churches (of which St. Mary's is the best) anything considerable in compare to Oxford.1

From Cambridge, we went to Audley-End,2 and spent some time in seeing that goodly place built by Howard, Earl of Suffolk, once Lord Treasurer. It is a mixed fabric, betwixt antique and modern, but observable for its being completely finished, and without comparison is one of the stateliest palaces in the kingdom. It consists of two courts, the first very large, winged with cloisters. The front has a double entrance; the hall is fair, but somewhat too small for so august a pile. The kitchen is very large, as are the cellars arched with stone, very neat and well disposed; these offices are joined by a wing out of the way very handsomely. The gallery is the most cheerful, and I think one of the best in England; a fair dining-room, and the rest of the lodgings answerable, with a pretty chapel. The gardens are not in order, though well inclosed. It has also a bowling-alley, a noble, well walled, wooded, and watered park, full of fine collines and ponds: the river glides before the palace, to which is an avenue of lime trees, but all this is much diminished by its being placed in an obscure bottom. For the rest, it is a perfectly uniform structure, and shows without like a diadem, by the decorations of the cupolas and other ornaments on the pavilions; instead of rails and balusters, there is a border of capital letters, as was lately also on Suffolk-House, near Charing-Cross, built by the same Lord Treasurer.3

1 As an Oxford man Evelyn was biassed.

2 [Audley End, Saffron Walden, Lord Braybrooke's seat in Essex. Henry Winstanley, the architect, etched a set of Prospects of Audley End in 1688, which he dedicated to James II.; and in 1836, Richard, Lord Braybrooke, published a 4to history of the house.]

3 Suffolk House, Charing Cross, afterwards Northumberland VOL. II

H

This house stands in the parish of Saffron Walden, famous for the abundance of saffron there cultivated, and esteemed the best of any foreign country.

3rd October. Having dined here, we passed through Bishop Stortford, a pretty watered town, and so by London, late home to Sayes Court, after a journey of 700 miles, but for the variety an agreeable refreshment after my turmoil and building. 10th. To my brother at Wotton, who had been sick.

14th. I went to visit my noble friend, Mr. Hillyard,' where I met that learned gentleman, my Lord Aungier, and Dr. Stokes, one of his Majesty's Chaplains.

2

3

15th. To Betchworth Castle, to Sir Ambrose Browne, and other gentlemen of my sweet and native country."

24th. The good old parson, Higham, preached at Wotton Church: a plain preacher, but innocent and honest man."

House. At the funeral of Anne of Denmark, a young man was killed by the fall of the letter S from the coping of capital letters here mentioned by Evelyn (Register of Burials at St. Martin in the Fields, 1619).

1 [See ante, p. 67.1

2 Gerald, eldest son of Sir Francis Aungier, Master of the Rolls in 1609, and created Baron Aungier of Longford in the Irish Peerage in 1621. Gerald Aungier died in 1655, and was succeeded by his nephew, Francis, afterwards created Earl of Longford (1677).

3 [Dr. David Stokes, 1591-1669. At this date, as a royalist, he had been despoiled of all his preferments. But he was reinstated at the Restoration.]

4 [Betchworth or Beechworth Castle, on the W. bank of the Mole, near Dorking, the seat, in Evelyn's day, of Sir Ambrose Browne, who was made a baronet in 1627. It now forms part of the Deepdene. Of the Castle itself only ruins remain. The estate was bought in 1727 by Abraham Tucker [" Edward Search"], author of the Light of Nature Pursued, 1768-78. He died there in 1774.]

5 [Query, county, i.e. Surrey.]

6 [See ante, p. 68.]

31st October. My birthday, being the 34th year of my age: blessing God for His providence, I went to London to visit my brother.

23rd November. I went to London, to visit my cousin Fanshawe,' and this day I saw one of the rarest collections of agates, onyxes, and intaglios, that I had ever seen either at home or abroad, collected by a conceited old hat-maker in Blackfriars, especially one agate vase, heretofore the great Earl of Leicester's.

28th. Came Lady Langham, a kinswoman of mine, to visit us; also one Captain Cooke, esteemed the best singer, after the Italian manner, of any in England; he entertained us with his voice and theorbo.2

3rd December. Advent Sunday. There being no Office at the church but extemporary prayers after the Presbyterian way, for now all forms were prohibited, and most of the preachers were usurpers, I seldom went to church upon solemn feasts; but, either went to London, where some of the orthodox sequestered Divines did privately use the Common Prayer, administer sacraments, etc., or else I procured one to officiate in my house; wherefore, on the 10th, Dr. Richard Owen, the sequestered minister of Eltham, preached to my family in my library, and gave us the holy Communion.

25th. Christmas - day. No public offices in churches, but penalties on observers, so as I was constrained to celebrate it at home.

1654-5: 1st January. Having with my family performed the public offices of the day, and begged a blessing on the year I was now entering, I went

1 [See ante, p. 51.]

2 [Henry Cooke, d. 1672, at this date a teacher of music, and afterwards choirmaster of the Chapel Royal. He had been a Captain in the Royalist Army.]

3 [See ante, p. 8.]

to keep the rest of Christmas at my brother's, R. Evelyn, at Woodcote.

19th January. My wife was brought to bed of another son, being my third, but second living. Christened1 on the 26th by the name of John.

28th. A stranger preached from Colossians iii. 2, inciting our affections to the obtaining heavenly things. I understood afterwards that this man had been both Chaplain and Lieutenant to Admiral Penn, using both swords; whether ordained or not I cannot say; into such times were we fallen!

24th February. I was showed a table-clock whose balance was only a crystal ball, sliding on parallel wires, without being at all fixed, but rolling from stage to stage till falling on a spring concealed from sight, it was thrown up to the utmost channel again, made with an imperceptible declivity, in this continual vicissitude of motion prettily entertaining the eye every half minute, and the next half giving progress to the hand that showed the hour, and giving notice by a small bell, so as in 120 half minutes, or periods of the bullet's falling on the ejaculatory spring, the clock-part struck. This very extraordinary piece (richly adorned) had been presented by some German Prince to our late King, and was now in possession of the Usurper; valued at £200.

2nd March. Mr. Simpson, the King's jeweller, showed me a most rich agate cup, of a scallopshape, and having a figure of Cleopatra at the scroll, her body, hair, mantle, and veil, of the several natural colours. It was supported by a half Mark Antony, the colours rarely natural, and the 1 At St. Nicholas, Deptford. See Lysons, Environs of London, 2nd ed., 1811, vol. i. part 2, p. 462.

He

2 [Admiral, afterwards Sir William Penn, 1621-70. fought under Blake in the first Dutch war, and captured Jamaica in this year. He was made a Commissioner of the Navy at the Restoration, and his name often occurs in Pepys.]