The Diary Of John Evelyn Vol-2

1673 JOHN EVELYN

the Dutch war, and of all that blood which was lost at
Bergen in attacking the Smyrna fleet, and that whole
quarrel.

This leads me to call to mind what my Lord Chancellor
Shaftesbury affirmed, not to me only, but to all my
brethren the Council of Foreign Plantations, when not
long after, this accident being mentioned as we were one
day sitting in Council, his Lordship told us this remark-
able passage: that, being one day discoursing with him
when he was only Sir Thomas Clifford, speaking of men's
advancement to great charges in the nation, ^Well,* says
he, ((my Lord, I shall be one of the greatest men in
England. Don't impute what I say either to fancy, or
vanity; I am certain that I shall be a mighty man; but
it will not last long; I shall not hold it, but die a bloody
death. * ^What,^ says my Lord, <(your horoscope tells
you so?)} (<No matter for that, it will be as I tell you.**
<( Well,* says my Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury, <(if I were
of that opinion, I either would not be a great man, but
decline preferment, or prevent my danger.*

This my Lord affirmed in my hearing before several
gentlemen and noblemen sitting in council at Whitehall.
And I the rather am confident of it, remembering what
Sir Edward Walker (Garter King-at-Arms) had likewise
affirmed to me a long time before, even when he was
first made a Lord; that carrying his pedigree to Lord
Clifford on his being created a peer, and, finding him
busy, he bade him go into his study and divert himself
there till he was at leisure to discourse with him about
some things relating to his family; there lay, said Sir
Edward, on his table, his horoscope and nativity calcu-
lated, with some writing under it, where he read that
he should be advanced to the highest degree in the state
that could be conferred upon him, but that he should
not long enjoy it, but should die, or expressions to that
sense; and I think, (but cannot confidently say) a bloody
death. This Sir Edward affirmed both to me and Sir
Richard Browne; nor could I forbear to note this extra-
ordinary passage in these memoirs.

i4th September, 1673. Dr. Creighton, son to the late
eloquent Bishop of Bath and Wells, preached to the
Household on Isaiah, Ivii. 8.

15th September, 1673. I procured ^4,000 of the Lordss dismal. Really, he was the chief occasion ofal ora-ially medals, books, plants, andd for the bill, of which