The Diary Of John Evelyn Vol-2

JOHN EVELYN

and friends, who entertained us very nobly. God be
praised for his goodness, and this refreshment after my
many troubles, and let his mercy and providence ever
preserve me. Amen.

3d September, 1687. The Lord Mayor sent me an Of-
ficer with a staff, to be one of the Governors of St.
Thomas's Hospital.

PERSECUTION RAGING IN PRANCE; divers churches there
fired by lightning, priests struck, consecrated hosts, etc.,
burnt and destroyed, both at St. Malos and Paris, at the
grand procession on Corpus Christi day.

13th September, 1687. I went to Lambeth, and dined
with the Archbishop. After dinner, I retired into the
library, which I found exceedingly improved; there are
also divers rare manuscripts in a room apart.

6th October, 1687. I was godfather to Sir John Char-
din's son, christened at Greenwich Church, named John.
The Earl of Bath and Countess of Carlisle, the other
sponsors.

29th October, 1687. An Anabaptist, a very odd igno-
rant person, a mechanic, I think, was Lord Mayor. The
King and Queen, and Dadi, the Pope's Nuncio, invited
to a feast at Guildhall. A strange turn of affairs, that
those who scandalized the Church of England as favorers
of Popery, should publicly invite an emissary from Rome,
one who represented the very person of their Antichrist!

icth December, 1687. My son was returned out of
Devon, where he had been on a commission from the Lords
of the Treasury about a concealment of land.

2oth December, 1687. I went with my Lord Chief-
Justice Herbert, to see his house at Walton-on-Thames: it
is a barren place. To a very ordinary house he had
built a very handsome library, designing more building
to it than the place deserves, in my opinion. He desired
my advice about laying out his gardens; etc. The next
day, we went to Weybridge, to see some pictures of the
Duchess of Norfolk's, particularly the statue, or child in
gremio, said to be of Michael Angelo; but there are rea-
sons to think it rather a copy, from some proportion in
the figures ill taken. It was now exposed to sale.

12th January, 1687-88. Mr. Slingsby, Master of the
Mint,being under very deplorable circumstances on ac-
count of his creditors, and especially the King, I did myn, having been five weeks absent with mv brothernheer Diskvelts, the