FEELING AGAINST1 ROMAN Catholics is rising again in England. I am troubled by a letter I sent Mr Wood last year, or perhaps it was the year before, in which I expressed my friendship to the Church of Rome – I have asked him to burn the letter, or at least blot out the passage. I wrote the letter when I had been invited to take a benefice and was deciding what to do. God preserve us from another rebellion!
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Mr Ogilby2, the King’s Cosmographer, has died and will be buried in the vault at St Bride’s in Fleet Street. The church was damaged in the Great Conflagration and is being rebuilt according to Sir Christopher Wren’s design.
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Some time ago3, I sent my friend Mr Paschall Mr Lodwick’s essay on the Universal Character and communicated his responses to the author. Now Mr Lodwick has sent me further reflections on that subject and asked me to pass them on to Mr Paschall if I think he would be interested.
Mr Thomas Pigott4 of Wadham College doubts Mr Hooke’s design for a pocket watch. He is interested too in the Philosophical Language and difficulties of the Universal Character.
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I went to celebrate5 Sir Christopher Wren’s birthday at Palgraves Head, near Temple Bar: he paid for everything. Sir John Hoskyns and Mr Hooke came too.
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Today I was with6 Mr Hooke at Tooth’s coffee house, then later at Garraway’s.
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I went home7 with Mr Hooke (Mr Crisp came too) and we drank two bottles of claret.
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I went to Child’s8 in St Paul’s Churchyard and heard Mr Hooke and Mr Hill discourse about teaching children grammar by tables.
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Mr Hooke and I9 went to dine with Lord Sarum.
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I went to the Crown10 with Mr Wylde and Mr Hooke, where we drank brandy wine.
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My friend the Reverend11 Andrew Paschall hopes that the outcome of Seth Ward the Bishop of Sarum’s considerations on a Universal Language may be to reduce schism and babel to nothing.
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My lord the Earl12 of Thanet promises that he will acquaint his agent with the quality and quantity of shells I would like sent from the Bermudas.
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My friend Mr Thomas Pigott13 has tracked down Dr Morison for me; he is putting out a general history of plants according to the order of nature. His proposals are in the Royal Society’s Transactions and Mr Pigott will find out if Sir John Hoskyns wishes to subscribe. Further, he promises that as soon as he hears of anyone writing on medicinal waters, examined chemically, he will be sure to let me know.
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My friend Mr James Boevey14 of the Inner Temple, who went to Florence in 1642 and enquired after Machiavelli’s reputation, has also written many treatises on what he calls ‘active philosophy’: for example, ‘The Government of Resolution’ and ‘The Art of Governing the Tongue’. He has sent me a list of his manuscripts and I am trying to persuade him to donate them to the library of the Royal Society.
Mr Boevey was a merchant before he was admitted to the Inner Temple. He is a great lover of natural philosophy and keeps a candle burning by him all night, with pen, ink and paper, so that he might not lose a thought. He is a person of great temperance, and deep thoughts, and a working head, which is never idle. He is only five foot tall, slenderly built, with extremely black hair, curled at the ends, an equally black beard, and the darkest of eyebrows hovering above dark but sprightly hazel eyes.
Mr Ashmole has made a list of the many books on magic in Mr Boevey’s library.
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Jane Smyth, who is somewhat15 better, and I met Mr Hooke this evening at Cardinal’s Tavern in Lombard Street. We drank until past midnight and Mr Hooke vomited up wine.
Jane Smyth has the idea16 that men might metamorphose into trees and flowers planted in their graves. Her notion is that the soul of the deceased goes into the tree or plant and lives. It is lovely and ingenious.
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Lady Day17: my good friend Mr Wenceslaus Hollar has died. If he had lived until 13 July this year, he would have been seventy years old. He will be buried in St Margaret’s churchyard, Westminster. He was a very friendly, good-natured man, but shiftless as to the world and died not rich.
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James, Duke of York, has reluctantly consented to the marriage of his Protestant daughter Mary to William, the Prince of Orange, Stadholder of the Dutch Republic. Our present King, who still has no children born within wedlock, arranged the marriage. Many in England fear the prospect of a Roman Catholic monarch if James succeeds to the throne.
