22 October 1685 – 28 October 1685

I accompanied my Lady Clarendon to her house at Swallowfield, in Berks, dining by the way at Mr. Graham's lodge at Bagshot; the house, newly repaired and capacious enough for a good family, stands in a park. Hence, we went to Swallowfield; this house is after the ancient building of honorable gentlemen's houses, when they kept up ancient hospitality, but the gardens and waters as elegant as it is possible to make a flat by art and industry, and no mean expense, my lady being so extraordinarily skilled in the flowery part, and my lord in diligence of planting; so that I have hardly seen a seat which shows more tokens of it than what is to be found here, not only in the delicious and rarest fruits of a garden, but in those innumerable timber trees in the ground about the seat, to the greatest ornament and benefit of the place. There is one orchard of 1,000 golden, and other cider pippins; walks and groves of elms, limes, oaks, and other trees. The garden is so beset with all manner of sweet shrubs, that it perfumes the air. The distribution also of the quarters, walks, and parterres, is excellent. The nurseries, kitchen-garden full of the most desirable plants; two very noble orangeries well furnished: but, above all, the canal and fish ponds, the one fed with a white, the other with a black running water, fed by a quick and swift river, so well and plentifully stored with fish, that for pike, carp, bream, and tench, I never saw anything approaching it. We had at every meal carp and pike of a size fit for the table of a Prince, and what added to the delight was, to see the hundreds taken by the drag, out of which, the cook standing by, we pointed out what we had most mind to, and had carp that would have been worth at London twenty shillings a piece. The waters are flagged about with Calámus aromaticus, with which my lady has hung a closet, that retains the smell very perfectly. There is also a certain sweet willow and other exotics: also a very fine bowling-green, meadow, pasture, and wood; in a word, all that can render a country seat delightful. There is besides a well-furnished library in the house.

We returned to London, having been treated with all sorts of cheer and noble freedom by that most religious and virtuous lady. She was now preparing to go for Ireland with her husband, made Lord Deputy, and went to this country house and ancient seat of her father and family, to set things in order during her absence; but never were good people and neighbors more concerned than all the country (the poor especially) for the departure of this charitable woman; everyone was in tears, and she as unwilling to part from them. There was among them a maiden of primitive life, the daughter of a poor laboring man, who had sustained her parents (some time since dead) by her labor, and has for many years refused marriage, or to receive any assistance from the parish, besides the little hermitage my lady gives her rent-free; she lives on four pence a day, which she gets by spinning; says she abounds and can give alms to others, living in great humility and content, without any apparent affectation, or singularity; she is continually working, praying, or reading, gives a good account of her knowledge in religion, visits the sick; is not in the least given to talk; very modest, of a simple not unseemingly behavior; of a comely countenance, clad very plain, but clean and tight. In sum, she appears a saint of an extraordinary sort, in so religious a life, as is seldom met with in villages now-a-days.

I was invited to dine at Sir Stephen Fox's with my Lord Lieutenant, where was such a dinner for variety of all things as I had seldom seen, and it was so for the trial of a master-cook whom Sir Stephen had recommended to go with his Lordship into Ireland; there were all the dainties not only of the season, but of what art could add, venison, plain solid meat, fowl, baked and boiled meats, banquet , in exceeding plenty, and exquisitely dressed. There also dined my Lord Ossory and Lady (the Duke of Beaufort's daughter), my Lady Treasurer, Lord Cornbury, and other visitors.

At the Royal Society, an urn full of bones was presented, dug up in a highway, while repairing it, in a field in Camberwell, in Surrey; it was found entire with its cover, among many others, believed to be truly Roman and ancient. Sir Richard Bulkeley described to us a model of a chariot he had invented, which it was not possible to overthrow in whatever uneven way it was drawn, giving us a wonderful relation of what it had performed in that kind, for ease, expedition, and safety; there were some inconveniences yet to be remedied—it would not contain more than one person; was ready to take fire every ten miles; and being placed and playing on no fewer than ten rollers, it made a most prodigious noise, almost intolerable. A remedy was to be sought for these inconveniences.