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JOHN EVELYN

loth August, 1688. Dr. Tenison now told me there
would suddenly be some great thing- discovered. This
was the Prince of Orange intending to come over.

i5th August, 1688. I went to Althorpe, in Northamp-
tonshire, seventy miles. A coach and four horses took
up me and my son at Whitehall, and carried us to Dun-
stable, where we arrived and dined at noon, and from
thence another coach and six horses carried us to Al-
thorpe, four miles beyond Northampton, where we ar-
rived by seven o'clock that evening. Both these coaches
were hired for me by that noble Countess of Sunderland,
who invited me to her house at Althorpe, where she
entertained me and my son with very extraordinary kind-
ness; I stayed till the Thursday.

i8th August, 1688. Dr. Jeifryes, the minister of Al-
thorpe, who was my Lord's chaplain when ambassador in
France, preached the shortest discourse I ever heard;
but what was defective in the amplitude of his sermon,
he had supplied in the largeness and convenience of the
parsonage house, which the doctor (who had at least
£600 a year in spiritual advancement) had newly built,
and made fit for a person of quality to live in, with
gardens and all accommodation according therewith.

My lady carried us to see Lord Northampton's Seat, a
very strong, large house, built with stone, not altogether
modern. They were enlarging the garden, in which was
nothing extraordinary, except the iron gate opening into
the park, which indeed was very good work, wrought in
flowers painted with blue and gilded. There is a noble
walk of elms toward the front of the house by the
bowling green. I was not in any room of the house be-
sides a lobby looking into the garden, where my Lord
and his new Countess (Sir Stephen Fox's daughter, whom
I had known from a child) entertained the Countess and
her daughter the Countess of Arran (newly married to
the son of the Duke of Hamilton), with so little good
grace, and so dully, that our visit was very short, and so
we returned to Althorpe, twelve miles distant. '

The house, or rather palace, at Althorpe, is a noble
uniform pile in form of a half H, built of brick and
freestone, balustered and & la moderne; the hall is well,
the staircase excellent; the rooms of state, galleries,
offices and furniture, such as may become a great prince.rtd well