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Mr Hooke saw18 the comet this morning (he learnt of it yesterday). He says it appeared in the sign of Taurus, between the base of the triangle and the unformed stars in the cloud of Aries. The head of it was in a right line with the heart of Cassiopeia and Alamak, or the south foot of Andromeda. As near as he could judge with his naked eye (he had no instrument or help to hand) it was 5/6 of the distance between the feet and the girdle of Andromeda.
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I went to Mr Hooke’s19 with Mr Wylde, Mr Merret, Mr Moxon and others to see the comet, but we missed it and drank two bottles of claret.
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An abscess on my head broke.
Mr Charles Snell20 has written to explain my horoscope to me. He addresses me as ‘Dear Gossip’! He says his brother will be glad to enter my lord the Earl of Thanet’s employment as steward for his Barbados concerns, if he has not already engaged one.
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I have sold21 some books to Mr Littlebury.
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I am recovered now22 from my illness and will go soon into the country, where I hope to visit Mr Paschall in Somerset. We have much to discuss: the Universal Character, the cider press, etc. He tells me he has not yet been able to go to Salisbury to see the Bishop of Sarum, nor to visit my mother at Broad Chalke. I will go myself soon, I hope.
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Mr Oldenburg23, Secretary of the Royal Society, has died, aged about fifty-eight. He was made secretary when the Society was granted its royal charter in 1662 and was extremely active in that regard. He established the Philosophical Transactions in 1665. But it was through his default that some small tracts of Mr Hobbes’s were not published in the Philosophical Transactions.
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Mr Hooke came to dine24 with me and afterwards we went to see Sir John Hoskyns, then to visit Mr Alhurst, a perspective painter in Exeter Street, near the Red Cow.
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My friend Mr Harrington25 died today at his house in Little Ambry. He will be buried in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, next to illustrious Sir Walter Raleigh, under the south side of the altar, where the priest stands.
For this past year Mr Harrington’s memory and speech were taken away by disease. It was a sad sight to see such a sample of mortality in one whom I had known to be a brisk and lively cavaliero. Henry Nevill continued to pay his visits to Mr Harrington during this illness as duly and respectfully as when his friend was in the prime of his understanding. Henry Nevill was a true friend and should never be forgotten for his constancy.
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I coincided26 with Nell Young at Mr Hooke’s.
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Today I watched27 the demonstration of a new wind gun. It is made in the form of the head of a stick and from soldered brass, with two leather valves.
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Mr Hooke has my picture28 done by my dear friend Mr Cooper, the prince of limners, before he died. Mr Cooper once gave Mr Hooke drawing lessons.
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Mr Hooke has asked me to help find a new President of the Royal Society by discussing with Mr Ent, Dr Millington, etc. the manner of choosing one. Viscount Brouncker has been President since 1663, but has decided to resign, as it is clear he will not be re-elected at the Society’s annual meeting on St Andrew’s Day. The Society is declining and many members believe it needs a change in President.
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I will undertake29 the correspondence for the election of the new President (although Sir John Hoskyns’s cabal opposes this).
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Today I was at the Rainbow30 and afterwards at Child’s.
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Since Mr Oldenburg’s death, Mr Hooke has been elected Secretary of the Royal Society, together with Nehemiah Grew.
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Viscount Brouncker sent me a note to give notice that next Friday, 30th of this month, the council and officers of the Royal Society are to be elected for the ensuing year, and my presence is expected for the election at Gresham College at nine o’clock in the morning precisely.
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St Andrew’s Day31. Mr Henshaw was in the chair for the Royal Society vote. Mr Grew read out the votes and Mr Hooke marked them. Sir Peter Wych scrutinised for Mr Grew and I did it for Mr Hooke. The outcome was Sir Joseph Williamson President, Mr Hill Treasurer, Mr Grew and Mr Hooke Secretaries.
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Some of my letters32 reach me in London by being left with Mr William Crooke, the bookseller at the Green Dragon, outside Temple Bar. Mr Hobbes, who is in Hardwick, writes to me this way. He has not been able to write for some time and now has sent me a dictated letter. In it he says he is so weak that even dictating pains him. He is still bitter towards Dr Wallis. He says it is no surprise that Dr Wallis, or anyone else who studies mathematics only to gain preferment, should convert his study to juggling, conjuring and deciphering when his ignorance is discovered. According to Mr Hobbes, Dr Wallis is only esteemed in the universities because those who defended his geometry are too ashamed to recant.
