30th November, 1683. At the anniversary dinner of the Royal Society the King sent us two does. Sir Cyril Wych was elected President.

5th December, 1683. I was this day invited to a wedding of one Mrs. Castle, to whom I had some obligation, and it was to her fifth husband, a lieutenant-colonel of the city. She was the daughter of one Burton, a broom-man, by his wife, who sold kitchen stuff in Kent Street, whom God so blessed that the father became a very rich, and was a very honest man; he was sheriff of Surrey, where I have sat on the bench with him. Another of his daughters was married to Sir John Bowles; and this daughter was a jolly friendly woman. There was at the wedding the Lord Mayor, the Sheriff, several Aldermen and persons of quality; above all, Sir George Jeffreys, newly made Lord Chief Justice of England, with Mr. Justice Withings, danced with the bride, and were exceedingly merry. These great men spent the rest of the afternoon, till eleven at night, in drinking healths, taking tobacco, and talking much beneath the gravity of judges, who had but a day or two before condemned Mr. Algernon Sidney, who was executed the 7th on Tower Hill, on the single witness of that monster of a man, Lord Howard of Escrick, and some sheets of paper taken in Mr. Sidney's study, pretended to be written by him, but not fully proved, nor the time when, but appearing to have been written before his Majesty's Restoration, and then pardoned by the Act of Oblivion; so that though Mr. Sidney was known to be a person obstinately averse to government by a monarch (the subject of the paper was in answer to one by Sir E. Filmer), yet it was thought he had very hard measure. There is this yet observable, that he had been an inveterate enemy to the last king, and in actual rebellion against him; a man of great courage, great sense, great parts, which he showed both at his trial and death; for, when he came on the scaffold, instead of a speech, he told them only that he had made his peace with God, that he came not thither to talk, but to die; put a paper into the sheriff's hand, and another into a friend's; said one prayer as short as a grace, laid down his neck, and bid the executioner do his office.

The Duke of Monmouth, now having his pardon, refuses to acknowledge there was any treasonable plot; for which he is banished Whitehall. This is a great disappointment to some who had prosecuted Trenchard, Hampden, etc., that for want of a second witness were come out of the Tower upon their habeas corpus.

The King had now augmented his guards with a new sort of dragoons, who carried also grenades, and were habited after the Polish manner, with long peaked caps, very fierce and fantastical.

LONDON

7th December, 1683. I went to the Tower, and visited the Earl of Danby, the late Lord High Treasurer, who had been imprisoned four years: he received me with great kindness. I dined with him, and stayed till night. We had discourse of many things, his Lady railing sufficiently at the keeping her husband so long in prison. Here I saluted the Lord Dumblaine's wife, who before had been married to Emerton, and about whom there was that scandalous business before the delegates.

23d December, 1683. The smallpox very prevalent and mortal; the Thames frozen.

26th December, 1683. I dined at Lord Clarendon's, where I was to meet that ingenious and learned gentleman, Sir George Wheeler, who has published the excellent description of Africa and Greece, and who, being a knight of a very fair estate and young, had now newly entered into holy orders.

27th December, 1683. I went to visit Sir John Chardin, a French gentleman, who traveled three times by land into Persia, and had made many curious researches in his travels, of which he was now setting forth a relation. It being in England this year one of the severest frosts that has happened of many years, he told me the cold in Persia was much greater, the ice of an incredible thickness; that they had little use of iron in all that country, it being so moist (though the air admirably clear and healthy) that oil would not preserve it from rusting, so that they had neither clocks nor watches; some padlocks they had for doors and boxes.

30th December, 1683. Dr. Sprat, now made Dean of Westminster, preached to the King at Whitehall, on Matt. vi. 24. Recollecting the passages of the past year, I gave God thanks for his mercies, praying his blessing for the future.

1st January, 1683-84. The weather continuing intolerably severe, streets of booths were set up on the Thames; the air was so very cold and thick, as of many years there had not been the like. The smallpox was very mortal.

2d January, 1684. I dined at Sir Stephen Fox's: after dinner came a fellow who ate live charcoal, glowingly ignited, quenching them in his mouth, and then champing and swallowing them down. There was a dog also which seemed to do many rational actions.

6th January, 1684. The river quite frozen.

9th January, 1684. I went across the Thames on the ice, now become so thick as to bear not only streets of booths, in which they roasted meat, and had divers shops of wares, quite across as in a town, but coaches, carts, and horses passed over. So I went from Westminster stairs to Lambeth, and dined with the Archbishop: where I met my Lord Bruce, Sir George Wheeler, Colonel Cooke, and several divines. After dinner and discourse with his Grace till evening prayers, Sir George Wheeler and I walked over the ice from Lambeth stairs to the Horse-ferry.

10th January, 1684. I visited Sir Robert Reading, where after supper we had music, but not comparable to that which Mrs. Bridgeman made us on the guitar with such extraordinary skill and dexterity.

16th January, 1684. The Thames was filled with people and tents selling all sorts of wares as in the city.

24th January, 1684. The frost continues more and more severe, the Thames before London was still planted with booths in formal streets, all sorts of trades and shops furnished, and full of commodities, even to a printing press, where the people and ladies took a fancy to have their names printed, and the day and year set down when printed on the Thames: this humor took so universally, that it was estimated that the printer gained £5 a day, for printing a line only, at sixpence a name, besides what he got by ballads, etc. Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other stairs to and fro, as in the streets, sleds, sliding with skates, a bull-baiting, horse and coach-races, puppet-plays and interludes, cooks, tippling, and other lewd places, so that it seemed to be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the water, while it was a severe judgment on the land, the trees not only splitting as if the lightning struck, but men and cattle perishing in divers places, and the very seas so locked up with ice, that no vessels could stir out or come in. The fowls, fish, and birds, and all our exotic plants and greens, universally perishing. Many parks of deer were destroyed, and all sorts of fuel so dear, that there were great contributions to preserve the poor alive. Nor was this severe weather much less intense in most parts of Europe, even as far as Spain and the most southern tracts. London, by reason of the excessive coldness of the air hindering the ascent of the smoke, was so filled with the fuliginous steam of the sea-coal, that hardly could one see across the street, and this filling the lungs with its gross particles, exceedingly obstructed the breast, so as one could scarcely breathe. Here was no water to be had from the pipes and engines, nor could the brewers and divers other tradesmen work, and every moment was full of disastrous accidents.

