charities.
20th February, 1675-76. Dr. Gunning, Bishop of Ely, preached before the
King from St. John xx. 21, 22, 23, chiefly against an anonymous book,
called "Naked Truth," a famous and popular treatise against the
corruption in the Clergy, but not sound as to its quotations, supposed
to have been the Bishop of Hereford's and was answered by Dr. Turner, it
endeavoring to prove an equality of order of Bishop and Presbyter.
27th February, 1676. Dr. Pritchard, Bishop of Gloucester, preached at
Whitehall, on Isaiah v. 5, very allegorically, according to his manner,
yet very gravely and wittily.
29th February, 1676. I dined with Mr. Povey, one of the Masters of
Requests, a nice contriver of all elegancies, and exceedingly formal.
Supped with Sir J. Williamson, where were of our Society Mr. Robert
Boyle, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir William Petty, Dr. Holden, subdean of
his Majesty's Chapel, Sir James Shaen, Dr. Whistler, and our Secretary,
Mr. Oldenburg.
4th March, 1676. Sir Thomas Linch was returned from his government of
Jamaica.
16th March, 1676. The Countess of Sunderland and I went by water to
Parson's Green, to visit my Lady Mordaunt, and to consult with her about
my Lord's monument. We returned by coach.
19th March, 1676. Dr. Lloyd, late Curate of Deptford, but now Bishop of
Llandaff, preached before the King, on 1 Cor. xv. 57, that though sin
subjects us to death, yet through Christ we become his conquerors.
23d March, 1676. To Twickenham Park, Lord Berkeley's country seat, to
examine how the bailiffs and servants ordered matters.
24th March, 1676. Dr. Brideoake, Bishop of Chichester, preached a mean
discourse for a Bishop. I also heard Dr. Fleetwood, Bishop of Worcester,
on Matt. xxvi. 38, of the sorrows of Christ, a deadly sorrow caused by
our sins; he was no great preacher.
30th March, 1676. Dining with my Lady Sunderland, I saw a fellow swallow
a knife, and divers great pebble stones, which would make a plain
rattling one against another. The knife was in a sheath of horn.
Dr. North, son of my Lord North, preached before the King, on Isaiah
liii. 57, a very young but learned and excellent person. Note. This was
the first time the Duke appeared no more in chapel, to the infinite
grief and threatened ruin of this poor nation.
2d April, 1676. I had now notice that my dear friend Mrs. Godolphin, was
returning from Paris. On the 6th, she arrived to my great joy, whom I
most heartily welcomed.
28th April, 1676. My wife entertained her Majesty at Deptford, for which
the Queen gave me thanks in the withdrawing room at Whitehall.
The University of Oxford presented me with the "_Marmora Oxoniensia
Arundeliana_"; the Bishop of Oxford writing to desire that I would
introduce Mr. Prideaux, the editor (a young man most learned in
antiquities) to the Duke of Norfolk, to present another dedicated to his
Grace, which I did, and we dined with the Duke at Arundel House, and
supped at the Bishop of Rochester's with Isaac Vossius.
7th May, 1676. I spoke to the Duke of York about my Lord Berkeley's
going to Nimeguen. Thence, to the Queen's Council at Somerset House,
about Mrs. Godolphin's lease of Spalding, in Lincolnshire.
11th May, 1676. I dined with Mr. Charleton, and went to see Mr.
Montague's new palace, near Bloomsbury, built by Mr. Hooke, of our
Society, after the French manner.[36]
[Footnote 36: Now the British Museum.]
13th May, 1676. Returned home, and found my son returned from France;
praised be God!
22d May, 1676. Trinity Monday. A chaplain of my Lord Ossory's preached,
after which we took barge to Trinity House in London. Mr. Pepys
(Secretary of the Admiralty) succeeded my Lord as Master.
[Sidenote: ENFIELD]
2d June, 1676. I went with my Lord Chamberlain to see a garden, at
Enfield town; thence, to Mr. Secretary Coventry's lodge in the Chase. It
is a very pretty place, the house commodious, the gardens handsome, and
our entertainment very free, there being none but my Lord and myself.
That which I most wondered at was, that, in the compass of twenty-five
miles, yet within fourteen of London, there is not a house, barn,
church, or building, besides three lodges. To this Lodge are three great
ponds, and some few inclosures, the rest a solitary desert, yet stored
with no less than 3,000 deer. These are pretty retreats for gentlemen,
especially for those who are studious and lovers of privacy.
