The Diary of John Evelyn (Volume 2 of 2). Evelyn John
Dined with me Monsieur Kiviet, a Dutch gentleman-pensioner of Rotterdam, who came over for protection, being of the Prince of Orange's party, now not welcome in Holland. The King knighted him for some merit in the Prince's behalf. He should, if caught, have been beheaded with Monsieur Buat, and was brother-in-law to Van Tromp, the sea-general. With him came Mr. Gabriel Sylvius, and Mr. Williamson, secretary to Lord Arlington; M. Kiviet came to examine whether the soil about the river of Thames would be proper to make clinker bricks, and to treat with me about some accommodation in order to it.
9th January, 1666-67. To the Royal Society, which since the sad conflagration were invited by Mr. Howard to sit at Arundel-House in the Strand, who at my instigation likewise bestowed on the Society that noble library which his grandfather especially, and his ancestors had collected. This gentleman had so little inclination to books, that it was the preservation of them from embezzlement.
24th January, 1667. Visited my Lord Clarendon, and presented my son, John, to him, now preparing to go to Oxford, of which his Lordship was Chancellor. This evening I heard rare Italian voices, two eunuchs and one woman, in his Majesty's green chamber, next his cabinet.
29th January, 1667. To London, in order to my son's Oxford journey, who, being very early entered both in Latin and Greek, and prompt to learn beyond most of his age, I was persuaded to trust him under the tutorage of Mr. Bohun, Fellow of New College, who had been his preceptor in my house some years before; but, at Oxford, under the inspection of Dr. Bathurst, President of Trinity College, where I placed him, not as yet thirteen years old. He was newly out of long coats.8
15th February, 1667. My little book, in answer to Sir George Mackenzie on Solitude, was now published, entitled "Public Employment, and an active Life with its Appanages, preferred to Solitude."9
18th February, 1667. I was present at a magnificent ball, or masque, in the theatre at the Court, where their Majesties and all the great lords and ladies danced, infinitely gallant, the men in their richly embroidered, most becoming vests.
19th February, 1667. I saw a comedy acted at Court. In the afternoon, I witnessed a wrestling match for £1,000 in St. James's Park, before his Majesty, a vast assemblage of lords and other spectators, between the western and northern men, Mr. Secretary Morice and Lord Gerard being the judges. The western men won. Many great sums were betted.
6th March, 1667. I proposed to my Lord Chancellor, Monsieur Kiviet's undertaking to wharf the whole river of Thames, or quay, from the Temple to the Tower, as far as the fire destroyed, with brick, without piles, both lasting and ornamental. – Great frosts, snow and winds, prodigious at the vernal equinox; indeed it had been a year of prodigies in this nation, plague, war, fire, rain, tempest and comet.
14th March, 1667. Saw "The Virgin Queen,"10 a play written by Mr. Dryden.
22d March, 1667. Dined at Mr. Secretary Morice's, who showed me his library, which was a well chosen collection. This afternoon, I had audience of his Majesty, concerning the proposal I had made of building the quay.
26th March, 1667. Sir John Kiviet dined with me. We went to search for brick-earth, in order to a great undertaking.
4th April, 1667. The cold so intense, that there was hardly a leaf on a tree.
18th April, 1667. I went to make court to the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, at their house in Clerkenwell, being newly come out of the north. They received me with great kindness, and I was much pleased with the extraordinary fanciful habit, garb, and discourse of the Duchess.
22d April, 1667. Saw the sumptuous supper in the banqueting-house at Whitehall, on the eve of St. George's day, where were all the companions of the Order of the Garter.
