Transcriber’s notes

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SYLVA: OR A DISCOURSE
OF FOREST TREES & THE
PROPAGATION OF TIMBER
V O L U M E O N E

S Y L V A
OR A DISCOURSE OF FOREST
TREES: BY JOHN EVELYN F.R.S.
WITH AN ESSAY ON THE LIFE
AND WORKS OF THE AUTHOR
BY JOHN NISBET D.Œc.

A REPRINT OF THE FOURTH
EDITION IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME ONE

LONDON: PUBLISHED BY ARTHUR
DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY LIMITED
AT 8 YORK BUILDINGS ADELPHI

CONTENTS.

VOLUME I.

VOLUME II.

INTRODUCTION.

I
Evelyn & his literary contemporaries Isaac Walton & Samuel Pepys.

Among the prose writers of the second half of the seventeenth century John Evelyn holds a very distinguished position. The age of the Restoration and the Revolution is indeed rich in many names that have won for themselves an enduring place in the history of English literature. South, Tillotson, and Barrow among theologians, Newton in mathematical science, Locke and Bentley in philosophy and classical learning, Clarendon and Burnet in history, L’Estrange, Butler, Marvell and Dryden in miscellaneous prose, and Temple as an essayist, have all made their mark by prose writings which will endure for all time. But the names which stand out most prominently in popular estimation as authors of great masterpieces in the prose of this period are certainly those of John Bunyan, John Evelyn, and Izaak Walton. And along with them Samuel Pepys is also well entitled to be ranked as a great contemporary writer, though he was at pains to try and ensure his being permitted to remain free from the publicity of authorship, for such time at least as the curious might allow his Diary to remain hidden in the cipher he employed.

With the great though untrained genius of Bunyan none of these other three celebrated prose authors of this time has anything in common. He stands apart from them in his fervently religious and romantic temperament, in his richness of representation and ingenuity of analogy, and in his forcible quaintness of style, as completely as he did in social status and in personal surroundings. In complete contrast to the romantic productions of the self-educated tinker of Bedford, the works of Walton and Evelyn were at any rate influenced by, though they can hardly be said to have been moulded upon, the style of the preceding age of old English prose writers ending with Milton. The influence of the latter is, indeed, plainly noticeable both in the diction and in the general sentiment of these two great masters of the pure, nervous English of their period.

It would serve no good purpose to make any attempt here to trace the points of resemblance between the works of Walton and Evelyn, and then to note their differences in style. Each has contributed a masterpiece towards our national literature, and it would be a mere waste of time to make comparisons between their chief productions. This much, however, may be remarked, that the conditions under which each worked were completely different from those surrounding the other. Izaak Walton, the author of many singularly interesting biographies, and of the quaint half-poetical Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation, the great classic “Discourse of Fish and Fishing,” was a London tradesman, while his equally celebrated contemporary John Evelyn, author of Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees, the classic of British Forestry, was a more highly cultured man, who wrote, in the leisure of official duties and amid the surroundings of easy refinement, many useful and tasteful works both in prose and poetry, ranging over a wide variety of subjects. Judging from the number of editions which appeared of their principal works, they were both held in great favour by the reading public, though on the whole the advantage in some respects lay with Evelyn. But during the present century the taste of the public, judged by this same rough and ready, practical standard, has undoubtedly awarded the prize of popularity to Izaac Walton.

