Mr Minifie called on me again in the morning; I gave him orders for 2 half-pieces of napped rug at 4/3. Before the Reformation ⅓ of the best benefices in England were appropriated to abbeys and other religious houses, 190 of which were dissolved by Henry VIII, whose yearly revenue amounted to 2,653,000 pounds per annum, a great part of which went to Rome, the governors and governesses of several of the richest of them being foreigners residing in Italy. Paid Halland gardener 3/5 in full. At home all day. A remarkable quantity of rain fell today and in the night. Paid for milk ½d. In the evening read Tournefort’s Voyage into the Levant, where I find the Turks think the dead are relieved by prayer. There is yearly spent in the Seraglio 40,000 beeves, besides the purveyors are to, furnish daily 200 muttons, 100 lambs or goats, according to the season, 10 veals, 200 hens, 200 prs of pullets, 100 pr of pigeons, 50 green geese.