The Diary of John Evelyn (Volume 1 of 2)
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Title: The Diary of John Evelyn (Volume 1 of 2)
Author: John Evelyn
Commentator: Richard Garnett
Editor: William Bray
Release date: October 29, 2012 [eBook #41218]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIARY OF JOHN EVELYN (VOLUME 1 OF 2) ***
[Illustration: _CHARLES I. IN PRISON_
_Photogravure after De La Roche_]
THE DIARY OF JOHN EVELYN
EDITED FROM THE ORIGINAL MSS BY
WILLIAM BRAY
Fellow of the Antiquarian Society
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I
WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION
BY THE EDITOR
AND A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY
RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.
Of the British Museum
M. WALTER DUNNE, PUBLISHER
WASHINGTON & LONDON
COPYRIGHT, 1901,
BY
M. WALTER DUNNE,
PUBLISHER
ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME I.
CHARLES I. IN PRISON _Frontispiece_
Photogravure after De La Roche.
LORD WILLIAM RUSSELL TAKING LEAVE OF HIS CHILDREN, 1683 180
Photogravure after a painting by Bridges.
OLIVER CROMWELL DICTATING TO JOHN MILTON 284
The letter to the Duke of Savoy to stop the persecution
of the Protestants of Piedmont, 1655.
Photogravure from an engraving by Sartain after Newenham.
VOLUME II.
THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM _Frontispiece_
From an old painting.
NELL GWYNNE 64
Photogravure after Sir Peter Lely.
EVELYN'S DIARY
The two chief diarists of the age of Charles the Second are, _mutatis
mutandis_, not ill characterized by the remark of a wicked wit upon the
brothers Austin. "John Austin," it was said, "served God and died poor:
Charles Austin served the devil, and died rich. Both were clever fellows.
Charles was much the cleverer of the two." Thus John Evelyn and Samuel
Pepys, the former a perfect model of decorum, the latter a grievous
example of indecorum, have respectively left us diaries, of which the
indecorous is to the decorous as a zoölogical garden is to a museum:
while the disparity between the testamentary bequests of the two Austins
but imperfectly represents the reputation standing to Pepys's account
with posterity in comparison with that accruing to his sedate and
dignified contemporary.
Museums, nevertheless, have their uses, and Evelyn's comparatively jejune
record has laid us under no small obligation. But for Pepys's amazing
indiscretion and garrulity, qualities of which one cannot have too little
in life, or too much in the record of it, Evelyn would have been esteemed
the first diarist of his age. Unable for want of these qualifications to
draw any adequate picture of the stirring life around him, he has
executed at least one portrait admirably, his own. The likeness is,
moreover, valuable, as there is every reason to suppose it typical, and
representative of a very important class of society, the well-bred and
well-conducted section of the untitled aristocracy of England. We may
well believe that these men were not only the salt but the substance of
their order. There was an ill-bred section exclusively devoted to
festivity and sport. There was an ill-conducted section, plunged into the
dissipations of court life. But the majority were men like Evelyn: not,
perhaps, equally refined by culture and travel, or equally interested in
literary research and scientific experiment, but well informed and
polite; no strangers to the Court, yet hardly to be called courtiers,
and preferring country to town; loyal to Church and King but not
fanatical or rancorous; as yet but slightly imbued with the principles of
civil and religious liberty, yet adverse to carry the dogma of divine
right further than the right of succession; fortunate in having survived
all ideas of serfdom or vassalage, and in having few private interests
not fairly reconcilable with the general good. Evelyn was made to be the
spokesman of such a class, and, meaning to speak only for himself, he
delivers its mind concerning the Commonwealth and the Restoration, the
conduct of the later Stuart Kings and the Revolution.
Evelyn's Diary practically begins where many think he had no business to
be diarising, beyond the seas. The position of a loyalist who solaces
himself in Italy while his King is fighting for his crown certainly
requires explanation: it may be sufficient apology for Evelyn that
without the family estates he could be of no great service to the King,
and that these, lying near London, were actually in the grasp of the
Parliament. He was also but one of a large family and it was doubtless
convenient that one member should be out of harm's way. His three years'
absence (1643-6) has certainly proved advantageous to posterity. Evelyn
is, indeed, a mere sight-seer, but this renders his tour a precise record
of the objects which the sight-seer of the seventeenth century was
expected to note, and a mirror not only of the taste but of the feeling
of the time. There is no cult of anything, but there is curiosity about
everything; there is no perception of the sentiment of a landscape, but
real enjoyment of the landscape itself; antiquity is not unappreciated,
but modern works impart more real pleasure. Of the philosophical
reflections which afterward rose to the mind of Gibbon there is hardly a
vestige, and of course Evelyn is at an immeasurable distance from Byron
and De Staël. But he gives us exactly what we want, the actual attitude
of a cultivated young Englishman in presence of classic and renaissance
art with its background of Southern nature. We may register without undue
self-complacency a great development of the modern world in the
æsthetical region of the intellect, which implies many other kinds of
progress. It is interesting to compare with Evelyn's narrative the
chapters recording the visit to Italy supposed to have been made at this
very period by John Inglesant, who inevitably sees with the eyes of the
nineteenth century. Evelyn's casual remarks on foreign manners and
institutions display good sense, without extraordinary insight; in
description he is frequently observant and graphic, as in his account of
the galley slaves, and of Venetian female costumes. He naturally regards
Alpine scenery as "melancholy and troublesome."
Returned to England, Evelyn strictly follows the line of the average
English country gentleman, execrating the execution of Charles I.,
disgusted beyond measure with the suppression of the Church of England
service, but submissive to the powers that be until there are evident
indications of a change, which he promotes in anything but a Quixotic
spirit. Although he is sincerely attached to the monarchy, the condition
of the Church is evidently a matter of greater concern to him: Cromwell
would have done much to reconcile the royalists to his government, had it
been possible for him to have restored the liturgy and episcopacy. The
same lesson is to be derived from his demeanor during the reigns of
Charles and James. The exultation with which the Restoration is at first
hailed soon evaporates. The scandals of the Court are an offense,
notwithstanding Evelyn's personal attachment to the King. But the chief
point is not vice or favoritism or mismanagement, but alliances with
Roman Catholic powers against Protestant nations. Evelyn is enraged to
see Charles missing the part so clearly pointed out to him by Providence
as the protector of the Protestant religion all over Europe. The
conversion of the Duke of York is a fearful blow, James's ecclesiastical
policy after his accession adds to Evelyn's discontent day by day, while
political tyranny passes almost without remark. At last the old cavalier
is glad to welcome the Prince of Orange as deliverer, and though he has
no enthusiasm for William in his character as King, he remains his
dutiful subject. Just because Evelyn was by no means an extraordinary
person, he represents the plain straightforward sense of the English
gentry. The questions of the seventeenth century were far more religious
than political. The synthesis "Church and King" expressed the dearest
convictions of the great majority of English country families, but when
the two became incompatible they left no doubt which held the first place
in their hearts. They acted instinctively on the principle of the Persian
lady who preferred her brother to her husband. It was not impossible to
find a new King, but there was no alternative to the English Church.
Evelyn's memoirs thus possess a value far exceeding the modest measure of
worth allowed them by De Quincey: "They are useful as now and then
enabling one to fix the date of a particular event, but for little
besides." The Diary's direct contribution to historical accuracy is
insignificant; it is an index, not to chronological minutiæ, but to the
general progress of moral and political improvement. The editor of 1857
certainly goes too far in asserting that "All that might have been
excluded from the range of his opinions, his feelings and sympathies
embraced"; but it is interesting to observe the gradual widening of
Evelyn's sympathies with good men of all parties, and to find him in his
latter days criticising the evidence produced in support of the Popish
Plot on the one hand, and deploring the just condemnation of Algernon
Sydney on the other. It is true that, so far as the sufferings of his
country are concerned, his attitude is rather that of the Levite than of
the Samaritan; but more lively popular sympathies would have destroyed
the peculiar value attaching to the testimony of the reluctant witness.
We should, for example, have thought little of such a passage as the
following from the pen of Burnet, from Evelyn it is significant indeed:--
_October 14, 1688._--The King's birthday. No guns from the Tower as
usual. The sun eclipsed at its rising. This day signal for the
victory of William the Conqueror against Harold, near Battel in
Sussex. The wind, which had been hitherto west, was east all this
day. Wonderful expectation of the Dutch fleet. Public prayers
ordered to be read in the churches against invasion.
It might be difficult to produce a nearer approximation in secular
literature to Daniel's "_Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin_."
There is little else in the Diary equally striking, though Evelyn's
description of Whitehall on the eve of the death of Charles the Second
ranks among the memorable passages of the language. It is nevertheless
full of interesting anecdotes and curious notices, especially of the
scientific research which, in default of any adequate public
organization, was in that age more efficaciously promoted by students
than by professors. De Quincey censures Evelyn for omitting to record the
conversation of the men with whom he associated, but he does not consider
that the Diary in its present shape is a digest of memoranda made long
previously, and that time failed at one period and memory at the other.
De Quincey, whose extreme acuteness was commonly evinced on the negative
side of a question, saw the weak points of the Diary upon its first
publication much more clearly than his contemporaries did, and was
betrayed into illiberality by resentment at what he thought its
undeserved vogue. Evelyn has in truth been fortunate; his record, which
his contemporaries would have neglected, appeared (1818) just in time to
be a precursor of the Anglican movement, a tendency evinced in a similar
fashion by the vindication, no doubt mistaken, of the Caroline authorship
of the "Icon Basilike." Evelyn was a welcome encounter to men of this
cast of thought, and was hailed as a model of piety, culture, and
urbanity, without sufficient consideration of his deficiencies as a
loyalist and a patriot. It also conduced to his reputation that all his
other writings should have virtually perished except his "Sylva," like
his Diary a landmark in the history of improvement, though in a widely
different department. But for his lack of diplomatic talent, he might be
compared with an eminent and much applauded, but in our times somewhat
decrescent, contemporary, Sir William Temple. Both these eminent persons
would have aroused a warmer feeling in posterity, and have effected more
for its instruction and entertainment, if they could occasionally have
dashed their dignity with an infusion of the grotesqueness, we will not
say of Pepys, but of Roger North. To them, however, their dignity was
their character, and although we could have wished them a larger measure
of geniality, we must feel indebted to them for their preservation of a
refined social type.
[Illustration: Richard Garnett (signature)]
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
Evelyn lived in the busy and important times of King Charles I., Oliver
Cromwell, King Charles II., King James II., and King William, and early
accustomed himself to note such things as occurred, which he thought
worthy of remembrance. He was known to, and had much personal intercourse
with, the Kings Charles II. and James II.; and he was in habits of great
intimacy with many of the ministers of these two monarchs, and with many
of the eminent men of those days, as well among the clergy as the laity.
Foreigners distinguished for learning, or arts, who came to England, did
not leave it without visiting him.
The following pages contribute extensive and important particulars of
this eminent man. They show that he did not travel merely to count
steeples, as he expresses himself in one of his Letters: they develop his
private character as one of the most amiable kind. With a strong
predilection for monarchy, with a personal attachment to Kings Charles
II. and James II., formed when they resided at Paris, he was yet utterly
averse to the arbitrary measures of these monarchs.
Strongly and steadily attached to the doctrine and practice of the Church
of England, he yet felt the most liberal sentiments for those who
differed from him in opinion. He lived in intimacy with men of all
persuasions; nor did he think it necessary to break connection with
anyone who had ever been induced to desert the Church of England, and
embrace the doctrines of that of Rome. In writing to the brother of a
gentleman thus circumstanced, in 1659, he expresses himself in this
admirable manner: "For the rest, we must commit to Providence the success
of times and mitigation of proselytical fervors; having for my own
particular a very great charity for all who sincerely adore the Blessed
Jesus, our common and dear Saviour, as being full of hope that God
(however the present zeal of some, and the scandals taken by others at
the instant [present] affliction of the Church of England may transport
them) will at last compassionate our infirmities, clarify our judgments,
and make abatement for our ignorances, superstructures, passions, and
errors of corrupt times and interests, of which the Romish persuasion can
no way acquit herself, whatever the present prosperity and secular polity
may pretend. But God will make all things manifest in his own time, only
let us possess ourselves in patience and charity. This will cover a
multitude of imperfections."
He speaks with great moderation of the Roman Catholics in general,
admitting that some of the laws enacted against them might be mitigated;
but of the Jesuits he had the very worst opinion, considering them as a
most dangerous Society, and the principal authors of the misfortunes
which befell King James II., and of the horrible persecutions of the
Protestants in France and Savoy.
He must have conducted himself with uncommon prudence and address, for he
had personal friends in the Court of Cromwell, at the same time that he
was corresponding with his father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne, the
Ambassador of King Charles II. at Paris; and at the same period that he
paid his court to the King, he maintained his intimacy with a disgraced
minister.
In his travels, he made acquaintance not only with men eminent for
learning, but with men ingenious in every art and profession.
His manners we may presume to have been most agreeable; for his company
was sought by the greatest men, not merely by inviting him to their own
tables, but by their repeated visits to him at his own house; and this
was equally the case with regard to ladies, of many of whom he speaks in
the highest style of admiration, affection, and respect. He was master of
the French, Italian, and Spanish languages. That he had read a great deal
is manifest; but at what time he found opportunities for study, it is not
easy to say. He acknowledges himself to have been idle, while at Oxford;
and, when on his travels, he had little time for reading, except when he
stayed about nineteen weeks in France, and at Padua, where he was
likewise stationary for several months. At Rome, he remained a
considerable time, but, while there, he was so continually engaged in
viewing the great variety of interesting objects to be seen in that city,
that he could have found little leisure for reading. When resident in
England, he was so much occupied in the business of his numerous offices,
in paying visits, in receiving company at home, and in examining whatever
was deemed worthy of curiosity, or of scientific observation, that it is
astonishing how he found the opportunity to compose the numerous books
which he published, and the much greater number of Papers, on almost
every subject, which still remain in manuscript; to say nothing of the
very extensive and voluminous correspondence which he appears to have
carried on during his long life, with men of the greatest eminence in
Church and State, and the most distinguished for learning, both
Englishmen and foreigners. In this correspondence he does not seem to
have made use of an amanuensis; and he has left transcripts in his own
hand of great numbers of letters both received and sent. He observes,
indeed, in one of these, that he seldom went to bed before twelve, or
closed his eyes before one o'clock.
He was happy in a wife of congenial dispositions with his own, of an
enlightened mind, who had read much, and was skilled in etching and
painting, yet attentive to the domestic concerns of her household, and a
most affectionate mother.
His grandfather, George, was not the first of the family who settled in
Surrey. John, father of this George, was of Kingston, in 1520, and
married a daughter of David Vincent, Esq., Lord of the Manor of Long
Ditton, near Kingston, which afterward came in the hands of George, who
there carried on the manufacture of gunpowder. He purchased very
considerable estates in Surrey, and three of his sons became heads of
three families, viz, Thomas, his eldest son, at Long Ditton; John, at
Godstone, and Richard at Wotton. Each of these three families had the
title of Baronet conferred on them at different times, viz, at Godstone,
in 1660; Long Ditton, in 1683; and Wotton, in 1713.
The manufacture of gunpowder was carried on at Godstone as well as at
Long Ditton; but it does not appear that there ever was any mill at
Wotton, or that the purchase of that place was made with such a view.
It may be not altogether incurious to observe, that though Mr. Evelyn's
father was a man of very considerable fortune, the first rudiments of
this son's learning were acquired from the village schoolmaster over the
porch of Wotton Church. Of his progress at another school, and at
college, he himself speaks with great humility; nor did he add much to
his stock of knowledge, while he resided in the Middle Temple, to which
his father sent him, with the intention that he should apply to what he
calls "an impolished study," which he says he never liked.
The "Biographia" does not notice his tour in France, Flanders, and
Holland, in 1641, when he made a short campaign as a volunteer in an
English regiment then in service in Flanders.[1] Nor does it notice his
having set out, with intent to join King Charles I. at Brentford; and
subsequently desisting when the result of that battle became known, on
the ground that his brother's as well as his own estates were so near
London as to be fully in power of the Parliament, and that their
continued adherence would have been certain ruin to themselves without
any advantage to his Majesty. In this dangerous conjuncture he asked and
obtained the King's leave to travel. Of these travels, and the
observations he made therein, an ample account is given in this Diary.
[Footnote 1: This expression is, perhaps, hardly applicable to the
fact of Evelyn's having witnessed a siege merely as a curious
spectator. He reached the camp on the 2d, and left it on the 8th of
August, 1641. It is certain, however, that during these six days he
took his turn on duty, and trailed a pike.--See Diary.]
The national troubles coming on before he had engaged in any settled plan
for his future life, it appears that he had thoughts of living in the
most private manner, and that, with his brother's permission, he had even
begun to prepare a place for retirement at Wotton. Nor did he afterward
wholly abandon his intention, if the plan of a college, which he sent to
Mr. Boyle in 1659, was really formed on a serious idea. This scheme is
given at length in the "Biographia," and in Dr. Hunter's edition of the
"Sylva" in 1776; but it may be observed that he proposes it should not be
more than twenty-five miles from London.
As to his answer to Sir George Mackenzie's panegyric on Solitude, in
which Mr. Evelyn takes the opposite part and urges the preference to
which public employment and an active life is entitled,--it may be
considered as the playful essay of one who, for the sake of argument,
would controvert another's position, though in reality agreeing with his
own opinion; if we think him serious in two letters to Mr. Abraham
Cowley, dated 12th March and 24th August, 1666, in the former of which he
writes: "You had reason to be astonished at the presumption, not to name
it affront, that I, who have so highly celebrated recess, and envied it
in others, should become an advocate for the enemy, which of all others
it abhors and flies from. I conjure you to believe that I am still of the
same mind, and that there is no person alive who does more honor and
breathe after the life and repose you so happily cultivate and advance by
your example; but, as those who praised dirt, a flea, and the gout, so
have I public employment in that trifling Essay, and that in so weak a
style compared with my antagonist's, as by that alone it will appear I
neither was nor could be serious, and I hope you believe I speak my very
soul to you.
'_Sunt enim Musis sua ludicra mista Camoenis
Otia sunt----_'"
In the other, he says, "I pronounce it to you from my heart as oft as I
consider it, that I look on your fruitions with inexpressible emulation,
and should think myself more happy than crowned heads, were I, as you,
the arbiter of mine own life, and could break from those gilded toys to
taste your well-described joys with such a wife and such a friend, whose
conversation exceeds all that the mistaken world calls happiness." But,
in truth, Mr. Evelyn's mind was too active to admit of solitude at all
times, however desirable it might appear to him in theory.
After he had settled at Deptford, which was in the time of Cromwell, he
kept up a constant correspondence with Sir Richard Browne (his
father-in-law), the King's Ambassador at Paris; and though his connection
must have been known, it does not appear that he met with any
interruption from the government here. Indeed, though he remained a
decided Royalist, he managed so well as to have intimate friends even
among those nearly connected with Cromwell; and to this we may attribute
his being able to avoid taking the Covenant, which he says he never did
take. In 1659, he published "An Apology for the Royal Party"; and soon
after printed a paper which was of great service to the King, entitled
"The Late News, or Message from Brussels Unmasked," which was an answer
to a pamphlet designed to represent the King in the worst light.
On the Restoration, we find him very frequently at Court; and he became
engaged in many public employments, still attending to his studies and
literary pursuits. Among these, is particularly to be mentioned the Royal
Society, in the establishment and conduct of which he took a very active
part. He procured Mr. Howard's library to be given to them; and by his
influence, in 1667, the Arundelian Marbles were obtained for the
University of Oxford.
His first appointment to a public office was in 1662, as a Commissioner
for reforming the buildings, ways, streets, and incumbrances, and
regulating hackney coaches in London. In the same year he sat as a
Commissioner on an inquiry into the conduct of the Lord Mayor, etc.,
concerning Sir Thomas Gresham's charities. In 1664 he was in a commission
for regulating the Mint; in the same year was appointed one of the
Commissioners for the care of the Sick and Wounded in the Dutch war; and
he was continued in the same employment in the second war with that
country.
He was one of the Commissioners for the repair of St. Paul's Cathedral,
shortly before it was burned in 1666. In that year he was also in a
commission for regulating the farming and making saltpetre; and in 1671
we find him a Commissioner of Plantations on the establishment of the
board, to which the Council of Trade was added in 1672.
In 1685 he was one of the Commissioners of the Privy Seal, during the
absence of the Earl of Clarendon (who held that office), on his going
Lord Lieutenant to Ireland. On the foundation of Greenwich Hospital, in
1695, he was one of the Commissioners; and, on the 30th of June, 1696,
laid the first stone of that building. He was also appointed Treasurer,
with a salary of £200 a year; but he says that it was a long time before
he received any part of it.
