10th March. This day was executed Colonel Vratz, and some of his accomplices, for the execrable murder of Mr. Thynne,' set on by the principal Königsmarck. He went to execution like an undaunted hero, as one that had done a friendly office for that base coward, Count Königsmarck, who had hopes to marry his widow, the rich Lady Ogle, and was acquitted by a corrupt jury, and so got away. Vratz told a friend of mine who accompanied him to the gallows, and gave him some advice, that he did not value dying of a rush, and hoped and believed God would deal with him like a gentleman. Never man went, so unconcerned for his sad fate.2

24th. I went to see the corpse of that obstinate creature, Colonel Vratz, the King permitting that his body should be transported to his own country, he being of a good family, and one of the first embalmed by a particular art, invented by one William Russell, a coffin-maker, which preserved the body without disbowelling, or to appearance using any bituminous matter. The flesh was florid, soft, and full, as if the person were only sleeping. He had now been dead near fifteen days, and lay exposed in a very rich coffin lined with lead, too magnificent for so daring and horrid a murderer.

1 [See ante, p. 73.]

2 [Reresby confirms this account (Memoirs, 1875, p. 243). "The captain (Vratz) died without any expression of fear, or laying any guilt upon Count Coningsmark. Seeing me in my coach as he passed in the cart to execution, he bowed to me with a steady look, as he did to those he knew among the spectators, before he was turned off; in fine, his whole carriage, from his first being apprehended till the last, relished more of gallantry than religion." Reresby says that Vratz had led a forlorn hope at the siege of Mons, "where only two besides himself, of fifty under his command, came off with life” (ibid. p. 236).]

3 [Tar was used in these cases. "Have you brought the sawdust and Tar for embalming?"-says Sable, the undertaker, in Sc. i. of Steele's Funeral, 1701.]

VOL. III

G

At the meeting of the Royal Society were exhibited some pieces of amber sent by the Duke of Brandenburg, in one of which was a spider, in another a gnat, both very entire. There was a discourse of the tingeing of glass, especially with red, and the difficulty of finding any red colour effectual to penetrate glass, among the glass-painters; that the most diaphanous, as blue, yellow, etc., did not enter into the substance of what was ordinarily painted, more than very shallow, unless incorporated in the metal itself, other reds and whites not at all beyond the superficies.

5th April. To the Royal Society, where at a Council was regulated what collections should be published monthly, as formerly the transactions, which had of late been discontinued, but were now much called for by the curious abroad and at home.

12th. I went this afternoon with several of the Royal Society to a supper which was all dressed, both fish and flesh, in Monsieur Papin's digesters, by which the hardest bones of beef itself, and mutton, were made as soft as cheese, without water or other liquor, and with less than eight ounces of coals, producing an incredible quantity of gravy; and for close of all, a jelly made of the bones of beef, the best for clearness and good relish, and the most delicious that I had ever seen, or tasted. We eat pike and other fish bones, and all without impediment; but nothing exceeded the pigeons, which tasted just as if baked in a pie, all these being stewed in their own juice, without any addition of water save what swam about the digester, as in balneo; the natural juice of all these provisions acting on the grosser substances, reduced the hardest bones to tenderness; but it is best descanted with more particulars for extracting tinctures, preserving and stewing fruit, and saving fuel, in Dr. Papin's book, published and dedicated

to our Society, of which he is a member. He is since gone to Venice with the late Resident here (and also a member of our Society), who carried this excellent mechanic, philosopher, and physician, to set up a philosophical meeting in that city. This philosophical supper caused much mirth amongst us, and exceedingly pleased all the company. I sent a glass of the jelly to my wife, to the reproach of all that the ladies ever made of their best hartshorn.1

The season was unusually wet, with rain and thunder.

25th May. I was desired by Sir Stephen Fox and Sir Christopher Wren to accompany them to Lambeth, with the plot and design of the College to be built at Chelsea, to have the Archbishop's approbation. It was a quadrangle of 200 feet square, after the dimensions of the larger quadrangle at Christ-Church, Oxford, for the accommodation of 440 persons, with governor and officers. This was agreed on.

3

The Duke and Duchess of York were just now come to London, after his escape and shipwreck, as he went by sea for Scotland.

1 Denys Papin, or Papinus, 1647-1712, a French physician and mathematician, who possessed so remarkable a knowledge of mathematics, that he very nearly brought the invention of the steam-engine into working order. He assisted Mr. Boyle in his pneumatic experiments, and was afterwards mathematical professor at Marburg, 1688-95. 2 [See ante, p. 71.]

3 [He had been shipwrecked in returning to Scotland after his last visit to London. "May 12 [1682]. Came account that the ship called the Gloucester, a third-rate, in which the Duke went for Scotland, was cast away on Yarmouth sands, and that all the passengers, save the Duke and about 160 persons, were drowned. Among those that were lost were my Lord O'Brien and Lord Roxburghe, Mr. Hyde, my Lord Clarendon's brother; all which proved too true" (Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, 1875, p. 250). See post, under 26th March, 1685. Pepys might have been among the number; but he had preferred to go in his own yacht-the Catharine.]