So far as the circumstances of their early life were concerned there was greater similarity between Walton and Pepys, than between either of them and Evelyn. Born in the lower middle class, the son of a tailor in London, and himself afterwards a member of the Clothworkers’ guild, Pepys was a true Londoner. His tastes were centred entirely in the town, and his pleasures were never sought either among woods or green fields, or by the banks of trout streams and rivers. His thoughts seem often tainted with the fumes of the wine-bowl and the reek of the tavern; and even when he swore off drink, as he frequently did, he soon relapsed into his customary habits. Educated in London and then at Cambridge, where his love of a too flowing bowl already got him into trouble more than once, he was imprudent enough to incur the responsibilities of matrimony at the early age of twenty-three, with a beautiful girl only fifteen years old. Trouble soon stared this rash and improvident young couple in the face, but they were spared the pangs of permanent poverty through the aid and influence of Sir Edward Montagu, afterwards Earl of Sandwich, who was a distant relative of Pepys. Acting probably as Montagu’s secretary for some time, he was first appointed to a clerkship in the Army pay office, and then soon afterwards became clerk of the Acts of the Navy. Later on, like Evelyn, he held various more important posts under the Crown, as well as being greatly distinguished by promotion to non-official positions of the highest honour. His official career was a very brilliant one, and deservedly so from the integrity of his work, from his application, despite frequent immoderation in partaking of wine, and from his business-like methods of work. As Commissioner for the Affairs of Tangier and Treasurer, he visited Tangier officially. He twice became Secretary to the Admiralty, and was twice elected to represent Harwich in Parliament, after having previously sat for Castle Rising. He was also twice chosen as Master of the Trinity House, and was twice committed to prison, once on a charge of high treason, and the other time (1690) on the charge of being affected to King James II., upon whose flight from England Pepys had laid down his office and withdrawn himself into retirement. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1665, he attained the distinction of being its President in 1684. He was Master of the Clothworkers’ Company, Treasurer and Vice-President of Christ’s Hospital, and one of the Barons of the Cinque Ports. In 1699, four years before he succumbed to a long and painful disease borne with fortitude under the depression of reduced circumstances, he received the freedom of the City of London, principally for his services in connection with Christ’s Hospital.

From the hasty sketch drafted in the above outlines, it will be seen that throughout all Pepys’ manhood the circumstances of his daily life and environment were much more similar to those of Evelyn than to those of Walton, who may well be ranked as their senior by almost one generation. Like Evelyn, Izaak Walton was rather the child of the country than a boy of the town. Born in Stafford in 1593, he only came to settle in London after he had attained early manhood. Thus, though a citizen exposing his linen drapery and mens’ millinery for sale first in the Gresham Exchange on the Cornhill, then in Fleet Street, and latterly in Chancery Lane, the Bond Street of that time, he ever cherished a longing for more rural surroundings and a desire to exchange life in the city for residence in a smaller provincial town. On the civil war breaking out in Charles the Ist’s time, he retired from business and went to live near his birth place, Stafford, where he had previously bought some land. Here the last forty years of his long life were spent in ease and recreation. When not angling or visiting friends, mostly brethren of the angle, he engaged in the light literary work of compiling biographies and in collecting material for the enrichment of his Compleat Angler. Published in 1653, this ran through five editions in 23 years, besides a reprint in 1664 of the third edition (1661).

In spite of the many similarities between Evelyn and Pepys as to university education, official position, political partisanship, and social and scientific status in London, there are yet such essential differences between what has been bequeathed to us by these two friends that comparison between them is almost impossible. They are both authors: but it was by chance rather than by design that Pepys ultimately acquired repute as an author, whereas Evelyn at once achieved the literary fame he desired and wrote for. Neither of the two works published by Pepys, The Portugal History (1677) and the Memories of the Royal Navy (1690), procured for him the gratification of revising them for a second edition, and it is indeed open to question if the Diary upon which his undying fame rests was ever intended by him to be published after his death. This is a point that is never likely to be settled satisfactorily. The fact of its having been written in cipher looks as if it had been compiled solely for private amusement, and not with any intention of posthumous publication; and this view is greatly strengthened by the unblushing and complete manner in which he lays aside the mask of outward propriety and records his too frequent quaffing of the wine-cup, his household bickerings, his improprieties with fair women, and his graver conjugal infidelities. The improprieties of other persons, and especially those of higher social rank than himself, might very intelligibly have been written in cipher intended to have been transcribed and printed after his death; but it would be at variance with human nature to believe that he could so unreservedly have reduced to writing all the faults and follies of his life had even posthumous publication of his Diary been contemplated by him at the time of writing it. For it is hardly capable of argument that, next to the instincts of self-preservation and of the maintenance of family ties, the desire to preserve outward appearances is undoubtedly one of the strongest of human feelings; and this great natural law, often the last remnant or the substitute of conscience, character, and self-respect, is even more fully operative in a highly civilised than in a savage or a semi-savage state of society. Of a truth, every human being is more or less of a Pharisee with regard to certain conventionalities of life. Complete disregard for the maintenance of some sort of standard of outward appearances is the absolute vanishing point of self-respect. Till that has been reached by any individual the hope of his reformation is not lost, though at the same time successful dissimulation makes the prospect of a turning point in a vicious career but remote. Still, “it is a long lane that has no turning.” It is therefore most probable that the leaving behind of the key to the cipher was rather due to inadvertence than to intention and design. And if this view be correct, then Pepys’ charming Diary was the purely natural outpouring of his mind without ever a thought being bestowed on authorship and ultimate publication.

