542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to salute him in their name, and to invite him to honour them 

 with his company. Sir Jo. Hoskins and Sir Christopher Wren ac- 

 companied me. . . . He was sorry he could not gratify the curi- 

 osity of the Society at present, his things not being yet out of the 

 ship, but would wait on them with them on his return from Paris, 

 whither he was going next day, but with intention to return sud- 

 denly and stay longer here, the persecution in France not suffer- 

 ing Protestants and he was one to be quiet." Chardine went 

 to the East in search of jewels and had become very rich. They 

 "found him at his lodgings in his Eastern habit, a very hand- 

 some person, extremely affable, a modest, well-bred man, not in- 

 clin'd to talke wonders. He seem'd about 36 years old." Char- 

 dine was the author of the excellent and well-known volume of 

 travels. 



Frequently scientific parties visited the homes of English vir- 

 tuosi who had cabinets of scientific or historical curiosities or 

 inventions of their own to exhibit. Pepys mentions, May 1, 

 1665, meeting and joining Lord Brouncker, Sir Robert Murray, 

 " the heart and soul of the Royal Society " ; Dean Wilkins, and 

 Mr. Hooke, curator of the society, who were going by boat and 

 coach to dine with the inventor, Colonel Blount, and witness " the 

 trial of some experiment about making coaches easy/' After ad- 

 miring their host's "long spring coach" and dining with him, 

 the party went to Deptford, and "into Mr. Evelyn's (Sayes 

 Court), which is a most beautiful place. ... A lovely and noble 

 ground he hath indeed. And among other varieties a hive of 

 bees, so as being hived in glass, you may see the bees making 

 their honey and combs mighty pleasantly. ... It being dark 

 and late I stayed not; but Dean Wilkins and Mr. Hooke and 

 I walked to Redriffe; and noble discourse all day long did 

 please me." 



The transparent apiary to which Pepys alludes was a present 

 from Dr. Wilkins, who invented it, to Evelyn. It was regarded 

 as so great a curiosity that Charles II made an excursion to Sayes 

 Court expressly to see it. Evelyn described the hive as built like 

 a castle or palace, adorned with little statues, dials, and vanes, 

 and so contrived that the honey could be removed without injur- 

 ing the bees. Evelyn was a scientific horticulturist, and his gar- 

 dens and orchards were the wonder and admiration of his con- 

 temporaries, one of whom described his grounds as a " garden ex- 

 quisite and most boscaresque, and as it were an exempler of his 

 book of forest trees " the famous Sylva written for the Royal 

 Society at the request of the Admiralty Board. August 4, 1665, 

 Evelyn writes : " I call'd at Durdans, where I found Dr. Wilkins, 

 Sir William Petty, and Mr. Hooke, contriving chariots, war rig- 

 ging for ships, a wheele for one to run races in, and other 