I asked Mr Hobbes if he thought it possible to teach a man born deaf and dumb to speak. He answers me no: it is impossible. He says he is assured that a man born absolutely deaf must of necessity be made to hear before he can be made to speak.
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In Oxford33, Gloucester Hall, I am told, is in a terrible state. Not one student matriculated there these past four years, and only the incumbent Principal (Byrom Eaton) and his family and two or three other families living there keep some part of it from ruin. The paths are overgrown with grass and the hall and chapel have been nailed up with boards this year.
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I dined34 with Sir John Hoskyns and Mr Hooke.
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I have been misdirecting35 my letters to my friend George Ent: I have been sending them to The Crown, instead of The Rose! He has written to say he is hoping for my company when he comes to London in a week’s time. He tells me that the University treasury is low, and so are Trinity College’s coffers, on account of their building projects, but he believes Queens’ or Emmanuel or some other Cambridge college might purchase Lady Dodington’s medals.
My friend Andrew Paschall36, so far as his rusticated life permits, is studying the natural way of making and learning a language, on different lines from the Bishop of Sarum. I am grateful to him for his kindness to my mother, whom he writes to and visits.
John Ray tells me37 he took up the study of plants only as a diversion, but since he is not qualified to serve God in his proper function – divinity is his profession, but he has not undertaken it for sixteen years – he has bestowed a good proportion of his time upon plants and has no thoughts of parting with any of his books on botany. In 1662, he forfeited his Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, because he could not accept the terms of the Act of Uniformity, which prescribed the form of the public prayers and sacraments of the Church of England. Even so, he has remained a loyal member of the Church of England. At Trinity he had a small garden, planted with specimens that he had collected on his long walks in the Cambridgeshire countryside, or else had sent to him. His first botanising perambulation outside Cambridgeshire was to Northampton, Warwick and north Wales in 1658. Since then he has travelled north as far as Scotland and visited many places of antiquarian interest while searching for plants.
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I have had38 such a good time in Oxford with my lady friend and ingenious company. Thomas Pigott would not be parted from us and even came to see us off on the coach at Abingdon.
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The great lover39 of antiquities, Silas Taylor, has died. During his lifetime he accumulated many rare manuscripts, including those of the Church of Hereford and the Church of Worcester. Among them was King Edgar’s original grant of the right to the sovereignty of the sea to the Kings of England. There is a printed copy in Mr Selden’s Mare Clausum. I have seen the original many times and it is as legible as if it was writ yesterday. Mr Silas Taylor tried to sell it to the King for 120 li., but the King would not pay so much. Now that Silas Taylor has died a debtor, I fear his creditors will seize on his papers and belongings and this precious manuscript will end up being used to wrap herrings!
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Yesterday on the Exchange40 it was reported that in the Roman Catholic countries there is a group of devotes that go up and down begging for money to make war on England: they have got about two million so far. They wear crosses and a crown of thorns on their heads.
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I have heard41 that my old friend Francis Potter has died. He died between Easter and Whitsuntide on 22 April. He will be buried in the chancel at Kilmington where he was rector. His books have been sold for under 3 li. In Trinity College, Oxford, he will be remembered for the sundial he made on the north wall of Durham Quad and his copy of the portrait of the college’s founder, Thomas Pope, which hangs in the hall.
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Andrew Paschall has had an idea42 for promoting the Real Character. He suggests that sheets displaying tables of plants, with their names given in the Real Character, could be illustrated to hang in greenhouses like maps; the same for shrubs, trees, minerals and stones, insects, animals; also in pocket book size. This would be a clever way of getting the Real Character taken notice of.
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Today I presented43 the herb called terrara to the Royal Society. It was brought over from Carolina by Sir Peter Colleton, and grown here in Mr Johnson’s garden: it is the best antidote against all manner of poisons. Its virtues were a great secret among the Indians, until someone who married an Indian king’s daughter discovered it. It is mentioned in the history of the Antilles, where it is called herbe aux flesches.
I also related an anecdote about a man whose feet rotted off from wearing shoes that had been taken off a malefactor’s feet after he had rotted.
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Thomas Pigott tells me44 that learned Dr Morison has talked to him of the Italian botanists Ambrosinus and Zeno, and shown him plates in Zeno’s book.