With Evelyn’s Diary, however, it was different. Although it was not published until 1818, and though it may never have been intended by its writer to have been given to the world in book form, yet it was very clearly intended to be an autobiographical legacy to his family. Hence it is no mere outpouring of the spirit upon pages meant only for the subsequent perusal of him who thus rendered in indelible characters his passing thoughts of the moment. And this being the case, comparison between the two Diaries would be just as unfair as it is unnecessary. The one is the fruit of unrestrained freedom and a mirthful mind, while the other is the product of cultured leisure and a refined literary method. When Evelyn was Commissioner for the maintenance of the Dutch prisoners (1664-70) he had frequent communications with Pepys, then of the Navy, and there are special references to him in Evelyn’s memoirs. That an intimate friendship existed there is no doubt, and that they each held the other in great respect as a man of intellect, as well as of good business capacity, is equally clear. Thus, in June, 1669, he encouraged Pepys to be operated on ‘when exceedingly afflicted with the stone;’ and on 19 February, 1671, ‘This day din’d with me Mr. Surveyor, Dr. Christopher Wren, and Mr. Pepys, Cleark of the Acts, two extraordinary ingenious and knowing persons, and other friends. I carried them to see the piece of carving which I had recommended to the King.’ This was a masterpiece of Grinling Gibbon’s work, which Charles admired but did not purchase; so Gibbon not long after sold it for £80, though ‘well worth £100, without the frame, to Sir George Viner.’ Evelyn at this time got Wren, however, to promise faithfully to employ Gibbon to do the choir carving in the new St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Each of their Diaries teems with reference to the other. Pepys asked Evelyn to sit to Kneller for his portrait which he desired for ‘reasons I had (founded upon gratitude, affection, and esteeme) to covet that in effigie which I most truly value in the original.’ This refers to the well-known portrait, now at Wotton, that has been copied and engraved.

It appears to have been begun in October, 1685, but it was not till July, 1689, that the commission was actually completed. The portrait exhibits the face of an elderly man distinctly of a high-strung and nervous temperament, though not quite to the extent of being ‘sicklied oer with the pale caste of thought.’ His right hand, too, which grasps his Sylva is one very characteristic of the nervous disposition. A bright, shrewd intellect, lofty thoughts, high motives, good resolves, and—last, tho’ by no means least—a serene mind, the mens conscia recti which Pepys bluntly called ‘a little conceitedness,’ are all stamped upon his well-marked and not unshapely features. It is eminently the face of a philosopher, an enthusiast, a studious scholar, and a gentleman.

