The Diary Of John Evelyn Vol-2

1694 JOHN EVELYN

Sussex, a living in my brother's gift, came to see him.

He had suffered much by a fire. Seasonable showers.

i4th June, 1694. The public fast. Mr. Wotton, that

extraordinary learned young man, preached excellently.

ist July, 1694. Mr. Duncomb, minister of Albury,

preached at Wotton, a very religious and exact dis~

cpurse.

The first great bank for a fund of money being now
established by Act of Parliament, was filled and com-
pleted to the sum of ^"120,000, and put under the
government of the most able and wealthy citizens of Lon-
don. All who adventured any sum had four per cent.,
so long as it lay in the bank, and had power either to
take it out at pleasure, or transfer it. Glorious steady
weather; corn and all fruits in extraordinary plenty gen-
erally.

13th July, 1694. Lord Berkeley burnt Dieppe and
Havre de Grace with bombs, in revenge for the defeat at
Brest. This manner of destructive war was begun by
the French, is exceedingly ruinous, especially falling on
the poorer people, and does not seem to tend to make a
more speedy end of the war; but rather to exasperate
and incite to revenge. Many executed at London for
clipping money, now done to that intolerable extent, that
there was hardly any money that was worth above half
the nominal value.

4th August, 1694. I went to visit my cousin, George
Evelyn of Nutfield, where I found a family of ten chil-
dren, five sons and five daughters—all beautiful women
grown, and extremely well-fashioned. All painted in one
piece, very well, by Mr. Lutterell, in crayon on copper,
and seeming to be as finely painted as the best minia-
ture. They are the children of two extraordinary beau-
tiful wives. The boys were at school.

5th August, 1694. Stormy and unseasonable wet
weather this week.

5th October, 1694. I went to St. Paul's to see the
choir, now finished as to the stone work, and the scaffold
struck both without and within, in that part. Some ex-
ceptions might perhaps be taken as to the placing col-
umns on pilasters at the east tribunal. As to the rest
it is a piece of architecture without reproach. The pull-
ing out the forms, like drawers, from under the stalls, isof Denton, in very year 1694; it