to the sea-side, to get as many as possible of the men who were recovered on board the fleet.

8th September. I lay at Gravesend, thence to Rochester, returning on the 11th.

15th. Dr. Duport, Greek Professor of Cambridge, preached before the King on 1 Timothy, vi. 6. No great preacher, but a very worthy and learned man.

25th. I dined at Lord John Berkeley's,' newly arrived out of Ireland, where he had been Deputy; it was in his new house, or rather palace; for I am assured it stood him in near £30,000. It is very well built, and has many noble rooms, but they are not very convenient, consisting but of one Corps de Logis; they are all rooms of state, without closets. The staircase is of cedar, the furniture is princely the kitchen and stables are ill-placed, and the corridor worse, having no report to the wings they join to. For the rest, the fore court is noble, so are the stables; and, above all, the gardens, which are incomparable by reason of the inequality of the ground, and a pretty piscina. The holly hedges on the terrace I advised the planting of. The porticos are in imitation of a house described by Palladio; but it happens to be the worst in his book, though my good friend, Mr. Hugh May, his Lordship's architect, effected it.

26th. I carried with me to dinner my Lord H. Howard (now to be made Earl of Norwich and Earl Marshal of England) to Sir Robert Clayton's, now Sheriff of London, at his new house, where we had a great feast; it is built

'Lord Berkeley, of Stratton.

The site was

2 Berkeley-House was burnt to the ground by accident. on a farm called Hay-hill Farm, the names of which are preserved in Hay-street, Hill-street, and Farm-street. Devonshire House, Lansdowne House, Berkeley Square, &c., now occupy portions of the original estate. See p. 5.

3 In the Old Jewry. Sir Robert built it to keep his shrievalty, which he did therein with great magnificence. Afterwards for some years it was the residence of Mr. Samuel Sharp, a famous surgeon in his time, and was then occupied (from 1806 to the close of the year 1811) by the London Institution, for their library and reading-rooms. This Institution, ultimately established by Charter, was finally settled in its present building on the north side of Moorfields, in 1818.--Streeter's paintings have been long placed in the family seat of the Claytons, at Marden, near Godstone, Surrey.

The cedar

indeed for a great magistrate, at excessive cost. dining room is painted with the history of the Giants' War, incomparably done by Mr. Streeter, but the figures are too near the eye.

6th October. Dr. Thistlethwait preached at Whitehall on Rev. v. 2,-a young, but good preacher. I received the blessed Communion, Dr. Blandford, Bishop of Worcester, and Dean of the Chapel, officiating. Dined at my Lord Clifford's, with Lord Mulgrave, Sir Gilbert Talbot, and Sir Robert Holmes.

8th. I took leave of my Lady Sunderland, who was going to Paris to my Lord, now ambassador there. She made me stay dinner at Leicester-House,' and afterwards sent for Richardson, the famous fire-eater. He devoured brimstone on glowing coals before us, chewing and swallowing them; he melted a beer-glass and eat it quite up; then, taking a live coal on his tongue, he put on it a raw oyster, the coal was blown on with bellows till it flamed and sparkled in his mouth, and so remained till the oyster gaped and was quite boiled. Then, he melted pitch and wax with sulphur, which he drank down, as it flamed; I saw it flaming in his mouth, a good while; he also took up a thick piece of iron, such as laundresses use to put in their smoothing boxes, when it was fiery hot, held it between his teeth, then in his hand, and threw it about like a stone; but this I observed, he cared not to hold very long; then, he stood on a small pot; and, bending his body, took a glowing iron with his mouth from between his feet, without touching the pot, or ground, with his hands; with divers other prodigious feats.

13th. After sermon (being summoned before), I went to my Lord Keeper's, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, at Essex House, where our new patent was opened and read, constituting us that were of the Council of Plantations, to be now of the Council of Trade also, both united. After the patent was read, we all took our oaths, and departed.

1 Then a handsome brick building, on the north side of Leicestersquare, which many years later, in 1708, was occupied by the Imperial Ambassador, having been let to him by the Earl of Leicester.

2 Which stood near St. Clement's Church in the Strand, and of which the site is still commemorated in Essex Street, Essex Place, Essex Court, and Devereux Court.

1

24th October. Met in Council, the Earl of Shaftesbury, now our President, swearing our Secretary and his clerks, which was Mr. Locke, an excellent learned gentleman, and student of Christ Church, Mr. Lloyd, and Mr. Frowde. We dispatched a letter to Sir Thomas Linch, Governor of Jamaica, giving him notice of a design of the Dutch on that island.

27th. I went to hear that famous preacher, Dr. Frampton, at St. Giles's, on Psalm xxxix. 6. This divine had been twice at Jerusalem, and was not only a very pious and holy man, but excellent in the pulpit for the moving affections.

8th November. At Council, we debated the business of the consulate of Leghorn. I was of the Committee with Sir Humphry Winch, the chairman, to examine the laws of his Majesty's several plantations and colonies in the West Indies, &c.