When the Czar of Muscovy came to England, in 1698, proposing to instruct
himself in the art of shipbuilding, he was desirous of having the use of
Sayes Court, in consequence of its vicinity to the King's dockyard at
Deptford. This was conceded; but during his stay he did so much damage
that Mr. Evelyn had an allowance of £150 for it. He especially regrets
the mischief done to his famous holly hedge, which might have been
thought beyond the reach of damage. But one of Czar Peter's favorite
recreations had been to demolish the hedges by riding through them in a
wheelbarrow.
October, 1699, his elder brother, George Evelyn, dying without male
issue, aged eighty-three, he succeeded to the paternal estate; and in May
following, he quitted Sayes Court and went to Wotton, where he passed the
remainder of his life, with the exception of occasional visits to London,
where he retained a house. In the great storm of 1703, he mentions in his
last edition of the "Sylva," above one thousand trees were blown down in
sight of his residence.
He died at his house in London, 27th February, 1705-6, in the
eighty-sixth year of his age, and was buried at Wotton. His lady survived
him nearly three years, dying 9th February, 1708-9, in her seventy-fourth
year, and was buried near him at Wotton.
Of Evelyn's children, a son, who died at the age of five, and a daughter,
who died at the age of nineteen, were almost prodigies. The particulars
of their extraordinary endowments, and the profound manner in which he
was affected at their deaths, may be seen in these volumes.
One daughter was well and happily settled; another less so; but she did
not survive her marriage more than a few months. The only son who lived
to the age of manhood, inherited his father's love of learning, and
distinguished himself by several publications.
Mr. Evelyn's employment as a Commissioner for the care of the Sick and
Wounded was very laborious; and, from the nature of it, must have been
extremely unpleasant. Almost the whole labor was in his department, which
included all the ports between the river Thames and Portsmouth; and he
had to travel in all seasons and weathers, by land and by water, in the
execution of his office, to which he gave the strictest attention. It
was rendered still more disagreeable by the great difficulty which he
found in procuring money for support of the prisoners. In the library at
Wotton, are copies of numerous letters to the Lord Treasurer and Officers
of State, representing, in the strongest terms, the great distress of the
poor men, and of those who had furnished lodging and necessaries for
them. At one time, there were such arrears of payment to the victuallers,
that, on landing additional sick and wounded, they lay some time in the
streets, the publicans refusing to receive them, and shutting up their
houses. After all this trouble and fatigue, he found as great difficulty
in getting his accounts settled.[2] In January, 1665-6, he formed a plan
for an Infirmary at Chatham, which he sent to Mr. Pepys, to be laid
before the Admiralty, with his reasons for recommending it; but it does
not appear that it was carried into execution.
[Footnote 2: 2d October, 1665, he writes to the Lord Chancellor,
Lord Arlington, Sir William Coventry, and Sir Philip Warwick,
complaining of want of money for the prisoners: praying that while
he and his brother Commissioners adventure their persons and all
that is dear to them, in this uncomfortable service, they may not be
exposed to ruin, and to a necessity of abandoning their care; and
adding that they have lost their officers and servants by the
pestilence, and are hourly environed with the saddest objects of
perishing people. "I have," says he, "fifteen places full of sick
men, where they put me to unspeakable trouble; the magistrates and
justices, who should further us in our exigencies, hindering the
people from giving us quarters, jealous of the contagion, and
causing them to shut the doors at our approach."]
His employments, in connection with the repair of St. Paul's (which,
however, occupied him but a brief time), as in the Commission of Trade
and Plantations, and in the building of Greenwich Hospital, were much
better adapted to his inclinations and pursuits.
As a Commissioner of the Privy Seal in the reign of King James II., he
had a difficult task to perform. He was most steadily attached to the
Church of England, and the King required the Seal to be affixed to many
things incompatible with the welfare of that Church. This, on some
occasions, he refused to do, particularly to a license to Dr. Obadiah
Walker to print Popish books;[3] and on other occasions he absented
himself, leaving it to his brother Commissioners to act as they thought
fit. Such, however, was the King's estimation of him, that no displeasure
was evinced on this account.
[Footnote 3: Dr. Walker had been a member of the Church of England,
but had renounced it, and turned Papist.]
Of Evelyn's attempt to bring Colonel Morley (Cromwell's Lieutenant of the
Tower, immediately preceding the Restoration) over to the King's
interest, an imperfect account is given in the "Biographia." The fact is,
that there was great friendship between these gentlemen, and Evelyn did
endeavor to engage the Colonel in the King's interest. He saw him several
times, and put his life into his hands by writing to him on 12th January,
1659-60; he did not succeed, and Colonel Morley was too much his friend
to betray him; but so far from the Colonel having settled matters
privately with Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, or General Monk, as there
described, he was obliged, when the Restoration took place, actually to
apply to Evelyn to procure his pardon; who obtained it accordingly,
though, as he states, the Colonel was obliged to pay a large sum of money
for it. This could not have happened, if there had been any previous
negotiation with General Monk.
Dr. Campbell took some pains to vindicate Mr. Evelyn's book, entitled,
"Navigation and Commerce, their Origin and Progress," from the charge of
being an imperfect work, unequal to the expectation excited by the title.
But the Doctor, who had not the information which this Journal so amply
affords on this subject, was not aware that what was so printed was
nothing more than an Introduction to the History of the Dutch War; a work
undertaken by Evelyn at the express command of King Charles II., and the
materials for which were furnished by the Officers of State. The
completion of this work, after considerable progress had been made in it,
was put a stop to by the King himself, for what reason does not appear;
but perhaps it was found that Evelyn was inclined to tell too much of the
truth concerning a transaction, which it will be seen by his Journal that
he utterly reprobated. His copy of the History, as far as he had
proceeded, he put into the hands of his friend, Mr. Pepys, of the
Admiralty, who did not return it; but the books and manuscripts belonging
to Mr. Pepys passed into the possession of Magdalen College, Cambridge.
From the numerous authors who have spoken in high terms of Mr. Evelyn, we
will select the two following notices of him.
In the "Biographia Britannica" Dr. Campbell says, "It is certain that
very few authors who have written in our language deserve the character
of able and agreeable writers so well as Mr. Evelyn, who, though he was
acquainted with most sciences, and wrote upon many different subjects,
yet was very far, indeed the farthest of most men of his time, from being
a superficial writer. He had genius, he had taste, he had learning; and
he knew how to give all these a proper place in his works, so as never to
pass for a pedant, even with such as were least in love with literature,
and to be justly esteemed a polite author by those who knew it best."
Horace Walpole (afterward Earl of Orford), in his Catalogue of Engravers,
gives us the following admirably drawn character: "If Mr. Evelyn had not
been an artist himself, as I think I can prove he was, I should yet have
found it difficult to deny myself the pleasure of allotting him a place
among the arts he loved, promoted, patronized; and it would be but
justice to inscribe his name with due panegyric in these records, as I
have once or twice taken the liberty to criticise him. But they are
trifling blemishes compared with his amiable virtues and beneficence; and
it may be remarked that the worst I have said of him is, that he knew
more than he always communicated. It is no unwelcome satire to say, that
a man's intelligence and philosophy is inexhaustible. I mean not to write
his biography, but I must observe, that his life, which was extended to
eighty-six years, was a course of inquiry, study, curiosity, instruction,
and benevolence. The works of the Creator, and the minute labors of the
creature, were all objects of his pursuit. He unfolded the perfection of
the one, and assisted the imperfection of the other. He adored from
examination; was a courtier that flattered only by informing his Prince,
and by pointing out what was worthy of him to countenance; and really was
the neighbor of the Gospel, for there was no man that might not have been
the better for him. Whoever peruses a list of his works will subscribe to
my assertion. He was one of the first promoters of the Royal Society; a
patron of the ingenious and the indigent; and peculiarly serviceable to
the lettered world; for, besides his writings and discoveries, he
obtained the Arundelian Marbles for the University of Oxford, and the
Arundelian Library for the Royal Society. Nor is it the least part of his
praise, that he who proposed to Mr. Boyle the erection of a Philosophical
College for retired and speculative persons, had the honesty to write in
defense of active life against Sir George Mackenzie's 'Essay on
Solitude.' He knew that retirement, in his own hands, was industry and
benefit to mankind; but in those of others, laziness and inutility."
Evelyn was buried in the Dormitory adjoining Wotton Church.
On a white marble, covering a tomb shaped like a coffin, raised about
three feet above the floor, is inscribed:
Here lies the Body
of JOHN EVELYN, Esq.,
of this place, second son
of Richard Evelyn, Esq.;
who having serv'd the Publick
in several employments, of which that
of Commissioner of the Privy-Seal in the
Reign of King James the 2d was most
honourable, and perpetuated his fame
by far more lasting monuments than
those of Stone or Brass, his learned
and usefull Works, fell asleep the 27 day
of February 1705-6, being the 86 year
of his age, in full hope of a glorious
Resurrection, thro' Faith in Jesus Christ.
Living in an age of extraordinary
Events and Revolutions, he learnt
(as himself asserted) this Truth,
which pursuant to his intention
is here declared--
_That all is vanity which is not honest,
and that there is no solid wisdom
but in real Piety._
Of five Sons and three Daughters
born to him from his most
vertuous and excellent Wife,
Mary, sole daughter and heiress
of Sir Rich. Browne of Sayes
Court near Deptford in Kent,
onely one daughter, Susanna,
married to William Draper
Esq., of Adscomb in this
County, survived him; the
two others dying in the
flower of their age, and
all the Sons very young, except
one named John, who
deceased 24 March, 1698-9,
in the 45 year of his age,
leaving one son, John, and
one daughter, Elizabeth.
VOLUME I.
1620-1664
VOLUME II.
1665-1706
DIARY OF JOHN EVELYN.
I was born at Wotton, in the County of Surrey, about twenty minutes past
two in the morning, being on Tuesday the 31st and last of October, 1620,
after my father had been married about seven years,[4] and that my mother
had borne him three children; viz, two daughters and one son, about the
33d year of his age, and the 23d of my mother's.
[Footnote 4: He was married at St. Thomas's, Southwark, 27th
January, 1613. My sister Eliza was born at nine at night, 28th
November, 1614; Jane at four in the morning, 16th February, 1616; my
brother George at nine at night, Wednesday, 18th June, 1617; and my
brother Richard, 9th November, 1622.--_Note by Evelyn._]
[Sidenote: WOTTON]
My father, named Richard, was of a sanguine complexion, mixed with a dash
of choler: his hair inclining to light, which, though exceedingly thick,
became hoary by the time he had attained to thirty years of age; it was
somewhat curled toward the extremities; his beard, which he wore a little
peaked, as the mode was, of a brownish color, and so continued to the
last, save that it was somewhat mingled with gray hairs about his cheeks,
which, with his countenance, were clear and fresh-colored; his eyes
extraordinary quick and piercing; an ample forehead,--in sum, a very
well-composed visage and manly aspect: for the rest, he was but low of
stature, yet very strong. He was, for his life, so exact and temperate,
that I have heard he had never been surprised by excess, being ascetic
and sparing. His wisdom was great, and his judgment most acute; of solid
discourse, affable, humble, and in nothing affected; of a thriving, neat,
silent, and methodical genius, discreetly severe, yet liberal upon all
just occasions, both to his children, to strangers, and servants; a lover
of hospitality; and, in brief, of a singular and Christian moderation in
all his actions; not illiterate, nor obscure, as, having continued
Justice of the Peace and of the Quorum, he served his country as High
Sheriff, being, as I take it, the last dignified with that office for
Sussex and Surrey together, the same year, before their separation. He
was yet a studious decliner of honors and titles; being already in that
esteem with his country, that they could have added little to him besides
their burden. He was a person of that rare conversation that, upon
frequent recollection, and calling to mind passages of his life and
discourse, I could never charge him with the least passion, or
inadvertency. His estate was esteemed about £4000 per annum, well wooded,
and full of timber.
My mother's name was Eleanor, sole daughter and heiress of John
Standsfield, Esq., of an ancient and honorable family (though now
extinct) in Shropshire, by his wife Eleanor Comber, of a good and
well-known house in Sussex. She was of proper personage; of a brown
complexion; her eyes and hair of a lovely black; of constitution more
inclined to a religious melancholy, or pious sadness; of a rare memory,
and most exemplary life; for economy and prudence, esteemed one of the
most conspicuous in her country: which rendered her loss much deplored,
both by those who knew, and such as only heard of her.
Thus much, in brief, touching my parents; nor was it reasonable I should
speak less of them to whom I owe so much.
The place of my birth was Wotton, in the parish of Wotton, or Blackheath,
in the county of Surrey, the then mansion-house of my father, left him by
my grandfather, afterward and now my eldest brother's. It is situated in
the most southern part of the shire; and, though in a valley, yet really
upon part of Leith Hill, one of the most eminent in England for the
prodigious prospect to be seen from its summit, though by few observed.
From it may be discerned twelve or thirteen counties, with part of the
sea on the coast of Sussex, in a serene day. The house is large and
ancient, suitable to those hospitable times, and so sweetly environed
with those delicious streams and venerable woods, as in the judgment of
strangers as well as Englishmen it may be compared to one of the most
pleasant seats in the nation, and most tempting for a great person and a
wanton purse to render it conspicuous. It has rising grounds, meadows,
woods, and water, in abundance.
The distance from London little more than twenty miles, and yet so
securely placed, as if it were one hundred; three miles from Dorking,
which serves it abundantly with provision as well of land as sea; six
from Guildford, twelve from Kingston. I will say nothing of the air,
because the pre-eminence is universally given to Surrey, the soil being
dry and sandy; but I should speak much of the gardens, fountains, and
groves that adorn it, were they not as generally known to be among the
most natural, and (till this later and universal luxury of the whole
nation, since abounding in such expenses) the most magnificent that
England afforded; and which indeed gave one of the first examples to that
elegancy, since so much in vogue, and followed in the managing of their
waters, and other elegancies of that nature. Let me add, the contiguity
of five or six manors, the patronage of the livings about it, and what
Themistocles pronounced for none of the least advantages--the good
neighborhood. All which conspire here to render it an honorable and
handsome royalty, fit for the present possessor, my worthy brother, and
his noble lady, whose constant liberality gives them title both to the
place and the affections of all that know them. Thus, with the poet:
_Nescio quâ natale solum dulcedine cunctos
Ducit, et immemores non sinit esse sui._
I had given me the name of my grandfather, my mother's father, who,
together with a sister of Sir Thomas Evelyn, of Long Ditton, and Mr.
Comber, a near relation of my mother, were my susceptors. The solemnity
(yet upon what accident I know not, unless some indisposition in me) was
performed in the dining-room by Parson Higham, the present incumbent of
the parish, according to the forms prescribed by the then glorious Church
of England.
I was now (in regard to my mother's weakness, or rather custom of persons
of quality) put to nurse to one Peter, a neighbor's wife and tenant, of a
good, comely, brown, wholesome complexion, and in a most sweet place
toward the hills, flanked with wood and refreshed with streams; the
affection to which kind of solitude I sucked in with my very milk. It
appears, by a note of my father's, that I sucked till 17th of January,
1622, or at least I came not home before.[5]
[Footnote 5: The whole of this passage, so characteristic of the
writer's tastes and genius, and both the paragraphs before and after
it, are printed for the first time in this edition. Portions of the
preceding description of Wotton are also first taken from the
original; and it may not be out of place to add that, more
especially in the first fifty pages of this volume, a very large
number of curious and interesting additions are made to Evelyn's
text from the Manuscript of the Diary at Wotton.]
1623. The very first thing that I can call to memory, and from which time
forward I began to observe, was this year (1623) my youngest brother,
being in his nurse's arms, who, being then two days and nine months
younger than myself, was the last child of my dear parents.
1624. I was not initiated into any rudiments until near four years of
age, and then one Frier taught us at the church-porch of Wotton; and I do
perfectly remember the great talk and stir about Il Conde Gondomar, now
Ambassador from Spain (for near about this time was the match of our
Prince with the Infanta proposed); and the effects of that comet, 1618,
still working in the prodigious revolutions now beginning in Europe,
especially in Germany, whose sad commotions sprang from the Bohemians'
defection from the Emperor Matthias; upon which quarrel the Swedes broke
in, giving umbrage to the rest of the princes, and the whole Christian
world cause to deplore it, as never since enjoying perfect tranquillity.
1625. I was this year (being the first of the reign of King Charles) sent
by my father to Lewes, in Sussex, to be with my grandfather, Standsfield,
with whom I passed my childhood. This was the year in which the
pestilence was so epidemical, that there died in London 5,000 a week, and
I well remember the strict watches and examinations upon the ways as we
passed; and I was shortly after so dangerously sick of a fever that (as I
have heard) the physicians despaired of me.
1626. My picture was drawn in oil by one Chanterell, no ill painter.
1627. My grandfather, Standsfield, died this year, on the 5th of
February: I remember perfectly the solemnity at his funeral. He was
buried in the parish church of All Souls, where my grandmother, his
second wife, erected him a pious monument. About this time, was the
consecration of the Church of South Malling, near Lewes, by Dr. Field,
Bishop of Oxford (one Mr. Coxhall preached, who was afterward minister);
the building whereof was chiefly procured by my grandfather, who having
the impropriation, gave £20 a year out of it to this church. I afterward
sold the impropriation. I laid one of the first stones at the building of
the church.
1628-30. It was not till the year 1628, that I was put to learn my Latin
rudiments, and to write, of one Citolin, a Frenchman, in Lewes. I very
well remember that general muster previous to the Isle of Rhè's
expedition, and that I was one day awakened in the morning with the news
of the Duke of Buckingham being slain by that wretch, Felton, after our
disgrace before La Rochelle. And I now took so extraordinary a fancy to
drawing and designing, that I could never after wean my inclinations from
it, to the expense of much precious time, which might have been more
advantageously employed. I was now put to school to one Mr. Potts, in the
Cliff at Lewes, from whom, on the 7th of January, 1630, being the day
after Epiphany, I went to the free-school at Southover, near the town, of
which one Agnes Morley had been the foundress, and now Edward Snatt was
the master, under whom I remained till I was sent to the University.[6]
This year, my grandmother (with whom I sojourned) being married to one
Mr. Newton, a learned and most religious gentleman, we went from the
Cliff to dwell at his house in Southover. I do most perfectly remember
the jubilee which was universally expressed for the happy birth of the
Prince of Wales, 29th of May, now Charles II., our most gracious
Sovereign.
[Footnote 6: Long afterward, Evelyn was in the habit of paying great
respect to his old teacher.]
1631. There happened now an extraordinary dearth in England, corn bearing
an excessive price; and, in imitation of what I had seen my father do, I
began to observe matters more punctually, which I did use to set down in
a blank almanac. The Lord of Castlehaven's arraignment for many shameful
exorbitances was now all the talk, and the birth of the Princess Mary,
afterward Princess of Orange.
21st October, 1632. My eldest sister was married to Edward Darcy, Esq.,
who little deserved so excellent a person, a woman of so rare virtue. I
was not present at the nuptials; but I was soon afterward sent for into
Surrey, and my father would willingly have weaned me from my fondness of
my too indulgent grandmother, intending to have placed me at Eton; but,
not being so provident for my own benefit, and unreasonably terrified
with the report of the severe discipline there, I was sent back to Lewes;
which perverseness of mine I have since a thousand times deplored. This
was the first time that ever my parents had seen all their children
together in prosperity. While I was now trifling at home, I saw London,
where I lay one night only. The next day, I dined at Beddington, where I
was much delighted with the gardens and curiosities. Thence, we returned
to the Lady Darcy's, at Sutton; thence to Wotton; and, on the 16th of
August following, 1633, back to Lewes.
3d November, 1633. This year my father was appointed Sheriff, the last,
as I think, who served in that honorable office for Surrey and Sussex,
before they were disjoined. He had 116 servants in liveries, every one
liveried in green satin doublets; divers gentlemen and persons of quality
waited on him in the same garb and habit, which at that time (when thirty
or forty was the usual retinue of the High Sheriff) was esteemed a great
matter. Nor was this out of the least vanity that my father exceeded (who
was one of the greatest decliners of it); but because he could not refuse
the civility of his friends and relations, who voluntarily came
themselves, or sent in their servants. But my father was afterward most
unjustly and spitefully molested by that jeering judge, Richardson, for
reprieving the execution of a woman, to gratify my Lord of Lindsey, then
Admiral: but out of this he emerged with as much honor as trouble. The
king made this year his progress into Scotland, and Duke James was born.
15th December, 1634: My dear sister, Darcy, departed this life, being
arrived to her 20th year of age; in virtue advanced beyond her years, or
the merit of her husband, the worst of men. She had been brought to bed
the 2d of June before, but the infant died soon after her, the 24th of
December. I was therefore sent for home the second time, to celebrate the
obsequies of my sister; who was interred in a very honorable manner in
our dormitory joining to the parish church, where now her monument
stands.
