John Evelyn - The Diary of John Evelyn (Volume 1 of 2)

10th October, 1644. We proceeded by the ruins of a stately aqueduct. The soil about the country is rocky, full of pines and rare simples.

11th October, 1644. We lay at Cannes, which is a small port on the Mediterranean; here we agreed with a seaman to carry us to Genoa, and, having procured a bill of health (without which there is no admission at any town in Italy), we embarked on the 12th. We touched at the islands of St. Margaret and St. Honore, lately retaken from the Spaniards with great bravery by Prince Harcourt. Here, having paid some small duty, we bought some trifles offered us by the soldiers, but without going on shore. Hence, we coasted within two leagues of Antibes, which is the utmost town in France. Thence by Nice, a city in Savoy, built all of brick, which gives it a very pleasant appearance toward the sea, having a very high castle which commands it. We sailed by Morgus, now called Monaco, having passed Villa Franca, heretofore Portus Herculis, when, arriving after the gates were shut, we were forced to abide all night in the barge, which was put into the haven, the wind coming contrary. In the morning, we were hastened away, having no time permitted us by our avaricious master to go up and see this strong and considerable place, which now belongs to a prince of the family of Grimaldi, of Genoa, who has put both it and himself under the protection of the French. The situation is on a promontory of solid stone and rock. The town walls very fair. We were told that within it was an ample court, and a palace, furnished with the most rich and princely movables, and a collection of statues, pictures, and massy plate to an immense amount.

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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.

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."

Dr. Walker had been a member of the Church of England, but had renounced it, and turned Papist.

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.

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.

Long afterward, Evelyn was in the habit of paying great respect to his old teacher.

Evelyn should have said "till twenty years after," not thirty. Coffee was introduced into England, and coffee-houses set up, in 1658.

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.

His own portrait.

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."

The meaning of this expression is, that they should be in time to witness the siege.

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.

This notice, slipped by accident into the entries which refer to Antwerp, belongs to those of Bruges.

That of Charles V.

A. D. 630.

Or Sheba.

Dauphin.

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.