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heard a sermon more apposite to the occasion. He modestly insinuated the obligation they had to that person who should be the author and promoter of such public works for the benefit of mankind, especially to the advantage of religion, such as building and endowing churches, hospitals, libraries, schools, procuring the best editions of useful books, by which he handsomely intimated who it was that had been so exemplary for his benefaction to that place. Indeed, that excellent person, Dr. Tenison, had also erected and furnished a public library,' [in St. Martin's]; and set up two or three free-schools at his own charges. Besides this, he was of an exemplary holy life, took great pains in constantly preaching, and incessantly employing himself to promote the service of God both in public and private. I never knew a man of a more universal and generous spirit, with so much modesty, prudence, and piety.

The great victory of King William's army in Ireland was looked on as decisive of that war. The French General, St. Ruth, who had been so cruel to the poor Protestants in France, was slain, with divers of the best commanders; nor was it cheap to us, having 1,000 killed, but of the enemy 4 or 5,000.

26th July. An extraordinary hot season, yet refreshed by some thunder-showers.

28th. I went to Wotton.

2nd August. No sermon in the church in the afternoon, and the curacy ill-served.

16th. A sermon by the curate; an honest discourse, but read without any spirit, or seeming concern; a great fault in the education of young preachers.-Great thunder and lightning on Thursday, but the rain and wind very violent. Our fleet come in to lay up the great ships; nothing done at sea, pretending that we cannot meet the French.

13th September. A great storm at sea; we lost the Coronation and Harwich, above 600 men perishing.

14th October. A most pleasing autumn.-Our navy come in without having performed any thing, yet there has been great loss of ships by negligence, and unskilful men governing the fleet and Navy-board.

1Ante, p. 204.

7th November. I visited the Earl of Dover, who having made his peace with the King, was now come home. The relation he gave of the strength of the French King, and the difficulty of our forcing him to fight, and any way making impression into France, was very wide from what we fancied.

8th-30th. An extraordinary dry and warm season, without frost, and like a new spring; such as had not been known for many years. Part of the King's house at Kensington was burnt.

6th December. Discourse of another plot, in which several great persons were named, but believed to be a sham.— A proposal in the House of Commons that every officer in the whole nation who received a salary above £500 or otherwise by virtue of his office, should contribute it wholly to the support of the war with France, and this upon their oaths.

25th. My daughter-in-law was brought to bed of a daughter.

26th. An exceeding dry and calm winter, no rain for many past months.

28th. Dined at Lambeth with the new Archbishop. Saw the effect of my green-house furnace, set up by the Archbishop's son-in-law.

30th. I again saw Mr. Charlton's collection' of spiders, birds, scorpions, and other serpents, &c.

1691-2. 1st January. This last week died that pious admirable Christian, excellent philosopher, and my worthy friend, Mr. Boyle, aged about 65-a great loss to all that knew him, and to the public.

6th. At the funeral of Mr. Boyle, at St. Martin's. Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, preached on Eccles. ii. 26. He concluded with an eulogy due to the deceased, who made God and religion the scope of all his excellent talents in the knowledge of nature, and who had arrived to so high a degree in it, accompanied with such zeal and extraordinary piety, which he showed in the whole course of his life, particularly in his exemplary charity on all occasionsthat he gave £1,000 yearly to the distressed refugees of

1 Ante, pp. 270, 317.

France and Ireland; was at the charge of translating the Scriptures into the Irish and Indian tongues, and was now promoting a Turkish translation, as he had formerly done of Grotius on the Truth of the Christian Religion" into Arabic, which he caused to be dispersed in the Eastern countries; that he had settled a fund for preachers who should preach expressly against Atheists, Libertines, Socinians, and Jews; that he had in his will given £8,000 to charitable uses; but that his private charities were extraordinary. He dilated on his learning in Hebrew and Greek, his reading of the Fathers, and solid knowledge in theology, once deliberating about taking Holy Orders, and that at the time of restoration of King Charles II., when he might have made a great figure in the nation as to secular honour and titles, his fear of not being able to discharge so weighty a duty as the first, made him decline that, and his humility the other. He spake of his civility to strangers, the great good which he did by his experience in medicine and chemistry, and to what noble ends he applied himself to his darling studies; the works both pious and useful which he published; the exact life he led, and the happy end he made. Something was touched of his sister, the Lady Ranelagh, who died but a few days before him. And truly all this was but his due, without any grain of flattery.

