The Diary of John Evelyn Volume I Part 31

Ashmole, to whom after the death of the widow they are bequeathed, and by him designed as a gift to Oxford.

19th October, 1657. I went to see divers gardens about London: returning, I saw at Dr. Joyliffe's two Virginian rattlesnakes alive, exceeding a yard in length, small heads, slender tails, but in the middle nearly the size of my leg; when vexed, swiftly vibrating and shaking their tails, as loud as a child's rattle; this, by the collision of certain gristly skins curiously jointed, yet loose, and transparent as parchment, by which they give warning; a providential caution for other creatures to avoid them.

The Doctor tried their biting on rats and mice, which they immediately killed: but their vigor must needs be much exhausted here, in another climate, and kept only in a barrel of bran.

22d October, 1657. To town, to visit the Holland Amba.s.sador, with whom I had now contracted much friendly correspondence, useful to the intelligence I constantly gave his Majesty abroad.

26th November, 1657. I went to London, to a court of the East India Company on its new union, in Merchant-Taylors' Hall, where was much disorder by reason of the Anabaptists, who would have the adventurers obliged only by an engagement, without swearing, that they still might pursue their private trade; but it was carried against them. Wednesday was fixed on for a general court for election of officers, after a sermon and prayers for good success. The Stock resolved on was 800,000.

27th November, 1657. I took the oath at the East India House, subscribing 500.

2d December, 1657. Dr. Raynolds (since Bishop of Norwich) preached before the company at St. Andrew Under-shaft, on Nehemiah xiii. 31, showing, by the example of Nehemiah, all the perfections of a trusty person in public affairs, with many good precepts apposite to the occasion, ending with a prayer for G.o.d's blessing on the company and the undertaking.

3d December, 1657. Mr. Gunning preached on John iii. 3, against the Anabaptists, showing the effect and necessity of the sacrament of baptism. This sect was now wonderfully spread.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

25th December, 1657. I went to London with my wife, to celebrate Christmas-day, Mr. Gunning preaching in Exeter chapel, on Micah vii. 2.

Sermon ended, as he was giving us the Holy Sacrament, the chapel was surrounded with soldiers, and all the communicants and a.s.sembly surprised and kept prisoners by them, some in the house, others carried away. It fell to my share to be confined to a room in the house, where yet I was permitted to dine with the master of it, the Countess of Dorset, Lady Hatton, and some others of quality who invited me. In the afternoon, came Colonel Whalley, Goffe, and others, from Whitehall, to examine us one by one; some they committed to the marshal, some to prison. When I came before them, they took my name and abode, examined me why, contrary to the ordinance made, that none should any longer observe the superst.i.tious time of the nativity (so esteemed by them), I durst offend, and particularly be at common prayers, which they told me was but the ma.s.s in English, and particularly pray for Charles Stuart; for which we had no Scripture. I told them we did not pray for Charles Stuart, but for all Christian kings, princes, and governors. They replied, in so doing we prayed for the king of Spain, too, who was their enemy and a Papist, with other frivolous and ensnaring questions, and much threatening; and, finding no color to detain me, they dismissed me with much pity of my ignorance. These were men of high flight and above ordinances, and spoke spiteful things of our Lord's nativity. As we went up to receive the Sacrament, the miscreants held their muskets against us, as if they would have shot us at the altar; but yet suffering us to finish the office of Communion, as perhaps not having instructions what to do, in case they found us in that action. So I got home late the next day; blessed be G.o.d!

27th January, 1657-58. After six fits of a quartan ague, with which it pleased G.o.d to visit him, died my dear son, Richard, to our inexpressible grief and affliction, five years and three days old only, but at that tender age a prodigy for wit and understanding; for beauty of body, a very angel; for endowment of mind, of incredible and rare hopes.

