[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.