The Diary Of John Evelyn Vol-2

JOHN EVELYN

among the gods, on the walls and roof of the great room
above,—I think exceeds anything he has yet done, both
for design, coloring, and exuberance of invention, com-
parable to the greatest of the old masters, or what they
so celebrate at Rome. In the rest of the chamber are
some excellent paintings of Holbein, and other masters.
The garden is large, and in good air, but the fronts of
the house not answerable to the inside. The court at
entry, and wings for offices seem too near the street, and
that so very narrow and meanly built, that the corridor
is not in, proportion to the rest, to hide the court from
being overlooked by neighbors; all which might have
been prevented, had they placed the house further into
the ground, of which there was enough to spare. But
on the whole it is a fine palace, built after the French
pavilion-way, by Mr. Hooke, the Curator of the Royal
Society. There were with us my Lady Scroope, the
great wit, and Monsieur Chardine, the celebrated trav-
eler.

13th October, 1683. Came to visit me my old and
worthy friend, Mr. Packer, bringing with him his nephew
Berkeley, grandson to the honest judge. A most ingenious,
virtuous, and religious gentleman, seated near Worcester,
and very curious in gardening.

17th October, 1683. I was at the court-leet of this manor,
my Lord Arlington his Majesty's High Steward.

26th October, 1683. Came to visit and dine with me,
Mr. Brisbane, Secretary to the Admiralty, a learned and
agreeable man.

3oth October, 1683. I went to Kew to visit Sir Henry
Capell, brother to the late Earl of Essex; but he being
gone to Cashiobury, after I had seen his garden and the
alterations therein, I returned home. He had repaired his
house, roofed his hall with a kind of cupola, and in a niche
was an artificial fountain; but the room seems to me over-
melancholy, yet might be much improved by having the
walls well painted d fresco. The two green houses for
oranges and myrtles, communicating with the rooms below,
are very well contrived. There is a cupola made with
pole-work between two elms at the end of a walk, which
being covered by plashing the trees to them, is very
pretty; for the rest there are too many fir trees in the
garden,e palace. Signor Verrio's fresco