To give only a little taste of them, and thereby glory to G.o.d, who "out of the mouths of babes and infants does sometimes perfect his praises,"

he had learned all his catechism; at two years and a half old, he could perfectly read any of the English, Latin, French, or Gothic letters, p.r.o.nouncing the first three languages exactly. He had, before the fifth year, or in that year, not only skill to read most written hands, but to decline all the nouns, conjugate the verbs regular, and most of the irregular; learned out "Puerilis," got by heart almost the entire vocabulary of Latin and French primitives and words, could make congruous syntax, turn English into Latin, and _vice versa_, construe and prove what he read, and did the government and use of relatives, verbs, substantives, ellipses, and many figures and tropes, and made a considerable progress in Comenius's "_Janua_"; began himself to write legibly, and had a strong pa.s.sion for Greek. The number of verses he could recite was prodigious, and what he remembered of the parts of plays, which he would also act; and, when seeing a Plautus in one's hand, he asked what book it was, and, being told it was comedy, and too difficult for him, he wept for sorrow. Strange was his apt and ingenious application of fables and morals; for he had read aesop; he had a wonderful disposition to mathematics, having by heart divers propositions of Euclid that were read to him in play, and he would make lines and demonstrate them. As to his piety, astonis.h.i.+ng were his applications of Scripture upon occasion, and his sense of G.o.d; he had learned all his catechism early, and understood the historical part of the Bible and New Testament to a wonder, how Christ came to redeem mankind, and how, comprehending these necessaries himself, his G.o.dfathers were discharged of their promise.

These and the like illuminations, far exceeding his age and experience, considering the prettiness of his address and behavior, cannot but leave impressions in me at the memory of him. When one told him how many days a Quaker had fasted, he replied that was no wonder; for Christ had said that man should not live by bread alone, but by the Word of G.o.d. He would of himself select the most pathetic psalms, and chapters out of Job, to read to his maid during his sickness, telling her, when she pitied him, that all G.o.d's children must suffer affliction. He declaimed against the vanities of the world, before he had seen any. Often he would desire those who came to see him to pray by him, and a year before he fell sick, to kneel and pray with him alone in some corner. How thankfully would he receive admonition! how soon be reconciled! how indifferent, yet continually cheerful! He would give grave advice to his brother, John, bear with his impertinences, and say he was but a child. If he heard of or saw any new thing, he was unquiet till he was told how it was made; he brought to us all such difficulties as he found in books, to be expounded. He had learned by heart divers sentences in Latin and Greek, which, on occasion, he would produce even to wonder. He was all life, all prettiness, far from morose, sullen, or childish in anything he said or did. The last time he had been at church (which was at Greenwich), I asked him, according to custom, what he remembered of the sermon; two good things, Father, said he, _bonum gratiae_ and _bonum gloriae_, with a just account of what the preacher said.

The day before he died, he called to me: and in a more serious manner than usual, told me that for all I loved him so dearly I should give my house, land, and all my fine things to his brother Jack, he should have none of them; and, the next morning, when he found himself ill, and that I persuaded him to keep his hands in bed, he demanded whether he might pray to G.o.d with his hands unjoined; and a little after, while in great agony, whether he should not offend G.o.d by using his holy name so often calling for ease. What shall I say of his frequent pathetical e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns uttered of himself: "Sweet Jesus, save me, deliver me, pardon my sins, let thine angels receive me!" So early knowledge, so much piety and perfection! But thus G.o.d, having dressed up a saint fit for himself, would not longer permit him with us, unworthy of the future fruits of this incomparable hopeful blossom. Such a Child I never saw: for such a child I bless G.o.d, in whose bosom he is! May I and mine become as this little child, who now follows the child Jesus that Lamb of G.o.d in a white robe, whithersoever he goes; even so, Lord Jesus, _fiat voluntas tua_! Thou gavest him to us, thou hast taken him from us, blessed be the name of the Lord! That I had anything acceptable to thee was from thy grace alone, seeing from me he had nothing but sin, but that thou hast pardoned! blessed be my G.o.d for ever, Amen.