No one can ever know Evelyn so well as Pepys did; and here is his opinion of John Evelyn, expressed in the secret pages of his cipher Diary on November, 1665:—‘In fine, a most excellent person he is, and must be allowed a little for a little conceitedness; but he may well be so, being a man so much above others.’ And this just exactly bears out the rough general impression conveyed by the perusal of Evelyn’s Diary and his other literary works. The long friendship of these two was only terminated by the death of Pepys on 26th May, 1703, not long before Evelyn had himself to depart from this life. ‘This day died Mr. Sam. Pepys, a very courtly, industrious and curious person, none in England exceeding him in knowledge of the navy, in which he had passed through all the most considerable offices, Clerk of the Acts and Secretary of the Admiralty, all which he performed with great integrity. When King James II., went out of England, he laid down his office and would serve no more..... He was universally belov’d, hospitable, generous, learned in many things, skilled in music, a very great cherisher of learned men of whom he had the conversation..... Mr. Pepys had been for near 40 yeares so much my particular friend, that Mr. Jackson sent me compleat mourning, desiring me to be one to hold up the pall at his magnificient obsequies, but my indisposition hinder’d me from doing him this last office.’

II
Evelyn’s Childhood, Early Education, and Youth.

The essential facts of Evelyn’s life, as he himself would have us know them, are set forth at full length in autobiographical form, chronologically arranged in what is always spoken of as his Diary, although evidently this was (much of it, at any rate) merely a subsequent personal compilation from an actual diary, kept in imitation of his father, from the age of 11 years onwards and down even to within one month of his death in 1706.

The second son and the fourth child of Richard Evelyn of Wotton in Surrey, and of his wife Eleanor, daughter of John Stansfield ‘of an ancient honorable family (though now extinct) in Shropshire,’ he was born at Wotton on 31st. October, 1620. His father, ‘was of a sanguine complexion, mixed with a dash of choler; his haire inclining to light, which tho’ exceeding thick became hoary by the time he was 30 years of age; it was somewhat curled towards the extremity; his beard, which he wore a little picked, as the mode was, of a brownish colour, and so continued to the last, save that it was somewhat mingled with grey haires about his cheekes: which, with his countenance, was cleare, and fresh colour’d, his eyes quick and piercing, an ample forehead, manly aspect; low of stature, but very strong. He was for his life so exact and temperate, that I have heard he had never been surprised by excesse, being ascetic and sparing. His wisdom was greate, and judgment most acute; of solid discourse, affable, humble and in nothing affected; of a thriving, neat, silent and methodical genius; discretely severe, yet liberal on all just occasions to his children, strangers, and servants; a lover of hospitality; of a singular and Christian moderation in all his actions; a Justice of the Peace and of the Quorum; he served his country as High Sheriff for Surrey and Sussex together. He was a studious decliner of honours and titles, being already in that esteem with his country that they could have added little to him besides their burden. He was a person of that rare conversation, that upon frequent recollection, and calling to mind passages of his life and discourse, I could never charge him with the least passion or inadvertence. His estate was esteem’d about £4,000 per ann. well wooded and full of timber.’ As for his mother, ‘She was of proper personage; of a brown complexion; her eyes and haire of a lovely black; of constitution inclyned to a religious melancholy, or pious sadnesse; of a rare memory and most exemplary life; for œconomie and prudence esteemed one of the most conspicuous in her Country.’

Apparently John Evelyn thought he had made a very judicious choice of his father and mother when he wrote ‘Thus much in brief touching my parents; nor was it reasonable I should speake lesse to them to whom I owe so much.’

