22d August, 1664. I went from London to Wotton, to assist at the funeral of my sister-in-law, the Lady Cotton, buried in our dormitory there, she being put up in lead. Dr. Owen made a profitable and pathetic discourse, concluding with an eulogy of that virtuous, pious, and deserving lady. It was a very solemn funeral, with about fifty mourners. I came back next day with my wife to London.
2d September, 1664. Came Constantine Huygens, Signor de Zuylichen, Sir Robert Morris, Mr. Oudart, Mr. Carew, and other friends, to spend the day with us.
5th October, 1664. To our Society. There was brought a newly-invented instrument of music, being a harpsichord with gut-strings, sounding like a concert of viols with an organ, made vocal by a wheel, and a zone of parchment that rubbed horizontally against the strings.
6th October, 1664. I heard the anniversary oration in praise of Dr. Harvey, in the Anatomy Theatre in the College of Physicians; after which I was invited by Dr. Alston, the President, to a magnificent feast.
7th October, 1664. I dined at Sir Nicholas Strood's, one of the Masters of Chancery, in Great St. Bartholomew's; passing the evening at Whitehall, with the Queen, etc.
8th October, 1664. Sir William Curtius, his Majesty's Resident in Germany, came to visit me; he was a wise and learned gentleman, and, as he told me, scholar to Henry Alstedius, the Encyclopedist.
15th October, 1664. Dined at the Lord Chancellor's, where was the Duke of Ormond, Earl of Cork, and Bishop of Winchester. After dinner, my Lord Chancellor and his lady carried me in their coach to see their palace (for he now lived at Worcester-House in the Strand), building at the upper end of St. James's street, and to project the garden. In the evening, I presented him with my book on Architecture,[81] as before I had done to his Majesty and the Queen-Mother. His lordship caused me to stay with him in his bedchamber, discoursing of several matters very late, even till he was going into his bed.
17th October, 1664. I went with my Lord Viscount Cornbury, to Cornbury, in Oxfordshire, to assist him in the planting of the park, and bear him company, with Mr. Belin and Mr. May, in a coach with six horses; dined at Uxbridge, lay at Wycombe.
OXFORD