23 August 1655 – 29 August 1655

I went to Boxhill, to see those rare natural bowers, cabinets, and shady walks in the box copses: hence we walked to Mickleham, and saw Sir F. Stidolph's seat, environed with elm trees and walnuts innumerable, and of which last he told us they received a considerable revenue. Here are such goodly walks and hills shaded with yew and box, as render the place extremely agreeable, it seeming from these evergreens to be summer all the winter.

Came that renowned mathematician, Mr. Oughtred, to see me, I sending my coach to bring him to Wotton, being now very aged. Among other discourse, he told me he thought water to be the philosopher's first matter, and that he was well persuaded of the possibility of their elixir; he believed the sun to be a material fire, the moon a continent, as appears by the late selenographers; he had strong apprehensions of some extraordinary event to happen the following year, from the calculation of coincidence with the diluvian period; and added that it might possibly be to convert the Jews by our Savior's visible appearance, or to judge the world; and therefore, his word was, "Parate in occursum"; he said original sin was not met with in the Greek Fathers, yet he believed the thing; this was from some discourse on Dr. Taylor's late book, which I had lent him.