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Andrew Paschall has sent me45 an elaborate draft of his design for the table of plants. It sets out each separate part of the plant, botanical classifications, etc. The plant names are to be in several languages, in distinct columns. He asks me to assure Mr Lodwick that his proposals are intended to agree with the framework for the Real Character set out by the Bishop of Sarum. Mr Paschall has no ambition to be the author of a schism.
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Mr Evelyn has been46 to see Mr Ashmole’s library and collection of curiosities at South Lambeth. Mr Ashmole has many astrological manuscripts and is dedicated to the study of astrology.
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I leave now for a few days in Oxford, where Mr Sheldon will send a horse for me, and I will travel on to his house at Weston, where Mr Wood has been staying and cataloguing his library.
I have promised47 to help Mr Wood by searching the register for the burial of John Milton. I have also encouraged him not to forget to mention Mr Wenceslaus Hollar, who so much obliged the world with his etchings and deserves to be remembered: he lies buried in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster.
When I went to see48 Mr Milton’s widow, she assured me that Mr Thomas Hobbes was not one of her late husband’s acquaintances, that he did not like Mr Hobbes at all, but would acknowledge him to be a man of great parts and learned. Their interests and tenets were diametrically opposed.
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Titus Oates, who was received into the Roman Catholic Church on Ash Wednesday last year, has accused the Jesuits of plotting to set fire to the City of London, murder the King and conquer England by Irish and French arms. The world runs madding.
Titus Oates now claims that he became a Roman Catholic only to spy on the Jesuits. Together with Israel Tonge, he wrote a manuscript outlining a Jesuit plot to assassinate the King. Today he was questioned by the King’s Council and made allegations against over 500 Roman Catholic priests and nobles. Close members of the Duchess of York’s circle are among those he has named. He has launched a public campaign against the ‘Papists’.
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Mr Sheldon’s house49 has been searched today for arms by six men under the command of Sir Thomas Mordant, who is investigating the alleged Papist Plot, revealed by Titus Oates.
I will ask Mr Wood to lend me some money so that I can go straight back to London and stay out of the way of trouble.
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Mr Wood agreed50 to lend me 3s. 6d: I will pay him back through his brother, whom I will meet at Staple Inn when he is next in London.
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Mr Hooke and I watched the eclipse of the moon.
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Mr Pigott tells me51 in his letter that every corner of Oxford is now full of rumours about the Papist Plot, so much so that other discourses seem silenced. Plots, policies and rumours in these troublesome and disordered times take away all thoughts of learning.
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My old friend from Trinity, Thomas Mariett, now High Sheriff of Warwickshire, has gone to Weston with a warrant from the Privy Council and arrested Mr Sheldon, who has been taken to Warwick Gaol.
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Titus Oates claims that the Queen is working with the King’s Physician to poison His Majesty. The King will question Titus Oates himself.
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The King has ordered the arrest of Titus Oates, whom he has caught out under questioning.
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The Parliament has forced the release of Titus Oates. He is to be given an apartment in Whitehall and an annual allowance of 1,200 li.
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Together with the future52 Earl of Pembroke, I have been chosen to inspect the proceedings of the Royal Society’s Secretaries.
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Today I left53 some books for Mr Wood at the Saracen’s Head, including Mr Hobbes’s Leviathan.
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I sent Mr William Howe54 the almanac of the Royal Society last year. He is sailing to Persia, from where he has promised me seeds and shells, and any rarities he finds on his travels. He says the Congo is not so pleasant a place as I believe it to be, but a trading seaport, which is barren and sandy. It is true that there are all sorts of fruit to be got there, but they are brought from elsewhere in the country. How I wish I were travelling with him.
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Fire broke out in Middle Temple Lane last night and many of Mr Ashmole’s collections have been burnt. His large paper book of faces, and another of marriage ceremonies and funerals, etc. are lost, along with all his subterranean antiquities and curiosities of nature. Some 9,000 brass, copper and silver coins and medals are missing or defaced. Mr Ashmole will spare no pains to rescue what he can from the ash.
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I join Mr Wood55 in his lament for Mr Ashmole’s collections: ‘His losses are ours!’ Before they burnt, those rarities were destined for Oxford.
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The Commons have concluded that Papists started the fire in Middle Temple Lane, but others say it was a maidservant who lit a fire and went away.
Mr Crooke tells me56 there is competition for the printing of Mr Hobbes’s life.