We returned in the evening by Hampstead, to see Lord Wotton's house and
garden (Bellsize House), built with vast expense by Mr. O'Neale, an
Irish gentleman who married Lord Wotton's mother, Lady Stanhope. The
furniture is very particular for Indian cabinets, porcelain, and other
solid and noble movables. The gallery very fine, the gardens very large,
but ill kept, yet woody and chargeable. The soil a cold weeping clay,
not answering the expense.
12th June, 1676. I went to see Sir Thomas Bond's new and fine house by
Peckham; it is on a flat, but has a fine garden and prospect through the
meadows to London.
2d July, 1676. Dr. Castillion, Prebend of Canterbury, preached before
the King, on John xv. 22, at Whitehall.
19th July, 1676. Went to the funeral of Sir William Sanderson, husband
to the Mother of the Maids, and author of two large but mean histories
of King James and King Charles I. He was buried at Westminster.
1st August, 1676. In the afternoon, after prayers at St. James's Chapel,
was christened a daughter of Dr. Leake's, the Duke's Chaplain:
godmothers were Lady Mary, daughter of the Duke of York, and the Duchess
of Monmouth: godfather, the Earl of Bath.
15th August, 1676. Came to dine with me my Lord Halifax, Sir Thomas
Meeres, one of the Commissioners of the Admiralty, Sir John Clayton, Mr.
Slingsby, Mr. Henshaw, and Mr. Bridgeman.
25th August, 1676. Dined with Sir John Banks at his house in Lincoln's
Inn Fields, on recommending Mr. Upman to be tutor to his son going into
France. This Sir John Banks was a merchant of small beginning, but had
amassed £100,000.
26th August, 1676. I dined at the Admiralty with Secretary Pepys, and
supped at the Lord Chamberlain's. Here was Captain Baker, who had been
lately on the attempt of the Northwest passage. He reported prodigious
depth of ice, blue as a sapphire, and as transparent. The thick mists
were their chief impediment, and cause of their return.
2d September, 1676. I paid £1,700 to the Marquis de Sissac, which he had
lent to my Lord Berkeley, and which I heard the Marquis lost at play in
a night or two.
The Dean of Chichester preached before the King, on Acts xxiv. 16; and
Dr. Crichton preached the second sermon before him on Psalm xc. 12, of
wisely numbering our days, and well employing our time.
3d September, 1676. Dined at Captain Graham's, where I became acquainted
with Dr. Compton (brother to the Earl of Northampton), now Bishop of
London, and Mr. North, son to the Lord North, brother to the Lord
Chief-Justice and Clerk of the Closet, a most hopeful young man. The
Bishop had once been a soldier, had also traveled in Italy, and became a
most sober, grave, and excellent prelate.
6th September, 1676. Supped at the Lord Chamberlain's, where also supped
the famous beauty and errant lady, the Duchess of Mazarine (all the
world knows her story), the Duke of Monmouth, Countess of Sussex (both
natural children of the King by the Duchess of Cleveland[37]), and the
Countess of Derby, a virtuous lady, daughter to my best friend, the Earl
of Ossory.
[Footnote 37: Evelyn makes a slip here. The Duke of Monmouth's
mother was, it is well known, Lucy Walters, sometimes called Mrs.
Barlow, and heretofore mentioned in the "Diary." Nor is he more
correct as to the Countess of Sussex. Lady Anne Fitzroy, as she is
called in the Peerage books, was married to Lennard Dacre, Earl of
Sussex, by whom she left a daughter only, who succeeded on her
father's death to the Barony of Dacre. On the other hand, the Duke
of Southampton, the Duke of Grafton, and the Duke of Northumberland,
were all of them children of Charles II. by the Duchess of
Cleveland.]
10th September, 1676. Dined with me Mr. Flamsted, the learned astrologer
and mathematician, whom his Majesty had established in the new
Observatory in Greenwich Park, furnished with the choicest instruments.
An honest, sincere man.
12th September, 1676. To London, to take order about the building of a
house, or rather an apartment, which had all the conveniences of a
house, for my dear friend, Mr. Godolphin and lady, which I undertook to
contrive and survey, and employ workmen until it should be quite
finished; it being just over against his Majesty's wood-yard by the
Thames side, leading to Scotland Yard.