These passages, occurring in the first two pages of his Diary serve at once to illustrate a very characteristic feature of Evelyn’s mind, and one that is everywhere discernible in his writings. He was a man with a highly cultured and a very well balanced mind, but he was somewhat inclined to exaggerate; and he certainly had the rather enviable gift of considering everything pertaining to him, or approved or advocated by him, as very superior indeed. All his eggs had two yolks, and all his geese were swans. What he liked, he loved; and what he did not like, he hated. There was no golden mean with him; he was either very optimistic or else intensely pessimistic. Hence, naturally, he gave hard knocks to those who differed from him in opinion, and particularly after the Restoration; for he was one of the most expressive among King Charles II’s courtiers. Direct evidence of this special temperament was characteristic of Evelyn throughout all his life, and was of course particularly noticeable in his writings, as we shall subsequently see. It is therefore only to be expected that he prized his father’s little estate of Wotton in Surrey as one of the finest in the kingdom. ‘Wotton, the mansion house of my Father, left him by my Grandfather, (now my eldest Brother’s), is situated in the most Southern part of the Shire, and though in a valley, yet really upon part of Lyth Hill one of the most eminent in England for the prodigious prospect to be seen from its summit, tho’ of few observed. From it may be discerned 12 or 13 Counties, with part of the Sea on the Coast of Sussex, in a serene day. The house is large and ancient, suitable to those hospitable times, and so sweetly environed with those delicious streams and venerable woods, as in the judgment of Strangers as well as Englishmen it may be compared to one of the most tempting and pleasant Seats in the Nation, and most tempting for a great person and a wanton purse to render it conspicuous. It has rising grounds, meadows, woods, and water in abundance. The distance from London (is) little more than 20 miles, and yet (it is) so securely placed as if it were 100; three miles from Dorking, which serves it abundantly with provisions as well of land as sea; 6 from Guildford, 12 from Kingston. I will say nothing of the ayre, because the praeeminence is universally given to Surrey, the soil being dry and sandy: but I should speak much of the gardens, fountains, and groves that adorne it, were they not as generally knowne to be amongst the most natural, and (till this later and universal luxury of the whole nation, since abounding in such expenses) the most magnificent that England afforded, and which indeed gave one of the first examples to that elegancy since so much in vogue, and followed in the managing of their waters, and other ornaments of that nature. Let me add, the contiguity of five or six Mannors, the patronage of the livings about it, and, what is none of the least advantages, a good neighbourhood. All which conspire to render it fit for the present possessor, my worthy Brother, and his noble lady, whose constant liberality give them title both to the place and the affections of all that know them. Thus, with the poet,

Nescio quâ natale solum dulcedine cunctos
Ducit, et im’ emores non sinit esse sui!’

This is a very good specimen of Evelyn’s style, for it shews the optimistic quality which, along with refinement and a love of classical quotations, is ever present in his writings. Lythe Hill, from the summit of which the ‘prodigious prospect’ is so eminently belauded, attains a height of less than a thousand feet above the sea-level.

At the early age of four John Evelyn was initiated into the rudiments of education by one Frier, who taught children at the church porch of Wotton; but soon after that he was sent to Lewes in Sussex, to be with his grandfather Standsfield, while a plague was raging in London. There he remained, after Standsfield’s death in 1627, till 1630, when he was sent to the free school at Southover near Lewes and kept there until he went up to Balliol College, Oxford, as a fellow-commoner in 1637, being then 16 years of age. It was his father’s intention to have placed him at Eton ‘but I was so terrefied at the report of the severe discipline there that I was sent back to Lewes, which perverseness of mine I have since a thousand times deplored.’ In that same year (1637) Evelyn had the misfortune to lose his mother, then only in the 37th year of her age. Having been ‘extremely remisse’ in his studies at school, he made no great mark during his University career. His application was not assiduous, while his tutor, Bradshaw, whom he disliked, was negligent; and he appears to have been subject to frequent attacks of ague, disposing him to casual recreation rather than to close study. He had also apparently the desire to acquire a smattering of many different things rather than to study hard at a few special subjects. ‘I began to look on the rudiments of musick, in which I afterwards arriv’d to some formal knowledge though to small perfection of hand, because I was so frequently diverted by inclinations to newer trifles.’

