The inhabitants greatly affect the Spanish gravity in their habit, delight in good horses; the streets are full of gallants on horseback, in coaches, and sedans.  The country people are so jovial and addicted to music that the very husbandmen almost universally play on the guitar, singing and composing songs in praise of their sweethearts, and will commonly go to the field with their fiddle; they are merry, witty, and genial, all which I much attribute to the excellent quality of the air.  They have a deadly hatred to the French, so that some of our company were flouted at for wearing red cloaks, as the mode then was.

This I made the end of my travels, sufficiently sated with rolling up and down, since, from the report of divers experienced and curious persons, I had been assured there was little more to be seen in the rest of the civil world, after Italy, France, Flanders, and the Low Country, but plain and prodigious barbarism.

Thus, about February 7, we set out on our return to Rome by the same way we came, not daring to adventure by sea, as some of our company were inclined, for fear of Turkish pirates hovering on that coast.

III.—­Evelyn in England

May 22, 1647.  I had contracted a great friendship with Sir Richard Browne, his majesty’s Resident at the Court of France, his lady and family, and particularly set my affections on a daughter.

June 10.  We concluded about my marriage, and on Thursday 27, Dr. Earle married us in Sir Richard Browne’s chapel, betwixt the hours of eleven and twelve some few select friends being present; and this being Corpus Christi, feast was solemnly observed in this country; the streets were sumptuously hung with tapestry and strewn with flowers.

July 8, 1656.  At Ipswich—­one of the sweetest, most pleasant, well-built towns in England.  I had the curiosity to visit some Quakers here in prison—­a new fanatic sect, of dangerous principles, who show no respect to any man, magistrate or other, and seem a melancholy, proud sort of people, and exceedingly ignorant.

November 2.  There was now nothing practical preached in the pulpits, or that pressed reformation of life, but high and speculative points that few understood, which left people very ignorant and of no steady principles, the source of all our sects and divisions, for there was much envy and uncharity in the world—­God of His mercy amend it!

January 27, 1658.  After six fits of an ague died my dear son Richard, to our inexpressible grief and affliction, five years and three days only, but at that tender age a prodigy for wit and understanding, and for beauty of body a very angel.  At two years and a half old he could perfectly read any of the English, Latin, French, or Gothic letters, pronouncing the three first languages perfectly.  He had before the fifth year, or in that year, not only skill to read most written hands, but to decline all the nouns,