19th September, 1676. To Lambeth, to that rare magazine of marble, to
take order for chimney-pieces, etc., for Mr. Godolphin's house. The
owner of the works had built for himself a pretty dwelling house; this
Dutchman had contracted with the Genoese for all their marble. We also
saw the Duke of Buckingham's glasswork, where they made huge vases of
metal as clear, ponderous, and thick as crystal; also looking-glasses
far larger and better than any that come from Venice.
9th October, 1676. I went with Mrs. Godolphin and my wife to Blackwall,
to see some Indian curiosities; the streets being slippery, I fell
against a piece of timber with such violence that I could not speak nor
fetch my breath for some space; being carried into a house and let
blood, I was removed to the water-side and so home, where, after a day's
rest, I recovered. This being one of my greatest deliverances, the Lord
Jesus make me ever mindful and thankful!
31st October, 1676. Being my birthday, and fifty-six years old, I spent
the morning in devotion and imploring God's protection, with solemn
thanksgiving for all his signal mercies to me, especially for that
escape which concerned me this month at Blackwall. Dined with Mrs.
Godolphin, and returned home through a prodigious and dangerous mist.
9th November, 1676. Finished the lease of Spalding, for Mr. Godolphin.
16th November, 1676. My son and I dining at my Lord Chamberlain's, he
showed us among others that incomparable piece of Raphael's, being a
Minister of State dictating to Guicciardini, the earnestness of whose
face looking up in expectation of what he was next to write, is so to
the life, and so natural, as I esteem it one of the choicest pieces of
that admirable artist. There was a woman's head of Leonardo da Vinci; a
Madonna of old Palma, and two of Vandyke's, of which one was his own
picture at length, when young, in a leaning posture; the other, an
eunuch, singing. Rare pieces indeed!
4th December, 1676. I saw the great ball danced by all the gallants and
ladies at the Duchess of York's.
10th December, 1676. There fell so deep a snow as hindered us from
church.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
12th December, 1676. To London, in so great a snow, as I remember not
to have seen the like.
17th December, 1676. More snow falling, I was not able to get to church.
8th February, 1676-77. I went to Roehampton, with my Lady Duchess of
Ormond. The garden and perspective is pretty, the prospect most
agreeable.
15th May, 1677. Came the Earl of Peterborough, to desire me to be a
trustee for Lord Viscount Mordaunt and the Countess, for the sale of
certain lands set out by Act of Parliament, to pay debts.
12th June, 1677. I went to London, to give the Lord Ambassador Berkeley
(now returned from the treaty at Nimeguen) an account of the great trust
reposed in me during his absence, I having received and remitted to him
no less than £20,000 to my no small trouble and loss of time, that
during his absence, and when the Lord Treasurer was no great friend [of
his] I yet procured him great sums, very often soliciting his Majesty in
his behalf; looking after the rest of his estates and concerns entirely,
without once accepting any kind of acknowledgment, purely upon the
request of my dear friend, Mr. Godolphin. I returned with abundance of
thanks and professions from my Lord Berkeley and my Lady.
29th June, 1677. This business being now at an end, and myself delivered
from that intolerable servitude and correspondence, I had leisure to be
somewhat more at home and to myself.
3d July, 1677. I sealed the deeds of sale of the manor of Blechingley to
Sir Robert Clayton, for payment of Lord Peterborough's debts, according
to the trust of the Act of Parliament.
[Sidenote: WOTTON]
16th July, 1677. I went to Wotton.--22d. Mr. Evans, curate of Abinger,
preached an excellent sermon on Matt. v. 12. In the afternoon, Mr.
Higham at Wotton catechised.
26th July, 1677. I dined at Mr. Duncomb's, at Sheere, whose house stands
environed with very sweet and quick streams.
29th July, 1677. Mr. Bohun, my Son's late tutor, preached at Abinger, on
Phil., iv. 8, very elegantly and practically.
5th August, 1677. I went to visit my Lord Brounker, now taking the
waters at Dulwich.
9th August, 1677. Dined at the Earl of Peterborough's the day after the
marriage of my Lord of Arundel to Lady Mary Mordaunt, daughter of the
Earl of Peterborough.
28th August, 1677. To visit my Lord Chamberlain, in Suffolk; he sent his
coach and six to meet and bring me from St. Edmund's Bury to Euston.
29th August, 1677. We hunted in the Park and killed a very fat buck.
31st August, 1677. I went a hawking.
4th September, 1677. I went to visit my Lord Crofts, now dying at St.
Edmunds Bury, and took the opportunity to see this ancient town, and the
remains of that famous monastery and abbey. There is little standing
entire, save the gatehouse; it has been a vast and magnificent Gothic
structure, and of great extent. The gates are wood, but quite plated
over with iron. There are also two stately churches, one especially.