4th February, 1684. I went to Sayes Court to see how the frost had dealt with my garden, where I found many of the greens and rare plants utterly destroyed. The oranges and myrtles very sick, the rosemary and laurels dead to all appearance, but the cypress likely to endure it.

5th February, 1684. It began to thaw, but froze again. My coach crossed from Lambeth, to the Horse-ferry at Milbank, Westminster. The booths were almost all taken down; but there was first a map or landscape cut in copper representing all the manner of the camp, and the several actions, sports, and pastimes thereon, in memory of so signal a frost.

7th February, 1684. I dined with my Lord Keeper, [North], and walking alone with him some time in his gallery, we had discourse of music. He told me he had been brought up to it from a child, so as to sing his part at first sight. Then speaking of painting, of which he was also a great lover, and other ingenious matters, he desired me to come oftener to him.

8th February, 1684. I went this evening to visit that great and knowing virtuoso, Monsieur Justell. The weather was set in to an absolute thaw and rain; but the Thames still frozen.

10th February, 1684. After eight weeks missing the foreign posts, there came abundance of intelligence from abroad.

LONDON

12th February, 1684. The Earl of Danby, late Lord-Treasurer, together with the Roman Catholic Lords impeached of high treason in the Popish Plot, had now their habeas corpus, and came out upon bail, after five years' imprisonment in the Tower. Then were also tried and deeply fined Mr. Hampden and others, for being supposed of the late plot, for which Lord Russell and Colonel Sidney suffered; as also the person who went about to prove that the Earl of Essex had his throat cut in the Tower by others; likewise Mr. Johnson, the author of that famous piece called Julian.

15th February, 1684. News of the Prince of Orange having accused the Deputies of Amsterdam of crimen læsæ Majestatis, and being pensioners to France.

Dr. Tenison communicated to me his intention of erecting a library in St. Martin's parish, for the public use, and desired my assistance, with Sir Christopher Wren, about the placing and structure thereof, a worthy and laudable design. He told me there were thirty or forty young men in Orders in his parish, either governors to young gentlemen or chaplains to noblemen, who being reproved by him on occasion for frequenting taverns or coffeehouses, told him they would study or employ their time better, if they had books. This put the pious Doctor on this design; and indeed a great reproach it is that so great a city as London should not have a public library becoming it. There ought to be one at St. Paul's; the west end of that church (if ever finished) would be a convenient place.

23d February, 1684. I went to Sir John Chardin, who desired my assistance for the engraving the plates, the translation, and printing his History of that wonderful Persian Monument near Persepolis, and other rare antiquities, which he had caused to be drawn from the originals in his second journey into Persia, which we now concluded upon. Afterward, I went with Sir Christopher Wren to Dr. Tenison, where we made the drawing and estimate of the expense of the library, to be begun this next spring near the Mews.

Great expectation of the Prince of Orange's attempts in Holland to bring those of Amsterdam to consent to the new levies, to which we were no friends, by a pseudo-politic adherence to the French interest.

26th February, 1684. Came to visit me Dr. Turner, our new Bishop of Rochester.

28th February, 1684. I dined at Lady Tuke's, where I heard Dr. Walgrave (physician to the Duke and Duchess) play excellently on the

7th March, 1684. Dr. Meggot, Dean of Winchester, preached an incomparable sermon (the King being now gone to Newmarket), on Heb. xii. 15, showing and pathetically pressing the care we ought to have lest we come short of the grace of God. Afterward, I went to visit Dr. Tenison at Kensington, whither he was retired to refresh, after he had been sick of the smallpox.

15th March, 1684. At Whitehall preached Mr. Henry Godolphin, a prebend of St. Paul's, and brother to my dear friend Sydney, on Isaiah 1v. 7. I dined at the Lord Keeper's, and brought him to Sir John Chardin, who showed him his accurate drafts of his travels in Persia.

28th March, 1684. There was so great a concourse of people with their children to be touched for the Evil, that six or seven were crushed to death by pressing at the chirurgeon's door for tickets. The weather began to be more mild and tolerable; but there was not the least appearance of any spring.

30th March, 1684. Easter day. The Bishop of Rochester preached before the King; after which his Majesty, accompanied with three of his natural sons, the Dukes of Northumberland, Richmond, and St. Alban (sons of Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Nelly), went up to the altar; the three boys entering before the King within the rails, at the right hand, and three bishops on the left: London (who officiated), Durham, and Rochester, with the subdean, Dr. Holder. The King, kneeling before the altar, making his offering, the Bishops first received, and then his Majesty; after which he retired to a canopied seat on the right hand. Note, there was perfume burned before the office began. I had received the Sacrament at Whitehall early with the Lords and household, the Bishop of London officiating. Then went to St. Martin's, where Dr. Tenison preached (recovered from the smallpox); then went again to Whitehall as above. In the afternoon, went to St. Martin's again.

4th April, 1684. I returned home with my family to my house at Sayes Court, after five months' residence in London; hardly the least appearance of any spring.

30th April, 1684. A letter of mine to the Royal Society concerning the terrible effects of the past winter being read, they desired it might be printed in the next part of their "Transactions."