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I have sent Mr Hobbes57 Sir George Ent’s book on respiration. I sent it via Mr William Crooke’s shop, and Mr Hobbes writes back to me the same way. My friend George Ent, son of Sir George, is seriously ill.
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I was at Jonathan’s coffee house58, which is next door to Garraway’s in Exchange Alley, with Sir John Hoskyns and Mr Hooke.
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I was at Jonathan’s coffee house again59, but was expelled with Mr Wylde and Mr Sacwill.
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At the Royal Society60 there has been further discussion of printing all Roger Bacon’s works together, but before that can be done, it is necessary to find what writings of his are dispersed in private libraries. His Computus Naturalium is in the library of University College in Oxford, for example, but not in the Bodleian. I am to ask Mr Wood to send the Society a copy of the catalogue of Bacon’s works that he included in his English edition of the Antiquaries of Oxford (which I have seen, even though it has yet to be printed).
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I went to Child’s61 coffee house this evening and saw Sir John Hoskyns, Mr Lodwick and Mr Hooke.
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Often, as I lie62 in bed, I chide myself when I consider how much time Mr Wylde and I waste. I grow lethargic.
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I dream often of my friend Ralph Sheldon’s house in Weston.
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Last night I decided that the scurrilous satirical pamphlet against Mr Pepys and his colleague Mr Hewer, The Hue and Cry, is one of the pleasantest things that I have ever read and nothing could more fit me. The pamphlet accuses them of coining money, selling jobs and licences and taking bribes. Mr Hooke and I laughed at it heartily.
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Robert Pugh, the Roman Catholic controversialist, died in Newgate on 22 January, and is buried in Christ Church. I have found out that his (nearly finished) treatise on the several states and governments that there have been in this country since the Troubles is in the Earl of Castlemaine’s hands; all his other works, including the almanac, were seized.
I am told63 that when his study was searched, his orders were there found and also a letter from the Queen Mother (whose confessor he had sometimes been) to the King to the effect that if he should fall into any danger of the law, upon sight of that letter he should have His Majesty’s pardon.
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My lord the Earl64 of Thanet has invited me to call on him tomorrow morning for a little business, followed by a dish of meat and a bottle of most excellent Portugal wine.
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At Jonathan’s65 coffee house, Mr Wylde and I discussed buildings with Mr Hooke.
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My friend Mr Thomas Pigott66 claims the temptation of enjoying my company will attract him to London towards the end of May unless, still better, I visit him in Oxford. He writes to say he would be very glad to hear of the Bishop of Sarum’s design for the Universal Character and Mr Hooke’s and Mr Paschall’s amendments, and what reception his letter to Mr Lodwick had had among them.
But alas, he informs me that my poor former-servant Robert Wiseman died some time ago. Mr Pigott helped carry him to the grave and is much afflicted by grief, as am I.
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Today Mr Michael Dary67, mathematician and a gunner of the Tower (by profession a tobacco-cutter), was buried in the churchyard near Bethlem. He was an old man, I guess over sixty-six, and an admirable algebrician. This past winter was so severe that he got gangrene in his fingers and they rotted from writing in the frosty weather.
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On this day68 the foundation stone for a new building in Oxford to house Mr Ashmole’s collection of rarities was laid next to Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre. Mr Ashmole’s collection includes that of the Tradescants of South Lambeth, which was assigned to him by Deed of Gift in 1659. He has agreed to donate all to the University, on the condition of the new building being completed. His intention in founding a public museum is to further knowledge of nature – necessary to human life, health and convenience – by promoting understanding of the history of nature. He hopes in this way to contribute to the development of medicine, manufacture and trade. Mr Evelyn has suggested to Mr Ashmole that Dr Plot would be a fit and proper appointment as the first keeper of the new museum when it is ready.
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The Exclusion Bill has been introduced into the House of Commons, with the intention of excluding the Duke of York, a Roman Catholic, from succeeding to the throne. There is a faction that hopes to see the Duke of Monmouth – the King’s bastard but Protestant son – succeed.
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Sixteen days after69 the funeral of John Tradescant’s widow Hestor, who was found drowned in her pond after losing her dispute with Mr Ashmole over her late husband’s collection of rarities, Mr Ashmole has taken the lease on the Tradescant house and garden in South Lambeth. He had been leasing a neighbouring house since 1674. Some of the Tradescant collection had already been transferred to Mr Ashmole’s house. Now that he is in full possession of the Tradescant inheritance, he hopes to move the collection to Oxford.