1635. But my dear mother being now dangerously sick, I was, on the 3d of
September following, sent for to Wotton. Whom I found so far spent, that,
all human assistance failing, she in a most heavenly manner departed this
life upon the 29th of the same month, about eight in the evening of
Michaelmas-day. It was a malignant fever which took her away, about the
37th of her age, and 22d of her marriage, to our irreparable loss and the
regret of all that knew her. Certain it is, that the visible cause of her
indisposition proceeded from grief upon the loss of her daughter, and the
infant that followed it; and it is as certain, that when she perceived
the peril whereto its excess had engaged her, she strove to compose
herself and allay it; but it was too late, and she was forced to succumb.
Therefore summoning all her children then living (I shall never forget
it), she expressed herself in a manner so heavenly, with instructions so
pious and Christian, as made us strangely sensible of the extraordinary
loss then imminent; after which, embracing every one of us she gave to
each a ring with her blessing and dismissed us. Then, taking my father by
the hand, she recommended us to his care; and, because she was extremely
zealous for the education of my younger brother, she requested my father
that he might be sent with me to Lewes; and so having importuned him that
what he designed to bestow on her funeral, he would rather dispose among
the poor, she labored to compose herself for the blessed change which she
now expected. There was not a servant in the house whom she did not
expressly send for, advise, and infinitely affect with her counsel. Thus
she continued to employ her intervals, either instructing her relations,
or preparing of herself.
Though her physicians, Dr. Meverell, Dr. Clement, and Dr. Rand, had given
over all hopes of her recovery, and Sir Sanders Duncombe had tried his
celebrated and famous powder, yet she was many days impairing, and
endured the sharpest conflicts of her sickness with admirable patience
and most Christian resignation, retaining both her intellectuals and
ardent affections for her dissolution, to the very article of her
departure. When near her dissolution, she laid her hand on every one of
her children; and taking solemn leave of my father, with elevated heart
and eyes, she quietly expired, and resigned her soul to God. Thus ended
that prudent and pious woman, in the flower of her age, to the
inconsolable affliction of her husband, irreparable loss of her children,
and universal regret of all that knew her. She was interred, as near as
might be, to her daughter Darcy, the 3d of October, at night, but with no
mean ceremony.
It was the 3d of the ensuing November, after my brother George was gone
back to Oxford, ere I returned to Lewes, when I made way, according to
instructions received of my father, for my brother Richard, who was sent
the 12th after.
1636. This year being extremely dry, the pestilence much increased in
London, and divers parts of England.
13th February, 1637: I was especially admitted (and, as I remember, my
other brother) into the Middle Temple, London, though absent, and as yet
at school. There were now large contributions to the distressed
Palatinates.
The 10th of December my father sent a servant to bring us necessaries,
and the plague beginning now to cease, on the 3d of April, 1637, I left
school, where, till about the last year, I have been extremely remiss in
my studies; so as I went to the University rather out of shame of abiding
longer at school, than for any fitness, as by sad experience I found:
which put me to re-learn all that I had neglected, or but perfunctorily
gained.
[Sidenote: OXFORD]
10th May, 1637. I was admitted a Fellow-commoner of Baliol College,
Oxford; and, on the 29th, I was matriculated in the vestry of St. Mary's,
where I subscribed the Articles, and took the oaths: Dr. Baily, head of
St. John's, being vice-chancellor, afterward bishop. It appears by a
letter of my father's, that he was upon treaty with one Mr. Bathurst
(afterward Doctor and President), of Trinity College, who should have
been my tutor; but, lest my brother's tutor, Dr. Hobbs, more zealous in
his life than industrious to his pupils, should receive it as an affront,
and especially for that Fellow-commoners in Baliol were no more exempt
from exercise than the meanest scholars there, my father sent me thither
to one Mr. George Bradshaw (_nomen invisum!_ yet the son of an excellent
father, beneficed in Surrey). I ever thought my tutor had parts enough;
but as his ambition made him much suspected of the College, so his grudge
to Dr. Lawrence, the governor of it (whom he afterward supplanted), took
up so much of his time, that he seldom or never had the opportunity to
discharge his duty to his scholars. This I perceiving, associated myself
with one Mr. James Thicknesse (then a young man of the foundation,
afterward a Fellow of the house), by whose learned and friendly
conversation I received great advantage. At my first arrival, Dr.
Parkhurst was master: and after his decease, Dr. Lawrence, a chaplain of
his Majesty's and Margaret Professor, succeeded, an acute and learned
person; nor do I much reproach his severity, considering that the
extraordinary remissness of discipline had (till his coming) much
detracted from the reputation of that College.
There came in my time to the College one Nathaniel Conopios, out of
Greece, from Cyrill, the patriarch of Constantinople, who, returning many
years after, was made (as I understand) Bishop of Smyrna. He was the
first I ever saw drink coffee; which custom came not into England till
thirty years after.[7]
[Footnote 7: Evelyn should have said "till twenty years after," not
thirty. Coffee was introduced into England, and coffee-houses set
up, in 1658.]
After I was somewhat settled there in my formalities (for then was the
University exceedingly regular, under the exact discipline of William
Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, then Chancellor), I added, as benefactor
to the library of the College, these books--"_ex dono Johannis Evelyni,
hujus Coll. Socio-Commensalis, filii Richardi Evelyni, è com. Surriæ,
armig^r_."--
"_Zanchii Opera_," vols. 1, 2, 3.
"_Granado in Thomam Aquinatem_," vols. 1, 2, 3.
"_Novarini Electa Sacra_" and "_Cresolii Anthologia Sacra_"; authors, it
seems, much desired by the students of divinity there.
Upon the 2d of July, being the first Sunday of the month, I first
received the blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the college
chapel, one Mr. Cooper, a Fellow of the house, preaching; and at this
time was the Church of England in her greatest splendor, all things
decent, and becoming the Peace, and the persons that governed. The most
of the following week I spent in visiting the Colleges, and several
rarities of the University, which do very much affect young comers.
18th July, 1637. I accompanied my eldest brother, who then quitted
Oxford, into the country; and, on the 9th of August, went to visit my
friends at Lewes, whence I returned the 12th to Wotton. On the 17th of
September, I received the blessed Sacrament at Wotton church, and 23d of
October went back to Oxford.
5th November, 1637. I received again the Holy Communion in our college
chapel, one Prouse, a Fellow (but a mad one), preaching.
9th December, 1637. I offered at my first exercise in the Hall, and
answered my opponent; and, upon the 11th following, declaimed in the
chapel before the Master, Fellows, and Scholars, according to the custom.
The 15th after, I first of all opposed in the Hall.
The Christmas ensuing, being at a Comedy which the gentlemen of Exeter
College presented to the University, and standing, for the better
advantage of seeing, upon a table in the Hall, which was near to another,
in the dark, being constrained by the extraordinary press to quit my
station, in leaping down to save myself I dashed my right leg with such
violence against the sharp edge of the other board, as gave me a hurt
which held me in cure till almost Easter, and confined me to my study.
22d January, 1638. I would needs be admitted into the dancing and
vaulting schools; of which late activity one Stokes, the master, did
afterward set forth a pretty book, which was published, with many witty
elogies before it.
4th February, 1638. One Mr. Wariner preached in our chapel; and, on the
25th, Mr. Wentworth, a kinsman of the Earl of Strafford; after which
followed the blessed Sacrament.
13th April, 1638. My father ordered that I should begin to manage my own
expenses, which till then my tutor had done; at which I was much
satisfied.
[Sidenote: PORTSMOUTH]
9th July, 1638. I went home to visit my friends, and, on the 26th, with
my brother and sister to Lewes, where we abode till the 31st; and thence
to one Mr. Michael's, of Houghton, near Arundel, where we were very well
treated; and, on the 2d of August, to Portsmouth, and thence, having
surveyed the fortifications (a great rarity in that blessed halcyon time
in England), we passed into the Isle of Wight, to the house of my Lady
Richards, in a place called Yaverland; but were turned the following day
to Chichester, where, having viewed the city and fair cathedral, we
returned home.
About the beginning of September, I was so afflicted with a quartan ague,
that I could by no means get rid of it till the December following. This
was the fatal year wherein the rebellious Scots opposed the King, upon
the pretense of the introduction of some new ceremonies and the Book of
Common Prayer, and madly began our confusions, and their own destruction,
too, as it proved in event.
14th January, 1639. I came back to Oxford, after my tedious
indisposition, and to the infinite loss of my time; and now I began to
look upon the rudiments of music, in which I afterward arrived to some
formal knowledge, though to small perfection of hand, because I was so
frequently diverted with inclinations to newer trifles.
20th May, 1639. Accompanied with one Mr. J. Crafford (who afterward being
my fellow-traveler in Italy, there changed his religion), I took a
journey of pleasure to see the Somersetshire baths, Bristol, Cirencester,
Malmesbury, Abington, and divers other towns of lesser note; and returned
the 25th.
8th October, 1639. I went back to Oxford.
14th December, 1639. According to injunctions from the Heads of Colleges,
I went (among the rest) to the Confirmation at St. Mary's, where, after
sermon, the Bishop of Oxford laid his hands upon us, with the usual form
of benediction prescribed: but this received (I fear) for the more part
out of curiosity, rather than with that due preparation and advice which
had been requisite, could not be so effectual as otherwise that admirable
and useful institution might have been, and as I have since deplored it.
21st January, 1640. Came my brother, Richard, from school, to be my
chamber-fellow at the University. He was admitted the next day and
matriculated the 31st.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
11th April, 1640. I went to London to see the solemnity of his Majesty's
riding through the city in state to the Short Parliament, which began the
13th following,--a very glorious and magnificent sight, the King circled
with his royal diadem and the affections of his people: but the day after
I returned to Wotton again, where I stayed, my father's indisposition
suffering great intervals, till April 27th, when I was sent to London to
be first resident at the Middle Temple: so as my being at the University,
in regard of these avocations, was of very small benefit to me. Upon May
the 5th following, was the Parliament unhappily dissolved; and, on the
20th I returned with my brother George to Wotton, who, on the 28th of the
same month, was married at Albury to Mrs. Caldwell (an heiress of an
ancient Leicestershire family, where part of the nuptials were
celebrated).
10th June, 1640. I repaired with my brother to the term, to go into our
new lodgings (that were formerly in Essex-court), being a very handsome
apartment just over against the Hall-court, but four pair of stairs high,
which gave us the advantage of the fairer prospect; but did not much
contribute to the love of that impolished study, to which (I suppose) my
father had designed me, when he paid £145 to purchase our present lives,
and assignments afterward.
London, and especially the Court, were at this period in frequent
disorders, and great insolences were committed by the abused and too
happy City: in particular, the Bishop of Canterbury's Palace at Lambeth
was assaulted by a rude rabble from Southwark, my Lord Chamberlain
imprisoned and many scandalous libels and invectives scattered about the
streets, to the reproach of Government, and the fermentation of our since
distractions: so that, upon the 25th of June, I was sent for to Wotton,
and the 27th after, my father's indisposition augmenting, by advice of
the physicians he repaired to the Bath.
7th July, 1640. My brother George and I, understanding the peril my
father was in upon a sudden attack of his infirmity, rode post from
Guildford toward him, and found him extraordinary weak; yet so as that,
continuing his course, he held out till the 8th of September, when I
returned home with him in his litter.
15th October, 1640. I went to the Temple, it being Michaelmas Term.
30th December, 1640. I saw his Majesty (coming from his Northern
Expedition) ride in pomp and a kind of ovation, with all the marks of a
happy peace, restored to the affections of his people, being conducted
through London with a most splendid cavalcade; and on the 3d of November
following (a day never to be mentioned without a curse), to that long
ungrateful, foolish, and fatal Parliament, the beginning of all our
sorrows for twenty years after, and the period of the most happy monarch
in the world: _Quis talia fando!_
But my father being by this time entered into a dropsy, an indisposition
the most unsuspected, being a person so exemplarily temperate, and of
admirable regimen, hastened me back to Wotton, December the 12th; where,
the 24th following, between twelve and one o'clock at noon, departed this
life that excellent man and indulgent parent, retaining his senses and
piety to the last, which he most tenderly expressed in blessing us, whom
he now left to the world and the worst of times, while he was taken from
the evil to come.
1641. It was a sad and lugubrious beginning of the year, when on the 2d
of January, 1640-1, we at night followed the mourning hearse to the
church at Wotton; when, after a sermon and funeral oration by the
minister, my father was interred near his formerly erected monument, and
mingled with the ashes of our mother, his dear wife. Thus we were bereft
of both our parents in a period when we most of all stood in need of
their counsel and assistance, especially myself, of a raw, vain,
uncertain, and very unwary inclination: but so it pleased God to make
trial of my conduct in a conjuncture of the greatest and most prodigious
hazard that ever the youth of England saw; and, if I did not amidst all
this impeach my liberty nor my virtue with the rest who made shipwreck of
both, it was more the infinite goodness and mercy of God than the least
providence or discretion of mine own, who now thought of nothing but the
pursuit of vanity, and the confused imaginations of young men.
15th April, 1641. I repaired to London to hear and see the famous trial
of the Earl of Strafford, Lord-Deputy of Ireland, who, on the 22d of
March, had been summoned before both Houses of Parliament, and now
appeared in Westminster-hall,[8] which was prepared with scaffolds for
the Lords and Commons, who, together with the King, Queen, Prince, and
flower of the noblesse, were spectators and auditors of the greatest
malice and the greatest innocency that ever met before so illustrous an
assembly. It was Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, Earl Marshal of
England, who was made High Steward upon this occasion; and the sequel is
too well known to need any notice of the event.
[Footnote 8: On the 15th of April Strafford made his eloquent
defense, which it seems to have been Evelyn's good fortune to be
present at. And here the reader may remark the fact, not without
significance, that between the entries on this page of the Diary
which relate to Lord Strafford, the young Prince of Orange came over
to make love to the Princess Royal, then twelve years old; and that
the marriage was subsequently celebrated amid extraordinary Court
rejoicings and festivities, in which the King took a prominent part,
during the short interval which elapsed between the sentence and
execution of the King's great and unfortunate minister.]
On the 27th of April, came over out of Holland the young Prince of
Orange, with a splendid equipage, to make love to his Majesty's eldest
daughter, the now Princess Royal.
That evening, was celebrated the pompous funeral of the Duke of Richmond,
who was carried in effigy, with all the ensigns of that illustrious
family, in an open chariot, in great solemnity, through London to
Westminster Abbey.
On the 12th of May, I beheld on Tower-hill the fatal stroke which severed
the wisest head in England from the shoulders of the Earl of Strafford,
whose crime coming under the cognizance of no human law or statute, a new
one was made, not to be a precedent, but his destruction. With what
reluctancy the King signed the execution, he has sufficiently expressed;
to which he imputes his own unjust suffering--to such exorbitancy were
things arrived.
On the 24th of May, I returned to Wotton; and, on the 28th of June, I
went to London with my sister, Jane, and the day after sat to one
Vanderborcht for my picture in oil, at Arundel-house, whose servant that
excellent painter was, brought out of Germany when the Earl returned from
Vienna (whither he was sent Ambassador-extraordinary, with great pomp and
charge, though without any effect, through the artifice of the Jesuited
Spaniard who governed all in that conjuncture). With Vanderborcht, the
painter, he brought over Winceslaus Hollar, the sculptor, who engraved
not only the unhappy Deputy's trial in Westminster-hall, but his
decapitation; as he did several other historical things, then relating to
the accidents happening during the Rebellion in England, with great
skill; besides many cities, towns, and landscapes, not only of this
nation, but of foreign parts, and divers portraits of famous persons then
in being; and things designed from the best pieces of the rare paintings
and masters of which the Earl of Arundel was possessor, purchased and
collected in his travels with incredible expense: so as, though Hollar's
were but etched in aquafortis, I account the collection to be the most
authentic and useful extant. Hollar was the son of a gentleman near
Prague, in Bohemia, and my very good friend, perverted at last by the
Jesuits at Antwerp to change his religion; a very honest, simple,
well-meaning man, who at last came over again into England, where he
died. We have the whole history of the king's reign, from his trial in
Westminster-hall and before, to the restoration of King Charles II.,
represented in several sculptures, with that also of Archbishop Laud, by
this indefatigable artist; besides innumerable sculptures in the works of
Dugdale, Ashmole, and other historical and useful works. I am the more
particular upon this for the fruit of that collection, which I wish I had
entire.
This picture[9] I presented to my sister, being at her request, on my
resolution to absent myself from this ill face of things at home, which
gave umbrage to wiser than myself that the medal was reversing, and our
calamities but yet in their infancy: so that, on the 15th of July, having
procured a pass at the Custom-house, where I repeated my oath of
allegiance, I went from London to Gravesend, accompanied with one Mr.
Caryll, a Surrey gentleman, and our servants, where we arrived by six
o'clock that evening, with a purpose to take the first opportunity of a
passage for Holland. But the wind as yet not favorable, we had time to
view the Block-house of that town, which answered to another over against
it at Tilbury, famous for the rendezvous of Queen Elizabeth, in the year
1588, which we found stored with twenty pieces of cannon, and other
ammunition proportionable. On the 19th of July, we made a short excursion
to Rochester, and having seen the cathedral went to Chatham to see the
Royal Sovereign, a glorious vessel of burden lately built there, being
for defense and ornament, the richest that ever spread cloth before the
wind. She carried an hundred brass cannon, and was 1,200 tons; a rare
sailer, the work of the famous Phineas Pett, inventor of the
frigate-fashion of building, to this day practiced. But what is to be
deplored as to this vessel is, that it cost his Majesty the affections of
his subjects, perverted by the malcontent of great ones, who took
occasion to quarrel for his having raised a very slight tax for the
building of this, and equipping the rest of the navy, without an act of
Parliament; though, by the suffrages of the major part of the Judges the
King might legally do in times of imminent danger, of which his Majesty
was best apprised. But this not satisfying a jealous party, it was
condemned as unprecedented, and not justifiable as to the Royal
prerogative; and, accordingly, the Judges were removed out of their
places, fined, and imprisoned.[10]
[Footnote 9: His own portrait.]
[Footnote 10: In such manner Evelyn refers to the tax of Ship-money.
But compare this remarkable passage, now first printed from the
original, with the tone in which, eight years later, he spoke of the
only chance by which monarchy in England might be saved; namely,
that of "doing nothing as to government but what shall be approved
by the old way of a free parliament, and the known laws of the
land."]
We returned again this evening, and on the 21st of July embarked in a
Dutch frigate, bound for Flushing, convoyed and accompanied by five other
stout vessels, whereof one was a man-of-war. The next day at noon, we
landed at Flushing.
[Sidenote: DE VERE]
Being desirous to overtake the Leagure,[11] which was then before Genep,
ere the summer should be too far spent, we went this evening from
Flushing to Middleburg, another fine town in this island, to De Vere,
whence the most ancient and illustrious Earls of Oxford derive their
family, who have spent so much blood in assisting the state during their
wars. From De Vere we passed over many towns, houses, and ruins of
demolished suburbs, etc., which have formerly been swallowed up by the
sea; at what time no less than eight of those islands had been
irrecoverably lost.
[Footnote 11: The meaning of this expression is, that they should be
in time to witness the siege.]
The next day we arrived at Dort, the first town of Holland, furnished
with all German commodities, and especially Rhenish wines and timber. It
hath almost at the extremity a very spacious and venerable church; a
stately senate house, wherein was holden that famous synod against the
Arminians in 1618; and in that hall hangeth a picture of "The Passion,"
an exceeding rare and much-esteemed piece.
From Dort, being desirous to hasten toward the army, I took wagon this
afternoon to Rotterdam, whither we were hurried in less than an hour,
though it be ten miles distant; so furiously do those Foremen drive. I
went first to visit the great church, the Doole, the Bourse, and the
public statue of the learned Erasmus, of brass. They showed us his house,
or rather the mean cottage, wherein he was born, over which there are
extant these lines, in capital letters:
ÆDIBUS HIS ORTUS, MUNDUM DECORAVIT ERASMUS
ARTIBUS INGENIO, RELIGIONE, FIDE.
The 26th of July I passed by a straight and commodious river through
Delft to the Hague; in which journey I observed divers leprous poor
creatures dwelling in solitary huts on the brink of the water, and
permitted to ask the charity of passengers, which is conveyed to them in
a floating box that they cast out.
Arrived at the Hague, I went first to the Queen of Bohemia's court, where
I had the honor to kiss her Majesty's hand, and several of the
Princesses', her daughters. Prince Maurice was also there, newly come out
of Germany; and my Lord Finch, not long before fled out of England from
the fury of the Parliament. It was a fasting day with the Queen for the
unfortunate death of her husband, and the presence chamber had been hung
with black velvet ever since his decease.