SURREY

10th May, 1684. I went to visit my brother in Surrey. Called by the way at Ashted, where Sir Robert Howard (Auditor of the Exchequer) entertained me very civilly at his newly-built house, which stands in a park on the Down, the avenue south; though down hill to the house, which is not great, but with the outhouses very convenient. The staircase is painted by Verrio with the story of Astrea; among other figures is the picture of the painter himself, and not unlike him; the rest is well done, only the columns did not at all please me; there is also Sir Robert's own picture in an oval; the whole in fresco. The place has this great defect, that there is no water but what is drawn up by horses from a very deep well.

11th May, 1684. Visited Mr. Higham, who was ill, and died three days after. His grandfather and father (who christened me), with himself, had now been rectors of this parish 101 years, viz, from May, 1583.

12th May, 1684. I returned to London, where I found the Commissioners of the Admiralty abolished, and the office of Admiral restored to the Duke, as to the disposing and ordering all sea business; but his Majesty signed all petitions, papers, warrants, and commissions, that the Duke, not acting as admiral by commission or office, might not incur the penalty of the late Act against Papists and Dissenters holding offices, and refusing the oath and test. Every one was glad of this change, those in the late Commission being utterly ignorant in their duty, to the great damage of the Navy.

The utter ruin of the Low Country was threatened by the siege of Luxemburg, if not timely relieved, and by the obstinacy of the Hollanders, who refused to assist the Prince of Orange, being corrupted by the French.

16th May, 1684. I received £600 of Sir Charles Bickerstaff for the fee farm of Pilton, in Devon.

26th May, 1684. Lord Dartmouth was chosen Master of the Trinity Company, newly returned with the fleet from blowing up and demolishing Tangier. In the sermon preached on this occasion, Dr. Can observed that, in the 27th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the casting anchor out of the fore ship had been caviled at as betraying total ignorance: that it is very true our seamen do not do so; but in the Mediterranean their ships were built differently from ours, and to this day it was the practice to do so there.

Luxemburg was surrendered to the French, which makes them master of all the Netherlands, gives them entrance into Germany, and a fair game for universal monarchy; which that we should suffer, who only and easily might have hindered, astonished all the world. Thus is the poor Prince of Orange ruined, and this nation and all the Protestant interest in Europe following, unless God in his infinite mercy, as by a miracle, interpose, and our great ones alter their counsels. The French fleet were now besieging Genoa, but after burning much of that beautiful city with their bombs, went off with disgrace.

11th June, 1684. My cousin, Verney, to whom a very great fortune was fallen, came to take leave of us, going into the country; a very worthy and virtuous young gentleman.

12th June, 1684. I went to advise and give directions about the building of two streets in Berkeley Garden, reserving the house and as much of the garden as the breadth of the house. In the meantime, I could not but deplore that sweet place (by far the most noble gardens, courts, and accommodations, stately porticos, etc., anywhere about the town) should be so much straitened and turned into tenements. But that magnificent pile and gardens contiguous to it, built by the late Lord Chancellor Clarendon, being all demolished, and designed for piazzas and buildings, was some excuse for my Lady Berkeley's resolution of letting out her ground also for so excessive a price as was offered, advancing near £1,000 per annum in mere ground rents; to such a mad intemperance was the age come of building about a city, by far too disproportionate already to the nation:53 I having in my time seen it almost as large again as it was within my memory.

22d June, 1684. Last Friday, Sir Thomas Armstrong was executed at Tyburn for treason, without trial, having been outlawed and apprehended in Holland, on the conspiracy of the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Russell, etc., which gave occasion of discourse to people and lawyers, in regard it was on an outlawry that judgment was given and execution.54

GREENWICH

2d July, 1684. I went to the Observatory at Greenwich, where Mr. Flamsted took his observations of the eclipse of the sun, now almost three parts obscured.

There had been an excessively hot and dry spring, and such a drought still continued as never was in my memory.

13th July, 1684. Some small sprinkling of rain; the leaves dropping from the trees as in autumn.

25th July, 1684. I dined at Lord Falkland's, Treasurer of the Navy, where after dinner we had rare music, there being among others, Signor Pietro Reggio, and Signor John Baptist, both famous, one for his voice, the other for playing on the harpsichord, few if any in Europe exceeding him. There was also a Frenchman who sung an admirable bass.

26th July, 1684. I returned home, where I found my Lord Chief Justice [Jefferies], the Countess of Clarendon, and Lady Catherine Fitzgerald, who dined with me.

10th August, 1684. We had now rain after such a drought as no man in England had known.

24th August, 1684. Excessively hot. We had not had above one or two considerable showers, and those storms, these eight or nine months. Many trees died for the want of refreshment.

31st August, 1684. Mr. Sidney Godolphin was made Baron Godolphin.

26th September, 1684. The King being returned from Winchester, there was a numerous Court at Whitehall.

At this time the Earl of Rochester was removed from the Treasury to the Presidentship of the Council; Lord Godolphin was made first Commissioner of the Treasury in his place, Lord Middleton (a Scot) made Secretary of State, in the room of Lord Godolphin. These alterations being very unexpected and mysterious, gave great occasion of discourse.

There was now an Ambassador from the King of Siam, in the East Indies, to his Majesty.

22d October, 1684. I went with Sir William Godolphin to see the rhinoceros, or unicorn, being the first that I suppose was ever brought into England. She belonged to some East India merchants, and was sold (as I remember) for above £2,000. At the same time, I went to see a crocodile, brought from some of the West India Islands, resembling the Egyptian crocodile.

24th October, 1684. I dined at Sir Stephen Fox's with the Duke of Northumberland. He seemed to be a young gentleman of good capacity, well bred, civil and modest: newly come from travel, and had made his campaign at the siege of Luxemburg. Of all his Majesty's children (of which he had now six Dukes) this seemed the most accomplished and worth the owning. He is extraordinarily handsome and well shaped. What the Dukes of Richmond and St. Alban's will prove, their youth does not yet discover; they are very pretty boys.