Completing his Oxford studies early in 1639, without taking any degree, he went into residence at the Middle Temple in April, and soon arrived at the conclusion that his ‘being at the University in regard of these avocations, was of very small benefit.’ Here he and his brother lodged in ‘a very handsome apartment just over against the Halt Court, but four payre of stayres high, which gave us the advantage of fairer prospect, but did not much contribute to the love of that unpolish’d study, to which (I suppose,) my Father had design’d me!’ While thus a law student, on 30th October, he saw ‘his Majestie (coming from his Northern Expedition) ride in pomp, and a kind of ovation, with all the markes of a happy peace, restor’d to the affections of his people, being conducted through London with a most splendid cavalcade; and on 3rd November, following (a day never to be mentioned without a curse) to that long, ungratefull, foolish, and fatall Parliament, the beginning of all our sorrows for twenty years after, and the period of the most happy Monarch in the world: Quis talia fando!’

In the closing days of 1640 Evelyn lost his father, when he abandoned the study of the law and betook himself abroad in preference to being mixed up in the disorders of the time. His resolutions were ‘to absent myselfe from this ill face of things at home, which gave umbrage to wiser than myselfe, that the medaill was reversing, and our calamities but yet in their infancy.’ Shortly before that he had ‘beheld on Tower Hill the fatal stroake which sever’d the wisest head in England from the shoulders of the Earl of Strafford.’

Landing at Flushing in July, 1641, Evelyn passed, accompanied by his tutor Mr. Caryll, through Midelbrogh, Der Veer, Dort, Rotterdam, and Delft, to the Hague, where he presented himself to the Queen of Bohemia’s Court. Thence he went on to Leyden, Utrecht, Rynen, and Nimeguen, to where the Dutch army was encamped about Genep, a strong fortress on the Wahale river. Here he enrolled himself and served for a few days as a volunteer in the Queen’s army ‘according to the compliment,’ being attached to the English company of Captain Apsley: and in this capacity he ‘received many civilities.’ Even when thus playing at soldering, he did not like the roughness of a soldier’s life, ‘for the sun piercing the canvass of the tent, it was, during the day, unsufferable, and at night not seldom infested with mists and fogs, which ascended from the river.’ However, during the few days he took his fair share in the work. ‘As the turn came about, I watched on a horne work neere our quarters, and trailed a pike, being the next morning relieved by a company of French. This was our continual duty till the Castle was re-fortified, and all danger of quitting that station secured.’ Retracing his steps to Rotterdam, Delft, the Hague and Leyden, he also visited Haerlem, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels and various other towns before returning by way of Ostend, Dunkirk and Dover to Wotton, where he celebrated his 21st birthday.

Although his Diary does not contain any details on such matters as Pepys would have been free to record in his cipher, John Evelyn was probably rather a gay and pleasure-loving youth about this time. A suspicion of this seems justified by the fact that he ‘was elected one of the Comptrolers of the Middle Temple-revellers, as the fashion of ye young Students and Gentlemen was, the Christmas being kept this year (1641) with great solemnity; but being desirous to passe it in the Country, I got leave to resign my staffe of office, and went with my brother Richard to Wotton.’ From January till March he was back in London ‘studying a little, but dancing and fooling more.’

III
Evelyn’s Early Manhood, Continental Travels and Studies, Voluntary Exile, and Return to England 1647.

It was hardly possible that anyone situated as Evelyn was could hold aloof from the party strife when civil war broke out during the course of this year. And, of course, he was on the Royalist side. But he did not serve long with the troops. Here is his own record of that military service,—‘Oct. 3rd. To Chichester, and hence the next day to see the siege of Portsmouth; for now was that bloody difference betweene the King and Parliament broken out, which ended in the fatal tragedy so many years after. It was on the day of its being render’d to Sir William Waller, which gave me an opportunity of taking my leave of Colonel Goring the Governor, now embarqueing for France. This day was fought that signal Battaile at Edgehill. Thence I went to Southampton and Winchester, where I visited the Castle, Schole, Church, and King Arthur’s Round Table, but especially the Church, and its Saxon Kings’ Monuments, which I esteemed a worthy antiquity. 12th. November, was the Battle of Braineford surprisingly fought, and to the greate consternation of the Citty had his Majesty (as twas believed he would) pursu’d his advantage. I came in with my horse and armes just at the retreate, but was not permitted to stay longer than the 15th. by reason of the Army’s marching to Glocester, which would have left both me and my brother expos’d to ruine, without any advantage to his Majestie. Dec. 7th. I went from Wotton to London to see the so much celebrated line of com’unication, and on the 10th. returned to Wotton, nobody knowing of my having been in his Majestie’s Army.’

