in Dr. Wilkins's time: he died sine prole, I thinke He was much beloved by King Charles the First, who much valued him for his integrity. He graunted him the reversion of the surveyor of his buildings, after the decease of Mr. Inigo Jones; which place, after the restauration of King Charles II. he enjoyed to his death, and gott seaven thousand pounds, as S: Ch. Wren told me of, to his owne knowledge. S: Christopher Wren was his deputie. An. D 166... he maried his 2d wife, Brookes, a very beautifull young lady, St John was ancient and limping. The Duke of Yorke fell deeply in love with her.... This occasioned St John's distemper of madnesse in 166.. wch first appeared when he went from London to see the famous free-stone quarries at Portland, in Dorset. When he came within a mile of it, turned back to London againe, and would not see it; he went to Hounslowe, and demanded rents of lands he had sold many yeares before; went to the king, and told him he was the Holy Ghost; but it pleased God that he was cured of this distemper, and writt excellent verses, particularly on the death of Mr. Abraham Cowley, afterwards. His 2d lady had no child, and was poysoned by the hands of the Co. of Roc. with chocolatte. At the coronation of King Charles II. he was made Knight of the Bath. He dyed at the house of his office, (which he built, as also the brick buildings next the street in Scotland-yard) and was buried An? D 1668-9, March the 23, in the south crosse aisle of Westminster Abbey, neer S: Jeffrey Chaucer's monument, but (hitherto, 1680) without any memoriall for him. Mem. the parsonage house at Egham (vulgarly called The Place) was built by Baron Denham; a house very convenient, not great, but pretty, and pleasantly situated, and in which his son, S: John (though he had better seates), did take most delight in. He sold it to John Thynne, Esq. In this parish is a place called Cammomill-hill, from the cammomill that growes there naturally, as also West of it is Prune-well-hill, (formerly part of Sir John's possessions) where was a fine tuft of trees, a clear spring, and a pleasant prospect to the East, over the levell of Midd' and Surrey, S' John tooke great delight in this place, and was wont to say (before the troubles) that he would build a retiring place to entertaine his muses, but the warres forced him to sell that as well as the rest. He sold it to Mr. . . . Anstey. In this parish W. and by N. (above Runney-Meade) is Cowper's Hill, from whence a noble prospect, wch is incomparably well described by that sweet swan, S: Jo. Denham. Mem. He delighted much in bowles, and did bowle very well. He was of the tallest, but a little incurvetting at his shoulders, not very robust. His haire was but thin and flaxen, with a moist curle. His gate was slow, and was rather a stalking, (he had long legges) which was wont to putt me in mind of Horace, De Arte Poetica. 66 "Hic dum sublimes versus ructatur, et errat, His eie was a kind of light goose-gray, not big; but it had a strange piercingness, not as to shining and glory, but (like a Momus) when he conversed with you he look't into your very thoughts. He was generally temperate as to drinking; but one time when he was a student of Lincolnes Inne, having been merry at ye taverne with his camerades, late at night, a frolick came into his head, to gett a playsterer's brush and a pott of inke, and blott out all the signes between Temple-barre and Charing-crosse, wh made a strange confusion the next day, and 'twas in Terme time. But it happened that they were discovered, and it cost him and them some moneys. This I had from R. Estcourt, Esq. y' carried the inke pott. In the time of the civill warres, Geo. Withers, the poet, begged S: Jo. Denham's estate of the Parliament, in whose cause he was a captaine of horse. It [happened] that G. W. was taken prisoner, and was in danger of his life, having written severely against the King, &c. Sir John Denham went to the King, and desired his mat not to hang him, for that whilest G. W. lived he should not be the worst poet in England. Scripsit the Sophy: Cowper's Hill: Essay against Gameing: Poems, 8: printed A: Di... Cato Major, sive De Senectute, translated into English verse. London, printed by H. Heringman, in the New Exchange, 1669. Mem. In the verses against Gondibert, most of them are Sir John's. He was satyricall when he had a mind to it. MEUR RENATUS DES CARTES. Nobilis Gallus, Perroni Dominus, summus Mathematicus et Philosophus, natus Turonum, pridie Calendas Apriles, 1596. Denatus Holmiæ, Calendis Februarij, 1650.* How he spent his time in his youth, and by what method he became so knowing, he tells the world in his treatise entituled, Of Method. The Societie of Jesus glorie in that theyr order had the educating of him. He lived severall yeares at Egmont (neer the Hague), from whence he dated severall of his bookes. He was too wise a man to encomber *This inscription I find under his picture by C. V. Dalen. himselfe with a wife; but as he was a man, he had the desires and appetites of a man, he therefore kept a good conditioned hansome woman that he liked, and by whom he had some children (I thinke 2 or 3). 'Tis pity but comeing from the loines of such a father, they should be well cultivated. He was so eminently learned that all learned men made visits to him, and many of them would desire him to shew them his. of instruments (in those dayes mathematicall learning lay much in the knowledge of instruments, and, as S.: H. S. sayd, in doeing of tricks), he would drawe out a little drawer under his table, and shew them a paire of compasses with one of the legges broken; and then, for his ruler, he used a sheet of paper folded double. This from Alexander Cowper, (brother of Samuel) limner to Christina, Q. of Sweden, who was familiarly acquainted there with Des Cartes. SIR KENELME DIGBY, KNIGHT. He was borne at . . . . . on the 11th of July. See Ben Jonson, 2d volume, "Witnesse thy actions done at Scanderoon Upon thy birth day, the eleaventh of June."** * Mr. Elias Ashmole assures me from two or 3 nativities |