LONDON

26th October, 1684. Dr. Goodman preached before the King on James ii. 12, concerning the law of liberty: an excellent discourse and in good method. He is author of "The Prodigal Son," a treatise worth reading, and another of the old religion.

27th October, 1684. I visited the Lord Chamberlain, where dined the black Baron and Monsieur Flamerin, who had so long been banished from France for a duel.

28th October, 1684. I carried Lord Clarendon through the city amid all the squibs and bacchanalia of the Lord Mayor's show, to the Royal Society, where he was proposed a member; and then treated him at dinner.

I went to St. Clement's, that prettily built and contrived church where a young divine gave us an eloquent sermon on 1 Cor. vi. 20, inciting to gratitude and glorifying God for the fabric of our bodies and the dignity of our nature.

2d November, 1684. A sudden change from temperate warm weather to an excessive cold rain, frost, snow, and storm, such as had seldom been known. This winter weather began as early and fierce as the past did late; till about Christmas there then had been hardly any winter.

4th November, 1684. Dr. Turner, now translated from Rochester to Ely upon the death of Dr. Peter Gunning, preached before the King at Whitehall on Romans iii. 8, a very excellent sermon, vindicating the Church of England against the pernicious doctrines of the Church of Rome. He challenged the producing but of five clergymen who forsook our Church and went over to that of Rome, during all the troubles and rebellion in England, which lasted near twenty years; and this was to my certain observation a great truth.

15th November, 1684. Being the Queen's birthday, there were fireworks on the Thames before Whitehall, with pageants of castles, forts, and other devices of girandolas, serpents, the King and Queen's arms and mottoes, all represented in fire, such as had not been seen here. But the most remarkable was the several fires and skirmishes in the very water, which actually moved a long way, burning under the water, now and then appearing above it, giving reports like muskets and cannon, with grenades and innumerable other devices. It is said it cost £1,500. It was concluded with a ball, where all the young ladies and gallants danced in the great hall. The court had not been seen so brave and rich in apparel since his Majesty's Restoration.

30th November, 1684. In the morning, Dr. Fiennes, son of the Lord Say and Seale, preached before the King on Joshua xxi. 11.

3d December, 1684. I carried Mr. Justell and Mr. Slingsby (Master of the Mint), to see Mr. Sheldon's collection of medals. The series of Popes was rare, and so were several among the moderns, especially that of John Huss's martyrdom at Constance; of the Roman Emperors, Consulars some Greek, etc., in copper, gold, and silver; not many truly antique; a medallion of Otho Paulus Æmilius, etc., ancient. They were held at a price of £1,000; but not worth, I judge, above £200.

7th December, 1684. I went to see the new church at St. James's, elegantly built; the altar was especially adorned, the white marble inclosure curiously and richly carved, the flowers and garlands about the walls by Mr. Gibbons, in wood: a pelican with her young at her breast; just over the altar in the carved compartment and border environing the purple velvet fringed with I. H. S. richly embroidered, and most noble plate, were given by Sir R. Geere, to the value (as was said) of £200. There was no altar anywhere in England, nor has there been any abroad, more handsomely adorned.

17th December, 1684. Early in the morning I went into St. James's Park to see three Turkish, or Asian horses, newly brought over, and now first shown to his Majesty. There were four, but one of them died at sea, being three weeks coming from Hamburg. They were taken from a Bashaw at the siege of Vienna, at the late famous raising that leaguer. I never beheld so delicate a creature as one of them was, of somewhat a bright bay, two white feet, a blaze; such a head, eyes, ears, neck, breast, belly, haunches, legs, pasterns, and feet, in all regards, beautiful, and proportioned to admiration; spirited, proud, nimble, making halt, turning with that swiftness, and in so small a compass, as was admirable. With all this so gentle and tractable as called to mind what I remember Busbequius, speaks of them, to the reproach of our grooms in Europe, who bring up their horses so churlishly, as makes most of them retain their ill habits. They trotted like does, as if they did not feel the ground. Five hundred guineas was demanded for the first; 300 for the second; and 200 for the third, which was brown. All of them were choicely shaped, but the two last not altogether so perfect as the first.

It was judged by the spectators, among whom was the King, Prince of Denmark, Duke of York, and several of the Court, noble persons skilled in horses, especially Monsieur Faubert and his son (provost masters of the Academy, and esteemed of the best in Europe), that there were never seen any horses in these parts to be compared with them. Add to all this, the furniture consisting of embroidery on the saddle, housings, quiver, bow, arrows, scymitar, sword, mace, or battle-ax, à la Turcisq; the Bashaw's velvet mantle furred with the most perfect ermine I ever beheld; all which, ironwork in common furniture being here of silver, curiously wrought and double gilt to an incredible value. Such and so extraordinary was the embroidery, that I never saw anything approaching it. The reins and headstall were of crimson silk, covered with chains of silver gilt. There was also a Turkish royal standard of a horse's tail, together with all sorts of other caparisons belonging to a general's horse, by which one may estimate how gallantly and magnificently those infidels appear in the field; for nothing could be seen more glorious. The gentleman (a German) who rode the horse, was in all this garb. They were shod with iron made round and closed at the heel, with a hole in the middle about as wide as a shilling. The hoofs most entire.

18th December, 1684. I went with Lord Cornwallis to see the young gallants do their exercise. Mr. Faubert having newly railed in a manage, and fitted it for the academy. There were the Dukes of Norfolk and Northumberland, Lord Newburgh, and a nephew of (Duras) Earl of Feversham. The exercises were, 1, running at the ring; 2, flinging a javelin at a Moor's head; 3, discharging a pistol at a mark; lastly taking up a gauntlet with the point of a sword; all these performed in full speed. The Duke of Northumberland hardly missed of succeeding in every one, a dozen times, as I think. The Duke of Norfolk did exceeding bravely. Lords Newburgh and Duras seemed nothing so dexterous. Here I saw the difference of what the French call "bel homme à cheval," and "bon homme à cheval"; the Duke of Norfolk being the first, that is rather a fine person on a horse, the Duke of Northumberland being both in perfection, namely, a graceful person and an excellent rider. But the Duke of Norfolk told me he had not been at this exercise these twelve years before. There were in the field the Prince of Denmark, and the Lord Lansdowne, son of the Earl of Bath, who had been made a Count of the Empire last summer for his service before Vienna.

