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1700.

JOHN EVELYN.

373

House of Commons. This being in term-time, put some stop to business, many eminent lawyers refusing to accept the office, considering the uncertainty of things in this fluctuating conjuncture. It is certain that this Chancellor was a most excellent lawyer, very learned in all polite literature, a superior pen, master of a handsome style, and of easy conversation; but he is said to make too much haste to be rich, as his predecessor, and most in place in this age did, to a more prodigious excess than was ever known. But the Commons had now so mortified the Court-party, and property and liberty were so much invaded in all the neighbouring kingdoms, that their jealousy made them cautious, and every day strengthened the law which protected the people from tyranny.

A most glorious spring, with hope of abundance of fruit of all kinds, and a propitious year.

10th May. The great trial between Sir Walter Clarges and Mr. Sherwin concerning the legitimacy of the late Duke of Albemarle, on which depended an estate of £1500 a year; the verdict was given for Sir Walter.-19th. Serjeant Wright at last accepted the Great Seal.

24th. I went from Dover Street to Wotton, for the rest of the summer, and removed thither the rest of my goods from Sayes Court.

2nd June. A sweet season, with a mixture of refreshing showers.

9th-16th. In the afternoon, our clergyman had a Catechism, which was continued for some time.

July. I was visited with illness, but it pleased God that I recovered, for which praise be ascribed to Him by me, and that He has again so graciously advertised me of my duty to prepare for my latter end, which at my great age

cannot be far off.

The Duke of Gloucester, son of the Princess Anne of Denmark, died of the small-pox.

1 Post, p. 375.

Sir Nathan Wright, appointed Lord-Keeper, who purchased the manor of and resided at Gothurst, near Newport Pagnell, Bucks. He lies buried in that church, in which are whole-length figures in white marble of the Lord-Keeper in his robes, and his son, George Wright, Esquire, Clerk of the Crown, in his official dress.

shower. The day before, there was a dreadful fire at Rotherhithe, near the Thames side, which burnt divers ships, and consumed near three hundred houses.-Now died the famous Duchess of Mazarine; she had been the richest lady in Europe. She was niece of Cardinal Mazarine, and was married to the richest subject in Europe, as is said. She was born at Rome, educated in France, and was an extraordinary beauty and wit, but dissolute and impatient of matrimonial restraint, so as to be abandoned by her husband, and banished, when she came into England for shelter, lived on a pension given her here, and is reported to have hastened her death by intemperate drinking strong spirits. She has written her own story and adventures, and so has her other extravagant sister, wife to the noble family of Colonna.

15th June. This week died Conyers Seymour, son of Sir Edward Seymour, killed in a duel caused by a slight affront in St. James's Park, given him by one who was envious of his gallantries; for he was a vain foppish young man, who made a great éclát about town by his splendid equipage and boundless expense. He was about twenty-three years old; his brother, now at Oxford, inherited an estate of £7000 a year, which had fallen to him not two years before.

19th. My cousin, George Evelyn of Nutfield, died suddenly.

25th. The heat has been so great, almost all this month, that I do not remember to have felt much greater in Italy, and this after a winter the wettest, though not the coldest, that I remember for fifty years last past.

28th. Finding my occasions called me so often to London, I took the remainder of the lease my son had in a house in Dover Street, to which I now removed, not taking my goods from Wotton.

23rd July. Seasonable showers, after a continuance of excessive drought and heat.

August. I drank the Shooters' Hill waters. At Deptford, they had been building a pretty new church.-The Bishop of St. David's [Watson] deprived for simony.'-The city of Moscow burnt by the throwing of squibs.

3rd September. There was in this week an eclipse of the 1 Ante, p. 358

sun, at which many were frightened by the predictions of the astrologers. I remember fifty years ago that many were so terrified by Lilly, that they durst not go out of their houses.-A strange earthquake at New Batavia, in the East Indies.

4th October. My worthy brother died at Wotton, in the 83rd year of his age, of perfect memory and understanding. He was religious, sober, and temperate, and of so hospitable a nature, that no family in the county maintained that ancient custom of keeping, as it were, open house the whole year in the same manner, or gave more noble or free entertainment to the county on all occasions, so that his house was never free. There were sometimes twenty persons more than his family, and some that stayed there all the summer, to his no small expense; by this he gained the universal love of the county. He was born at Wotton, went from the free-school at Guildford to Trinity College, Oxford, thence to the Middle Temple, as gentlemen of the best quality did, but without intention to study the law as a profession. He married the daughter of Colwall,' of a worthy and ancient family in Leicestershire, by whom he had one son; she dying in 1643, left George her son an infant, who being educated liberally, after travelling abroad, returned and married one Mrs. Gore, by whom he had several children, but only three daughters survived. He was a young man of good understanding, but, over-indulging his ease and pleasure, grew so very corpulent, contrary to the constitution of the rest of his father's relations, that he died. My brother afterwards married a noble and honourable lady, relict of Sir John Cotton, she being an Offley, a worthy and ancient Staffordshire family, by whom

1 Mary, daughter and co-heiress of Daniel Caldwell, of Horndon, in Essex. See pedigree.

In a letter to his nephew, George Evelyn, then on his travels in Italy, dated 30th March, 1664, Evelyn tells him that his father complained of his expenses, as much exceeding those of his own, which were known to the young gentleman's father, as all the money passed through his hands. He says that when he travelled he kept a servant, sometimes two, entertained several masters, and made no inconsiderable collection of curiosities, all within £300 per ann.—In the same letter, he desires seeds of the ilex, phyllera, myrtle, jessamine, which he says are rare in England.

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1700.

JOHN EVELYN.

373

House of Commons.' This being in term-time, put some stop to business, many eminent lawyers refusing to accept the office, considering the uncertainty of things in this fluctuating conjuncture. It is certain that this Chancellor was a most excellent lawyer, very learned in all polite literature, a superior pen, master of a handsome style, and of easy conversation; but he is said to make too much haste to be rich, as his predecessor, and most in place in this age did, to a more prodigious excess than was ever known. But the Commons had now so mortified the Court-party, and property and liberty were so much invaded in all the neighbouring kingdoms, that their jealousy made them cautious, and every day strengthened the law which protected the people from tyranny.

A most glorious spring, with hope of abundance of fruit of all kinds, and a propitious year.

10th May. The great trial between Sir Walter Clarges and Mr. Sherwin concerning the legitimacy of the late Duke of Albemarle, on which depended au estate of £1500 a year; the verdict was given for Sir Walter.-19th. Serjeant Wright at last accepted the Great Seal.

24th. I went from Dover Street to Wotton, for the rest of the summer, and removed thither the rest of my goods from Sayes Court.

2nd June. A sweet season, with a mixture of refreshing showers.

9th-16th. In the afternoon, our clergyman had at Catechism, which was continued for some time.

July. I was visited with illness, but it pleased God that I recovered, for which praise be ascribed to Him by me, and that He has again so graciously advertised me of my duty to prepare for my latter end, which at my great age cannot be far off.

The Duke of Gloucester, son of the Princess Anne of Denmark, died of the small-pox.

1 Post, p. 375.

Sir Nathan Wright, appointed Lord-Keeper, who purchased the manor of and resided at Gothurst, near Newport Pagnell, Bucks. He lies buried in that church, in which are whole-length figures in white marble of the Lord-Keeper in his robes, and his son, George Wright, Esquire, Clerk of the Crown, in his official dress.

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