[Sidenote: NIMEGUEN]
The 28th of July I went to Leyden; and the 29th to Utrecht, being thirty
English miles distant (as they reckon by hours). It was now Kermas, or a
fair, in this town, the streets swarming with boors and rudeness, so
that early the next morning, having visited the ancient Bishop's court,
and the two famous churches, I satisfied my curiosity till my return, and
better leisure. We then came to Rynen, where the Queen of Bohemia hath a
neat and well built palace, or country house, after the Italian manner,
as I remember; and so, crossing the Rhine, upon which this villa is
situated, lodged that night in a countryman's house. The 31st to
Nimeguen; and on the 2d of August we arrived at the Leagure, where was
then the whole army encamped about Genep, a very strong castle situated
on the river Waal; but, being taken four or five days before, we had only
a sight of the demolitions. The next Sunday was the thanksgiving sermons
performed in Colonel Goring's regiment (eldest son of the since Earl of
Norwich) by Mr. Goffe, his chaplain (now turned Roman, and
father-confessor to the Queen-mother). The evening was spent in firing
cannon and other expressions of military triumphs.
Now, according to the compliment, I was received a volunteer in the
company of Captain Apsley, of whose Captain-lieutenant, Honywood (Apsley
being absent), I received many civilities.
The 3d of August, at night, we rode about the lines of circumvallation,
the general being then in the field. The next day I was accommodated with
a very spacious and commodious tent for my lodging; as before I was with
a horse, which I had at command, and a hut which during the excessive
heats was a great convenience; for the sun piercing the canvas of the
tent, it was during the day unsufferable, and at night not seldom
infested with mists and fogs, which ascended from the river.
6th August, 1641. As the turn came about, we were ordered to watch on a
horn-work near our quarters, and trail a pike, being the next morning
relieved by a company of French. This was our continual duty till the
castle was refortified, and all danger of quitting that station secured;
whence I went to see a Convent of Franciscan Friars, not far from our
quarters, where we found both the chapel and refectory full, crowded with
the goods of such poor people as at the approach of the army had fled
with them thither for sanctuary. On the day following, I went to view all
the trenches, approaches, and mines, etc. of the besiegers; and, in
particular, I took special notice of the wheel-bridge, which engine his
Excellency had made to run over the moat when they stormed the castle; as
it is since described (with all the other particulars of this siege) by
the author of that incomparable work, "Hollandia Illustrata." The walls
and ramparts of earth, which a mine had broken and crumbled, were of
prodigious thickness.
Upon the 8th of August, I dined in the horse-quarters with Sir Robert
Stone and his lady, Sir William Stradling, and divers Cavaliers; where
there was very good cheer, but hot service for a young drinker, as then I
was; so that, being pretty well satisfied with the confusion of armies
and sieges (if such that of the United Provinces may be called, where
their quarters and encampments are so admirably regular, and orders so
exactly observed, as few cities, the best governed in time of peace,
exceed it for all conveniences), I took my leave of the Leagure and
Camerades; and, on the 12th of August, I embarked on the "Waal," in
company with three grave divines, who entertained us a great part of our
passage with a long dispute concerning the lawfulness of church-music. We
now sailed by Teil, where we landed some of our freight; and about five
o'clock we touched at a pretty town named Bommell, that had divers
English in garrison. It stands upon Contribution-land, which subjects the
environs to the Spanish incursions. We sailed also by an exceeding strong
fort called Lovestein, famous for the escape of the learned Hugo Grotius,
who, being in durance as a capital offender, as was the unhappy
Barneveldt, by the stratagem of his lady, was conveyed in a trunk
supposed to be filled with books only. We lay at Gorcum, a very strong
and considerable frontier.
13th August, 1641. We arrived late at Rotterdam, where was their annual
mart or fair, so furnished with pictures (especially landscapes and
drolleries, as they call those clownish representations), that I was
amazed. Some of these I bought and sent into England. The reason of this
store of pictures, and their cheapness, proceeds from their want of land
to employ their stock, so that it is an ordinary thing to find a common
farmer lay out two or three thousand pounds in this commodity. Their
houses are full of them, and they vend them at their fairs to very great
gains. Here I first saw an elephant, who was extremely well disciplined
and obedient. It was a beast of a monstrous size, yet as flexible and
nimble in the joints, contrary to the vulgar tradition, as could be
imagined from so prodigious a bulk and strange fabric; but I most of all
admired the dexterity and strength of its proboscis, on which it was able
to support two or three men, and by which it took and reached whatever
was offered to it; its teeth were but short, being a female, and not old.
I was also shown a pelican, or _onocratulas_ of Pliny, with its large
gullets, in which he kept his reserve of fish; the plumage was white,
legs red, flat, and film-footed, likewise a cock with four legs, two
rumps and vents: also a hen which had two large spurs growing out of her
sides, penetrating the feathers of her wings.
17th August, 1641. I passed again through Delft, and visited the church
in which was the monument of Prince William of Nassau,--the first of the
Williams, and savior (as they call him) of their liberty, which cost him
his life by a vile assassination. It is a piece of rare art, consisting
of several figures, as big as the life, in copper. There is in the same
place a magnificent tomb of his son and successor, Maurice. The
senate-house hath a very stately portico, supported with choice columns
of black marble, as I remember, of one entire stone. Within, there hangs
a weighty vessel of wood, not unlike a butter-churn, which the
adventurous woman that hath two husbands at one time is to wear on her
shoulders, her head peeping out at the top only, and so led about the
town, as a penance for her incontinence. From hence, we went the next day
to Ryswick, a stately country-house of the Prince of Orange, for nothing
more remarkable than the delicious walks planted with lime trees, and the
modern paintings within.
[Sidenote: HAGUE]
[Sidenote: AMSTERDAM]
19th August, 1641. We returned to the Hague, and went to visit the Hoff,
or Prince's Court, with the adjoining gardens full of ornament, close
walks, statues, marbles, grots, fountains, and artificial music. There is
to this palace a stately hall, not much inferior to ours of Westminster,
hung round with colors and other trophies taken from the Spaniards;[12]
and the sides below are furnished with shops. Next day (the 20th) I
returned to Delft, thence to Rotterdam, the Hague, and Leyden, where
immediately I mounted a wagon, which that night, late as it was, brought
us to Haerlem. About seven in the morning after I came to Amsterdam,
where being provided with a lodging, the first thing I went to see was a
Synagogue of the Jews (being Saturday), whose ceremonies, ornaments,
lamps, law, and schools, afforded matter for my contemplation. The women
were secluded from the men, being seated in galleries above, shut with
lattices, having their heads muffled with linen, after a fantastical and
somewhat extraordinary fashion; the men, wearing a large calico mantle,
yellow colored, over their hats, all the while waving their bodies, while
at their devotions. From thence, I went to a place without the town,
called Overkirk, where they have a spacious field assigned them to bury
their dead, full of sepulchers with Hebraic inscriptions, some of them
stately and costly. Looking through one of these monuments, where the
stones were disjointed, I perceived divers books and papers lie about a
corpse; for it seems, when any learned Rabbi dies, they bury some of his
books with him. With the help of a stick, I raked out several, written in
Hebrew characters, but much impaired. As we returned, we stepped in to
see the Spin-house, a kind of bridewell, where incorrigible and lewd
women are kept in discipline and labor, but all neat. We were shown an
hospital for poor travelers and pilgrims, built by Queen Elizabeth of
England; and another maintained by the city.
[Footnote 12: Westminster hall used to be so in Term time, and
during the sitting of Parliament, as late as the beginning of the
reign of George III.]
The State or Senate-house of this town, if the design be perfected, will
be one of the most costly and magnificent pieces of architecture in
Europe, especially for the materials and the carvings. In the Doole is
painted, on a very large table, the bust of Marie de Medicis, supported
by four royal diadems, the work of one Vanderdall, who hath set his name
thereon, 1st September, 1638.
On Sunday, I heard an English sermon at the Presbyterian congregation,
where they had chalked upon a slate the psalms that were to be sung, so
that all the congregation might see them without the bidding of a clerk.
I was told, that after such an age no minister was permitted to preach,
but had his maintenance continued during life.
I purposely changed my lodgings, being desirous to converse with the
sectaries that swarmed in this city, out of whose spawn came those almost
innumerable broods in England afterward. It was at a Brownist's house,
where we had an extraordinary good table. There was in pension with us my
Lord Keeper, Finch, and one Sir J. Fotherbee. Here I also found an
English Carmelite, who was going through Germany with an Irish gentleman.
I now went to see the Weese-house, a foundation like our Charter-house,
for the education of decayed persons, orphans, and poor children, where
they are taught several occupations. The girls are so well brought up to
housewifery, that men of good worth, who seek that chiefly in a woman,
frequently take their wives from this hospital. Thence to the Rasp-house,
where the lusty knaves are compelled to work; and the rasping of brasil
and logwood for the dyers is very hard labor. To the Dool-house, for
madmen and fools. But none did I so much admire, as an Hospital for their
lame and decrepit soldiers and seamen, where the accommodations are very
great, the building answerable; and, indeed, for the like public
charities the provisions are admirable in this country, where, as no idle
vagabonds are suffered (as in England they are), there is hardly a child
of four or five years old, but they find some employment for it.
It was on a Sunday morning that I went to the Bourse, or Exchange, after
their sermons were ended, to see the Dog-market, which lasts till two in
the afternoon, in this place of convention of merchants from all parts of
the world. The building is not comparable to that of London, built by
that worthy citizen, Sir Thomas Gresham, yet in one respect exceeding it,
that vessels of considerable burden ride at the very quay contiguous to
it; and indeed it is by extraordinary industry that as well this city, as
generally all the towns of Holland, are so accommodated with graffs,
cuts, sluices, moles, and rivers, made by hand, that nothing is more
frequent than to see a whole navy, belonging to this mercantile people,
riding at anchor before their very doors: and yet their streets even,
straight, and well paved, the houses so uniform and planted with lime
trees, as nothing can be more beautiful.
The next day we were entertained at a kind of tavern, called the
Briloft, appertaining to a rich Anabaptist, where, in the upper rooms of
the house, were divers pretty waterworks, rising 108 feet from the
ground. Here were many quaint devices, fountains, artificial music,
noises of beasts, and chirping of birds; but what pleased me most was a
large pendant candlestick, branching into several sockets, furnished all
with ordinary candles to appearance, out of the wicks spouting out
streams of water, instead of flames. This seemed then and was a rarity,
before the philosophy of compressed air made it intelligible. There was
likewise a cylinder that entertained the company with a variety of
chimes, the hammers striking upon the brims of porcelain dishes, suited
to the tones and notes, without cracking any of them. Many other
waterworks were shown.
The Kaiser's or Emperor's Graft, which is an ample and long street,
appearing like a city in a forest; the lime trees planted just before
each house, and at the margin of that goodly aqueduct so curiously
wharfed with Klincard brick, which likewise paves the streets, than which
nothing can be more useful and neat. This part of Amsterdam is built and
gained upon the main sea, supported by piles at an immense charge, and
fitted for the most busy concourse of traffickers and people of commerce
beyond any place, or mart, in the world. Nor must I forget the port of
entrance into an issue of this town, composed of very magnificent pieces
of architecture, some of the ancient and best manner, as are divers
churches.
The turrets, or steeples, are adorned after a particular manner and
invention; the chimes of bells are so rarely managed, that being curious
to know whether the motion was from any engine, I went up to that of St.
Nicholas, where I found one who played all sorts of compositions from the
tablature before him, as if he had fingered an organ; for so were the
hammers fastened with wires to several keys put into a frame twenty feet
below the bells, upon which (by the help of a wooden instrument, not much
unlike a weaver's shuttle, that guarded his hand) he struck on the keys
and played to admiration. All this while, through the clattering of the
wires, din of the too nearly sounding bells, and noise that his wooden
gloves made, the confusion was so great, that it was impossible for the
musician, or any that stood near him, to hear anything at all; yet, to
those at a distance, and especially in the streets, the harmony and the
time were the most exact and agreeable.
The south church is richly paved with black and white marble,--the west
is a new fabric; and generally all the churches in Holland are furnished
with organs, lamps, and monuments, carefully preserved from the fury and
impiety of popular reformers, whose zeal has foolishly transported them
in other places rather to act like madmen than religious.
[Sidenote: HAERLEM]
Upon St. Bartholomew's day, I went among the booksellers, and visited the
famous Hondius and Bleaw's shop, to buy some maps, atlases, and other
works of that kind. At another shop, I furnished myself with some shells
and Indian curiosities; and so, toward the end of August, I returned
again to Haerlem by the river, ten miles in length, straight as a line,
and of competent breadth for ships to sail by one another. They showed us
a cottage where, they told us, dwelt a woman who had been married to her
twenty-fifth husband, and being now a widow, was prohibited to marry in
future; yet it could not be proved that she had ever made away with any
of her husbands, though the suspicion had brought her divers times to
trouble.
Haerlem is a very delicate town and hath one of the fairest churches of
the Gothic design I had ever seen. There hang in the steeple, which is
very high, two silver bells, said to have been brought from Damietta, in
Egypt, by an earl of Holland, in memory of whose success they are rung
out every evening. In the nave hang the goodliest branches of brass for
tapers that I have seen, esteemed of great value for the curiosity of the
workmanship; also a fair pair of organs, which I could not find they made
use of in divine service, or so much as to assist them in singing psalms,
but only for show, and to recreate the people before and after their
devotions, while the burgomasters were walking and conferring about their
affairs. Near the west window hang two models of ships, completely
equipped, in memory of that invention of saws under their keels, with
which they cut through the chain of booms, which barred the port of
Damietta. Having visited this church, the fish-market, and made some
inquiry about the printing-house, the invention whereof is said to have
been in this town, I returned to Leyden.
[Sidenote: LEYDEN]
At Leyden, I was carried up to the castle, or Pyrgus, built on a very
steep artificial mount, cast up (as reported) by Hengist the Saxon, on
his return out of England, as a place to retire to, in case of any sudden
inundations.
The churches are many and fair; in one of them lies buried the learned
and illustrious Joseph Scaliger, without any extraordinary inscription,
who, having left the world a monument of his worth more lasting than
marble, needed nothing more than his own name; which I think is all
engraven on his sepulcher. He left his library to this University.
28th August, 1641. I went to see the college and schools, which are
nothing extraordinary, and was complimented with a _matricula_ by the
_magnificus_ Professor, who first in Latin demanded of me where my
lodging in the town was, my name, age, birth, and to what Faculty I
addicted myself; then, recording my answers in a book, he administered an
oath to me that I should observe the statutes and orders of the
University while I stayed, and then delivered me a ticket, by virtue
whereof I was made excise-free; for all which worthy privileges, and the
pains of writing, he accepted of a rix-dollar.
Here was now the famous Dan. Heinsius, whom I so longed to see, as well
as the no less famous printer, Elzevir's printing-house and shop,
renowned for the politeness of the character and editions of what he has
published through Europe. Hence to the physic-garden, well stored with
exotic plants, if the catalogue presented to me by the gardener be a
faithful register.
But, among all the rarities of this place, I was much pleased with a
sight of their anatomy-school, theater, and repository adjoining, which
is well furnished with natural curiosities; skeletons, from the whale and
elephant to the fly and spider; which last is a very delicate piece of
art, to see how the bones (if I may so call them of so tender an insect)
could be separated from the mucilaginous parts of that minute animal.
Among a great variety of other things, I was shown the knife newly taken
out of a drunken Dutchman's guts, by an incision in his side, after it
had slipped from his fingers into his stomach. The pictures of the
chirurgeon and his patient, both living, were there.
There is without the town a fair Mall, curiously planted.
Returning to my lodging, I was showed the statue, cut in stone, of the
happy monk, whom they report to have been the first inventor of
typography, set over the door; but this is much controverted by others,
who strive for the glory of it, besides John Gutenberg.
I was brought acquainted with a Burgundian Jew, who had married an
apostate Kentish woman. I asked him divers questions: he told me, among
other things, that the World should never end; that our souls
transmigrated, and that even those of the most holy persons did penance
in the bodies of brutes after death,--and so he interpreted the
banishment and savage life of Nebuchadnezzar: that all the Jews should
rise again, and be led to Jerusalem; that the Romans only were the
occasion of our Savior's death, whom he affirmed (as the Turks do) to be
a great prophet, but not the Messiah. He showed me several books of their
devotion, which he had translated into English, for the instruction of
his wife; he told me that when the Messiah came, all the ships, barks,
and vessels of Holland should, by the power of certain strange
whirlwinds, be loosed from their anchors, and transported in a moment to
all the desolate ports and havens throughout the world, wherever the
dispersion was, to convey their brethren and tribes to the Holy City;
with other such like stuff. He was a merry drunken fellow, but would by
no means handle any money (for something I purchased of him), it being
Saturday; but desired me to leave it in the window, meaning to receive it
on Sunday morning.
1st September, 1641. I went to Delft and Rotterdam, and two days after
back to the Hague, to bespeak a suit of horseman's armor, which I caused
to be made to fit me. I now rode out of town to see the monument of the
woman, pretended to have been a countess of Holland, reported to have had
as many children at one birth, as there are days in the year. The basins
were hung up in which they were baptized, together with a large
description of the matter-of-fact in a frame of carved work, in the
church of Lysdun, a desolate place. As I returned, I diverted to see one
of the Prince's Palaces, called the Hoff Van Hounsler's Dyck, a very fair
cloistered and quadrangular building. The gallery is prettily painted
with several huntings, and at one end a gordian knot, with rustical
instruments so artificially represented, as to deceive an accurate eye to
distinguish it from actual relievo. The ceiling of the staircase is
painted with the "Rape of Ganymede," and other pendant figures, the work
of F. Covenberg, of whose hand I bought an excellent drollery, which I
afterward parted with to my brother George of Wotton, where it now hangs.
To this palace join a fair garden and park, curiously planted with limes.
8th September, 1641. Returned to Rotterdam, through Delftshaven and
Sedan, where were at that time Colonel Goring's winter quarters. This
town has heretofore been very much talked of for witches.
10th September, 1641. I took a wagon for Dort, to be present at the
reception of the Queen-mother, Marie de Medicis, Dowager of France, widow
of Henry the Great, and mother to the French King, Louis XIII., and the
Queen of England, whence she newly arrived, tossed to and fro by the
various fortune of her life. From this city, she designed for Cologne,
conducted by the Earl of Arundel and the Herr Van Bredrod. At this
interview, I saw the Princess of Orange, and the lady her daughter,
afterward married to the House of Brandenburgh. There was little
remarkable in this reception befitting the greatness of her person; but
an universal discontent, which accompanied that unlucky woman wherever
she went.
12th September, 1641. I went toward Bois-le-Duc, where we arrived on the
16th, at the time when the new citadel was advancing, with innumerable
hands, and incomparable inventions for draining off the waters out of the
fens and morasses about it, being by buckets, mills, cochleas, pumps, and
the like; in which the Hollanders are the most expert in Europe. Here
were now sixteen companies and nine troops of horse. They were also
cutting a new river, to pass from the town to a castle not far from it.
Here we split our skiff, falling foul upon another through negligence of
the master, who was fain to run aground, to our no little hazard. At our
arrival, a soldier conveyed us to the Governor, where our names were
taken, and our persons examined very strictly.
17th September, 1641. I was permitted to walk the round and view the
works, and to visit a convent of religious women of the order of St.
Clara (who by the capitulation were allowed to enjoy their monastery and
maintenance undisturbed, at the surrender of the town twelve years
since), where we had a collation and very civil entertainment. They had a
neat chapel, in which the heart of the Duke of Cleves, their founder,
lies inhumed under a plate of brass. Within the cloister is a garden, and
in the middle of it an overgrown lime tree, out of whose stem, near the
root, issue five upright and exceeding tall suckers, or bolls, the like
whereof for evenness and height I had not observed.
The chief church of this city is curiously carved within and without,
furnished with a pair of organs, and a most magnificent font of copper.
18th September, 1641. I went to see that most impregnable town and fort
of Hysdune, where I was exceedingly obliged to one Colonel Crombe, the
lieutenant-governor, who would needs make me accept the honor of being
captain of the watch, and to give the word this night. The fortification
is very irregular, but esteemed one of the most considerable for strength
and situation in the Netherlands. We departed toward Gorcum. Here Sir
Kenelm Digby, traveling toward Cologne, met us.
The next morning, the 19th, we arrived at Dort, passing by the Decoys,
where they catch innumerable quantities of fowl.
