Verulam House, are done larger than life-size in umber and gold. The roof is semi-cylindrical and painted, by the same hand and in the same manner, with heads and busts of Greek and Roman emperors and heroes.
The garden is large and was no doubt rarely planted and kept in his lordship’s time. There is a handsome door that opens out into an oak wood, where the trees are very great and shady. Beneath them his lordship planted fine specimens of flower, such as peonies and tulips: some are still there. Beyond the oak wood is a coppice-wood where there are walks cut straight as lines, and it was here that his lordship meditated, attended by Mr Bushell or Mr Hobbes or another of his secretaries, to whom he would dictate his thoughts.
Where once there was a paradise, there is now a large ploughed field. The little resting houses of Roman architecture that his lordship had built at good viewing places along the well-designed woodland walks still stand, but are defaced, as though barbarians made a conquest here.
If I close my eyes, I can think myself back to a time when this place was a sanctuary for pheasants, partridges and birds of various kinds and countries. I can hear his lordship drive his open coach through the rain to receive the benefits of irrigation, the nitre in the air and the universal spirit of the world. ‘I do not look about me, I look above me,’ he was wont to say.
Mr Hobbes told me that the cause of his lordship’s death was conducting an experiment on Highgate Hill. He was taking the air in a coach with Dr Witherborne (a Scotsman and physician to the King) when snow lay on the ground. It occurred to his lordship that flesh might be preserved in snow as well as in salt. These two went into a poor woman’s house at the bottom of Highgate Hill, bought a hen and had her kill it, then stuffed the body with snow. The snow so chilled his lordship that immediately he fell extremely ill, and could not return to his lodgings, but was taken instead to the Earl of Arundel’s house at Highgate. There he was put in a good bed warmed with a pan, but the bed was damp as no one had been in it for about a year, this gave his lordship such a cold that he died within two or three days.
. . .
My friend John Lydall 13 writes to tell me what Mr Hawes has told him about the ghosts that plagued the parliamentary committee for selling the King’s lands, when it sat at Woodstock Manor recently. The committee members who stayed over night to try and finish measuring the parklands were pelted out of their chambers in the manor by stones thrown through the windows. Their candles were continuously put out, as fast as they could light them; and one man who drew his sword to defend his candle was cudgelled with his own scabbard. He fell sick and the others were forced to move out of the manor.
. . .
December
There has been a remarkable occurrence 14 at Oxford. Earlier this month, Nan Green, a servant maid, was hanged in the castle for murdering her bastard child. After suffering the law, she was cut down and carried away for some of the young physicians to practise anatomy on. But while she was lying on the dissecting table, Dr William Petty, assisted by Mr Ralph Bathurst, among others, found life in her, so revived her. Now the young poets of the University are versifying about this great wonder.
. . .
I have helped my friend Mr Potter with his attempt to move blood between chickens in Kilmington.
. . .
I have acquired 15 a copy of Lord Bacon’s Historia Naturalis Et Experimentalis De Ventis .
. . .
Dr William Petty has been elected Professor of Music at Gresham College.
. . .
There has been smallpox in Sherborne for a year now, since last Michaelmas.
. . .
Anno 1651
February
Mr Lydall is leaving 16 Oxford and has made arrangements for those possessions of mine that are still there in boxes to be looked after by other friends. He has recommended some books in answer to my Quaere: how is it possible to find the
The garden is large and was no doubt rarely planted and kept in his lordship’s time. There is a handsome door that opens out into an oak wood, where the trees are very great and shady. Beneath them his lordship planted fine specimens of flower, such as peonies and tulips: some are still there. Beyond the oak wood is a coppice-wood where there are walks cut straight as lines, and it was here that his lordship meditated, attended by Mr Bushell or Mr Hobbes or another of his secretaries, to whom he would dictate his thoughts.
Where once there was a paradise, there is now a large ploughed field. The little resting houses of Roman architecture that his lordship had built at good viewing places along the well-designed woodland walks still stand, but are defaced, as though barbarians made a conquest here.
If I close my eyes, I can think myself back to a time when this place was a sanctuary for pheasants, partridges and birds of various kinds and countries. I can hear his lordship drive his open coach through the rain to receive the benefits of irrigation, the nitre in the air and the universal spirit of the world. ‘I do not look about me, I look above me,’ he was wont to say.
Mr Hobbes told me that the cause of his lordship’s death was conducting an experiment on Highgate Hill. He was taking the air in a coach with Dr Witherborne (a Scotsman and physician to the King) when snow lay on the ground. It occurred to his lordship that flesh might be preserved in snow as well as in salt. These two went into a poor woman’s house at the bottom of Highgate Hill, bought a hen and had her kill it, then stuffed the body with snow. The snow so chilled his lordship that immediately he fell extremely ill, and could not return to his lodgings, but was taken instead to the Earl of Arundel’s house at Highgate. There he was put in a good bed warmed with a pan, but the bed was damp as no one had been in it for about a year, this gave his lordship such a cold that he died within two or three days.
. . .
My friend John Lydall 13 writes to tell me what Mr Hawes has told him about the ghosts that plagued the parliamentary committee for selling the King’s lands, when it sat at Woodstock Manor recently. The committee members who stayed over night to try and finish measuring the parklands were pelted out of their chambers in the manor by stones thrown through the windows. Their candles were continuously put out, as fast as they could light them; and one man who drew his sword to defend his candle was cudgelled with his own scabbard. He fell sick and the others were forced to move out of the manor.
. . .
December
There has been a remarkable occurrence 14 at Oxford. Earlier this month, Nan Green, a servant maid, was hanged in the castle for murdering her bastard child. After suffering the law, she was cut down and carried away for some of the young physicians to practise anatomy on. But while she was lying on the dissecting table, Dr William Petty, assisted by Mr Ralph Bathurst, among others, found life in her, so revived her. Now the young poets of the University are versifying about this great wonder.
. . .
I have helped my friend Mr Potter with his attempt to move blood between chickens in Kilmington.
. . .
I have acquired 15 a copy of Lord Bacon’s Historia Naturalis Et Experimentalis De Ventis .
. . .
Dr William Petty has been elected Professor of Music at Gresham College.
. . .
There has been smallpox in Sherborne for a year now, since last Michaelmas.
. . .
Anno 1651
February
Mr Lydall is leaving 16 Oxford and has made arrangements for those possessions of mine that are still there in boxes to be looked after by other friends. He has recommended some books in answer to my Quaere: how is it possible to find the
Similar Books
