The Diary of John Evelyn (Volume 1 of 2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

LONDON

13th September, 1661. I presented my "Fumifugium"66 dedicated to his Majesty, who was pleased that I should publish it by his special commands, being much gratified with it.

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

An exceedingly sickly, wet autumn.

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

On Thursday his Majesty sent one of the pages of the back stairs for me to wait on him with my papers, in his cabinet where was present only Sir Henry Bennett (Privy-Purse), when beginning to read to his Majesty what I had drawn up, by the time I had read half a page, came in Mr. Secretary Morice with a large paper, desiring to speak with his Majesty, who told him he was now very busy, and therefore ordered him to come again some other time; the Secretary replied that what he had in his hand was of extraordinary importance. So the King rose up, and, commanding me to stay, went aside to a corner of the room with the Secretary; after a while, the Secretary being dispatched, his Majesty returning to me at the table, a letter was brought him from Madame out of France;67 this he read and then bid me proceed from where I left off. This I did till I had ended all the narrative, to his Majesty's great satisfaction; and, after I had inserted one or two more clauses, in which his Majesty instructed me, commanded that it should that night be sent to the posthouse, directed to the Lord Ambassador at Paris (the Earl of St. Alban's), and then at leisure to prepare him a copy, which he would publish. This I did, and immediately sent my papers to the Secretary of State, with his Majesty's express command of dispatching them that night for France. Before I went out of the King's closet, he called me back to show me some ivory statues, and other curiosities that I had not seen before.

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

LONDON

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4th December, 1661. I had much discourse with the Duke of York, concerning strange cures he affirmed of a woman who swallowed a whole ear of barley, which worked out at her side. I told him of the KNIFE SWALLOWED68 and the pins.

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

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

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

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

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

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

LONDON

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

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

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

LONDON

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

30th May, 1662. The Queen arrived with a train of Portuguese ladies in their monstrous fardingales, or guard-infantes, their complexions olivader69 and sufficiently unagreeable. Her Majesty in the same habit, her foretop long and turned aside very strangely. She was yet of the handsomest countenance of all the rest, and, though low of stature, prettily shaped, languishing and excellent eyes, her teeth wronging her mouth by sticking a little too far out; for the rest, lovely enough.

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

2d June, 1662. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen made their addresses to the Queen, presenting her £1,000 in gold. Now saw I her Portuguese ladies, and the Guardadamas, or mother of her maids,70 and the old knight, a lock of whose hair quite covered the rest of his bald pate, bound on by a thread, very oddly. I saw the rich gondola sent to his Majesty from the State of Venice; but it was not comparable for swiftness to our common wherries, though managed by Venetians.

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

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

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

HAMPTON COURT

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

10th June, 1662. I returned to London, and presented my "History of Chalcography" (dedicated to Mr. Boyle) to our Society.71

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

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

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

LONDON

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

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

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