The Diary of John Evelyn (Volume 2 of 2)
John Evelyn
John Evelyn
The Diary of John Evelyn (Volume 2 of 2)
2d January, 1665.
This day was published by me that part of "The Mystery of Jesuitism" translated and collected by me, though without my name, containing the Imaginary Heresy, with four letters and other pieces.
4th January, 1665. I went in a coach, it being excessive sharp frost and snow, toward Dover and other parts of Kent, to settle physicians, chirurgeons, agents, marshals, and other officers in all the sea ports, to take care of such as should be set on shore, wounded, sick, or prisoners, in pursuance of our commission reaching from the North Foreland, in Kent, to Portsmouth, in Hampshire. The rest of the ports in England were allotted to the other Commissioners. That evening I came to Rochester, where I delivered the Privy Council's letter to the Mayor to receive orders from me.
5th January, 1665. I arrived at Canterbury, and went to the cathedral, exceedingly well repaired since his Majesty's return.
6th January, 1665. To Dover, where Colonel Stroode, Lieutenant of the Castle, having received the letter I brought him from the Duke of Albemarle, made me lodge in it, and I was splendidly treated, assisting me from place to place. Here I settled my first Deputy. The Mayor and officers of the Customs were very civil to me.
9th January, 1665. To Deal. – 10th. To Sandwich, a pretty town, about two miles from the sea. The Mayor and officers of the Customs were very diligent to serve me. I visited the forts in the way, and returned that night to Canterbury.
11th January, 1665. To Rochester, when I took order to settle officers at Chatham.
12th January, 1665. To Gravesend, and returned home. A cold, busy, but not unpleasant journey.
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25th January, 1665. This night being at Whitehall, his Majesty came to me standing in the withdrawing-room, and gave me thanks for publishing "The Mysteries of Jesuitism," which he said he had carried two days in his pocket, read it, and encouraged me; at which I did not a little wonder: I suppose Sir Robert Murray had given it to him.
27th January, 1665. Dined at the Lord Chancellor's, who caused me after dinner to sit two or three hours alone with him in his bedchamber.
2d February, 1665. I saw a Masque performed at Court, by six gentlemen and six ladies, surprising his Majesty, it being Candlemas day.
8th February, Ash Wednesday, 1665. I visited our prisoners at Chelsea College, and to examine how the marshal and sutlers behaved. These were prisoners taken in the war; they only complained that their bread was too fine. I dined at Sir Henry Herbert's, Master of the Revels.
9th February, 1665. Dined at my Lord Treasurer's, the Earl of Southampton, in Bloomsbury, where he was building a noble square or piazza,[1 - The Italians mean simply a square by their piazzas.] a little town; his own house stands too low, some noble rooms, a pretty cedar chapel, a naked garden to the north, but good air. I had much discourse with his Lordship, whom I found to be a person of extraordinary parts, but a valetudinarian. – I went to St. James's Park, where I saw various animals, and examined the throat of the Onocrotylus, or pelican, a fowl between a stork and a swan; a melancholy water-fowl, brought from Astrakhan by the Russian Ambassador; it was diverting to see how he would toss up and turn a flat fish, plaice, or flounder, to get it right into his gullet at its lower beak, which, being filmy, stretches to a prodigious wideness when it devours a great fish. Here was also a small water-fowl, not bigger than a moorhen, that went almost quite erect, like the penguin of America; it would eat as much fish as its whole body weighed; I never saw so unsatiable a devourer, yet the body did not appear to swell the bigger. The solan geese here are also great devourers, and are said soon to exhaust all the fish in a pond. Here was a curious sort of poultry not much exceeding the size of a tame pigeon, with legs so short as their crops seemed to touch the earth; a milk-white rav