I went to Lambeth, with Sir R. Browne's pretense to the Wardenship of Merton College, Oxford, to which, as having been about forty years before a student of that house, he was elected by the votes of every Fellow except one; but the statutes of the house being so that, unless every Fellow agree, the election devolves to the Visitor, who is the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Juxon), his Grace gave his nomination to Sir T. Clayton, resident there, and the Physic Professor: for which I was not at all displeased, because, though Sir Richard missed it by much ingratitude and wrong of the Archbishop (Clayton being no Fellow), yet it would[Pg 342] have hindered Sir Richard from attending at Court to settle his greater concerns, and so have prejudiced me, though he was much inclined to have passed his time in a collegiate life, very unfit for him at that time, for many reasons. So I took leave of his Grace, who was formerly Lord Treasurer in the reign of Charles I.
This afternoon, Prince Rupert showed me, with his own hands, the new way of graving, called mezzo tinto, which afterward, by his permission, I published in my "History of Chalcography"; this set so many artists on work, that they soon arrived to the perfection it is since come to, emulating the tenderest miniatures.
Our Society now gave in my relation of the Peak of Teneriffe, in the Great Canaries, to be added to more queries concerning divers natural things reported of that island.
I returned home with my Cousin, Tuke, now going for France, as sent by his Majesty to condole the death of that great Minister and politician, Count Mazarine.