[Sidenote: ROTTERDAM]
22d September, 1641. I went again to Rotterdam to receive a pass which I
expected from Brussels, securing me through Brabant and Flanders,
designing to go into England through those countries. The Cardinal
Infante, brother to the King of Spain, was then governor. By this pass,
having obtained another from the Prince of Orange, upon the 24th of
September I departed through Dort; but met with very bad tempestuous
weather, being several times driven back, and obliged to lie at anchor
off Keele, other vessels lying there waiting better weather. The 25th and
26th we made other essays; but were again repulsed to the harbor, where
lay sixty vessels waiting to sail. But, on the 27th, we, impatient of the
time and inhospitableness of the place, sailed again with a contrary and
impetuous wind and a terrible sea, in great jeopardy; for we had much
ado to keep ourselves above water, the billows breaking desperately on
our vessel: we were driven into Williamstadt, a place garrisoned by the
English, where the governor had a fair house. The works, and especially
the counterscarp, are curiously hedged with quick, and planted with a
stately row of limes on the rampart. The church is of a round structure,
with a cupola, and the town belongs entirely to the Prince of Orange, as
does that of Breda, and some other places.
28th September, 1641. Failing of an appointment, I was constrained to
return to Dort for a bill of exchange; but it was the 1st of October ere
I could get back. At Keele, I numbered 141 vessels, who durst not yet
venture out; but, animated by the master of a stout bark, after a small
encounter of weather, we arrived by four that evening at Steenbergen. In
the passage we sailed over a sea called the Plaats, an exceeding
dangerous water, by reason of two contrary tides which meet there very
impetuously. Here, because of the many shelves, we were forced to tide it
along the Channel; but, ere we could gain the place, the ebb was so far
spent, that we were compelled to foot it at least two long miles, through
a most pelting shower of rain.
2d October, 1641. With a gentleman of the Rhyngraves, I went in a cart,
or tumbrel (for it was no better; no other accommodation could be
procured), of two wheels and one horse, to Bergen-op-Zoom, meeting by the
way divers parties of his Highness's army now retiring toward their
winter quarters; the convoy skiffs riding by thousands along the harbor.
The fort was heretofore built by the English.
The next morning I embarked for Lillo, having refused a convoy of horse
which was offered me. The tide being against us, we landed short of the
fort on the beach, where we marched half leg deep in mud, ere we could
gain the dyke, which, being five or six miles from Lillo, we were forced
to walk on foot very wet and discomposed; and then entering a boat we
passed the ferry, and came to the castle. Being taken before the
Governor, he demanded my pass, to which he set his hand, and asked two
rix-dollars for a fee, which methought appeared very exorbitant in a
soldier of his quality. I told him that I had already purchased my pass
of the commissaries at Rotterdam; at which, in a great fury, snatching
the paper out of my hand, he flung it scornfully under the table, and
bade me try whether I could get to Antwerp without his permission: but I
had no sooner given him the dollars, then he returned the passport
surlily enough, and made me pay fourteen Dutch shillings to the cantone,
or searcher, for my contempt, which I was glad to do for fear of further
trouble, should he have discovered my Spanish pass, in which the States
were therein treated by the name of rebels. Besides all these exactions,
I gave the commissary six shillings, to the soldiers something, and, ere
perfectly clear of this frontier, thirty-one stivers to the man-of-war,
who lay blocking up the river between Lillo and the opposite sconce
called Lifkinshoeck.
[Sidenote: ANTWERP]
4th October, 1641. We sailed by several Spanish forts, out of one of
which, St. Mary's port, came a Don on board us, to whom I showed my
Spanish pass, which he signed, and civilly dismissed us. Hence, sailing
by another man-of-war, to which we lowered our topsails, we at length
arrived at Antwerp.
The lodgings here are very handsome and convenient. I lost little time;
but, with the aid of one Mr. Lewkner, our conductor, we visited divers
churches, colleges, and monasteries. The Church of the Jesuits is most
sumptuous and magnificent; a glorious fabric without and within, wholly
incrusted with marble, inlaid and polished into divers representations of
histories, landscapes, and flowers. On the high altar is placed the
statue of the Blessed Virgin and our Savior in white marble, with a boss
in the girdle set with very fair and rich sapphires, and divers other
stones of price. The choir is a glorious piece of architecture: the
pulpit supported by four angels, and adorned with other carvings, and
rare pictures by Rubens, now lately dead, and divers votive tables and
relics. Hence, to the Vroù Kirk, or Nôtre Dame of Antwerp: it is a very
venerable fabric, built after the Gothic manner, especially the tower,
which I ascended, the better to take a view of the country adjacent;
which, happening on a day when the sun shone exceedingly bright, and
darted his rays without any interruption, afforded so bright a reflection
to us who were above, and had a full prospect of both land and water
about it, that I was much confirmed in my opinion of the moon's being of
some such substance as this earthly globe: perceiving all the subjacent
country, at so small an horizontal distance, to repercuss such a light as
I could hardly look against, save where the river, and other large water
within our view, appeared of a more dark and uniform color; resembling
those spots in the moon supposed to be seas there, according to Hevelius,
and as they appear in our late telescopes. I numbered in this church
thirty privileged altars, that of St. Sebastian adorned with a painting
of his martyrdom.
We went to see the Jerusalem Church, affirmed to have been founded by one
who, upon divers great wagers, passed to and fro between that city and
Antwerp, on foot, by which he procured large sums of money, which he
bestowed on this pious structure.[13] Hence, to St. Mary's Chapel, where
I had some conference with two English Jesuits, confessors to Colonel
Jaye's regiment. These fathers conducted us to the Cloister of Nuns,
where we heard a Dutch sermon upon the exposure of the Host. The
Senate-house of this city is a very spacious and magnificent building.
[Footnote 13: This notice, slipped by accident into the entries
which refer to Antwerp, belongs to those of Bruges.]
5th October, 1641. I visited the Jesuits' School, which, for the fame of
their method, I greatly desired to see. They were divided into four
classes, with several inscriptions over each: as, first, _Ad majorem Dei
gloriam_; over the second, _Princeps diligentiæ_; the third, _Imperator
Byzantiorum_; over the fourth and uppermost, _Imperator Romanorum_. Under
these, the scholars and pupils and their places, or forms with titles and
priority according to their proficiency. Their dormitory and lodgings
above were exceedingly neat. They have a prison for the offenders and
less diligent; and, in an ample court, to recreate themselves in, is an
aviary, and a yard, where eagles, vultures, foxes, monkeys, and other
animals are kept, to divert the boys withal at their hours of remission.
To this school join the music and mathematical schools, and lastly a
pretty, neat chapel. The great street is built after the Italian mode, in
the middle whereof is erected a glorious crucifix of white and black
marble, greater than the life. This is a very fair and noble street,
clean, well paved, and sweet to admiration.
The Oesters house, belonging to the East India Company, is a stately
palace, adorned with more than 300 windows. From hence, walking into the
Gun-garden, I was allowed to see as much of the citadel as is permitted
to strangers. It is a matchless piece of modern fortification,
accommodated with lodgments for the soldiers and magazines. The graffs,
ramparts, and platforms are stupendous. Returning by the shop of
Plantine, I bought some books, for the namesake only of that famous
printer.
But there was nothing about this city which more ravished me than those
delicious shades and walks of stately trees, which render the fortified
works of the town one of the sweetest places in Europe; nor did I ever
observe a more quiet, clean, elegantly built and civil place, than this
magnificent and famous city of Antwerp. In the evening, I was invited to
Signor Duerte's, a Portuguese by nation, an exceeding rich merchant,
whose palace I found to be furnished like a prince's. His three daughters
entertained us with rare music, vocal and instrumental, which was
finished with a handsome collation. I took leave of the ladies and of
sweet Antwerp, as late as it was, embarking for Brussels on the Scheldt
in a vessel, which delivered us to a second boat (in another river) drawn
or towed by horses. In this passage, we frequently changed our barge, by
reason of the bridges thwarting our course. Here I observed numerous
families inhabiting their vessels and floating dwellings, so built and
divided by cabins, as few houses on land enjoyed better accommodation;
stored with all sorts of utensils, neat chambers, a pretty parlor, and
kept so sweet, that nothing could be more refreshing. The rivers on which
they are drawn are very clear and still waters, and pass through a most
pleasant country on both the banks. We had in our boat a very good
ordinary, and excellent company. The cut is straight as a line for twenty
English miles. What I much admired was, near the midway, another
artificial river, which intersects this at right angles, but on an
eminence of ground, and is carried in an aqueduct of stone so far above
the other as that the waters neither mingle, nor hinder one another's
passage.
We came to a town called Villefrow, where all the passengers went on
shore to wash at a fountain issuing out of a pillar, and then came
aboard again. On the margin of this long tract are abundance of shrines
and images, defended from the injuries of the weather by niches of stone
wherein they are placed.
[Sidenote: BRUSSELS]
7th October, 1641. We arrived at Brussels at nine in the morning. The
Stadt-house, near the market place, is, for the carving in freestone, a
most laborious and finished piece, well worthy observation. The
flesh-shambles are also built of stone. I was pleased with certain small
engines, by which a girl, or boy, was able to draw up, or let down, great
bridges, which in divers parts of this city crossed the channel for the
benefit of passengers. The walls of this town are very entire, and full
of towers at competent distances. The cathedral is built upon a very high
and exceeding steep ascent, to which we mounted by fair steps of stone.
Hence I walked to a convent of English Nuns, with whom I sat discoursing
most part of the afternoon.
8th October, 1641. Being the morning I came away, I went to see the
Prince's Court, an ancient, confused building, not much unlike the Hofft,
at the Hague: there is here likewise a very large hall, where they vend
all sorts of wares. Through this we passed by the chapel, which is indeed
rarely arched, and in the middle of it was the hearse, or catafalque, of
the late Archduchess, the wise and pious Clara Eugenia. Out of this we
were conducted to the lodgings, tapestried with incomparable arras, and
adorned with many excellent pieces of Rubens, old and young Breugel,
Titian, and Stenwick, with stories of most of the late actions in the
Netherlands.
By an accident we could not see the library. There is a fair terrace
which looks to the vineyard, in which, on pedestals, are fixed the
statues of all the Spanish kings of the house of Austria. The opposite
walls are painted by Rubens, being an history of the late tumults in
Belgia: in the last piece, the Archduchess shuts a great pair of gates
upon Mars, who is coming out of hell, armed, and in a menacing posture;
which, with that other of the Infanta taking leave of Don Philip IV., is
a most incomparable table.
From hence, we walked into the park, which for being entirely within the
walls of the city is particularly remarkable: nor is it less pleasant
than if in the most solitary recesses; so naturally is it furnished with
whatever may render it agreeable, melancholy, and country-like. Here is a
stately heronry, divers springs of water, artificial cascades, rocks,
grots; one whereof is composed of the extravagant roots of trees,
cunningly built and hung together with wires. In this park are both
fallow and red deer.
From hence, we were led into the Menage, and out of that into a most
sweet and delicious garden, where was another grot of more neat and
costly materials, full of noble statues, and entertaining us with
artificial music; but the hedge of water, in form of lattice-work, which
the fountaineer caused to ascend out of the earth by degrees, exceedingly
pleased and surprised me; for thus, with a pervious wall, or rather a
palisade hedge of water, was the whole parterre environed.
There is likewise a fair aviary; and in the court next it are kept divers
sorts of animals, rare and exotic fowl, as eagles, cranes, storks,
bustards, pheasants of several kinds, and a duck having four wings. In
another division of the same close are rabbits of an almost perfect
yellow color.
There was no Court now in the palace; the Infante Cardinal, who was the
Governor of Flanders, being dead but newly, and every one in deep
mourning.
At near eleven o'clock, I repaired to his Majesty's agent, Sir Henry de
Vic, who very courteously received me, and accommodated me with a coach
and six horses, which carried me from Brussels to Ghent, where it was to
meet my Lord of Arundel, Earl Marshal of England, who had requested me
when I was at Antwerp to send it for him, if I went not thither myself.
Thus taking leave of Brussels and a sad Court, yet full of gallant
persons (for in this small city, the acquaintance being universal, ladies
and gentlemen, I perceived had great diversions, and frequent meetings),
I hastened toward Ghent. On the way, I met with divers little wagons,
prettily contrived, and full of peddling merchandise, drawn by mastiff
dogs, harnessed completely like so many coach horses; in some four, in
others six, as in Brussels itself I had observed. In Antwerp I saw, as I
remember, four dogs draw five lusty children in a chariot: the master
commands them whither he pleases, crying his wares about the streets.
After passing through Ouse, by six in the evening, I arrived at Ghent.
This is a city of so great a circumference, that it is reported to be
seven leagues round; but there is not half of it now built, much of it
remaining in fields and desolate pastures even within the walls, which
have strong gates toward the west, and two fair churches.
Here I beheld the palace wherein John of Gaunt and Charles V. were born;
whose statue[14] stands in the market-place, upon a high pillar, with his
sword drawn, to which (as I was told) the magistrates and burghers were
wont to repair upon a certain day every year with ropes about their
necks, in token of submission and penance for an old rebellion of theirs;
but now the hemp is changed into a blue ribbon. Here is planted the
basilisco, or great gun, so much talked of. The Lys and the Scheldt
meeting in this vast city, divide it into twenty-six islands, which are
united by many bridges, somewhat resembling Venice. This night I supped
with the Abbot of Andoyne, a pleasant and courteous priest.
[Footnote 14: That of Charles V.]
8th October, 1641. I passed by a boat to Bruges, taking in at a redoubt a
convoy of fourteen musketeers, because the other side of the river, being
Contribution-land, was subject to the inroads and depredations of the
bordering States. This river was cut by the famous Marquis Spinola, and
is in my judgment a wonderful piece of labor, and a worthy public work,
being in some places forced through the main rock, to an incredible
depth, for thirty miles. At the end of each mile is built a small
redoubt, which communicates a line to the next, and so the whole way,
from whence we received many volleys of shot, in compliment to my Lord
Marshal, who was in our vessel, a passenger with us. At five that
evening, we were met by the magistrates of Bruges, who came out to convey
my Lord to his lodgings, at whose cost he was entertained that night.
The morning after we went to see the Stadt-house and adjoining aqueduct,
the church, and market-place, where we saw cheeses and butter piled up in
heaps; also the fortifications and graffs, which are extremely large.
The 9th, we arrived at Ostend by a straight and artificial river. Here,
with leave of the captain of the watch, I was carried to survey the
river and harbor, with fortifications on one side thereof: the east and
south are mud and earth walls. It is a very strong place, and lately
stood a memorable siege three years, three months, three weeks, and three
days. I went to see the church of St. Peter, and the cloisters of the
Franciscans.
10th October, 1641. I went by wagon, accompanied with a jovial
commissary, to Dunkirk, the journey being made all on the sea sands. On
our arrival, we first viewed the court of guards, the works, the
townhouse, and the new church; the latter is very beautiful within; and
another, wherein they showed us an excellent piece of "Our Savior's
Bearing the Cross." The harbor, in two channels, coming up to the town,
was choked with a multitude of prizes.
From hence, the next day, I marched three English miles toward the packet
boat, being a pretty frigate of six guns, which embarked us for England
about three in the afternoon.
[Sidenote: DOVER]
At our going off, the fort, against which our pinnace anchored saluted my
Lord Marshal with twelve great guns, which we answered with three. Not
having the wind favorable, we anchored that night before Calais. About
midnight, we weighed; and, at four in the morning, though not far from
Dover, we could not make the pier till four that afternoon, the wind
proving contrary and driving us westward: but at last we got on shore,
October the 12th.
From Dover, I that night rode post to Canterbury. Here I visited the
cathedral, then in great splendor; those famous windows being entire,
since demolished by the fanatics. The next morning by Sittingbourne, I
came to Rochester, and thence to Gravesend, where a light-horseman (as
they call it) taking us in, we spent our tide as far as Greenwich. From
hence, after we had a little refreshed ourselves at the College (for by
reason of contagion then in London we balked the inns), we came to
London, landing at Arundel stairs. Here I took leave of his Lordship, and
retired to my lodgings in the Middle Temple, being about two in the
morning, the 14th of October.
16th October, 1641. I went to see my brother at Wotton. On the 31st of
that month (unfortunate for the Irish Rebellion, which broke out on the
23d), I was one and twenty years of age.
7th November, 1641. After receiving the Sacrament at Wotton church, I
visited my Lord Marshal at Albury.
23d November, 1641. I returned to London; and, on the 25th, saw his
Majesty ride through the City after his coming out of Scotland, and a
Peace proclaimed, with great acclamations and joy of the giddy people.
15th December, 1641. I was elected one of the Comptrollers of the Middle
Temple revellers, as the fashion of the young students and gentlemen was,
the Christmas being kept this year with great solemnity; but, being
desirous to pass it in the country, I got leave to resign my staff of
office, and went with my brother Richard to Wotton.
10th January, 1642. I gave a visit to my cousin Hatton, of Ditton.
19th January, 1642. I went to London, where I stayed till 5th of March,
studying a little, but dancing and fooling more.
3d October, 1642. To Chichester, and hence the next day to see the siege
of Portsmouth; for now was that bloody difference between the King and
Parliament broken out, which ended in the fatal tragedy so many years
after. It was on the day of its being rendered to Sir William Waller;
which gave me an opportunity of taking my leave of Colonel Goring, the
governor, now embarking for France. This day was fought that signal
battle at Edgehill. Thence I went to Southampton and Winchester, where I
visited the castle, school, church, and King Arthur's Round Table; but
especially the church, and its Saxon kings' monuments, which I esteemed a
worthy antiquity.
The 12th of November was the battle of Brentford, surprisingly fought;
and to the great consternation of the City, had his Majesty (as it was
believed he would) pursued his advantage. I came in with my horse and
arms just at the retreat; but was not permitted to stay longer than the
15th, by reason of the army marching to Gloucester; which would have left
both me and my brothers exposed to ruin, without any advantage to his
Majesty.
[Sidenote: LONDON]
7th December, 1642. I went from Wotton to London, to see the so much
celebrated line of communication, and on the 10th returned to Wotton,
nobody knowing of my having been in his Majesty's army.
10th March, 1643. I went to Hartingford-berry to visit my cousin,
Keightly.
11th March, 1643. I went to see my Lord of Salisbury's Palace at
Hatfield, where the most considerable rarity, besides the house (inferior
to few then in England for its architecture), were the garden and
vineyard, rarely well watered and planted. They also showed us the
picture of Secretary Cecil, in Mosaic work, very well done by some
Italian hand.
I must not forget what amazed us exceedingly in the night before, namely,
a shining cloud in the air, in shape resembling a sword, the point
reaching to the north; it was as bright as the moon, the rest of the sky
being very serene. It began about eleven at night, and vanished not till
above one, being seen by all the south of England. I made many journeys
to and from London.
15th April, 1643. To Hatfield, and near the town of Hertford I went to
see Sir J. Harrison's house new built. Returning to London, I called to
see his Majesty's house and gardens at Theobald's, since demolished by
the rebels.
2d May, 1643. I went from Wotton to London, where I saw the furious and
zealous people demolish that stately Cross in Cheapside.
On the 4th I returned, with no little regret, for the confusion that
threatened us. Resolving to possess myself in some quiet, if it might be,
in a time of so great jealousy, I built by my brother's permission, a
study, made a fish-pond, an island, and some other solitudes and
retirements at Wotton; which gave the first occasion of improving them to
those waterworks and gardens which afterward succeeded them, and became
at that time the most famous of England.
12th July, 1643. I sent my black menage horse and furniture with a friend
to his Majesty, then at Oxford.
23d July, 1643. The Covenant being pressed, I absented myself; but,
finding it impossible to evade the doing very unhandsome things, and
which had been a great cause of my perpetual motions hitherto between
Wotton and London, October the 2d, I obtained a license of his Majesty,
dated at Oxford and signed by the King, to travel again.
6th November, 1643. Lying by the way from Wotton at Sir Ralph
Whitfield's, at Blechingley (whither both my brothers had conducted me),
I arrived at London on the 7th, and two days after took boat at the
Tower-wharf, which carried me as far as Sittingbourne, though not without
danger, I being only in a pair of oars, exposed to a hideous storm: but
it pleased God that we got in before the peril was considerable. From
thence, I went by post to Dover, accompanied with one Mr. Thicknesse, a
very dear friend of mine.
11th November, 1643. Having a reasonable good passage, though the weather
was snowy and untoward enough, we came before Calais, where, as we went
on shore, mistaking the tide, our shallop struck on the sands, with no
little danger; but at length we got off.
Calais is considered an extraordinary well-fortified place, in the old
castle and new citadel regarding the sea. The haven consists of a long
bank of sand, lying opposite to it. The market place and the church are
remarkable things, besides those relics of our former dominion there. I
remember there were engraven in stone, upon the front of an ancient
dwelling which was showed us, these words in English--"God save the
King," together with the name of the architect and date. The walls of the
town are substantial; but the situation toward the land is not pleasant,
by reason of the marshes and low grounds about it.