20th December, 1684. A villainous murder was perpetrated by Mr. St. John, eldest son to Sir Walter St. John, a worthy gentleman, on a knight of quality, in a tavern. The offender was sentenced and reprieved. So many horrid murders and duels were committed about this time as were never before heard of in England; which gave much cause of complaint and murmurings.

1st January, 1684-85. It proved so sharp weather, and so long and cruel a frost, that the Thames was frozen across, but the frost was often dissolved, and then froze again.

11th January, 1685. A young man preached upon St. Luke xiii. 5, after the Presbyterian tedious method and repetition.

24th January, 1685. I dined at Lord Newport's, who had some excellent pictures, especially that of Sir Thomas Hanmer, by Vandyke, one of the best he ever painted; another of our English Dobson's painting; but, above all, Christ in the Virgin's lap, by Poussin, an admirable piece; with something of most other famous hands.

25th January, 1685. Dr. Dove preached before the King. I saw this evening such a scene of profuse gaming, and the King in the midst of his three concubines, as I have never before seen—luxurious dallying and profaneness.

27th January, 1685. I dined at Lord Sunderland's, being invited to hear that celebrated voice of Mr. Pordage, newly come from Rome; his singing was after the Venetian recitative, as masterly as could be, and with an excellent voice both treble and bass; Dr. Walgrave accompanied it with his THEORBO LUTE, on which he performed beyond imagination, and is doubtless one of the greatest masters in Europe on that charming instrument. Pordage is a priest, as Mr. Bernard Howard told me in private.

There was in the room where we dined, and in his bedchamber, those incomparable pieces of Columbus, a Flagellation, the Grammar school, the Venus and Adonis of Titian; and of Vandyke's that picture of the late Earl of Digby (father of the Countess of Sunderland), and Earl of Bedford, Sir Kenelm Digby, and two ladies of incomparable performance; besides that of Moses and the burning bush of Bassano, and several other pieces of the best masters. A marble head of M. Brutus, etc.

28th January, 1685. I was invited to my Lord Arundel's, of Wardour (now newly released of his six years' confinement in the Tower on suspicion of the plot called Oates's Plot), where after dinner the same Mr. Pordage entertained us with his voice, that excellent and stupendous artist, Signor John Baptist, playing to it on the harpsichord. My daughter Mary being with us, she also sang to the great satisfaction of both the masters, and a world of people of quality present.

She did so also at my Lord Rochester's the evening following, where we had the French boy so famed for his singing, and indeed he had a delicate voice, and had been well taught. I also heard Mrs. Packer (daughter to my old friend) sing before his Majesty and the Duke, privately, that stupendous bass, Gosling, accompanying her, but hers was so loud as took away much of the sweetness. Certainly never woman had a stronger or better ear, could she possibly have governed it. She would do rarely in a large church among the nuns.

LONDON

4th February, 1685. I went to London, hearing his Majesty had been the Monday before (2d February) surprised in his bedchamber with an apoplectic fit, so that if, by God's providence, Dr. King (that excellent chirurgeon as well as physician) had not been accidentally present to let him bleed (having his lancet in his pocket), his Majesty had certainly died that moment; which might have been of direful consequence, there being nobody else present with the King save this Doctor and one more, as I am assured. It was a mark of the extraordinary dexterity, resolution, and presence of mind in the Doctor, to let him bleed in the very paroxysm, without staying the coming of other physicians, which regularly should have been done, and for want of which he must have a regular pardon, as they tell me. This rescued his Majesty for the instant, but it was only a short reprieve. He still complained, and was relapsing, often fainting, with sometimes epileptic symptoms, till Wednesday, for which he was cupped, let bleed in both jugulars, and both vomit and purges, which so relieved him, that on Thursday hopes of recovery were signified in the public "Gazette," but that day about noon, the physicians thought him feverish. This they seemed glad of, as being more easily allayed and methodically dealt with than his former fits; so as they prescribed the famous Jesuit's powder; but it made him worse, and some very able doctors who were present did not think it a fever, but the effect of his frequent bleeding and other sharp operations used by them about his head, so that probably the powder might stop the circulation, and renew his former fits, which now made him very weak. Thus he passed Thursday night with great difficulty, when complaining of a pain in his side, they drew twelve ounces more of blood from him; this was by six in the morning on Friday, and it gave him relief, but it did not continue, for being now in much pain, and struggling for breath, he lay dozing, and, after some conflicts, the physicians despairing of him, he gave up the ghost at half an hour after eleven in the morning, being the sixth of February, 1685, in the 36th year of his reign, and 54th of his age.

Prayers were solemnly made in all the churches, especially in both the Court Chapels, where the chaplains relieved one another every half quarter of an hour from the time he began to be in danger till he expired, according to the form prescribed in the Church offices. Those who assisted his Majesty's devotions were, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London, Durham, and Ely, but more especially Dr. Ken, the Bishop of Bath and Wells.55 It is said they exceedingly urged the receiving Holy Sacrament, but his Majesty told them he would consider of it, which he did so long till it was too late. Others whispered that the Bishops and Lords, except the Earls of Bath and Feversham, being ordered to withdraw the night before, Huddleston, the priest, had presumed to administer the Popish offices. He gave his breeches and keys to the Duke who was almost continually kneeling by his bedside, and in tears. He also recommended to him the care of his natural children, all except the Duke of Monmouth, now in Holland, and in his displeasure. He entreated the Queen to pardon him (not without cause); who a little before had sent a Bishop to excuse her not more frequently visiting him, in regard of her excessive grief, and withal that his Majesty would forgive it if at any time she had offended him. He spoke to the Duke to be kind to the Duchess of Cleveland, and especially Portsmouth, and that Nelly might not starve.