15th. Many merchants were summoned about the consulate of Venice; which caused great disputes; the most considerable thought it useless. This being the QueenConsort's birth-day, there was an extraordinary appearance of gallantry, and a ball danced at Court.

30th. I was chosen Secretary to the Royal Society. 21st December. Settled the consulate of Venice.

1672-3. 1st January. After public prayers in the chapel at Whitehall, when I gave God solemn thanks for all his mercies to me the year past, and my humble supplications to him for his blessing the year now entering, I returned home, having my poor deceased servant (Adams) to bury, who died of a pleurisy.

3rd. My son now published his version of "Rapinus Hortorum." 2

28th. Visited Don Francisco de Melos, the Portugal Ambassador, who showed me his curious collection of books

The celebrated John Locke. When Lord Shaftesbury withdrew to Holland, Locke followed him, for which he was deprived of his student's place by an order from the King.

2 "Of Gardens. Four Books. First written in Latin verse, by Renatus Repinus, and now made English. By I. E. London, 1673. Dedicated to Henry, Earle of Arlington, &c. &c. &c." The Dedication is re-printed in Evelyn's "Miscellaneous Writings," pp. 623, 624.

and pictures. He was a person of good parts, and a virtuous man.

6th February. To Council about reforming an abuse of the dyers with saundus, and other false drugs; examined divers of that trade.

23rd. The Bishop of Chichester' preached before the King on Coloss. ii. 14, 15, admirably well, as he can do nothing but what is well.

5th March Our new vicar, Mr. Holden, preached in Whitehall chapel, on Psalm iv. 6, 7. This gentleman is a very excellent and universal scholar, a good and wise man; but he had not the popular way of preaching, nor is in any measure fit for our plain and vulgar auditory, as his predecessor was. There was, however, no comparison betwixt their parts for profound learning. But time and experience may form him to a more practical way than that he is in of University lectures and erudition; which is now universally left off for what is much more profitable.

15th. I heard the speech made to the Lords in their House by Sir Samuel Tuke, in behalf of the Papists, to take off the penal laws; and then dined with Colonel Norwood.

16th. Dr. Pearson, Bishop of Chester, preached on Hebrews ix. 14; a most incomparable sermon from one of the most learned divines of our nation. I dined at my Lord Arlington's with the Duke and Duchess of Monmouth; she is one of the wisest and craftiest of her sex, and has much wit. Here was also the learned Isaac Vossius.3

During Lent, there is constantly the most excellent preaching by the most eminent bishops and divines of the

nation.

1 Dr. Peter Gunning, who held the Mastership of St. John's College, Cambridge, and afterwards the Bishopric of Ely. Burnet says of him that he was a man of great reading, a very honest, sincere man, but of no sound judgment. Hist. of his own Times, i. 297.

2 Well known by his Exposition of the Creed.

3 Born at Leyden, 1618. On coming to England, Charles II. gave him a canonry at Windsor, and the University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws. It was said of him by the King, "He is a strange man for a divine; there is nothing he refuses to be lieve, but the Bible." He died in 1688.

26th March. I was sworn a younger brother of the TrinityHouse, with my most worthy and long acquainted noble friend, Lord Ossory (eldest son to the Duke of Ormond), Sir Richard Browne, my father-in-law, being now Master of that Society; after which there was a great collation.

29th. I carried my son to the Bishop of Chichester, that learned and pious man, Dr. Peter Gunning,' to be instructed by him before he received the Holy Sacrament, when he gave him most excellent advice, which I pray God may influence and remain with him as long as he lives; and Ö that I had been so blessed and instructed, when first I was admitted to that sacred ordinance !

30th. Easter-Day. Myself and son received the blessed Communion, it being his first time, and with that whole week's more extraordinary preparation. I beseech God to make him a sincere good Christian, whilst I endeavour to instil into him the fear and love of God, and discharge the duty of a father.

At the sermon coram Rege, preached by Dr. Sparrow, Bishop of Exeter, to a most crowded auditory; I staid to see whether, according to custom, the Duke of York received the Communion with the King; but he did not, to the amazement of every body. This being the second year he had forborne, and put it off, and within a day of the Parliament sitting, who had lately made so severe an Act against the increase of Popery, gave exceeding grief and scandal to the whole nation, that the heir of it, and the son of a martyr for the Protestant religion, should apostatize. What the consequence of this will be, God only knows, and wise men dread.

11th April. I dined with the plenipotentiaries designed for the treaty of Nimeguen.

17th. I carried Lady Tuke to thank the Countess of Arlington for speaking to his Majesty in her behalf, for being one of the Queen-Consort's women. She carried us

up into her new dressing-room at Goring House, where was a bed, two glasses, silver jars, and vases, cabinets, and other so rich furniture as I had seldom seen; to this excess of superfluity were we now arrived, and that not only at

1 Ante, p. 87.