Regular posts from the diary of John Evelyn

Month: December 1637

Monday 25 December 1637

The Christmas ensuing, being at a Comedy which the gentlemen of Exeter College presented to the University, and standing, for the better advantage of seeing, upon a table in the Hall, which was near to another, in the dark, being constrained by the extraordinary press to quit my station, in leaping down to save myself I dashed my right leg with such violence against the sharp edge of the other board, as gave me a hurt which held me in cure till almost Easter, and confined me to my study.

Referring entries

Thursday 10 December 1637

The 10th of December my father sent a servant to bring us necessaries, and the plague beginning now to cease, on the 3d of April, 1637, I left school, where, till about the last year, I have been extremely remiss in my studies; so as I went to the University rather out of shame of abiding longer at school, than for any fitness, as by sad experience I found: which put me to re-learn all that I had neglected, or but perfunctorily gained.

Saturday 9 December 1637

Offered at my first exercise in the Hall, and answered my opponent; and, upon the 11th following, declaimed ((To deliver a formal recitation, especially as an exercise in rhetoric or elocution. Free dictionary definition)) in the chapel before the Master, Fellows, and Scholars, according to the custom. The 15th after, I first of all opposed in the Hall.