Thus died King Charles II., of a vigorous and robust constitution, and in all appearance promising a long life. He was a prince of many virtues, and many great imperfections; debonair, easy of access, not bloody nor cruel; his countenance fierce, his voice great, proper of person, every motion became him; a lover of the sea, and skillful in shipping; not affecting other studies, yet he had a laboratory, and knew of many empirical medicines, and the easier mechanical mathematics; he loved planting and building, and brought in a politer way of living, which passed to luxury and intolerable expense. He had a particular talent in telling a story, and facetious passages, of which he had innumerable; this made some buffoons and vicious wretches too presumptuous and familiar, not worthy the favor they abused. He took delight in having a number of little spaniels follow him and lie in his bedchamber, where he often suffered the bitches to puppy and give suck, which rendered it very offensive, and indeed made the whole court nasty and stinking. He would doubtless have been an excellent prince, had he been less addicted to women, who made him uneasy, and always in want to supply their immeasurable profusion, to the detriment of many indigent persons who had signally served both him and his father. He frequently and easily changed favorites to his great prejudice.

As to other public transactions, and unhappy miscarriages, 'tis not here I intend to number them; but certainly never had King more glorious opportunities to have made himself, his people, and all Europe happy, and prevented innumerable mischiefs, had not his too easy nature resigned him to be managed by crafty men, and some abandoned and profane wretches who corrupted his otherwise sufficient parts, disciplined as he had been by many afflictions during his banishment, which gave him much experience and knowledge of men and things; but those wicked creatures took him from off all application becoming so great a King. The history of his reign will certainly be the most wonderful for the variety of matter and accidents, above any extant in former ages: the sad tragical death of his father, his banishment and hardships, his miraculous restoration, conspiracies against him, parliaments, wars, plagues, fires, comets, revolutions abroad happening in his time, with a thousand other particulars. He was ever kind to me, and very gracious upon all occasions, and therefore I cannot without ingratitude but deplore his loss, which for many respects, as well as duty, I do with all my soul.

His Majesty being dead, the Duke, now King James 56 and that, as he would never depart from the just rights and prerogatives of the Crown, so he would never invade any man's property; but as he had often adventured his life in defense of the nation, so he would still proceed, and preserve it in all its lawful rights and liberties.

This being the substance of what he said, the Lords desired it might be published, as containing matter of great satisfaction to a jealous people upon this change, which his Majesty consented to. Then were the Council sworn, and a Proclamation ordered to be published that all officers should continue in their stations, that there might be no failure of public justice, till his further pleasure should be known. Then the King rose, the Lords accompanying him to his bedchamber, where, while he reposed himself, tired indeed as he was with grief and watching, they returned again into the Council chamber to take order for the PROCLAIMING his Majesty, which (after some debate) they consented should be in the very form his grandfather, King James I., was, after the death of Queen Elizabeth; as likewise that the Lords, etc., should proceed in their coaches through the city for the more solemnity of it. Upon this was I, and several other gentlemen waiting in the Privy gallery, admitted into the Council chamber to be witness of what was resolved on. Thence with the Lords, Lord Marshal and Heralds, and other Crown officers being ready, we first went to Whitehall gate, where the Lords stood on foot bareheaded, while the Herald proclaimed his Majesty's title to the Imperial Crown and succession according to the form, the trumpets and kettledrums having first sounded three times, which ended with the people's acclamations. Then a herald called the Lords' coaches according to rank, myself accompanying the solemnity in my Lord Cornwallis's coach, first to Temple Bar, where the Lord Mayor and his brethren met us on horseback, in all their formalities, and proclaimed the King; hence to the Exchange in Cornhill, and so we returned in the order we set forth. Being come to Whitehall, we all went and kissed the King and Queen's hands. He had been on the bed, but was now risen and in his undress. The Queen was in bed in her apartment, but put forth her hand, seeming to be much afflicted, as I believe she was, having deported herself so decently upon all occasions since she came into England, which made her universally beloved.

Thus concluded this sad and not joyful day.

I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming, and all dissoluteness, and as it were total forgetfulness of God (it being Sunday evening), which this day se'nnight I was witness of, the King sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Mazarin, etc., a French boy singing love songs57 in that glorious gallery, while about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at Basset round a large table, a bank of at least 2,000 in gold before them; upon which two gentlemen, who were with me, made reflections with astonishment. Six days after, was all in the dust.

It was enjoined that those who put on mourning should wear it as for a father, in the most solemn manner.

10th February, 1685. Being sent to by the Sheriff of the County to appear and assist in proclaiming the King, I went the next day to Bromley, where I met the Sheriff and the Commander of the Kentish Troop, with an appearance, I suppose, of about 500 horse, and innumerable people, two of his Majesty's trumpets, and a Sergeant with other officers, who having drawn up the horse in a large field near the town, marched thence, with swords drawn, to the market place, where, making a ring, after sound of trumpets and silence made, the High Sheriff read the proclaiming titles to his bailiff, who repeated them aloud, and then, after many shouts of the people, his Majesty's health being drunk in a flint glass of a yard long, by the Sheriff, Commander, Officers, and chief gentlemen, they all dispersed, and I returned.

13th February, 1685. I passed a fine on selling of Honson Grange in Staffordshire, being about £20 per annum, which lying so great a distance, I thought fit to part with it to one Burton, a farmer there. It came to me as part of my daughter-in-law's portion, this being but a fourth part of what was divided between the mother and three sisters.

14th February, 1685. The King was this night very obscurely buried in a vault under Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster, without any manner of pomp, and soon forgotten after all this vanity, and the face of the whole Court was exceedingly changed into a more solemn and moral behavior; the new King affecting neither profaneness nor buffoonery. All the great officers broke their staves over the grave, according to form.

