and goldsmiths, who having gotten immense riches by extortion, keep up their treasure in expectation of enhancing its value. Duncombe, not long since a mean goldsmith, having made a purchase of the late Duke of Buckingham's estate at near £90,000, and reputed to have near as much in cash. Banks and Lotteries every day set up. 18th June. The famous trial between my Lord Bath and Lord Montague for an estate of £11,000 a year, left by the Duke of Albemarle, wherein on several trials had been spent £20,000 between them. The Earl of Bath was cast on evident forgery.2 20th. I made my Lord Cheney a visit at Chelsea, and saw those ingenious water-works invented by Mr. Winstanley, wherein were some things very surprising and extraordinary. 21st. An exceeding rainy, cold, unseasonable summer, yet the city was very healthy. 25th. A trial in the Common Pleas between the Lady Purbeck Temple and Mr. Temple, a nephew of Sir Purbeck, concerning a deed set up to take place of several wills. This deed was proved to be forged. The cause went on my lady's side. This concerning my son-in-law, Draper, I staid almost all day at Court. A great supper was given to the jury, being persons of the best condition in Buckinghamshire. 4 30th. I went with a select Committee of the Commissioners for Greenwich Hospital, and with Sir Christopher Wren, where with him I laid the first stone of the intended foundation, precisely at five o'clock in the evening, after we had dined together. Mr. Flamstead, the King's Astronomical Professor, observing the punctual time by instru ments. 4th July. Note that my Lord Godolphin was the first 1 At Helmsley, in Yorkshire. "And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight, 2 Post, p. 379. 3 The ingenious architect who built the Eddystone Lighthouse, and perished in it when blown down by the great storm in 1703. 4 Sir William Ashurst, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir Thomas Lane, Sir Stephen Evance, John Evelyn, William Draper, Dr. Cade, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Thomas, Captain Gatteridge, Mr. Firmin, Mr. Lake, and Cap. tain Heath, constituted this Committee. of the subscribers who paid any money to this noble fabric.1 1 SUBSCRIPTIONS TO GREENWICH HOSPITAL; FROM MR. EVELYN'S Lord Godolphin, First Commissioner of the Treasury 200 0 Mr. Montague, Chancellor of the Exchequer. 100 0 100 0 100 0 0 The subjoined memorandum accompanies the foregoing list: "By the 7th July. A northern wind altering the weather with a continual and impetuous rain of three days and nights, changed it into perfect winter. 12th. Very unseasonable and uncertain weather. 26th. So little money in the nation that Exchequer Tallies, of which I had for £2000 on the best fund in England, the Post-Office, nobody would take at 30 per cent. discount. 3rd August. The Bank lending the £200,000 to pay the army in Flanders, that had done nothing against the enemy, had so exhausted the treasure of the nation, that one could not have borrowed money under 14 or 15 per cent. on bills, or on Exchequer Tallies under 30 per cent.-Reasonable good harvest-weather.-I went to Lambeth and dined with the Archbishop, who had been at Court on the complaint against Dr. Thomas Watson, Bishop of St. David's, who was suspended for simony. The Archbishop told me how unsatisfied he was with the Canon-law, and how exceedingly unreasonable all their pleadings appeared to him. September. Fine seasonable weather, and a great harvest after a cold wet summer. Scarcity in Scotland. 6th. I went to congratulate the marriage of a daughter of Mr. Boscawen to the son of Sir Philip Meadows; she is niece to my Lord Godolphin, married at Lambeth by the Archbishop 30th August.--After_above_six months' stay in London about Greenwich Hospital, I returned to Wotton. 24th October. Unseasonable stormy weather, and an ill seed-time. November. Lord Godolphin retired from the Treasury, who was the first Commissioner and most skilful manager of all. Committee for the fabric of Greenwich Hospital, Nov. 4, 1696.-Expense of the work already done, £5,000 and upwards, towards which the Treasurer had not received above £800, so that they must be obliged to stop the work, unless there can be a supply of money both from the tallies that have been assigned for payment of his Majesty's £2,000, and the money subscribed by several noblemen and gentlemen; the Secretary was ordered to attend Mr. Lowndes, Secretary to the Lords of the Treasury, to move for an order that the tallies may be fixed on such fund as may be ready money, or that the Treasurer of the Hospital may be directed to dispose of them on the best terms he can; and that the Solicitor, with the Treasurer's clerk, do attend the noblemen and gentlemen that have subscribed, to acquaint them herewith." 1 Afterwards deprived; see p. 366. 8th November. The first frost began fiercely, but lasted not long.-More plots talked of. Search for Jacobites so called. 15th-23rd. Very stormy weather, rain, and inundations. 13th December. Continuance of extreme frost and snow. 1696-7. 