The Diary Of John Evelyn Vol-2

DIARY OF CASHIOBURY

26th February, 1680. To the Royal Society, where I
met an Irish Bishop with his Lady, who was daughter to
my worthy and pious friend, Dr. Jeremy Taylor, late
Bishop of Down and Connor; they came to see the Re-
pository. She seemed to be a knowing woman, beyond
the ordinary talent of her sex.

3d March, 1680. I dined at my Lord Mayor's, in order
to the meeting of my Lady Beckford, whose daughter (a
rich heiress) I had recommended to my brother of "Wot-
ton for his only son, she being the daughter of the lady
by Mr. Eversfield, a Sussex gentleman.

i6th March, 1680. To London, to receive ^"3,000 of my
daughter-in-law's portion, which was paid in gold.

26th March, 1680. The Dean of Sarum preached on
Jerem. xlv. 5, an hour and a half from his common-place
book, of kings and great men retiring to private situations.
Scarce anything of Scripture in it.

i8th April, 1680. On the earnest invitation of the Earl
of Essex, I went with him to his house at Cashiobury,
in Hertfordshire. It was on Sunday, but going early
from his house in the square of St. James, we arrived
by ten o'clock; this he thought too late to go to church,
and we had prayers in his chapel. The house is new, a
plain fabric, built by my friend, Mr. Hugh May. There
are divers fair and good rooms, and excellent carving by
Gibbons, especially the chimney-piece of the library.
There is in the porch, or entrance, a painting by Verrio,
of Apollo and the Liberal Arts. One room pargeted
with yew, which I liked well. Some of the chimney
mantels are of Irish marble, brought by my Lord from
Ireland, when he was Lord-Lieutenant, and not much
inferior to Italian. The tympanum, or gable, at the front
is a bass-relievo of Diana hunting, cut in Portland stone,
handsomely enough. I do not approve of the middle
doors being round: but, when the hall is finished as de-
signed, it being an oval with a cupola, together with
the other wing, it will be a very noble palace. The
library is large, and very nobly furnished, and all the
books are richly bound and gilded; but there are no
MSS., except the Parliament Rolls and Journals, the
transcribing and binding of which cost him, as he assured
me, ^500.

No man has been more industrious than this, noble Bow Street, Convent