VIII. Rev. Abraham de la Pryme, F.R.S.
Abraham, son of Matthew de la Pryme and Sara Smaque, was born within the parish of Hatfield, in Yorkshire, on 15th January 1671. Before he was twelve years old he began an autobiography and diary and record of every-day observations, occurrences, and on dits, entitled “Ephemeris Vitae Abrahami Pryme; or, a Diary of my own Life, containing an account likewise of the most observable and remarkable things that I have taken notice of from my youth up, hitherto. Eccl. Vanity of Vanitys. All is vanity and vexation of spirit. Man’s life is but a vain thing and a series of evils. Teach us then, O Lord, so to number our days that we may obtain everlasting bliss in thyne eternal kingdome.” Here we have abundance of materials.
He tells us that he was born “(to all the miserys of life) at a house about the middle of the Levels, about the middle way on the high road-side on the left hand as you come straight from the Isle of Axholmeor Haxyhorn from Epworth to the little neat town of Hatfield.” “My father can speak Dutch and my mother French, but I nothing yet but Inglish.” “In 1680 my father shifted dwelling and went and lived at an old great larg hall in the Levels, which was built by Mijn Heer Van Valkenburg, one of the great drainers of the country.” Following the old style of the year, he says as to 1684: “In this year in Feb. dyed King Charles the Second of a disease they call an apoplexy, as they say; he is mightily lamented by every one, as well by his enemies as friends; and I heard a gentleman say that came from London that the citty was in tears, and most of the towns through which he came. Yet perhaps it may be that they wept not so much for the love they bore him, as for fear that his brother who now reigns may be worse than he. Good God, prevent it!” As to 1686, “This year was published an order against bonfires and fireworks upon any account whatever. The vulgar and every one soon perceived what it drove at, viz., the hindering of rejoicings and sports on gunpowder treason night. Therefore that nevertheless they might not loose the priviledge of haveing some merriment and of shewing their abhorrence of popery, they invented illuminations — that is, every house when that night came set all their windows as full of candles as ever they could hold in all the great towns of England, which caused a most delicate spectacle.” As to 1688, “About the end of this year happen’d in England the greatest revolution that was ever known. I mean by that most bold and heroick adventure of the most illustrious and famous Wil. Hen. Nassaw, Prince of Orange, who soon turned the scale of affairs, and delivered us out of all our fears of tyranny and popery which, as farr as I can possibly see, would infallibly have faln upon us.”
Under the rule of William and Mary he could quietly concentrate his thoughts upon his prospects of a college education. His Presbyterian father wished him to study at Glasgow College. Abraham had different thoughts, having been prejudiced against Presbyterians by people who believed true religion to be nothing but a silently and painfully calculated viaticum. He writes in 1689: “This day I heard my father say that as he went to Doncaster fair, he overtook a company of godly Presbyterians who were singing salms as they rid. Was not this a great peece of affectedness, and more out of vain glory and pride than piety? I have heard of a Presbyterian minister who was so precise that he would not as much as take a pipe of tobacco before that he had first sayed grace over it. My father, alas! inclines mightily this way, as does all the French and Duch of these Levels, and he would needs have me to go to the University of Glasco, but I do not intend it. I hope God will so incline my father’s will as to suffer me to go to Cambridge, which thing I beg for Jesus Christ his sake.” His father yielded to his wish, and in the end of April 1690 he set out for Cambridge; there he took the degree of B.A., and was afterwards ordained as an Anglican curate. How successfully the scandalous tongues of college dons, county squires, and coffee-house coteries had worked upon the fancy and the fears of the innocent curate may be seen in an extract from his diary: “1696, Oct. 10. Having been a little melancholy this day, I was very pensive and sedate, and while I remained so, there came several strange thoughts in my heart which I could not get shutt of. Methought I foresaw a Religious Warr in the nation, in which our most apostolick and blessed church should fall a prey to the wicked sacrilegous Nonconformists, who should almost utterly extinguish the same, and set up in the place thereof their own enthusiastick follys, which God prevent! &c, &c.” In this matter specially, but also as to all anecdotes, he exhibits a credulity which would astonish us if we did not know that his generation was credulous in the extreme. I have let my dates go astray for once in order to dismiss ecclesiastical topics, which I do, with the remark that while I condemn the diarist’s personalities, I can cheerfully