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Mr Wylde Clerke70, who is my friend Edmund Wylde’s godson, has sent me a letter from Santa Cruz in Africa, dated November last year, reporting on the crops, berries, grapes, and horses of the country. He writes of the diet: camels’ milk, ostrich meat; bread not commonly eaten; and the people’s bare subsistence. He promises to explore for the herbs, etc. that I have enquired about.
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Mr Thomas Pigott asks71 if I can help a learned friend of his, Mr Fairfax, a mathematician, who is reduced to great poverty. I fear I cannot.
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On this day at Tyburn, the Jesuit William Barrow (known as Father Harcourt) and four others accused of the Popish Plot have been executed for conspiring to kill the King and subvert the Protestant religion.
There is a rumour72 that when Father Harcourt’s entrails were tossed into the brazier by the hangman, a butcher’s boy resolved to have a piece of his kidney, which was broiling in the fire, so burnt his fingers snatching it from the flames. I will see this piece of petrified kidney if I can. Mr Roydon, a brewer in Southwark, has it now.
I met Father Harcourt in 1650 and he told me that he was of the Stanton Harcourt family.
Since the discovery73 of the Popish Plot, the Penal Laws have been put into effect against Roman Catholics, who will be severely proceeded against if they do not receive the Sacrament according to the Church of England in their parish churches.
. . .
I met Mr Sheldon74 in London today (he was released from gaol in April, and treated very well there, so my friend Thomas Mariett tells me). My stammer was terrible. I still feel guilty for what I said about Mr Sheldon in a drunken letter I wrote to Thomas Mariett, which was full of gossip gleaned from the Parliament men and the courtiers who attend the Royal Society. As soon as I sent that letter to the post-house, I regretted it, even though it was to my old acquaintance and intimate friend from boyhood. Mr Sheldon is so worthy and honest a gent: I would more easily incur anyone’s displeasure than his.
The Queen has been accused of plotting to poison the King and convert the country to Roman Catholicism. I think there is shrewd evidence against her.
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I have asked Mr Ent to try and recover for me the text of Mr Hobbes’s Latin prose autobiography, which I lent to Anthony Wood and which he has refused to return.
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Mr Hobbes tells me75 his treatise concerning law (The Dialogue of the Common Law) is imperfect at the end and he will not consent to it being printed, not by Mr Horne, nor by Mr Crooke. He tells me too that his book on the civil war (Behemoth: the history of the causes of the civil wars of England, and of the counsels and artifices by which they were carried on from the year 1640 to the year 1660) is in circulation, but he regrets this, as he could not get His Majesty to license it. The King has read and likes the book extremely, but is afraid of displeasing the bishops.
In his book76, Mr Hobbes argues that our civil war was caused by Presbyterian clergy struggling to gain control over the people against the prerogative of the King. Speech was the main means by which the clergy sought to dominate the people. Mr Hobbes is suspicious of the power of eloquence, which he believes is a form of passion that distorts the meaning of words. Behemoth is written as a dialogue between ‘A’, an eyewitness of the civil war, and ‘B’, a younger student, concerning the years 1640 to 1660. It ends with a paean to General George Monck. Mr Hobbes offers a rational account of how the war and the regicide happened. He insists that there can be ‘nothing more instructive towards loyalty and justice’ than the memory, while it lasts, of that war.
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I went to Bloomsbury77 coffee house with Mr Hooke.
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My friend Robert Henley78 has invited me to go and take a little air at his country home, and when he comes back up to Parliament, he will carry me in his coach and set me down at the Middle Temple or near thereabout, from whence I shall know my way home.
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My friend George Ent79 has died. He told me a few days before that he had seen a ghost (or deceptio visus, as he called it) that gave three knocks and called him away from this world. His father Sir George Ent is grief stricken.
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I was at Jonathan’s80 coffee house with Sir John Hoskyns and Mr Hooke.
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I have suggested to Mr Edmund Halley – the prodigious young astronomer – that he study astrology. He tells me it seems an ill time for it, given that the arch conjuror Mr Gadbury is in danger of being hanged for it. But he will follow my recommendation and read around the subject. He went to the library and found the books I recommended, which were published in 1557.