This week, a most execrable murder was committed on Dr. Clench, father of that extraordinary learned child whom I have before noticed. Under pretence of carrying him in a coach to see a patient, they strangled him in it; and, sending away the coachman under some pretence, they left his dead body in the coach, and escaped in the dusk of the evening.

12th January. My grand-daughter was christened by Dr. Tenison, now Bishop of Lincoln, in Trinity Church, being the first that was christened there. She was named Jane.

24th. A frosty and dry season continued; many persons die of apoplexies, more than usual.-Lord Marlborough, Lieutenant-General of the King's army in England, Gen

1 Ante, p. 299. A man named Henry Harrison was tried for the murder of Dr. Clench, convicted, and hanged; but he left a paper, which was printed, denying his guilt.

tleman of the Bed-chamber, &c., dismissed from all his charges, military and other, for his excessive taking of bribes, covetousness, and extortion on all occasions from his inferior officers.-Note, this was the Lord who was entirely advanced by King James, and was the first who betrayed and forsook his master. He was son of Sir Winston Churchill of the Green-cloth.

7th February. An extraordinary snow fell in most parts. 13th. Mr. Boyle having made me one of the trustees for his charitable bequests, I went to a meeting of the Bishop of Lincoln, Sir Rob.. wood, and Serjeant Rotheram, to settle that clause in the will which related to charitable uses, and especially the appointing and electing a minister to preach one sermon the first Sunday in the month, during the four summer months, expressly against Atheists, Deists, Libertines, Jews, &c., without descending to any other controversy whatever, for which £50 per annum is to be paid quarterly to the preacher; and, at the end of three years, to proceed to a new election of some other able divine, or to continue the same, as the trustees should judge convenient. We made choice of one Mr. Bentley,' chaplain to the Bishop of Worcester (Dr. Stillingfleet). The first sermon was appointed for the first Sunday in March, at St. Martin's; the second Sunday in April, at Bow-church, and so alternately.

28th. Lord Marlborough' having used words against the King, and been discharged from all his great places, his wife was forbid the Court, and the Princess of Denmark was desired by the Queen to dismiss her from her service; but she refusing to do so, goes away from Court to Sionhouse.-Divers new Lords made; Sir Henry Capel, Sir William Fermor, &c.-Change of Commissioners in the Treasury. The Parliament adjourned, not well satisfied

Afterwards the celebrated scholar and critic, Librarian to the King, and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

2 So celebrated in the reign of Queen Anne as John, first Duke of Marlborough. The real cause of his dismissal from his employments by William III. was not the one mentioned by Evelyn, but a quarrel between Queen Mary and her sister, the Princess Anne, in which her friend Lady Marlborough was involved.

3 Lord Capel, of Tewkesbury.

Baron Leominster; afterwards Earl of Pomfret.

with affairs. The business of the East India Company, which they would have reformed, let fall.-The Duke of Norfolk does not succeed in his endeavour to be divorced.1

20th March. My son was made one of the Commissioners of the Revenue and Treasury of Ireland, to which employment he had a mind, far from my wishes.-I visited the Earl of Peterborough, who showed me the picture of the Prince of Wales, newly brought out of France, seeming in my opinion very much to resemble the Queen his mother, and of a most vivacious countenance.

April. No spring yet appearing. The Queen-dowager went out of England towards Portugal, as pretended, against the advice of all her friends.

4th. Mr. Bentley preached Mr. Boyle's lecture at St. Mary-le-Bow. So excellent a discourse against the Epicurean system is not to be recapitulated in a few words. He came to me to ask whether I thought it should be printed, or that there was anything in it which I desired to be altered. I took this as a civility, and earnestly desired it should be printed, as one of the most learned and convincing discourses I had ever heard.

6th. A fast.-King James sends a letter written and directed by his own hand to several of the Privy Council, and one to his daughter the Queen Regent, informing them of the Queen being ready to be brought to bed, and summoning them to be at the birth by the middle of May, promising as from the French King, permission to come and return in safety.

24th. Much apprehension of a French invasion, and of an universal rising. Our fleet begins to join with the Dutch. Unkindness between the Queen and her sister. Very cold and unseasonable weather, scarce a leaf on the trees.

5th May. Reports of an invasion were very hot, and alarmed the City, Court, and people; nothing but securing suspected persons, sending forces to the sea-side, and hastening out the fleet. Continued discourse of the French invasion, and of ours in France. The eastern wind so constantly blowing, gave our fleet time to unite, which had been so tardy in preparation, that, had not God thus

See post, pp. 371-2.

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