12th November, 1643. After dinner we took horse with the Messagere,
hoping to have arrived at Boulogne that night; but there fell so great a
snow, accompanied with hail, rain, and sudden darkness, that we had much
ado to gain the next village; and in this passage, being to cross a
valley by a causeway, and a bridge built over a small river, the rain
that had fallen making it an impetuous stream for near a quarter of a
mile, my horse slipping had almost been the occasion of my perishing. We
none of us went to bed; for the soldiers in those parts leaving little in
the villages, we had enough to do to get ourselves dry, by morning,
between the fire and the fresh straw. The next day early, we arrived at
Boulogne.
This is a double town, one part of it situate on a high rock, or downs;
the other, called the lower town, is yet with a great declivity toward
the sea; both of them defended by a strong castle, which stands on a
notable eminence. Under the town runs the river, which is yet but an
inconsiderable brook. Henry VIII., in the siege of this place is said to
have used those great leathern guns which I have since beheld in the
Tower of London, inscribed, "_Non Marte opus est cui non deficit
Mercurius_"; if at least the history be true, which my Lord Herbert
doubts.
The next morning, in some danger of parties [Spanish] surprising us, we
came to Montreuil, built on the summit of a most conspicuous hill,
environed with fair and ample meadows; but all the suburbs had been from
time to time ruined, and were now lately burnt by the Spanish inroads.
This town is fortified with two very deep dry ditches; the walls about
the bastions and citadel are a noble piece of masonry. The church is more
glorious without than within; the market place large; but the inhabitants
are miserably poor. The next day, we came to Abbeville, having passed all
this way in continual expectation of the volunteers, as they call them.
This town affords a good aspect toward the hill from whence we descended:
nor does it deceive us; for it is handsomely built, and has many pleasant
and useful streams passing through it, the main river being the Somme,
which discharges itself into the sea at St. Valery, almost in view of the
town. The principal church is a very handsome piece of Gothic
architecture, and the ports and ramparts sweetly planted for defense and
ornament. In the morning, they brought us choice of guns and pistols to
sell at reasonable rates, and neatly made, being here a merchandise of
great account, the town abounding in gunsmiths.
[Sidenote: ST. DENIS]
[Sidenote: PARIS]
Hence we advanced to Beauvais, another town of good note, and having the
first vineyards we had seen. The next day to Beaumont, and the morrow to
Paris, having taken our repast at St. Denis, two leagues from that great
city. St. Denis is considerable only for its stately cathedral, and the
dormitory of the French kings, there inhumed as ours at Westminster
Abbey. The treasury is esteemed one of the richest in Europe. The church
was built by King Dagobert,[15] but since much enlarged, being now 390
feet long, 100 in breadth, and 80 in height, without comprehending the
cover: it has also a very high shaft of stone, and the gates are of
brass. Here, while the monks conducted us, we were showed the ancient and
modern sepulchers of their kings, beginning with the founder to Louis his
son, with Charles Martel and Pepin, son and father of Charlemagne. These
lie in the choir, and without it are many more: among the rest that of
Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France; in the chapel of Charles V.,
all his posterity; and near him the magnificent sepulcher of Francis I.,
with his children, wars, victories, and triumphs engraven in marble. In
the nave of the church lies the catafalque, or hearse, of Louis XIII.,
Henry II., a noble tomb of Francis II., and Charles IX. Above are bodies
of several Saints; below, under a state of black velvet, the late Louis
XIII., father of this present monarch. Every one of the ten chapels, or
oratories, had some Saints in them; among the rest, one of the Holy
Innocents. The treasury is kept in the sacristy above, in which are
crosses of massy gold and silver, studded with precious stones, one of
gold three feet high, set with sapphires, rubies, and great oriental
pearls. Another given by Charles the Great, having a noble amethyst in
the middle of it, stones and pearls of inestimable value. Among the still
more valuable relics are, a nail from our Savior's Cross, in a box of
gold full of precious stones; a crucifix of the true wood of the Cross,
carved by Pope Clement III., enchased in a crystal covered with gold; a
box in which is some of the Virgin's hair; some of the linen in which our
blessed Savior was wrapped at his nativity; in a huge reliquary, modeled
like a church, some of our Savior's blood, hair, clothes, linen with
which he wiped the Apostles' feet; with many other equally authentic
toys, which the friar who conducted us would have us believe were
authentic relics. Among the treasures is the crown of Charlemagne, his
seven-foot high scepter and hand of justice, the agraffe of his royal
mantle, beset with diamonds and rubies, his sword, belt, and spurs of
gold; the crown of St. Louis, covered with precious stones, among which
is one vast ruby, uncut, of inestimable value, weighing 300 carats (under
which is set one of the thorns of our blessed Savior's crown), his
sword, seal, and hand of justice. The two crowns of Henry IV., his
scepter, hand of justice, and spurs. The two crowns of his son Louis. In
the cloak-royal of Anne of Bretagne is a very great and rare ruby. Divers
books covered with solid plates of gold, and studded with precious
stones. Two vases of beryl, two of agate, whereof one is esteemed for its
bigness, color, and embossed carving, the best now to be seen: by a
special favor I was permitted to take the measure and dimensions of it;
the story is a Bacchanalia and sacrifice to Priapus; a very holy thing
truly, and fit for a cloister! It is really antique, and the noblest
jewel there. There is also a large gondola of chrysolite, a huge urn of
porphyry, another of calcedon, a vase of onyx, the largest I had ever
seen of that stone; two of crystal; a morsel of one of the waterpots in
which our Savior did his first miracle; the effigies of the Queen of
Saba, of Julius, Augustus, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, and others, upon
sapphires, topazes, agates, and cornelians: that of the queen of Saba[16]
has a Moorish face; those of Julius and Nero on agates are rarely colored
and cut. A cup in which Solomon was used to drink, and an Apollo on a
great amethyst. There lay in a window a mirror of a kind of stone said to
have belonged to the poet Virgil. Charlemagne's chessmen, full of Arabic
characters. In the press next the door, the brass lantern full of
crystals, said to have conducted Judas and his company to apprehend our
blessed Savior. A fair unicorn's horn, sent by a king of Persia, about
seven feet long. In another press (over which stands the picture in oil
of their Orleans Amazon with her sword), the effigies of the late French
kings in wax, like ours in Westminster, covered with their robes; with a
world of other rarities. Having rewarded our courteous friar, we took
horse for Paris, where we arrived about five in the afternoon. In the way
were fair crosses of stone carved with fleur-de-lis at every furlong's
end, where they affirm St. Denis rested and laid down his head after
martyrdom, carrying it from the place where this monastery is builded. We
lay at Paris at the Ville de Venice; where, after I had something
refreshed, I went to visit Sir Richard Browne, his Majesty's Resident
with the French king.
[Footnote 15: A. D. 630.]
[Footnote 16: Or Sheba.]
5th December, 1643. The Earl of Norwich came as Ambassador extraordinary:
I went to meet him in a coach and six horses, at the palace of Monsieur
de Bassompière, where I saw that gallant person, his gardens, terraces,
and rare prospects. My lord was waited on by the master of the
ceremonies, and a very great cavalcade of men of quality, to the Palais
Cardinal, where on the 23d he had audience of the French king, and the
queen Regent his mother, in the golden chamber of presence. From thence,
I conducted him to his lodgings in Rue St. Denis, and so took my leave.
24th December, 1643. I went with some company to see some remarkable
places without the city: as the Isle, and how it is encompassed by the
Rivers Seine and the Ouse. The city is divided into three parts, whereof
the town is greatest. The city lies between it and the University in form
of an island. Over the Seine is a stately bridge called Pont Neuf, begun
by Henry III. in 1578, finished by Henry IV. his successor. It is all of
hewn freestone found under the streets, but more plentifully at
Montmartre, and consists of twelve arches, in the midst of which ends the
point of an island, on which are built handsome artificers' houses. There
is one large passage for coaches, and two for foot passengers three or
four feet higher, and of convenient breadth for eight or ten to go
abreast. On the middle of this stately bridge, on one side, stands the
famous statue of Henry the Great on horseback, exceeding the natural
proportion by much; and, on the four faces of a stately pedestal (which
is composed of various sorts of polished marbles and rich moldings),
inscriptions of his victories and most signal actions are engraven in
brass. The statue and horse are of copper, the work of the great John di
Bologna, and sent from Florence by Ferdinand the First, and Cosmo the
Second, uncle and cousin to Mary de Medicis, the wife of King Henry,
whose statue it represents. The place where it is erected is inclosed
with a strong and beautiful grate of iron, about which there are always
mountebanks showing their feats to the idle passengers. From hence is a
rare prospect toward the Louvre and suburbs of St. Germains, the Isle du
Palais, and Nôtre Dame. At the foot of this bridge is a water-house, on
the front whereof, at a great height, is the story of Our Savior and the
woman of Samaria pouring water out of a bucket. Above, is a very rare
dial of several motions, with a chime, etc. The water is conveyed by huge
wheels, pumps, and other engines, from the river beneath. The confluence
of the people and multitude of coaches passing every moment over the
bridge, to a new spectator is an agreeable diversion. Other bridges there
are, as that of Nôtre Dame and the Pont-au-Change, etc., fairly built,
with houses of stone, which are laid over this river; only the Pont St.
Anne, landing the suburbs of St. Germains at the Tuileries, is built of
wood, having likewise a water house in the midst of it, and a statue of
Neptune casting water out of a whale's mouth, of lead, but much inferior
to the Samaritan.
The University lies southwest on higher ground, contiguous to, but the
lesser part of, Paris. They reckon no less than sixty-five colleges; but
they in nothing approach ours at Oxford for state and order. The
booksellers dwell within the University. The schools (of which more
hereafter) are very regular.
The suburbs are those of St. Denis, Honoré, St. Marcel, St. Jaques, St.
Michael, St. Victoire, and St. Germains, which last is the largest, and
where the nobility and persons of best quality are seated: and truly
Paris, comprehending the suburbs, is, for the material the houses are
built with, and many noble and magnificent piles, one of the most gallant
cities in the world; large in circuit, of a round form, very populous,
but situated in a bottom, environed with gentle declivities, rendering
some places very dirty, and making it smell as if sulphur were mingled
with the mud; yet it is paved with a kind of freestone, of near a foot
square, which renders it more easy to walk on than our pebbles in London.
On Christmas eve, I went to see the Cathedral at Nôtre Dame, erected by
Philip Augustus, but begun by King Robert, son of Hugh Capet. It consists
of a Gothic fabric, sustained with 120 pillars, which make two aisles in
the church round about the choir, without comprehending the chapels,
being 174 paces long, 60 wide, and 100 high. The choir is inclosed with
stonework graven with the sacred history, and contains forty-five chapels
chancelled with iron. At the front of the chief entrance are statues in
relievo of the kings, twenty-eight in number, from Childebert to the
founder, Philip; and above them are two high square towers, and another
of a smaller size, bearing a spire in the middle, where the body of the
church forms a cross. The great tower is ascended by 389 steps, having
twelve galleries from one to the other. They greatly reverence the
crucifix over the screen of the choir, with an image of the Blessed
Virgin. There are some good modern paintings hanging on the pillars. The
most conspicuous statute is the huge colossal one of St. Christopher;
with divers other figures of men, houses, prospects and rocks, about this
gigantic piece; being of one stone, and more remarkable for its bulk than
any other perfection. This is the prime church of France for dignity,
having archdeacons, vicars, canons, priests, and chaplains in good store,
to the number of 127. It is also the palace of the archbishop. The young
king was there with a great and martial guard, who entered the nave of
the church with drums and fifes, at the ceasing of which I was
entertained with the church music; and so I left him.
4th January, 1644. I passed this day with one Mr. J. Wall, an Irish
gentleman, who had been a friar in Spain, and afterward a reader in St.
Isodore's chair, at Rome; but was, I know not how, getting away, and
pretending to be a soldier of fortune, an absolute cavalier, having, as
he told us, been a captain of horse in Germany. It is certain he was an
excellent disputant, and so strangely given to it that nothing could pass
him. He would needs persuade me to go with him this morning to the
Jesuits' College, to witness his polemical talent. We found the Fathers
in their Church at the Rue St. Antoine, where one of them showed us that
noble fabric, which for its cupola, pavings, incrustations of marble, the
pulpit, altars (especially the high altar), organ, lavatorium, etc., but
above all, for the richly carved and incomparable front I esteem to be
one of the most perfect pieces of architecture in Europe, emulating even
some of the greatest now at Rome itself. But this not being what our
friar sought, he led us into the adjoining convent, where, having shown
us the library, they began a very hot dispute on some points of divinity,
which our cavalier contested only to show his pride, and to that
indiscreet height, that the Jesuits would hardly bring us to our coach,
they being put beside all patience. The next day, we went into the
University, and into the College of Navarre, which is a spacious,
well-built quadrangle, having a very noble library.
Thence to the Sorbonne, an ancient fabric built by one Robert de
Sorbonne, whose name it retains, but the restoration which the late
Cardinal de Richelieu has made to it renders it one of the most excellent
modern buildings; the sumptuous church, of admirable architecture, is far
superior to the rest. The cupola, portico, and whole design of the
church, are very magnificent.
We entered into some of the schools, and in that of divinity we found a
grave Doctor in his chair, with a multitude of auditors, who all write as
he dictates; and this they call a Course. After we had sat a little, our
cavalier started up, and rudely enough began to dispute with the doctor;
at which, and especially as he was clad in the Spanish habit, which in
Paris is the greatest bugbear imaginable, the scholars and doctor fell
into such a fit of laughter, that nobody could be heard speak for a
while: but silence being obtained, he began to speak Latin, and made his
apology in so good a style, that their derision was turned to admiration;
and beginning to argue, he so baffled the Professor, that with universal
applause they all rose up, and did him great honors, waiting on us to the
very street and our coach, and testifying great satisfaction.
2d February, 1644. I heard the news of my nephew George's birth, which
was on January 15th, English style, 1644.
3d February, 1644. I went to the Exchange. The late addition to the
buildings is very noble; but the galleries where they sell their petty
merchandise nothing so stately as ours at London, no more than the place
where they walk below, being only a low vault.
The Palaise, as they call the upper part, was built in the time of Philip
the Fair, noble and spacious. The great Hall annexed to it, is arched
with stone, having a range of pillars in the middle, round which, and at
the sides, are shops of all kinds, especially booksellers'. One side is
full of pews for the clerks of the advocates, who swarm here (as ours at
Westminster). At one of the ends stands an altar, at which mass is said
daily. Within are several chambers, courts, treasuries, etc. Above that
is the most rich and glorious Salle d'Audience, the chamber of St.
Louis, and other superior Courts where the Parliament sits, richly gilt
on embossed carvings and frets, and exceedingly beautified.
Within the place where they sell their wares, is another narrower
gallery, full of shops and toys, etc., which looks down into the
prison-yard. Descending by a large pair of stairs, we passed by Sainte
Chapelle, which is a church built by St. Louis, 1242, after the Gothic
manner: it stands on another church, which is under it, sustained by
pillars at the sides, which seem so weak as to appear extraordinary in
the artist. This chapel is most famous for its relics, having as they
pretend, almost the entire crown of thorns: the agate patine, rarely
sculptured, judged one of the largest and best in Europe. There was now a
very beautiful spire erecting. The court below is very spacious, capable
of holding many coaches, and surrounded with shops, especially
engravers', goldsmiths', and watchmakers'. In it are a fair fountain and
portico. The Isle du Palais consists of a triangular brick building,
whereof one side, looking to the river, is inhabited by goldsmiths.
Within the court are private dwellings. The front, looking on the great
bridge, is possessed by mountebanks, operators, and puppet-players. On
the other part, is the every day's market for all sorts of provisions,
especially bread, herbs, flowers, orange trees, choice shrubs. Here is a
shop called NOAH'S ARK, where are sold all curiosities, natural or
artificial, Indian or European, for luxury or use, as cabinets, shells,
ivory, porcelain, dried fishes, insects, birds, pictures, and a thousand
exotic extravagances. Passing hence, we viewed the port Dauphine, an arch
of excellent workmanship; the street bearing the same name, is ample and
straight.
4th February, 1644. I went to see the Marais de Temple, where are a noble
church and palace, heretofore dedicated to the Knights Templar, now
converted to a piazza, not much unlike ours at Covent Garden; but large
and not so pleasant, though built all about with divers considerable
palaces.
The Church of St. Geneviève is a place of great devotion, dedicated to
another of their Amazons, said to have delivered the city from the
English; for which she is esteemed the tutelary saint of Paris. It stands
on a steep eminence, having a very high spire, and is governed by canons
regular. At the Palais Royal Henry IV. built a fair quadrangle of stately
palaces, arched underneath. In the middle of a spacious area, stands on a
noble pedestal a brazen statue of Louis XIII., which, though made in
imitation of that in the Roman capitol, is nothing so much esteemed as
that on the Pont Neuf.
The hospital of the Quinze-Vingts, in the Rue St. Honoré, is an excellent
foundation; but above all is the Hôtel Dieu for men and women, near Nôtre
Dame, a princely, pious, and expensive structure. That of the Charité
gave me great satisfaction, in seeing how decently and christianly the
sick people are attended, even to delicacy. I have seen them served by
noble persons, men and women. They have also gardens, walks, and
fountains. Divers persons are here cut for the stone, with great success,
yearly in May. The two Châtelets (supposed to have been built by Julius
Cæsar) are places of judicature in criminal causes; to which is a strong
prison. The courts are spacious and magnificent.
8th February, 1644. I took coach and went to see the famous Jardine
Royale, which is an inclosure walled in, consisting of all varieties of
ground for planting and culture of medical simples. It is well chosen,
having in it hills, meadows, wood and upland, natural and artificial, and
is richly stored with exotic plants. In the middle of the parterre is a
fair fountain. There is a very fine house, chapel, laboratory, orangery,
and other accommodations for the President, who is always one of the
king's chief physicians.
From hence, we went to the other side of the town, and to some distance
from it, to the Bois de Vincennes, going by the Bastille, which is the
fortress, tower, and magazine of this great city. It is very spacious
within, and there the Grand Master of the artillery has his house, with
fair gardens and walks.
The Bois de Vincennes has in it a square and noble castle, with
magnificent apartments, fit for a royal court, not forgetting the chapel.
It is the chief prison for persons of quality. About it there is a park
walled in, full of deer; and in one part there is a grove of goodly pine
trees.
The next day, I went to see the Louvre with more attention, its several
courts and pavilions. One of the quadrangles, begun by Henry IV., and
finished by his son and grandson, is a superb, but mixed structure. The
cornices, moldings, and compartments, with the insertion of several
colored marbles, have been of great expense.
We went through the long gallery, paved with white and black marble,
richly fretted and painted _à fresco_. The front looking to the river,
though of rare work for the carving, yet wants of that magnificence which
a plainer and truer design would have contributed to it.
In the Cour aux Tuileries is a princely fabric; the winding geometrical
stone stairs, with the cupola, I take to be as bold and noble a piece of
architecture as any in Europe of the kind. To this is a _corps de logis_,
worthy of so great a prince. Under these buildings, through a garden in
which is an ample fountain, was the king's printing house, and that
famous letter so much esteemed. Here I bought divers of the classic
authors, poets, and others.
We returned through another gallery, larger, but not so long, where hung
the pictures of all the kings and queens and prime nobility of France.
Descending hence, we were let into a lower very large room, called the
_Salle des Antiques_, which is a vaulted Cimelia, destined for statues
only, among which stands that so celebrated Diana of the Ephesians, said
to be the same which uttered oracles in that renowned Temple. Besides
these colossean figures of marble, I must not forget the huge globe
suspended by chains. The pavings, inlayings, and incrustations of this
Hall, are very rich.
In another more private garden toward the Queen's apartment is a walk, or
cloister, under arches, whose terrace is paved with stones of a great
breadth; it looks toward the river, and has a pleasant aviary, fountain,
stately cypresses, etc. On the river are seen a prodigious number of
barges and boats of great length, full of hay, corn, wood, wine, and
other commodities, which this vast city daily consumes. Under the long
gallery we have described, dwell goldsmiths, painters, statuaries, and
architects, who being the most famous for their art in Christendom have
stipends allowed them by the King. Into that of Monsieur Saracin we
entered, who was then molding for an image of a Madonna to be cast in
gold of a great size to be sent by the Queen Regent to Loretto, as an
offering for the birth of the Dauphin, now the young King.