I sent my letter81 to Mr Halley by way of my friend Thomas Pigott, so that these two would become acquainted.
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My honoured lord the Earl of Thanet has died at the age of forty-nine. He was my refuge and patron.
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I have heard82 that my old acquaintance John Birkenhead, who wrote the news in Oxford during the late wars, died on 4 December. He was chosen as a Member of Parliament for Wilton in the King’s Long Parliament of 1661, but when he stood for election to Parliament this year, he was scorned and mocked and called ‘pensioner’. As a result, he did not stand, but returned to London and insensibly declined, pining away in his lodgings in Whitehall.
. . .
My honoured friend83 Mr Hobbes died on 4 December at Hardwick. He was speechless for his last six days, and was buried on 6 December. I have sent for a full account of his funeral and will. Mr Wood will return Mr Hobbes’s life in prose (which only goes up to 1651), so that I can continue it by six lines or so. They say that when a learned man dies, a great deal of learning dies with him. Mr Hobbes was a flumen ingenii, a stream of genius, never dry. The recrementa (or remains) of so learned a person are valuable. I must now fulfil my promise to my dear departed revered friend and write up the minutes of his Life, which I promised to do as long ago as 1667. ’Tis religion to perform the will of the dead. I am minded to begin it with a pleasant description of Malmesbury. I think first drafts or sketches ought to be rude as those of painters, for he that in his first essay will be curious of refining will certainly be unhappy in inventing. I do not know if I should print my memoirs of the Life of Hobbes in Latin, or English, or both. If in Latin, who will do the translation for me? And is my English style well enough?
. . .
Now that the sun84 has entered Capricorn, it will begin to mount a little higher and I shall become more vigorous and less lethargic again.
Mr Wood asks much85 of me. He has sent another list of questions:
– What is Francis Potter’s epitaph; and which was the day and year of his burial?
– What were the titles of Dr William Petty’s two published books, and where was he born?
– When did John Wagstaff die and where is he buried?
– When and where did Dr John Godolphin die, where is he buried, and who sold his books?
– Can I consult the register of St Pancras Church?
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I am as good as promised Sir George Ent’s assistance in continuing Mr Hobbes’s life in Latin, even though he is still grieving for his son. I will get Mr Hobbes’s life licensed by the Royal Society, or else print it in Holland or Scotland. Should I mention that it was at my request (about fifteen years ago) that Mr Hobbes wrote an account of his life and entrusted it to me as his countryman and acquaintance since I was eight years old? I will be zealously industrious to this purpose, and Mr Wood and I will be revenged on Dr Fell: rumpatur quisquis rumpitur invidia (may every man who bursts with malice burst himself).
Could one have thought86 that Dr Fell, that ghostlike ghostly father, so continual and assiduous in the prayers of the Church of England, that good exemplar of piety, a walking Common Prayer Book, could have made such a breach and outrage on morals and justice? Who would have thought Dr Fell to have such an itch for the tyranny of the press: scratching out an author’s phrases, expunging and interponing? He has made the universities worse thought of than ever they were before. Who can pardon such a dry bone, a stalking consecrated engine of hypocrisy?
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Mr Henry Vaughan87 promises to search for me into distant and obscure nativities with all possible speed. If he finds anything in nature that may deserve the notice of the Royal Society he will present me with it. He finds the Ancients less unkind to astrology than most modern physicians.
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At Burbage88 in Wiltshire the soil is an ash-coloured grey sand, and very natural for the production of good turnips. They are the best I have ever eaten, and are sent for from far and near. They are not tough and stringy, like other turnips, but cut like marmalade. Quaere: how old the trade in turnips is? Certainly all the turnips that were brought to Bristol eighty years ago came from Wales. But now none come from there, for it has been found that the red sand about Bristol breeds a better and bigger turnip. Burbage is also remarkable for excellent peas.
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I have often wished89 for a map of England painted according to the colours of the earth and marks of the minerals.
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My mother has written to tell me that she was seventy years old last Thursday (29 January).
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Spectacles have been worn90 for about 200 years, and were sold, when first invented, for 3 or 5 li. a pair. The Germans call them Brill, from the beril-stone (or crystal) from which they were first made. I remember discussing the difference between spectacles and a vidette with Mr Hobbes.