Thus, about February 7, we set out on our return to Rome by the same way we came, not daring to adventure by sea, as some of our company were inclined, for fear of Turkish pirates hovering on that coast.
_May_ 22, 1647. I had contracted a great friendship with Sir Richard Browne, his majesty's Resident at the Court of France, his lady and family, and particularly set my affections on a daughter.
_June_ 10. We concluded about my marriage, and on Thursday 27, Dr. Earle married us in Sir Richard Browne's chapel, betwixt the hours of eleven and twelve some few select friends being present; and this being Corpus Christi, feast was solemnly observed in this country; the streets were sumptuously hung with tapestry and strewn with flowers.
_July_ 8, 1656. At Ipswich--one of the sweetest, most pleasant, well-built towns in England. I had the curiosity to visit some Quakers here in prison--a new fanatic sect, of dangerous principles, who show no respect to any man, magistrate or other, and seem a melancholy, proud sort of people, and exceedingly ignorant.
_November_ 2. There was now nothing practical preached in the pulpits, or that pressed reformation of life, but high and speculative points that few understood, which left people very ignorant and of no steady principles, the source of all our sects and divisions, for there was much envy and uncharity in the world--God of His mercy amend it!
_January_ 27, 1658. After six fits of an ague died my dear son Richard, to our inexpressible grief and affliction, five years and three days only, but at that tender age a prodigy for wit and understanding, and for beauty of body a very angel. At two years and a half old he could perfectly read any of the English, Latin, French, or Gothic letters, pronouncing the three first languages perfectly. He had before the fifth year, or in that year, not only skill to read most written hands, but to decline all the nouns, conjugate the verbs regular, and most of the irregular; got by heart almost the entire vocabulary of Latin and French primitives and words, could make congruous syntax, turn English into Latin and _vice versa_, construe and prove what he read, began himself to write legibly, and had a strong passion for Greek. The number of verses he could recite was prodigious, and he had a wonderful disposition to mathematics. As to his piety, astonishing were his applications of Scripture upon occasion, and his sense of God. He was all life, all prettiness, far from morose, sullen or childish in anything he said or did. Such a child I never saw; for such a child I bless God, in whose bosom he is!