I finished this day with a walk in the great garden of the Tuileries,
rarely contrived for privacy, shade, or company, by groves, plantations
of tall trees, especially that in the middle, being of elms, the other of
mulberries; and that labyrinth of cypresses; not omitting the noble
hedges of pomegranates, fountains, fish-ponds, and an aviary; but, above
all, the artificial echo, redoubling the words so distinctly; and, as it
is never without some fair nymph singing to its grateful returns;
standing at one of the focuses, which is under a tree or little cabinet
of hedges, the voice seems to descend from the clouds; at another, as if
it was underground. This being at the bottom of the garden, we were let
into another, which being kept with all imaginary accurateness as to the
orangery, precious shrubs, and rare fruits, seemed a Paradise. From a
terrace in this place we saw so many coaches, as one would hardly think
could be maintained in the whole city, going, late as it was in the year,
toward the course, which is a place adjoining, of near an English mile
long, planted with four rows of trees, making a large circle in the
middle. This course is walled about, near breast high, with squared
freestone, and has a stately arch at the entrance, with sculpture and
statues about it, built by Mary di Medicis. Here it is that the gallants
and ladies of the Court take the air and divert themselves, as with us in
Hyde Park, the circle being capable of containing a hundred coaches to
turn commodiously, and the larger of the plantations for five or six
coaches abreast.
Returning through the Tuileries, we saw a building in which are kept wild
beasts for the King's pleasure, a bear, a wolf, a wild boar, a leopard,
etc.
[Sidenote: ST. CLOUD]
27th February, 1644. Accompanied with some English gentlemen, we took
horse to see St. Germains-en-Laye, a stately country house of the King,
some five leagues from Paris. By the way, we alighted at St. Cloud,
where, on an eminence near the river, the Archbishop of Paris has a
garden, for the house is not very considerable, rarely watered and
furnished with fountains, statues, and groves; the walks are very fair;
the fountain of Laocoon is in a large square pool, throwing the water
near forty feet high, and having about it a multitude of statues and
basins, and is a surprising object. But nothing is more esteemed than the
cascade falling from the great steps into the lowest and longest walk
from the Mount Parnassus, which consists of a grotto, or shell-house, on
the summit of the hill, wherein are divers waterworks and contrivances to
wet the spectators; this is covered with a fair cupola, the walls painted
with the Muses, and statues placed thick about it, whereof some are
antique and good. In the upper walks are two perspectives, seeming to
enlarge the alleys, and in this garden are many other ingenious
contrivances. The palace, as I said, is not extraordinary. The outer
walls only painted _à fresco_. In the court is a Volary, and the statues
of Charles IX., Henry III., IV., and Louis XIII., on horseback,
mezzo-relievo'd in plaster. In the garden is a small chapel; and under
shelter is the figure of Cleopatra, taken from the Belvidere original,
with others. From the terrace above is a tempest well painted; and thence
an excellent prospect toward Paris, the meadows, and river.
At an inn in this village is a host who treats all the great persons in
princely lodgings for furniture and plate, but they pay well for it, as I
have done. Indeed, the entertainment is very splendid, and not
unreasonable, considering the excellent manner of dressing their meat,
and of the service. Here are many debauches and excessive revelings, as
being out of all noise and observance.
[Sidenote: ST. GERMAINS]
From hence, about a league further, we went to see Cardinal Richelieu's
villa, at Ruell. The house is small, but fairly built, in form of a
castle, moated round. The offices are toward the road, and over against
it are large vineyards, walled in. But, though the house is not of the
greatest, the gardens about it are so magnificent, that I doubt whether
Italy has any exceeding it for all rarities of pleasure. The garden
nearest the pavilion is a parterre, having in the midst divers noble
brass statues, perpetually spouting water into an ample basin, with other
figures of the same metal; but what is most admirable is the vast
inclosure, and variety of ground, in the large garden, containing
vineyards, cornfields, meadows, groves (whereof one is of perennial
greens), and walks of vast length, so accurately kept and cultivated,
that nothing can be more agreeable. On one of these walks, within a
square of tall trees, is a basilisk of copper, which, managed by the
fountaineer, casts water near sixty feet high, and will of itself move
round so swiftly, that one can hardly escape wetting. This leads to the
Citronière, which is a noble conserve of all those rarities; and at the
end of it is the Arch of Constantine, painted on a wall in oil, as large
as the real one at Rome, so well done, that even a man skilled in
painting, may mistake it for stone and sculpture. The sky and hills,
which seem to be between the arches, are so natural, that swallows and
other birds, thinking to fly through, have dashed themselves against the
wall. I was infinitely taken with this agreeable cheat. At the further
part of this walk is that plentiful, though artificial cascade, which
rolls down a very steep declivity, and over the marble steps and basins,
with an astonishing noise and fury; each basin hath a jetto in it,
flowing like sheets of transparent glass, especially that which rises
over the great shell of lead, from whence it glides silently down a
channel through the middle of a spacious gravel walk, terminating in a
grotto. Here are also fountains that cast water to a great height, and
large ponds, two of which have islands for harbor of fowls, of which
there is store. One of these islands has a receptacle for them built of
vast pieces of rock, near fifty feet high, grown over with moss, ivy,
etc., shaded at a competent distance with tall trees: in this rupellary
nidary do the fowl lay eggs, and breed. We then saw a large and very rare
grotto of shell-work, in the shape of Satyrs, and other wild fancies: in
the middle stands a marble table, on which a fountain plays in divers
forms of glasses, cups, crosses, fans, crowns, etc. Then the fountaineer
represented a shower of rain from the top, met by small jets from below.
At going out, two extravagant musketeers shot us with a stream of water
from their musket barrels. Before this grotto is a long pool into which
ran divers spouts of water from leaden escalop basins. The viewing this
paradise made us late at St. Germains.
The first building of this palace is of Charles V., called the Sage; but
Francis I. (that true virtuoso) made it complete; speaking as to the
style of magnificence then in fashion, which was with too great a mixture
of the Gothic, as may be seen in what there is remaining of his in the
old Castle, an irregular piece as built on the old foundation, and having
a moat about it. It has yet some spacious and handsome rooms of state,
and a chapel neatly painted. The new Castle is at some distance, divided
from this by a court, of a lower, but more modern design, built by Henry
IV. To this belong six terraces, built of brick and stone, descending in
cascades toward the river, cut out of the natural hill, having under them
goodly vaulted galleries; of these, four have subterranean grots and
rocks, where are represented several objects in the manner of scenes and
other motions, by force of water, shown by the light of torches only;
among these, is Orpheus with his music; and the animals, which dance
after his harp; in the second, is the King and Dolphin;[17] in the third,
is Neptune sounding his trumpet, his chariot drawn by sea horses; in the
fourth, the story of Perseus and Andromeda; mills; hermitages; men
fishing; birds chirping; and many other devices. There is also a dry grot
to refresh in; all having a fine prospect toward the river, and the
goodly country about it, especially the forest. At the bottom, is a
parterre; the upper terrace nearly half a mile in length, with double
declivities, arched and balustered with stone, of vast and royal cost.
[Footnote 17: Dauphin.]
In the pavilion of the new Castle are many fair rooms, well painted, and
leading into a very noble garden and park, where is a pall-mall, in the
midst of which, on one of the sides, is a chapel, with stone cupola,
though small, yet of a handsome order of architecture. Out of the park
you go into the forest, which being very large, is stored with deer, wild
boars, wolves, and other wild game. The Tennis Court, and Cavallerizzo,
for the menaged horses, are also observable.
[Sidenote: PARIS]
We returned to Paris by Madrid, another villa of the King's, built by
Francis I., and called by that name to absolve him of his oath that he
would not go from Madrid (in which he was prisoner), in Spain, but from
whence he made his escape. This house is also built in a park, and
walled in. We next called in at the Bonnes-hommes, well situated, with a
fair chapel and library.
1st March, 1644. I went to see the Count de Liancourt's Palace in the Rue
de Seine, which is well built. Toward his study and bedchamber joins a
little garden, which, though very narrow, by the addition of a
well-painted perspective, is to appearance greatly enlarged; to this
there is another part, supported by arches in which runs a stream of
water, rising in the aviary, out of a statue, and seeming to flow for
some miles, by being artificially continued in the painting, when it
sinks down at the wall. It is a very agreeable deceit. At the end of this
garden is a little theater, made to change with divers pretty scenes, and
the stage so ordered, with figures of men and women painted on light
boards, and cut out, and, by a person who stands underneath, made to act
as if they were speaking, by guiding them, and reciting words in
different tones, as the parts require. We were led into a round cabinet,
where was a neat invention for reflecting lights, by lining divers
sconces with thin shining plates of gilded copper.
In one of the rooms of state was an excellent painting of Poussin, being
a Satyr kneeling; over the chimney, the Coronation of the Virgin, by
Paulo Veronese; another Madonna over the door, and that of Joseph, by
Cigali; in the Hall, a Cavaliero di Malta, attended by his page, said to
be of Michael Angelo; the Rape of Proserpine, with a very large landscape
of Correggio. In the next room are some paintings of Primaticcio,
especially the Helena, the naked Lady brought before Alexander, well
painted, and a Ceres. In the bedchamber a picture of the Cardinal de
Liancourt, of Raphael, rarely colored. In the cabinet are divers pieces
of Bassano, two of Polemburg, four of Paulo Brill, the skies a little too
blue. A Madonna of Nicholao, excellently painted on a stone; a Judith of
Mantegna; three women of Jeronimo; one of Stenwick; a Madonna after
Titian, and a Magdalen of the same hand, as the Count esteems it: two
small pieces of Paulo Veronese, being the Martyrdoms of St. Justina and
St. Catherine; a Madonna of Lucas Van Leyden, sent him from our King; six
more of old Bassano; two excellent drawings of Albert; a Magdalen of
Leonardo da Vinci; four of Paulo; a very rare Madonna of Titian, given
him also by our King; the _Ecce Homo_, shut up in a frame of velvet, for
the life and accurate finishing exceeding all description. Some curious
agates, and a chaplet of admirable invention, the intaglios being all on
fruit stones. The Count was so exceeding civil, that he would needs make
his lady go out of her dressing room, that he might show us the
curiosities and pictures in it.
We went thence to visit one Monsieur Perishot, one of the greatest
virtuosos in France, for his collection of pictures, agates, medals, and
flowers, especially tulips and anemonies. The chiefest of his paintings
was a Sebastian, of Titian.
From him we went to Monsieur Frene's, who showed us many rare drawings, a
Rape of Helen in black chalk; many excellent things of Sneiders, all
naked; some of Julio and Michael Angelo; a Madonna of Passignano; some
things of Parmensis, and other masters.
The next morning, being recommended to one Monsieur de Hausse, President
of the Parliament, and once Ambassador at Venice for the French King, we
were very civilly received, and showed his library. Among his paintings
were a rare Venus and Adonis of Veronese, a St. Anthony, after the first
manner of Correggio, and a rare Madonna of Palma.
Sunday, the 6th of March, I went to Charenton, two leagues from Paris, to
hear and see the manner of the French Protestant Church service. The
place of meeting they call the Temple, a very fair and spacious room,
built of freestone, very decently adorned with paintings of the Tables of
the Law, the Lord's Prayer, and Creed. The pulpit stands at the upper end
in the middle, having an inclosure of seats about it, where the Elders
and persons of greatest quality and strangers, sit; the rest of the
congregation on forms and low stools, but none in pews, as in our
churches, to their great disgrace, as nothing so orderly, as here the
stools and other cumber are removed when the assembly rises. I was
greatly pleased with their harmonious singing the Psalms, which they all
learn perfectly well, their children being as duly taught these, as their
catechism.
In our passage, we went by that famous bridge over the Marne, where that
renowned echo returns the voice of a good singer nine or ten times.
7th March, 1644. I set forward with some company toward Fontainebleau, a
sumptuous Palace of the King's, like ours at Hampton Court, about
fourteen leagues from the city. By the way, we pass through a forest so
prodigiously encompassed with hideous rocks of whitish hard stone, heaped
one on another in mountainous heights, that I think the like is nowhere
to be found more horrid and solitary. It abounds with stags, wolves,
boars, and not long after a lynx, or ounce, was killed among them, which
had devoured some passengers. On the summit of one of these gloomy
precipices, intermingled with trees and shrubs, the stones hanging over,
and menacing ruin, is built an hermitage. In these solitudes, rogues
frequently lurk and do mischief (and for whom we were all well appointed
with our carabines); but we arrived safe in the evening at the village,
where we lay at the Horne, going early next morning to the Palace.
This House is nothing so stately and uniform as Hampton Court, but
Francis I. began much to beautify it; most of all Henry IV. (and not a
little) the late King. It abounds with fair halls, chambers, and
galleries; in the longest, which is 360 feet long, and 18 broad, are
painted the Victories of that great Prince, Henry IV. That of Francis I.,
called the grand Gallery, has all the King's palaces painted in it; above
these, in sixty pieces of excellent work in fresco, is the History of
Ulysses, from Homer, by Primaticcio, in the time of Henry III., esteemed
the most renowned in Europe for the design. The Cabinet is full of
excellent pictures, especially a Woman, of Raphael. In the Hall of the
Guards is a piece of tapestry painted on the wall, very naturally,
representing the victories of Charles VII. over our countrymen. In the
Salle des Festins is a rare Chimney-piece, and Henry IV. on horseback, of
white marble, esteemed worth 18,000 crowns; Clementia and Pax, nobly
done. On columns of jasper, two lions of brass. The new stairs, and a
half circular court, are of modern and good architecture, as is a chapel
built by Louis XIII., all of jasper, with several incrustations of marble
through the inside.
Having seen the rooms, we went to the volary, which has a cupola in the
middle of it, great trees and bushes, it being full of birds who drank at
two fountains. There is also a fair tennis court, and noble stables; but
the beauty of all are the gardens. In the Court of the Fountains stand
divers antiquities and statues, especially a Mercury. In the Queen's
Garden is a Diana ejecting a fountain, with numerous other brass statues.
The great Garden, 180 toises long and 154 wide, has in the center a
fountain of Tyber of a Colossean figure of brass, with the Wolf over
Romulus and Remus. At each corner of the garden rises a fountain. In the
garden of the piscina, is a Hercules of white marble; next, is that of
the pines, and without that a canal of an English mile in length, at the
end of which rise three jettos in the form of a fleur-de-lis, of a great
height; on the margin are excellent walks planted with trees. The carps
come familiarly to hand (to be fed). Hence they brought us to a spring,
which they say being first discovered by a dog, gave occasion of
beautifying this place, both with the palace and gardens. The white and
terrific rocks at some distance in the forest, yield one of the most
august and stupendous prospects imaginable. The park about this place is
very large, and the town full of noblemen's houses.
Next morning, we were invited by a painter, who was keeper of the
pictures and rarities, to see his own collection. We were led through a
gallery of old Rosso's work, at the end of which, in another cabinet,
were three Madonnas of Raphael, and two of Andrea del Sarto. In the
Academy where the painter himself wrought, was a St. Michael of Raphael,
very rare; St. John Baptist of Leonardo, and a Woman's head; a Queen of
Sicily, and St. Margaret of Raphael; two more Madonnas, whereof one very
large, by the same hand; some more of del Sarto; a St. Jerome, of Perino
del Vaga; the Rape of Proserpine, very good; and a great number of
drawings.
Returning part of our way to Paris, that day, we visited a house called
_Maison Rouge_, having an excellent prospect, grot, and fountains, one
whereof rises fifty feet, and resembles the noise of a tempest, battle of
guns, etc., at its issue.
Thence to Essone, a house of Monsieur Essling, who is a great virtuoso;
there are many good paintings in it; but nothing so observable as his
gardens, fountains, fish-pools, especially that in a triangular form, the
water cast out by a multitude of heads about it; there is a noble
cascade and pretty baths, with all accommodations. Under a marble table
is a fountain of serpents twisting about a globe.
We alighted next at Corbeil, a town famous for the siege by Henry IV.
Here we slept, and returned next morning to Paris.
18th March, 1644. I went with Sir J. Cotton, a Cambridgeshire Knight, a
journey into Normandy. The first day, we passed by Gaillon, the
Archbishop of Rouen's Palace. The gardens are highly commended, but we
did not go in, intending to reach Pontoise by dinner. This town is built
in a very gallant place, has a noble bridge over the Oise, and is well
refreshed with fountains.
This is the first town in Normandy, and the furthest that the vineyards
extend to on this side of the country, which is fuller of plains, wood,
and inclosures, with some towns toward the sea, very like England.
[Sidenote: ROUEN]
We lay this night at a village, called Magny. The next day, descending a
very steep hill, we dined at Fleury, after riding five leagues down St.
Catherine, to Rouen, which affords a goodly prospect, to the ruins of
that chapel and mountain. This country so abounds with wolves that a
shepherd whom we met, told us one of his companions was strangled by one
of them the day before, and that in the midst of his flock. The fields
are mostly planted with pears and apples, and other cider fruits. It is
plentifully furnished with quarries of stone and slate, and hath iron in
abundance.
I lay at the White Cross, in Rouen, which is a very large city, on the
Seine, having two smaller rivers besides, called the Aubette and Robec.
There stand yet the ruins of a magnificent bridge of stone, now supplied
by one of boats only, to which come up vessels of considerable burden.
The other side of the water consists of meadows, and there have the
Reformed a church.
The Cathedral Nôtre Dame was built, as they acknowledge, by the English;
some English words graven in Gothic characters upon the front seem to
confirm it. The towers and whole church are full of carving. It has three
steeples, with a pyramid; in one of these, I saw the famous bell so much
talked of, thirteen feet in height, thirty-two round, the diameter
eleven, weighing 40,000 pounds.
In the Chapel d'Amboise, built by a Cardinal of that name, lies his body,
with several fair monuments. The choir has behind it a great dragon
painted on the wall, which they say had done much harm to the
inhabitants, till vanquished by St. Romain, their Archbishop; for which
there is an annual procession. It was now near Easter, and many images
were exposed with scenes and stories representing the Passion; made up of
little puppets, to which there was great resort and devotion, with
offerings. Before the church is a fair palace. St. Ouen is another goodly
church and an abbey with fine gardens. Here the King hath lodgings, when
he makes his progress through these parts. The structure, where the Court
of Parliament is kept, is very magnificent, containing very fair halls
and chambers, especially La Chambre Dorée. The town-house is also well
built, and so are some gentlemen's houses; but most part of the rest are
of timber, like our merchants' in London, in the wooden part of the city.
21st March, 1644. On Easter Monday, we dined at Totes, a solitary inn
between Rouen and Dieppe, at which latter place we arrived. This town is
situated between two mountains, not unpleasantly, and is washed on the
north by our English seas.
The port is commodious; but the entrance difficult. It has one very ample
and fair street, in which is a pretty church. The Fort Pollet consists of
a strong earth-work, and commands the haven, as on the other side does
the castle, which is also well fortified, with the citadel before it; nor
is the town itself a little strong. It abounds with workmen, who make and
sell curiosities of ivory and tortoise-shells; and indeed whatever the
East Indies afford of cabinets, porcelain, natural and exotic rarities,
are here to be had, with abundant choice.
23d March, 1644. We passed along the coast by a very rocky and rugged
way, which forced us to alight many times before we came to Havre de
Grace, where we lay that night.
The next morning, we saw the citadel, strong and regular, well stored
with artillery and ammunition of all sorts: the works furnished with fair
brass cannon, having a motto, _Ratio ultima Regum_. The allogements of
the garrison are uniform; a spacious place for drawing up the soldiers,
a pretty chapel, and a fair house for the Governor. The Duke of Richelieu
being now in the fort, we went to salute him; who received us very
civilly, and commanded that we should be showed whatever we desired to
see. The citadel was built by the late Cardinal de Richelieu, uncle of
the present Duke, and may be esteemed one of the strongest in France. The
haven is very capacious.
When we had done here, we embarked ourselves and horses to pass to
Honfleur, about four or five leagues distant, where the Seine falls into
the sea. It is a poor fisher-town, remarkable for nothing so much as the
odd, yet useful habits which the good women wear, of bears' and other
skins, as of rugs at Dieppe, and all along these maritime coasts.
[Sidenote: CAEN]
25th March, 1644. We arrived at Caen, a noble and beautiful town, situate
on the river Orne, which passes quite through it, the two sides of the
town joined only by a bridge of one entire arch. We lay at the Angel,
where we were very well used, the place being abundantly furnished with
provisions, at a cheap rate. The most considerable object is the great
Abbey and Church, large and rich, built after the Gothic manner, having
two spires and middle lantern at the west end, all of stone. The choir
round and large, in the center whereof elevated on a square, handsome,
but plain sepulcher, is this inscription:
"Hoc sepulchrum invictissimi juxta et clementissimi conquestoris,
Gulielmi, dum viverat Anglorum Regis, Normannorum Cenomannorumque
Principis, hujus insignis Abbatiae piissimi Fundatoris: Cum anno
1562 vesano hæreticorum furore direptum fuisset, pio tandem
nobilium ejusdem Abbatiae religiosorum gratitudinis sensu in tam
beneficum largitorem, instauratum fuit, a^o D'ni 1642. D'no Johanne
de Bailhache Assætorii proto priore. D.D."