17th January. The severe frost and weather relented, but again froze with snow.-Conspiracies continue against King William. Sir John Fenwick was beheaded. 7th February. Severe frost continued with snow. Soldiers in the armies and garrison-towns frozen to death on their posts. (Here a leaf of the MS. is lost.)1 1 In a letter to Dr. Bohun, dated Wotton, 18th January, 1696-7, Evelyn gives a minute and agreeable account of his domestic life and circumstances at this time: Having been told that you have lately inquired what is become of your now old friends of Sayes Court, the date hereof will acquaint you where they are, and the sequel much of what they do and think. I believe I need not tell you that, after the marriage of my daughter, and the so kind offer of my good brother here, my then circumstances and times considered, I had reason to embrace it, not merely out of inclination to the place where I was born and have now an interest. cr 'Amongst other things, I had paid £300 for the renewing of my lease [at Deptford] with some augmentation of what I hold from the Crown, which the Duke of Leeds was supplanting me of— I am not here on free cost. -but 'My Lord Godolphin (my ever noble patron and steady friend, now retired from a fatiguing station) got me to be named Treasurer to the Marine College erecting at Greenwich, with the salary of £200 per annum, of which I have never yet received one penny of the tallies assigned for it, now two years at our Lady-day; my son-in-law, Draper, is my substitute. I have only had this opportunity to place my old (indeed faithful) servant J. Strd. in an employment at Greenwich, which with my other business, not small, among so many beggarly tenants as you know I have at Deptford [is some provision for him]. I have let my house to Captain Benbow, and have the mortification of seeing every day much of my former labours and expense there impairing, for want of a more polite tenant. "My grandson is so delighted in books, that he professes a library is to him the greatest recreation, so I give him free scope here, where I have near upon 22,000 [qu. 2000?] (with my brother's), and whither I would bring the rest had I any room, which I have not, to my great regret; having here so little conversation with the learned, unless it be when Mr. Wotton [Dr. Bentley's friend] comes now and then to visit me, he being tutor to Mr. Finch's son at Albury, but which he is now 17th August, I came to Wotton after three months' absence. September. Very bright weather, but with sharp east wind. My son came from London in his melancholy indisposition. 12th September. Mr. Duncombe, the rector, came and preached after an absence of two years, though only living seven or eight miles off [at Ashted].-Welcome tidings of the Peace. 3rd October. So great were the storms all this week, that near a thousand people were lost going into the Texel. 16th November. The King's entry very pompous; but is nothing approaching that of King Charles II. 2nd December. Thanksgiving-day for the Peace. The King and a great Court at Whitehall. The Bishop of Salisbury,' leaving to go to his living, that without books, and the best wife and brother in the world, I were to be pitied; but, with these subsidiaries, and the revising some of my old impertinences, to which I am adding a Discourse I made on Medals (lying by me long before Obadiah Walker's Treatise appeared), I pass some of my Attic nights, if I may be so vain as to name them, with the author of those Criticisms. For the rest, I am planting an evergreen grove here to an old house ready to drop, the economy and hospitality of which my good old brother will not depart from, but more veterum kept a Christmas, in which we had not fewer than three hundred bumpkins every holy-day. "We have here a very convenient apartment of five rooms together besides a pretty closet, which we have furnished with the spoils of Sayes Court, and is the raree-show of the whole neighbourhood, and in truth we live easy as to all domestic cares. Wednesday and Saturday nights we call Lecture-nights, when my wife and myself take our turns to read the packets of all the news sent constantly from London, which serves us for discourse till fresh news comes; and so you have the history of a very old man and his no young companion, whose society I have enjoyed more to my satisfaction these three years here, than in almost fifty before, but am now every day trussing up to be gone, I hope to a better place. "My daughter, Draper, being brought to bed in the Christmas-holidays of a fine boy, has given an heir to a most deserving husband, a prudent, well-natured gentlemen, a man of bussiness, like to be very rich, and deserving to be so, among the happiest pairs I think in England, and to my daughter's and our hearts' desire. She has also a fin girl, and a mother-in-law exceedingly fond of my daughter, and a most excellent woman, charitable and of a very sweet disposition. They al live together, keep each their coach, and with as suitable an equipage as in town." any Burnet. |