In my opinion, he was suffocated by the women and maids that attended him, and covered him too hot with blankets as he lay in a cradle, near an excessive hot fire in a close room. I suffered him to be opened, when they found that he was what is vulgarly called liver-grown. I caused his body to be coffined in lead, and deposited on the 30th at eight o'clock that night in the church at Deptford, accompanied with divers of my relations and neighbors, among whom I distributed rings with this motto: "_Dominus abstulit_;" intending, G.o.d willing, to have him transported with my own body to be interred in our dormitory in Wotton Church, in my dear native county of Surrey, and to lay my bones and mingle my dust with my fathers, if G.o.d be gracious to me, and make me as fit for him as this blessed child was. The Lord Jesus sanctify this and all other my afflictions, Amen.

Here ends the joy of my life, and for which I go even mourning to the grave.

15th February, 1658. The afflicting hand of G.o.d being still upon us, it pleased him also to take away from us this morning my youngest son, George, now seven weeks languis.h.i.+ng at nurse, breeding teeth, and ending in a dropsy. G.o.d's holy will be done! He was buried in Deptford Church, the 17th following.

25th February, 1658. Came Dr. Jeremy Taylor, and my brothers, with other friends, to visit and condole with us.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

7th March, 1658. To London, to hear Dr. Taylor in a private house on Luke xiii. 23, 24. After the sermon, followed the blessed Communion, of which I partic.i.p.ated. In the afternoon, Dr. Gunning, at Exeter House, expounding part of the Creed.

This had been the severest winter that any man alive had known in England. The crows' feet were frozen to their prey. Islands of ice inclosed both fish and fowl frozen, and some persons in their boats.

15th May, 1658, was a public fast, to avert an epidemical sickness, very mortal this spring.

20th May, 1658. I went to see a coach race in Hyde Park, and collationed in Spring Garden.

23d May, 1658. Dr. Manton, the famous Presbyterian, preached at Covent Garden, on Matthew vi. 10, showing what the kingdom of G.o.d was, how pray for it, etc.

There was now a collection for persecuted and sequestered Ministers of the Church of England, whereof divers are in prison. A sad day! The Church now in dens and caves of the earth.

31st May, 1658. I went to visit my Lady Peterborough, whose son, Mr.

Mordaunt, prisoner in the Tower, was now on his trial, and acquitted but by one voice; but that holy martyr, Dr. Hewer, was condemned to die without law, jury, or justice, but by a mock Council of State, as they called it. A dangerous, treacherous time!

2d June, 1658. An extraordinary storm of hail and rain, the season as cold as winter, the wind northerly near six months.

3d June, 1658. A large whale was taken between my land ab.u.t.ting on the Thames and Greenwich, which drew an infinite concourse to see it, by water, horse, coach, and on foot, from London, and all parts. It appeared first below Greenwich at low water, for at high water it would have destroyed all the boats, but lying now in shallow water encompa.s.sed with boats, after a long conflict, it was killed with a harping iron, struck in the head, out of which spouted blood and water by two tunnels; and after a horrid groan, it ran quite on sh.o.r.e, and died. Its length was fifty-eight feet, height sixteen; black skinned, like coach leather; very small eyes, great tail, only two small fins, a peaked snout and a mouth so wide, that divers men might have stood upright in it; no teeth, but sucked the slime only as through a grate of that bone which we call whalebone; the throat yet so narrow, as would not have admitted the least of fishes. The extremes of the cetaceous bones hang downward from the upper jaw, and are hairy toward the ends and bottom within side: all of it prodigious; but in nothing more wonderful than that an animal of so great a bulk should be nourished only by slime through those grates.

8th June, 1658. That excellent preacher and holy man, Dr. Hewer, was martyred for having intelligence with his Majesty, through the Lord Marquis of Ormond.