On the other side are these monkish rhymes:
"Qui rexit rigidos Northmannos, atq. Britannos
Audacter vicit, fortiter obtinuit,
Et Cenomanensis virtute coërcuit ensis,
Imperiique sui Legibus applicuit.
Rex magnus parvâ jacet hâc Gulielm' in Urnâ,
Sufficit et magno parva domus Domino.
Ter septem gradibus te volverat atq. duobus
Virginis in gremio Phoebus, et hic obiit."
We went to the castle, which is strong and fair, and so is the
town-house, built on the bridge which unites the two towns. Here are
schools and an University for the Jurists.
The whole town is handsomely built of that excellent stone so well known
by that name in England. I was led to a pretty garden, planted with
hedges of alaternus, having at the entrance a screen at an exceeding
height, accurately cut in topiary work, with well understood
architecture, consisting of pillars, niches, friezes, and other
ornaments, with great curiosity; some of the columns curiously wreathed,
others spiral, all according to art.
[Sidenote: PARIS]
28th March, 1644. We went toward Paris, lying the first night at Evreux,
a Bishop's seat, an ancient town, with a fair cathedral; so the next day
we arrived at Paris.
1st April, 1644. I went to see more exactly the rooms of the fine Palace
of Luxemburg, in the Fauxbourg St. Germains, built by Mary di Medicis,
and I think one of the most noble, entire, and finished piles that is to
be seen, taking it with the garden and all its accomplishments. The
gallery is of the painting of Rubens, being the history of the
Foundress's Life, rarely designed; at the end of it is the Duke of
Orleans' library, well furnished with excellent books, all bound in
maroquin and gilded, the valance of the shelves being of green velvet,
fringed with gold. In the cabinet joining to it are only the smaller
volumes, with six cabinets of medals, and an excellent collection of
shells and agates, whereof some are prodigiously rich. This Duke being
very learned in medals and plants, nothing of that kind escapes him.
There are other spacious, noble, and princely furnished rooms, which look
toward the gardens, which are nothing inferior to the rest.
The court below is formed into a square by a corridor, having over the
chief entrance a stately cupola, covered with stone: the rest is
cloistered and arched on pilasters of rustic work. The terrace ascending
before the front, paved with white and black marble, is balustered with
white marble, exquisitely polished.
Only the hall below is low, and the staircase somewhat of a heavy design,
but the facia toward the parterre which is also arched and vaulted with
stone, is of admirable beauty and full of sculpture.
The gardens are near an English mile in compass, inclosed with a stately
wall, and in a good air. The parterre is indeed of box, but so rarely
designed and accurately kept cut, that the embroidery makes a wonderful
effect to the lodgings which front it. 'Tis divided into four squares and
as many circular knots, having in the center a noble basin of marble near
thirty feet in diameter (as I remember), in which a Triton of brass holds
a dolphin, that casts a girandola of water near thirty feet high, playing
perpetually, the water being conveyed from Arceuil by an aqueduct of
stone, built after the old Roman magnificence. About this ample parterre,
the spacious walks and all included, runs a border of freestone, adorned
with pedestals for pots and statues, and part of it near the steps of the
terrace, with a rail and baluster of pure white marble.
The walks are exactly fair, long, and variously descending and so justly
planted with limes, elms, and other trees, that nothing can be more
delicious, especially that of the hornbeam hedge, which being high and
stately, buts full on the fountain.
Toward the further end, is an excavation intended for a vast fish-pool,
but never finished, and near it is an inclosure for a garden of simples,
well kept; and here the Duke keeps tortoises in great number, who use the
pool of water on one side of the garden. Here is also a conservatory for
snow. At the upper part, toward the palace, is a grove of tall elms cut
into a star, every ray being a walk, whose center is a large fountain.
The rest of the ground is made into several inclosures (all hedge-work or
rows of trees) of whole fields, meadows, bocages, some of them containing
divers acres.
Next the street side, and more contiguous to the house, are knots in
trail, or grass work, where likewise runs a fountain. Toward the grotto
and stables, within a wall, is a garden of choice flowers, in which the
duke spends many thousand pistoles. In sum, nothing is wanted to render
this palace and gardens perfectly beautiful and magnificent; nor is it
one of the least diversions to see the number of persons of quality,
citizens and strangers, who frequent it, and to whom all access is freely
permitted, so that you shall see some walks and retirements full of
gallants and ladies; in others melancholy friars; in others, studious
scholars; in others, jolly citizens, some sitting or lying on the grass,
others running and jumping; some playing at bowls and ball, others
dancing and singing; and all this without the least disturbance, by
reason of the largeness of the place.
What is most admirable, you see no gardeners, or men at work, and yet all
is kept in such exquisite order, as if they did nothing else but work; it
is so early in the morning, that all is dispatched and done without the
least confusion.
I have been the larger in the description of this paradise, for the
extraordinary delight I have taken in those sweet retirements. The
Cabinet and Chapel nearer the garden-front have some choice pictures. All
the houses near this are also very noble palaces, especially Petite
Luxemburg. The ascent of the street is handsome from its breadth,
situation, and buildings.
I went next to view Paris from the top of St. Jacques' steeple, esteemed
the highest in the town, from whence I had a full view of the whole city
and suburbs, both which, as I judge, are not so large as London: though
the dissimilitude of their several forms and situations, this being
round, London long,--renders it difficult to determine; but there is no
comparison between the buildings, palaces, and materials, this being
entirely of stone and more sumptuous, though I esteem our piazzas to
exceed theirs.
Hence I took a turn in St. Innocent's churchyard, where the story of the
devouring quality of the ground (consuming bodies in twenty-four hours),
the vast charnels of bones, tombs, pyramids, and sepulchers, took up much
of my time, together with the hieroglyphical characters of Nicholas
Flamel's philosophical work, who had founded this church, and divers
other charitable establishments, as he testifies in his book.
Here divers clerks get their livelihood by inditing letters for poor
maids and other ignorant people who come to them for advice, and to write
for them into the country, both to their sweethearts, parents, and
friends; every large gravestone serving for a table. Joining to this
church is a common fountain, with good relievos upon it.
The next day I was carried to see a French gentleman's curious
collection, which abounded in fair and rich jewels of all sorts of
precious stones, most of them of great sizes and value; agates and
onyxes, some of them admirably colored and antique; nor inferior were his
landscapes from the best hands, most of which he had caused to be copied
in miniature; one of which, rarely painted on stone, was broken by one of
our company, by the mischance of setting it up: but such was the temper
and civility of the gentleman, that it altered nothing of his free and
noble humor.
The next morning, I was had by a friend to the garden of Monsieur Morine,
who, from being an ordinary gardener, is become one of the most skillful
and curious persons in France for his rare collection of shells, flowers,
and insects.
His garden is of an exact oval figure, planted with cypress, cut flat and
set as even as a wall: the tulips, anemones, ranunculuses, crocuses,
etc., are held to be of the rarest, and draw all the admirers of that
kind to his house during the season. He lived in a kind of hermitage at
one side of his garden, where his collection of porcelain and coral,
whereof one is carved into a large crucifix, is much esteemed. He has
also books of prints, by Albert [Durer], Van Leyden, Callot, etc. His
collection of all sorts of insects, especially of butterflies, is most
curious; these he spreads and so medicates, that no corruption invading
them, he keeps them in drawers, so placed as to represent a beautiful
piece of tapestry.
He showed me the remarks he had made on their propagation, which he
promised to publish. Some of these, as also of his best flowers, he had
caused to be painted in miniature by rare hands, and some in oil.
6th April, 1644. I sent my sister my own picture in water colors,[18]
which she requested of me, and went to see divers of the fairest palaces
of the town, as that of Vendôme, very large and stately; Lougueville;
Guise; Condé; Chevereuse; Nevers, esteemed one of the best in Paris
toward the river.
[Footnote 18: In the first and second editions of the "Diary" many
trifling personal details, such as this mention of the author having
sent his own picture in water colors to his sister, were omitted. It
is not necessary to point them out in detail. They are always of
this personal character; as, among other examples, the mention of
the wet weather preventing the diarist from stirring out, and that
of his coming weary to his lodgings.]
I often went to the Palais Cardinal, bequeathed by Richelieu to the King,
on condition that it should be called by his name; at this time, the King
resided in it, because of the building of the Louvre. It is a very noble
house, though somewhat low; the galleries, paintings of the most
illustrious persons of both sexes, the Queen's baths, presence-chamber
with its rich carved and gilded roof, theater, and large garden, in which
is an ample fountain, grove, and mall, worthy of remark. Here I also
frequently went to see them ride and exercise the great horse, especially
at the Academy of Monsieur du Plessis, and de Veau, whose schools of that
art are frequented by the nobility; and here also young gentlemen are
taught to fence, dance, play on music, and something in fortification and
the mathematics. The design is admirable, some keeping near a hundred
brave horses, all managed to the great saddle.
12th April, 1644. I took coach, to see a general muster of all the _gens
d'armes_ about the city, in the Bois de Boulogne, before their Majesties
and all the Grandees. They were reputed to be near 20,000, besides the
spectators, who much exceeded them in number. Here they performed all
their motions; and, being drawn up, horse and foot, into several figures,
represented a battle.
[Sidenote: ORLEANS]
The summer now drawing near, I determined to spend the rest of it in some
more remote town on the river Loire; and, on 19th of April, I took leave
of Paris, and, by the way of the messenger, agreed for my passage to
Orleans.
The way from Paris to this city, as indeed most of the roads in France,
is paved with a small square freestone, so that the country does not much
molest the traveler with dirt and ill way, as in England, only 'tis
somewhat hard to the poor horses' feet, which causes them to ride more
temperately, seldom going out of the trot, or _grand pas_, as they call
it. We passed divers walled towns, or villages; among others of note,
Chartres and Etampes, where we lay the first night. This has a fair
church. The next day, we had an excellent road; but had liked to come
short home: for no sooner were we entered two or three leagues into the
Forest of Orleans (which extends itself many miles), but the company
behind us were set on by rogues, who, shooting from the hedges and
frequent covert, slew four upon the spot. Among the slain was a captain
of Swiss, of the regiment of Picardy, a person much lamented. This
disaster made such an alarm in Orleans at our arrival, that the Prevôt
Marshal, with his assistants, going in pursuit, brought in two whom they
had shot, and exposed them in the great market place, to see if any would
take cognizance of them. I had great cause to give God thanks for this
escape; when coming to Orleans and lying at the White Cross, I found Mr.
John Nicholas, eldest son to Mr. Secretary. In the night a cat kittened
on my bed, and left on it a young one having six ears, eight legs, two
bodies from the middle downward, and two tails. I found it dead, but
warm, in the morning when I awaked.
21st April, 1644. I went about to view the city, which is well built of
stone, on the side of the Loire. About the middle of the river is an
island, full of walks and fair trees, with some houses. This is
contiguous to the town by a stately stone bridge, reaching to the
opposite suburbs, built likewise on the edge of a hill, from whence is a
beautiful prospect. At one of the extremes of the bridge are strong
towers, and about the middle, on one side, is the statue of the Virgin
Mary, or Pieta, with the dead Christ in her lap, as big as the life. At
one side of the cross, kneels Charles VII., armed, and at the other Joan
d'Arc, armed also like a cavalier, with boots and spurs, her hair
disheveled, as the deliveress of the town from our countrymen, when they
besieged it. The figures are all cast in copper, with a pedestal full of
inscriptions, as well as a fair column joining it, which is all adorned
with fleurs-de-lis and a crucifix, with two saints proceeding (as it
were) from two branches out of its capital. The inscriptions on the cross
are in Latin: "_Mors Christi in cruce nos á contagione, labis et
æternorum morborum sanavit_." On the pedestal: "_Rex in hoc signo hostes
profligavit, et Johanna Virgo Aureliam obsidio liberavit. Non diu ab
impiis diruta, restituta sunt hoc anno D'ni 1578. Jean Buret, m.
f._"--"_Octannoque Galliam servitute Britannicâ liberavit. A Domino factum
est illud, et est mirabile in oculis nostris; in quorum memorià hæc
nostræ fidei Insignia_." To this is made an annual procession on 12th of
May, mass being sung before it, attended with great ceremony and
concourse of people. The wine of this place is so strong, that the King's
cup bearers are, as I was assured, sworn never to give the King any of
it: but it is a very noble liquor, and much of it transported into other
countries. The town is much frequented by strangers, especially Germans,
for the great purity of the language here spoken, as well as for divers
other privileges, and the University, which causes the English to make no
long sojourn here, except such as can drink and debauch. The city stands
in the county of Bealse (Blaisois); was once styled a Kingdom, afterward
a Duchy, as at present, belonging to the second son of France. Many
Councils have been held here, and some Kings crowned. The University is
very ancient, divided now by the students into that of four nations,
French, High Dutch, Normans, and Picardines, who have each their
respective protectors, several officers, treasurers, consuls, seals, etc.
There are in it two reasonable fair public libraries, whence one may
borrow a book to one's chamber, giving but a note under hand, which is an
extraordinary custom, and a confidence that has cost many libraries dear.
The first church I went to visit was St. Croix; it has been a stately
fabric, but now much ruined by the late civil wars. They report the tower
of it to have been the highest in France. There is the beginning of a
fair reparation. About this cathedral there is a very spacious cemetery.
The townhouse is also very nobly built, with a high tower to it. The
market place and streets, some whereof are deliciously planted with
limes, are ample and straight, so well paved with a kind of pebble, that
I have not seen a neater town in France. In fine, this city was by
Francis I. esteemed the most agreeable of his vast dominions.
28th April, 1644. Taking boat on the Loire, I went toward Blois, the
passage and river being both very pleasant. Passing Mehun, we dined at
Baugenci, and slept at a little town called St. Dieu. Quitting our bark,
we hired horses to Blois, by the way of Chambord, a famous house of the
King's, built by Francis I. in the middle of a solitary park, full of
deer, inclosed with a wall. I was particularly desirous of seeing this
palace, from the extravagance of the design, especially the staircase,
mentioned by Palladio. It is said that 1800 workmen were constantly
employed in this fabric for twelve years: if so, it is wonderful that it
was not finished, it being no greater than divers gentlemen's houses in
England, both for room and circuit. The carvings are indeed very rich and
full. The staircase is devised with four entries, or assents, which cross
one another, so that though four persons meet, they never come in sight,
but by small loopholes, till they land. It consists of 274 steps (as I
remember), and is an extraordinary work, but of far greater expense than
use or beauty. The chimneys of the house appear like so many towers.
About the whole is a large deep moat. The country about is full of corn,
and wine, with many fair noblemen's houses.
[Sidenote: BLOIS]
We arrived at Blois in the evening. The town is hilly, uneven, and
rugged, standing on the side of the Loire, having suburbs joined by a
stately stone bridge, on which is a pyramid with an inscription. At the
entrance of the castle is a stone statue of Louis XII. on horseback, as
large as life, under a Gothic state; and a little below are these words:
"Hic ubi natus erat dextro Ludovicus Olympo,
Sumpsit honoratâ regia sceptra manu;
Felix quæ tanti fulsit Lux nuncia Regis!
Gallica non alio principe digna fuit."
Under this is a very wide pair of gates, nailed full of wolves and
wild-boars' heads. Behind the castle the present Duke Gaston had begun a
fair building, through which we walked into a large garden, esteemed for
its furniture one of the fairest, especially for simples and exotic
plants, in which he takes extraordinary delight. On the right hand is a
long gallery full of ancient statues and inscriptions, both of marble and
brass; the length, 300 paces, divides the garden into higher and lower
ground, having a very noble fountain. There is the portrait of a hart,
taken in the forest by Louis XII., which has twenty-four antlers on its
head. In the Collegiate Church of St. Savior, we saw many sepulchres of
the Earls of Blois.
On Sunday, being May-day, we walked up into Pall Mall, very long, and so
noble shaded with tall trees (being in the midst of a great wood), that
unless that of Tours, I had not seen a statelier.
From hence, we proceeded with a friend of mine through the adjoining
forest, to see if we could meet any wolves, which are here in such
numbers that they often come and take children out of the very streets;
yet will not the Duke, who is sovereign here, permit them to be
destroyed. We walked five or six miles outright; but met with none; yet a
gentleman, who was resting himself under a tree, with his horse grazing
by him, told us that half an hour before, two wolves had set upon his
horse, and had in probability devoured him, but for a dog which lay by
him. At a little village at the end of this wood, we ate excellent cream,
and visited a castle builded on a very steep cliff.
Blois is a town where the language is exactly spoken; the inhabitants
very courteous; the air so good, that it is the ordinary nursery of the
King's children. The people are so ingenious, that, for goldsmith's work
and watches, no place in France affords the like. The pastures by the
river are very rich and pleasant.
2d May, 1644. We took boat again, passing by Charmont, a proud castle on
the left hand; before it is a sweet island, deliciously shaded with tall
trees. A little distance from hence, we went on shore at Amboise, a very
agreeable village, built of stone, and the houses covered with blue
slate, as the towns on the Loire generally are; but the castle chiefly
invited us, the thickness of whose towers from the river to the top, was
admirable. We entered by the drawbridge, which has an invention to let
one fall, if not premonished. It is full of halls and spacious chambers,
and one staircase is large enough, and sufficiently commodious, to
receive a coach, and land it on the very tower, as they told us had been
done. There is some artillery in it; but that which is most observable is
in the ancient chapel, viz, a stag's head, or branches, hung up by
chains, consisting of twenty browantlers, the beam bigger than a man's
middle, and of an incredible length. Indeed, it is monstrous, and yet I
cannot conceive how it should be artificial they show also the ribs and
vertebræ of the same beast; but these might be made of whalebone.
Leaving the castle, we passed Mont Louis, a village having no houses
above ground but such only as are hewn out of the main rocks of excellent
freestone. Here and there the funnel of a chimney appears on the surface
among the vineyards which are over them, and in this manner they inhabit
the caves, as it were sea-cliffs, on one side of the river for many
miles.
[Sidenote: TOURS]
We now came within sight of Tours, where we were designed for the rest of
the time I had resolved to stay in France, the sojournment being so
agreeable. Tours is situate on the east side of a hill on the river
Loire, having a fair bridge of stone called St. Edme; the streets are
very long, straight, spacious, well built, and exceeding clean; the
suburbs large and pleasant, joined to the city by another bridge. Both
the church and monastery of St. Martin are large, of Gothic building,
having four square towers, fair organs, and a stately altar, where they
show the bones and ashes of St. Martin, with other relics. The Mall
without comparison is the noblest in Europe for length and shade, having
seven rows of the tallest and goodliest elms I had ever beheld, the
innermost of which do so embrace each other, and at such a height, that
nothing can be more solemn and majestical. Here we played a party, or
party or two, and then walked about the town walls, built of square
stone, filled with earth, and having a moat. No city in France exceeds it
in beauty, or delight.
6th May, 1644. We went to St. Gatian, reported to have been built by our
countrymen; the dial and clockwork are much esteemed. The church has two
handsome towers and spires of stone, and the whole fabric is very noble
and venerable. To this joins the palace of the Archbishop, consisting
both of old and new building, with many fair rooms, and a fair garden.
Here I grew acquainted with one Monsieur Merey, a very good musician. The
Archbishop treated me very courteously. We visited divers other churches,
chapels, and monasteries for the most part neatly built, and full of
pretty paintings, especially the Convent of the Capuchins, which has a
prospect over the whole city, and many fair walks.
8th May, 1644. I went to see their manufactures in silk (for in this town
they drive a very considerable trade with silk-worms), their pressing and
watering the grograms and camlets, with weights of an extraordinary
poise, put into a rolling engine. Here I took a master of the language,
and studied the tongue very diligently, recreating myself sometimes at
the Mall, and sometimes about the town. The house opposite my lodging had
been formerly a King's palace; the outside was totally covered with
fleur-de-lis, embossed out of the stone. Here Mary de Medicis held her
Court, when she was compelled to retire from Paris by the persecution of
the great Cardinal.
25th May, 1644. Was the Fête Dieu, and a goodly procession of all the
religious orders, the whole streets hung with their best tapestries, and
their most precious movables exposed; silks, damasks, velvets, plate, and
pictures in abundance; the streets strewed with flowers, and full of
pageantry, banners, and bravery.
6th June, 1644. I went by water to visit that goodly and venerable Abbey
of Marmoutiers, being one of the greatest in the kingdom; to it is a very
ample church of stone, with a very high pyramid. Among other relics the
Monks showed us is the Holy Ampoulle, the same with that which sacres
their Kings at Rheims, thi
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