23d April, 1667. In the morning, his Majesty went to chapel with the Knights of the Garter, all in their habits and robes, ushered by the heralds; after the first service, they went in procession, the youngest first, the Sovereign last, with the Prelate of the Order and Dean, who had about his neck the book of the Statutes of the Order; and then the Chancellor of the Order (old Sir Henry de Vic), who wore the purse about his neck; then the Heralds and Garter King-at-Arms, Clarencieux, Black Rod. But before the Prelate and Dean of Windsor went the gentlemen of the chapel and choristers, singing as they marched; behind them two doctors of music in damask robes; this procession was about the courts at Whitehall. Then, returning to their stalls and seats in the chapel, placed under each knight's coat-armor and titles, the second service began. Then, the King offered at the altar, an anthem was sung; then, the rest of the Knights offered, and lastly proceeded to the banqueting-house to a great feast. The King sat on an elevated throne at the upper end at a table alone; the Knights at a table on the right hand, reaching all the length of the room; over against them a cupboard of rich gilded plate; at the lower end, the music; on the balusters above, wind music, trumpets, and kettle-drums. The King was served by the lords and pensioners who brought up the dishes. About the middle of the dinner, the Knights drank the King's health, then the King, theirs, when the trumpets and music played and sounded, the guns going off at the Tower. At the Banquet, came in the Queen, and stood by the King's left hand, but did not sit. Then was the banqueting-stuff flung about the room profusely. In truth, the crowd was so great, that though I stayed all the supper the day before, I now stayed no longer than this sport began, for fear of disorder. The cheer was extraordinary, each Knight having forty dishes to his mess, piled up five or six high; the room hung with the richest tapestry.
25th April, 1667. Visited again the Duke of Newcastle, with whom I had been acquainted long before in France, where the Duchess had obligation to my wife's mother for her marriage there; she was sister to Lord Lucas, and maid of honor then to the Queen-Mother; married in our chapel at Paris. My wife being with me, the Duke and Duchess both would needs bring her to the very Court.
26th April, 1667. My Lord Chancellor showed me all his newly finished and furnished palace and library; then, we went to take the air in Hyde-Park.
27th April, 1667. I had a great deal of discourse with his Majesty at dinner. In the afternoon, I went again with my wife to the Duchess of Newcastle, who received her in a kind of transport, suitable to her extravagant humor and dress, which was very singular.
8th May, 1667. Made up accounts with our Receiver, which amounted to £33,936 1s. 4d. Dined at Lord Cornbury's, with Don Francisco de Melos, Portugal Ambassador, and kindred to the Queen: Of the party were Mr. Henry Jermyn and Sir Henry Capel. Afterward I went to Arundel House, to salute Mr. Howard's sons, newly returned out of France.
11th May, 1667. To London; dined with the Duke of Newcastle, and sat discoursing with her Grace in her bedchamber after dinner, till my Lord Marquis of Dorchester, with other company came in, when I went away.
30th May, 1667. To London, to wait on the Duchess of Newcastle (who was a mighty pretender to learning, poetry, and philosophy, and had in both published divers books) to the Royal Society, whither she came in great pomp, and being received by our Lord President at the door of our meeting-room, the mace, etc., carried before him, had several experiments shown to her. I conducted her Grace to her coach, and returned home.
1st June, 1667. I went to Greenwich, where his Majesty was trying divers grenadoes shot out of cannon at the Castlehill, from the house in the park; they broke not till they hit the mark, the forged ones broke not at all, but the cast ones very well. The inventor was a German there present. At the same time, a ring was shown to the King, pretended to be a projection of mercury, and malleable, and said by the gentlemen to be fixed by the juice of a plant.
8th June, 1667. To London, alarmed by the Dutch, who were fallen on our fleet at Chatham, by a most audacious enterprise, entering the very river with part of their fleet, doing us not only disgrace, but incredible mischief in burning several of our best men-of-war lying at anchor and moored there, and all this through our unaccountable negligence in not setting out our fleet in due time. This alarm caused me, fearing the enemy might venture up the Thames even to London (which they might have done with ease, and fired all the vessels in the river, too), to send away my best goods, plate, etc., from my house to another place. The alarm was so great that it put both country
In illustration of the garb which succeeded the "long coats" out of which lads of twelve or thirteen were thus suffered to emerge, it may be mentioned that there hung, some years ago, and perhaps may hang still, upon the walls of the Swan Inn at Leatherhead in Surrey, a picture of four children, dates of birth between 1640 and 1650, of whom a lad of about the age of young Evelyn is represented in a coat reaching to his ankles.
Reprinted in "Miscellaneous Writings," pp. 501-509. In a letter to Cowley, 12th March, 1666, Evelyn apologises for having written against that life which he had joined with Mr. Cowley in so much admiring, assuring him he neither was nor could be serious in avowing such a preference.
The Virgin Queen which Evelyn saw was Dryden's Maiden Queen. Pepys saw it on the night of its first production (twelve days before Evelyn's visit); and was charmed by Nell Gwynne's Florimell. "So great a performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world before."