5th September, 1677. I went to Thetford, to the borough-town, where
stand the ruins of a religious house: there is a round mountain
artificially raised, either for some castle, or monument, which makes a
pretty landscape. As we went and returned, a tumbler showed his
extraordinary address in the Warren. I also saw the Decoy; much pleased
with the stratagem.
7th September, 1677. There dined this day at my Lord's one Sir John
Gaudy, a very handsome person, but quite dumb, yet very intelligent by
signs, and a very fine painter; he was so civil and well bred, as it was
not possible to discern any imperfection in him. His lady and children
were also there, and he was at church in the morning with us.
9th September, 1677. A stranger preached at Euston Church, and fell into
a handsome panegyric on my Lord's new building the church, which indeed
for its elegance and cheerfulness, is one of the prettiest country
churches in England. My Lord told me his heart smote him that, after he
had bestowed so much on his magnificent palace there, he should see
God's House in the ruin it lay in. He has also rebuilt the
parsonage-house, all of stone, very neat and ample.
[Sidenote: EUSTON]
10th September, 1677. To divert me, my Lord would needs carry me to see
Ipswich, when we dined with one Mr. Mann by the way, who was Recorder of
the town. There were in our company my Lord Huntingtower, son to the
Duchess of Lauderdale, Sir Edward Bacon, a learned gentleman of the
family of the great Chancellor Verulam, and Sir John Felton, with some
other knights and gentlemen. After dinner came the bailiff and
magistrates in their formalities with their maces to compliment my Lord,
and invite him to the town-house, where they presented us a collation of
dried sweetmeats and wine, the bells ringing, etc. Then, we went to see
the town, and first, the Lord Viscount Hereford's house, which stands in
a park near the town, like that at Brussels, in Flanders; the house not
great, yet pretty, especially the hall. The stews for fish succeeded one
another, and feed one the other, all paved at bottom. There is a good
picture of the blessed virgin in one of the parlors, seeming to be of
Holbein, or some good master. Then we saw the Haven, seven miles from
Harwich. The tide runs out every day, but the bedding being soft mud, it
is safe for shipping and a station. The trade of Ipswich is for the most
part Newcastle coals, with which they supply London; but it was formerly
a clothing town. There is not any beggar asks alms in the whole place, a
thing very extraordinary, so ordered by the prudence of the magistrates.
It has in it fourteen or fifteen beautiful churches: in a word, it is
for building, cleanness, and good order, one of the best towns in
England. Cardinal Wolsey was a butcher's son of Ipswich, but there is
little of that magnificent Prelate's foundation here, besides a school
and I think a library, which I did not see. His intentions were to build
some great thing. We returned late to Euston, having traveled about
fifty miles this day.
Since first I was at this place, I found things exceedingly improved.
It is seated in a bottom between two graceful swellings, the main
building being now in the figure of a Greek II with four pavilions, two
at each corner, and a break in the front, railed and balustered at the
top, where I caused huge jars to be placed full of earth to keep them
steady upon their pedestals between the statues, which make as good a
show as if they were of stone, and, though the building be of brick, and
but two stories besides cellars and garrets covered with blue slate, yet
there is room enough for a full court, the offices and outhouses being
so ample and well disposed. The King's apartment is painted _à fresco_,
and magnificently furnished. There are many excellent pictures of the
great masters. The gallery is a pleasant, noble room; in the break, or
middle, is a billiard table, but the wainscot, being of fir, and
painted, does not please me so well as Spanish oak without paint. The
chapel is pretty, the porch descending to the gardens. The orange garden
is very fine, and leads into the greenhouse, at the end of which is a
hall to eat in, and the conservatory some hundred feet long, adorned
with maps, as the other side is with the heads of the Cæsars, ill cut in
alabaster; above are several apartments for my Lord, Lady, and Duchess,
with kitchens and other offices below, in a lesser form; lodgings for
servants, all distinct for them to retire to when they please and would
be in private, and have no communication with the palace, which he tells
me he will wholly resign to his son-in-law and daughter, that charming
young creature.
