John Evelyn's Diary 1653

1st January 1653. I set apart in preparation for the Blessed Sacrament, which the next day Mr. Owen administered to me and all my family in Sayes Court [Map], preaching on John vi. 32, 33, showing the exceeding benefits of our blessed Savior taking our nature upon him. He had christened my son and churched my wife (age 18) in our own house as before noticed.

17th January 1653. I began to set out the oval garden at Sayes Court [Map], which was before a rude orchard, and all the rest one entire field of 100 acres, without any hedge, except the hither holly hedge joining to the bank of the mount walk. This was the beginning of all the succeeding gardens, walks, groves, inclosures, and plantations there.

21st January 1653. I went to London, and sealed some of the writings of my purchase of Sayes Court [Map].

30th January 1653. At our own parish church, a stranger preached. There was now and then an honest orthodox man got into the pulpit, and, though the present incumbent was somewhat of the Independent, yet he ordinarily preached sound doctrine, and was a peaceable man; which was an extraordinary felicity in this age.

1st February 1653. Old Alexander Rosse (author of "Virgilius Evangelizans", and many other little books) presented me with his book against Mr. Hobbes's "Leviathan"..

19th February 1653. I planted the orchard at Sayes Court [Map]; new moon, wind west.

22nd February 1653. Was perfected the sealing, livery, and seisin of my purchase of Sayes Court [Map]. My brother (age 35), George Glanville, Mr. Scudamore, Mr. Offley, Co. William Glanville (son to Sergeant Glanville, sometime Speaker of the House of Commons), Co. Stephens, and several of my friends dining with me. I had bargained for £3,200, but I paid £3,500.

25th March 1653. Came to see me that rare graver in taille-douce, Monsieur Richett, he was sent by Cardinal Mazarine (age 50) to make a collection of pictures.

11th April 1653. I went to take the air in Hyde Park [Map], where every coach was made to pay a shilling, and horse sixpence, by the sordid fellow who had purchased it of the state, as they called it.

17th May 1653. My servant Hoare, who wrote those exquisite several hands, fell of a fit of an apoplexy, caused, as I suppose, by tampering with mercury about an experiment in gold.

29th May 1653. I went to London, to take my last leave of my honest friend, Mr. Barton, now dying; it was a great loss to me and to my affairs. On the sixth of June, I attended his funeral.

8th June 1653. Came my brother George (age 35), Captain Evelyn, the great traveler, Mr. Muschamp, my cousin, Thomas Keightly, and a virtuoso, fastastical Simons, who had the talent of embossing so to the life.

9th June 1653. I went to visit my worthy neighbor, Sir Henry Newton (age 35) [at Charlton], and consider the prospect, which is doubtless for city, river, ships, meadows, hill, woods, and all other amenities, one of the most noble in the world; so as, had the house running water, it were a princely seat. Mr. Henshaw and his brother-in-law came to visit me, and he presented me with a seleniscope.

19th June 1653. This day, I paid all my debts to a farthing; oh, blessed day!

21st June 1653. My Lady Gerrard, and one Esquire Knight, a very rich gentleman, living in Northamptonshire, visited me.

23rd June 1653. Mr. Lombart, a famous graver, came to see my collections.

27th June 1653. Monsieur Roupel sent me a small phial of his aurum potabile, with a letter, showing the way of administering it, and the stupendous cures it had done at Paris; but, ere it came to me, by what accident I know not, it was all run out.

17th August 1653. I went to visit Mr. Hyldiard, at his house at Horsley (formerly the great Sir Walter Raleigh's, where met me Mr. Oughtred, the famous mathematician; he showed me a box, or golden case, of divers rich and aromatic balsams, which a chemist, a scholar of his, had sent him out of Germany.

21st August 1653. I heard that good old man, Mr. Higham, the parson of the parish of Wotton where I was born, and who had baptized me, preach after his very plain way on Luke, comparing this troublesome world to the sea, the ministers to the fishermen, and the saints to the fish.

22nd August 1653. We all went to Guildford, to rejoice at the famous inn, the Red Lion, and to see the hospital, and the monument of Archbishop Abbot, the founder, who lies buried in the chapel of his endowment.

28th September 1653. At Greenwich [Map] preached that holy martyr, Dr. Hewer, on Psalm xc. 11, magnifying the grace of God to penitents, and threatening the extinction of his Gospel light for the prodigious impiety of the age.

11th October 1653. My son, John Stansfield, was born, being my second child, and christened by the name of my mother's father, that name now quite extinct, being of Cheshire. Christened by Mr. Owen, in my library, at Sayes Court [Map], where he afterward churched my wife (age 18), I always making use of him on these occasions, because the parish minister dared not have officiated according to the form and usage of the Church of England, to which I always adhered.

25th October 1653. Mr. Owen preached in my library at Sayes Court [Map] on Luke xviii. 7, 8, an excellent discourse on the unjust judge, showing why Almighty God would sometimes be compared by such similitudes. He afterward administered to us all the Holy Sacrament.

28th October 1653. Went to London, to visit my Lady Gerrard, where I saw that cursed woman called the Lady Norton, of whom it was reported that she spit in our King's face as he went to the scaffold. Indeed, her talk and discourse was like an impudent woman.

21st November 1653. I went to London, to speak with Sir John Evelyn, my kinsman, about the purchase of an estate of Mr. Lambard's at Westeram, which afterward Sir John himself bought for his son-in-law, Leech.

4th December 1653. Going this day to our church, I was surprised to see a tradesman, a mechanic, step up; I was resolved yet to stay and see what he would make of it. His text was from 2 Sam. xxiii. 20: "And Benaiah went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in the time of snow"; the purport was, that no danger was to be thought difficult when God called for shedding of blood, inferring that now the saints were called to destroy temporal governments; with such feculent stuff; so dangerous a crisis were things grown to.

25th December 1653. Christmas day. No churches, or public assembly. I was fain to pass the devotions of that Blessed day with my family at home.