[Excerpt from vol. 3, October 1664]

25 Came to visite my Lord Cornbery (whose father my L: H: Chancelor of England, was also now Chancelor of the University) the Vice-Chancellor, who with the Dr. Fell, Deane of Christ-Church, Warden of Queenes, the learnd Dr. Barlow, & severall heads of houses came to visite my Lord, & next day Invited him & us all to dinner:

I went to visite Mr. Boyle now here, whom I found with Dr. Wallis & Dr. Chr: Wren in the Tower at the Scholes, with an inverted Tube or Telescope observing the Discus of the Sunn for the passing of ☿ that day before the Sunn; but the Latitude was so greate, that nothing appeared: So we went to see the rarities in the Library, where the Library keepers, shewed me my name, among the Benefactors: They have a Cabinet of some Medails, & Pictures of the Muscular parts of Mans body: Thence to the new Theater, building now at an exceeding & royal Expense by the L: A: B: of Canterbury, to keepe the Acts in for the future, 'til now being in St. Maries church: The foundation being but newly laied & the whole, Design’d by that incomparable genius, & my worthy friend Dr. Chr: Wren, who shewed me the Model, not disdaining my advise in some particulars: Thence to see the Picture on the Wall over the Altar at All-Soules, being the largest piece of Fresco painting (or rather in Imitation of it, for tis in oyle [of Terpentine]) in England, & not ill design'd, by the hand of one Fuller: yet I fear it will not hold long, & seemes too full of nakeds for a Chapell: Thence to New-Coll: & the Painting of Magdalens Chapell, which is on blue Cloth in Chiaro Oscuro by one Greeneborow, being a Cœna Domini & Judgement [on] the Wall by Fuller, as is the other, somewhat varied: Next to Waddam, & the Physi[c]k Garden where were two large Locust Trees,[*]This appears to be an error for lotus or lote-trees, also called nettle-trees; the existence of at least one here in 1658 is shown by the Catalogus Horti Botanici Oxoniensis of that year; it contains nothing that can be identified as a locust-tree. In Sylva Evelyn mentions the lotus (ed. 1664, p. 58); longer notice in later editions) but not the locust (Diary, ed. de Beer, vol. 3, p. 386, n. 5) & as many Platana[*]They are not mentioned in the Catalogus of 1658. The plane is sometimes said to have been introduced by Bacon; it was evidently still very rare; Evelyn was given a specimen by Sir George Croke to whom he attributes its successful introduction: see successive notices in Sylva, 1664, p. 58. (Diary, ed. de Beer, vol. 3, p. 386, n. 6), & some rare Plants under the Culture of old Bobart.

And in the Anatomy School; among other Curiosities, they shew the Skeleton of a Woman, who had 10 Husbands successively, and was Hanged at 36 years of Age, for the Murther of 4 of them.

The Theatre] is a very Magnificent and curious Structure worthy of observation. It was Built at the Charge of Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury; who left also about 50 l. per Ann. for its perpetual Reparation.

Here you have Grecian and Roman Antiquities, of great value, and other Curiosities given by Henry Howard Earl of Arundel.

Also a Repository Built by the University, where is a curious Collection of Natural and Artificial Rarities, given chiefly by Elias Ashmole Esq; who gave likewise an Excellent Collection of Manuscripts made by himself, and the Ingenious Sr. William Dugdale; you have also here a Chymical Laboratory, and a Printing-Press.