15th February, 1685. Dr. Tenison preached to the household. The second sermon should have been before the King; but he, to the great grief of his subjects, did now, for the first time, go to mass publicly in the little Oratory at the Duke's lodgings, the doors being set wide open.

16th February, 1685. I dined at Sir Robert Howard's, auditor of the exchequer, a gentleman pretending to all manner of arts and sciences, for which he had been the subject of comedy, under the name of Sir Positive; not ill-natured, but insufferably boasting. He was son to the late Earl of Berkshire.

17th February, 1685. This morning his Majesty restored the staff and key to Lord Arlington, Chamberlain; to Mr. Savell, Vice-chamberlain; to Lords Newport and Maynard, Treasurer and Comptroller of the household. Lord Godolphin made Chamberlain to the Queen; Lord Peterborough groom of the stole, in place of the Earl of Bath; the Treasurer's staff to the Earl of Rochester; and his brother, the Earl of Clarendon, Lord Privy Seal, in the place of the Marquis of Halifax, who was made President of the Council; the Secretaries of State remaining as before.

19th February, 1685. The Lord Treasurer and the other new officers were sworn at the Chancery Bar and the exchequer.

The late King having the revenue of excise, customs, and other late duties granted for his life only, they were now farmed and let to several persons, upon an opinion that the late King might let them for three years after his decease; some of the old commissioners refused to act. The lease was made but the day before the King died;58 the major part of the Judges (but, as some think, not the best lawyers), pronounced it legal, but four dissented.

The clerk of the closet had shut up the late King's private oratory next the Privy-chamber above, but the King caused it to be opened again, and that prayers should be said as formerly.

22d February, 1685. Several most useful tracts against Dissenters, Papists and Fanatics, and resolutions of cases were now published by the London divines.

LONDON

4th March, Ash Wednesday. After evening prayers, I went to London.

5th March, 1685. To my grief, I saw the new pulpit set up in the Popish Oratory at Whitehall for the Lent preaching, mass being publicly said, and the Romanists swarming at Court with greater confidence than had ever been seen in England since the Reformation, so that everybody grew jealous as to what this would tend.

A Parliament was now summoned, and great industry used to obtain elections which might promote the Court interest, most of the corporations being now, by their new charters, empowered to make what returns of members they pleased.

There came over divers envoys and great persons to condole the death of the late King, who were received by the Queen-Dowager on a bed of mourning, the whole chamber, ceiling and floor, hung with black, and tapers were lighted, so as nothing could be more lugubrious and

6th March, 1685. Lent preachers continued as formerly in the Royal Chapel.

7th March, 1685. My daughter, Mary, was taken with smallpox, and there soon was found no hope of her recovery. A great affliction to me: but God's holy will be done!

10th March, 1685. She received the blessed sacrament; after which, disposing herself to suffer what God should determine to inflict, she bore the remainder of her sickness with extraordinary patience and piety, and more than ordinary resignation and blessed frame of mind. She died the 14th, to our unspeakable sorrow and affliction, and not to our's only, but that of all who knew her, who were many of the best quality, greatest and most virtuous persons. The justness of her stature, person, comeliness of countenance, gracefulness of motion, unaffected, though more than ordinarily beautiful, were the least of her ornaments compared with those of her mind. Of early piety, singularly religious, spending a part of every day in private devotion, reading, and other virtuous exercises; she had collected and written out many of the most useful and judicious periods of the books she read in a kind of common-place, as out of Dr. Hammond on the New Testament, and most of the best practical treatises. She had read and digested a considerable deal of history, and of places. The French tongue was as familiar to her as English; she understood Italian, and was able to render a laudable account of what she read and observed, to which assisted a most faithful memory and discernment; and she did make very prudent and discreet reflections upon what she had observed of the conversations among which she had at any time been, which being continually of persons of the best quality, she thereby improved. She had an excellent voice, to which she played a thorough-bass on the harpsichord, in both which she arrived to that perfection, that of the scholars of those two famous masters, Signors Pietro and Bartholomeo, she was esteemed the best; for the sweetness of her voice and management of it added such an agreeableness to her countenance, without any constraint or concern, that when she sung, it was as charming to the eye as to the ear; this I rather note, because it was a universal remark, and for which so many noble and judicious persons in music desired to hear her, the last being at Lord Arundel's, at Wardour.

What shall I say, or rather not say, of the cheerfulness and agreeableness of her humor? condescending to the meanest servant in the family, or others, she still kept up respect, without the least pride. She would often read to them, examine, instruct, and pray with them if they were sick, so as she was exceedingly beloved of everybody. Piety was so prevalent an ingredient in her constitution (as I may say), that even among equals and superiors she no sooner became intimately acquainted, but she would endeavor to improve them, by insinuating something religious, and that tended to bring them to a love of devotion; she had one or two confidants with whom she used to pass whole days in fasting, reading, and prayers, especially before the monthly communion, and other solemn occasions. She abhorred flattery, and, though she had abundance of wit, the raillery was so innocent and

No one could read prose or verse better or with more judgment; and as she read, so she wrote, not only most correct orthography, with that maturity of judgment and exactness of the periods, choice of expressions, and familiarity of style, that some letters of hers have astonished me and others, to whom she has occasionally written. She had a talent of rehearsing any comical part or poem, as to them she might be decently free with; was more pleasing than heard on the theater; she danced with the greatest grace I had ever seen, and so would her master say, who was Monsieur Isaac; but she seldom showed that perfection, save in the gracefulness of her carriage, which was with an air of sprightly modesty not easily to be described. Nothing affected, but natural and easy as well in her deportment as in her discourse, which was always material, not trifling, and to which the extraordinary sweetness of her tone, even in

