The Diary Of John Evelyn Vol-2

i682 JOHN EVELYN 167

accompanied him to the gallows, and gave him some advice
that he did not value dying of a rash, and hoped and
believed God would deal with him like a gentleman.
Never man went, so unconcerned for his sad fate.

24th March, 1682. I went to see the corpse of that
obstinate creature, Colonel Vrats, the Zing permitting
that his body should be transported to his own country,
he being of a good family, and one of the first embalmed
by a particular art, invented by one William Russell, a
coffin-maker, which preserved the body without disbowel-
ing, or to appearance using any bituminous matter.
The flesh was florid, soft, and full, as if the person
were only sleeping. He had now been dead near fif-
teen days, and lay exposed in a very rich coffin lined
with lead, too magnificent for so daring and horrid a
murderer.

At the meeting of the Royal Society were exhibited
some pieces of amber sent by the Duke of Brandenburg,
in one of which was a spider, in another a gnat, both very
entire. There was a discourse of the tingeing of glass,
especially with red, and the difficulty of finding any red
color effectual to penetrate glass, among the glass-
painters; that the most diaporous, as blue, yellow, etc.,
did not enter into the substance of what was ordinarily
painted, more than very shallow, unless incorporated in
the metal itself, other reds and whites not at all beyond
the superfices.

5th April, 1682. To the Royal Society, where at a
Council was regulated what collections should be pub-
lished monthly, as formerly the transactions, which
had of late been discontinued, but were now much
called for by the curious abroad and at home.

12th April, 1682. I went this afternoon with several
of the Royal Society to a supper which was all dressed,
both fish and flesh, in Monsieur Papin's digestors, by
which the hardest bones of beef itself, and mutton, were
made as soft as cheese, without water or other liquor,
and with less than eight ounces of coals, producing an
incredible quantity of gravy; and for close of all, a jelly
made of the bones of beef, the best for clearness and
good relish, and the most delicious that I had ever seen,
or tasted. We ate pike and other fish, bones and all,
without impediment; but nothing exceeded the pigeons,,of an ague, recourse