9th June, 1658. I went to see the Earl of Northumberland's pictures, whereof that of the Venetian Senators was one of the best of t.i.tian's and another of Andrea del Sarto, viz, a Madonna, Christ, St. John, and an Old Woman; a St. Catherine of Da Vinci, with divers portraits of Vandyck; a Nativity of Georgioni; the last of our blessed Kings (Charles I.), and the Duke of York, by Lely, a Rosary by the famous Jesuits of Brussels, and several more. This was in Suffolk House: the new front toward the gardens is tolerable, were it not drowned by a too ma.s.sy and clumsy pair of stairs of stone, without any neat invention.

10th June, 1658. I went to see the Medical Garden at Westminster, well stored with plants, under Morgan, a very skillful botanist.

26th June, 1658. To Eltham, to visit honest Mr. Owen.

[Sidenote: LONDON]

3d July, 1658. To London, and dined with Mr. Henshaw, Mr. Dorell, and Mr.

Ashmole, founder of the Oxford repository of rarities, with divers doctors of physic and virtuosos.

15th July, 1658. Came to see my Lord Kilmurry and Lady, Sir Robert Needham, Mr. Offley, and two daughters of my Lord Willoughby, of Parham.

3d August, 1658. Went to Sir John Evelyn at G.o.dstone. The place is excellent, but might be improved by turning some offices of the house, and removing the garden. The house being a n.o.ble fabric, though not comparable to what was first built by my uncle, who was master of all the powder mills.

5th August, 1658. We went to Squirries to visit my Cousin Leech, daughter to Sir John; a pretty, finely wooded, well watered seat, the stables good, the house old, but convenient. 6th. Returned to Wotton.

10th August, 1658. I dined at Mr. Carew Raleigh's, at Horsley, son to the famous Sir Walter.

14th August, 1658. We went to Durdans [at Epsom] to a challenged match at bowls for 10, which we won.

18th August, 1658. To Sir Ambrose Browne, at Betchworth Castle, in that tempestuous wind which threw down my greatest trees at Sayes Court, and did so much mischief all over England. It continued the whole night; and, till three in the afternoon of the next day, in the southwest, and destroyed all our winter fruit.

3d September, 1658. Died that arch-rebel, Oliver Cromwell, called Protector.

16th September, 1658. Was published my translation of St. Chrysostom on "Education of Children," which I dedicated to both my brothers to comfort them on the loss of their children.

21st September, 1658. My Lord Berkeley, of Berkeley Castle, invited me to dinner.

26th September, 1658. Mr. King preached at Ashted, on Proverbs xv. 24; a Quaker would have disputed with him. In the afternoon, we heard Dr.

Hacket (since Bishop of Litchfield) at Cheam, where the family of the Lumleys lie buried.

27th September, 1658. To Beddington, that ancient seat of the Carews, a fine old hall, but a scambling house, famous for the first orange garden in England, being now overgrown trees, planted in the ground, and secured in winter with a wooden tabernacle and stoves. This seat is rarely watered, lying low, and environed with good pastures. The pomegranates bear here. To the house is also added a fine park. Thence, to Carshalton, excellently watered, and capable of being made a most delicious seat, being on the sweet downs, and a champaign about it full planted with walnut and cherry trees, which afford a considerable rent.

Riding over these downs, and discoursing with the shepherds, I found that digging about the bottom near Sir Christopher Buckle's,[59] near Banstead, divers medals have been found, both copper and silver, with foundations of houses, urns, etc. Here, indeed, anciently stood a city of the Romans. See Antonine's "Itineraries."

[Footnote 59: Not far from the course of the Roman Road from Chichester, through Suss.e.x, pa.s.sing through Ockley, and Dorking churchyard. Considerable remains of a Roman building have since been found on Waltonheath, south of this house.]

29th September, 1658. I returned home, after a ten weeks' absence.

[Sidenote: LONDON]