252 JOHN EVELYN 



I stately porticos, &c. any where about the towne) 

 : should be so much straighten'd and turn'd into tene- 

 ments. But that magnificent pile and gardens con- 

 tiguous to it, built by the late Lord Chancellor 

 Clarendon, being all demolish'd, and design'd for 

 Piazzas and buildings, was some excuse for my Lady 

 Berkeley's resolution of letting out her ground also for 

 : o excessive a price as was offer'd, advancing neere 

 I ooo per ann. in mere ground rents ; to such a made 

 intemperance was the age come of building about a 

 citty, by far too disproportionate already to the nation; 

 I having in my time seene it almost as large again as it 

 was within my memory. 



7 Aug., 1685. I went to see Mr. Wats, keeper of 

 the Apothecaries Garden of Simples at Chelsea, where 

 there is a collection of innumerable rarities of that sort 

 particularly, besides many rare annuals, the tree bearing 

 Jesuits bark, which had don such wonders in quartan 

 agues. What was very ingenious was the subterranean 

 heate, conveyed by a stove under the conservatory, which 

 was all vaulted with brick, so as he has the doores 

 and windowes open in the hardest frosts, secluding 

 only the snow. 