The canal running under my Lady's dressing room chamber window, is full
of carps and fowl, which come and are fed there. The cascade at the end
of the canal turns a cornmill that provides the family, and raises water
for the fountains and offices. To pass this canal into the opposite
meadows, Sir Samuel Morland has invented a screw bridge, which, being
turned with a key, lands you fifty feet distant at the entrance of an
ascending walk of trees, a mile in length,--as it is also on the front
into the park,--of four rows of ash trees, and reaches to the park pale,
which is nine miles in compass, and the best for riding and meeting the
game that I ever saw. There were now of red and fallow deer almost a
thousand, with good covert, but the soil barren and flying sand, in
which nothing will grow kindly. The tufts of fir, and much of the other
wood, were planted by my direction some years before. This seat is
admirably placed for field sports, hawking, hunting, or racing. The
mutton is small, but sweet. The stables hold thirty horses and four
coaches. The out-offices make two large quadrangles, so as servants
never lived with more ease and convenience; never master more civil.
Strangers are attended and accommodated as at their home, in pretty
apartments furnished with all manner of conveniences and privacy.
There is a library full of excellent books; bathing rooms, elaboratory,
dispensary, a decoy, and places to keep and fat fowl in. He had now in
his new church (near the garden) built a dormitory, or vault, with
several repositories, in which to bury his family.
In the expense of this pious structure, the church is most laudable,
most of the houses of God in this country resembling rather stables and
thatched cottages than temples in which to serve the Most High. He has
built a lodge in the park for the keeper, which is a neat dwelling, and
might become any gentleman. The same has he done for the parson, little
deserving it for murmuring that my Lord put him some time out of his
wretched hovel, while it was building. He has also erected a fair inn at
some distance from his palace, with a bridge of stone over a river near
it, and repaired all the tenants' houses, so as there is nothing but
neatness and accommodations about his estate, which I yet think is not
above £1,500 a year. I believe he had now in his family one hundred
domestic servants.
His lady (being one of the Brederode's daughters, grandchild to a
natural son of Henry Frederick, Prince of Orange) is a good-natured and
obliging woman. They love fine things, and to live easily, pompously,
and hospitably; but, with so vast expense, as plunges my Lord into debts
exceedingly. My Lord himself is given into no expensive vice but
building, and to have all things rich, polite, and princely. He never
plays, but reads much, having the Latin, French, and Spanish tongues in
perfection. He has traveled much, and is the best bred and courtly
person his Majesty has about him, so as the public Ministers more
frequent him than any of the rest of the nobility. While he was
Secretary of State and Prime Minister, he had gotten vastly, but spent
it as hastily, even before he had established a fund to maintain his
greatness; and now beginning to decline in favor (the Duke being no
great friend of his), he knows not how to retrench. He was son of a
Doctor of Laws, whom I have seen, and, being sent from Westminster
School to Oxford, with intention to be a divine, and parson of
Arlington, a village near Brentford, when Master of Arts the Rebellion
falling out, he followed the King's Army, and receiving an HONORABLE
WOUND IN THE FACE, grew into favor, and was advanced from a mean
fortune, at his Majesty's Restoration, to be an Earl and Knight of the
Garter, Lord Chamberlain of the Household, and first favorite for a long
time, during which the King married his natural son, the Duke of
Grafton, to his only daughter and heiress, as before mentioned, worthy
for her beauty and virtue of the greatest prince in Christendom. My Lord
is, besides this, a prudent and understanding person in business, and
speaks well; unfortunate yet in those he has advanced, most of them
proving ungrateful. The many obligations and civilities I have received
from this noble gentleman, extracts from me this character, and I am
sorry he is in no better circumstances.
Having now passed near three weeks at Euston, to my great satisfaction,
with much difficulty he suffered me to look homeward, being very earnest
with me to stay longer; and, to engage me, would himself have carried me
to Lynn-Regis, a town of important traffic, about twenty miles beyond,
which I had never seen; as also the Traveling Sands, about ten miles
wide of Euston, that have so damaged the country, rolling from place to
place, and, like the Sands in the Deserts of Lybia, quite overwhelmed
some gentlemen's whole estates, as the relation extant in print, and
brought to our Society, describes at large.
13th September, 1677. My Lord's coach conveyed me to Bury, and thence
baiting at Newmarket, stepping in at Audley-End to see that house again,
I slept at Bishop-Stortford, and, the next day, home. I was accompanied
in my journey by Major Fairfax, of a younger house of the Lord Fairfax,
a soldier, a traveler, an excellent musician, a good-natured, well-bred
gentleman.
18th September, 1677. I preferred Mr. Phillips (nephew of Milton) to the
service of my Lord Chamberlain, who wanted a scholar to read to and
entertain him sometimes.