Nothing was so delightful to her as to go into my Study, where she would willingly have spent whole days, for as I said she had read abundance of history, and all the best poets, even Terence, Plautus, Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid; all the best romancers and modern poems; she could compose happily and put in pretty symbols, as in the "Mundus Muliebris," wherein is an enumeration of the immense variety of the modes and ornaments belonging to the sex. But all these are vain trifles to the virtues which adorned her soul; she was sincerely religious, most dutiful to her parents, whom she loved with an affection tempered with great esteem, so as we were easy and free, and never were so well pleased as when she was with us, nor needed we other conversation; she was kind to her sisters, and was still improving them by her constant course of piety. Oh, dear, sweet, and desirable child, how shall I part with all this goodness and virtue without the bitterness of sorrow and reluctancy of a tender parent! Thy affection, duty and love to me was that of a friend as well as a child. Nor less dear to thy mother, whose example and tender care of thee was unparalleled, nor was thy return to her less conspicuous. Oh! how she mourns thy loss! how desolate hast thou left us! To the grave shall we both carry thy memory! God alone (in whose bosom thou art at rest and happy!) give us to resign thee and all our contentments (for thou indeed wert all in this world) to his blessed pleasure! Let him be glorified by our submission, and give us grace to bless him for the graces he implanted in thee, thy virtuous life, pious and holy death, which is indeed the only comfort of our souls, hastening through the infinite love and mercy of the Lord Jesus to be shortly with thee, dear child, and with thee and those blessed saints like thee, glorify the Redeemer of the world to all eternity! Amen.

It was in the 19th year of her age that this sickness happened to her. An accident contributed to this disease; she had an apprehension of it in particular, which struck her but two days before she came home, by an imprudent gentlewoman whom she went with Lady Falkland to visit, who, after they had been a good while in the house, told them she has a servant sick of the smallpox (who indeed died the next day): this my poor child acknowledged made an impression on her

At London, she took this fatal disease, and the occasion of her being there was this: my Lord Viscount Falkland's Lady having been our neighbor (as he was Treasurer of the Navy), she took so great an affection to my daughter, that when they went back in the autumn to the city, nothing would satisfy their incessant importunity but letting her accompany my Lady, and staying some time with her; it was with the greatest reluctance I complied. While she was there, my Lord being musical, when I saw my Lady would not part with her till Christmas, I was not unwilling she should improve the opportunity of learning of Signor Pietro, who had an admirable way both of composure and teaching. It was the end of February before I could prevail with my Lady to part with her; but my Lord going into Oxfordshire to stand for Knight of the Shire there, she expressed her wish to come home, being tired of the vain and empty conversation of the town, the theaters, the court, and trifling visits which consumed so much precious time, and made her sometimes miss of that regular course of piety that gave her the greatest satisfaction. She was weary of this life, and I think went not thrice to Court all this time, except when her mother or I carried her. She did not affect showing herself, she knew the Court well, and passed one summer in it at Windsor with Lady Tuke, one of the Queen's women of the bedchamber (a most virtuous relation of hers); she was not fond of that glittering scene, now become abominably licentious, though there was a design of Lady Rochester and Lady Clarendon to have made her a maid of honor to the Queen as soon as there was a vacancy. But this she did not set her heart upon, nor indeed on anything so much as the service of God, a quiet and regular life, and how she might improve herself in the most necessary accomplishments, and to which she was arrived at so great a measure.

This is the little history and imperfect character of my dear child, whose piety, virtue, and incomparable endowments deserve a monument more durable than brass and marble. Precious is the memorial of the just. Much I could enlarge on every period of this hasty account, but that I ease and discharge my overcoming passion for the present, so many things worthy an excellent Christian and dutiful child crowding upon me. Never can I say enough, oh dear, my dear child, whose memory is so precious to me!

This dear child was born at Wotton, in the same house and chamber in which I first drew my breath, my wife having retired to my brother there in the great sickness that year upon the first of that month, and the very hour that I was born, upon the last: viz, October.

SAYES COURT

16th March, 1685. She was interred in the southeast end of the church at Deptford, near her grandmother and several of my younger children and relations. My desire was she should have been carried and laid among my own parents and relations at Wotton, where I desire to be interred myself, when God shall call me out of this uncertain transitory life, but some circumstances did not permit it. Our vicar, Dr. Holden, preached her funeral sermon on Phil. i. 21. "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain," upon which he made an apposite discourse, as those who heard it assured me (for grief suffered me not to be present), concluding with a modest recital of her many virtues and signal piety, so as to draw both tears and admiration from the hearers. I was not altogether unwilling that something of this sort should be spoken, for the edification and encouragement of other young people.

Divers noble persons honored her funeral, some in person, others sending their coaches, of which there were six or seven with six horses, viz, the Countess of Sunderland, Earl of Clarendon, Lord Godolphin, Sir Stephen Fox, Sir William Godolphin, Viscount Falkland, and others. There were distributed among her friends about sixty rings.

Thus lived, died, and was buried the joy of my life, and ornament of her sex and of my poor family! God Almighty of his infinite mercy grant me the grace thankfully to resign myself and all I have, or had, to his divine pleasure, and in his good time, restoring health and comfort to my family: "teach me so to number my days, that I may apply my heart to wisdom," be prepared for my dissolution, and that into the hands of my blessed Savior I may recommend my spirit! Amen!

On looking into her closet, it is incredible what a number of collections she had made from historians, poets, travelers, etc., but, above all, devotions, contemplations, and resolutions on these contemplations, found under her hand in a book most methodically disposed; prayers, meditations, and devotions on particular occasions, with many pretty letters to her confidants; one to a divine (not named) to whom she writes that he would be her ghostly father, and would not despise her for her many errors and the imperfections of her youth, but beg of God to give her courage to acquaint him with all her faults, imploring his assistance and spiritual directions. I well remember she had often desired me to recommend her to such a person; but I did not think fit to do it as yet, seeing her apt to be scrupulous, and knowing the great innocency and integrity of her life.