During the first half of 1643 Evelyn employed himself entirely in rural occupations, visiting the garden and vineyard of Hatfield and similar places. From time to time, however, he made many journeys to and from London. What he sometimes saw there gave him much food for ample reflection. ‘May 2nd. I went from Wotton to London, where I saw the furious and zelous people demolish that stately Crosse in Cheapside. On the 4th. I returned with no little regrett for the confusion that threatened us. Resolving to possess myself in some quiet if it might be, in a time of so great jealosy, I built by my Brother’s permission a study, made a fishpond, an island, and some other solitudes and retirements, at Wotton, which gave the first occasion of improving them to those water-works and gardens which afterwards succeeded them, and became at that tyme the most famous of England.’ But, willy nilly, he was bound to become dragged into action on the King’s behalf. ‘July 12th. I sent my black manege horse and furniture with a friend to his Majestie then at Oxford. 23rd. The Covenant being pressed, I absented myselfe; but finding it impossible to evade the doing very unhandsome things, and which had been a greate cause of my perpetual motions hitherto between Wotton and London, Oct. 2nd. I obtayned a lycence of his Majestie, dated at Oxford and sign’d by the King, to travell againe.’ Accordingly, on 7th. November, he took boat at the Tower wharf for Sittingbourne, ‘being only a payre of oares, expos’d to a hideous storm, thence posting to Dover accompanied by an Oxford friend, Mr. Thicknesse, and crossing the Channel to Calais.’

Proceeding by Boulogne, Monstreuil, Abbeville, Beauvais, Beaumont, and St. Denys to Paris, of which he gives a very interesting account, he threw himself into the social life of that gay capital. His first step was to make his duty to Sir Richard Browne, afterwards his father-in-law, then in charge of British affairs pending the arrival of the Earl of Norwich, who came immediately after that as Ambassador Extraordinary. That Evelyn’s purse was fairly well lined the Parisian passages in his Diary distinctly show. He appears to have taken part in many gay excursions and junkettings, though he sometimes reckoned the cost. ‘At an inn in this village (St. Germains en Lay) is an host who treats all the greate persons in princely lodgings for furniture and plate, but they pay well for it, as I have don. Indeede the entertainment is very splendid, and not unreasonable, considering the excellent manner of dressing their meate, and of the service. Here are many debauches and excessive revellings, as being out of all noise and observance.’ Wherever he visited the royal gardens and villas, or those of the great nobles and other magnates, he writes rapturously of what he saw. Sometimes, though, his joyous optimism rather leads one to doubt the quality of his taste, as when, writing of Richelieu’s villa at Ruell, he says ‘This leads to the Citroniere, which is a noble conserve of all those rarities; and at the end of it is the Arch of Constantine, painted on a wall in oyle, as large as the real one at Rome, so well don that even a man skilled in painting may mistake it for stone and sculpture. The skie and hills which seem to be between the arches are so naturall that swallows and other birds, thinking to fly through, have dashed themselves against the wall. I was infinitely taken with this agreeable cheate.’ But he was certainly gradually acquiring the materials which were afterwards to be so well used by him in his great works on gardening. After a tour made in Normandy with Sir John Cotton, a Cambridgeshire knight, he quitted Paris in April, 1644. Marching across by Chartres and Estamps to Orleans, the party of which he formed one had an encounter with brigands, ‘for no sooner were we entred two or three leagues into ye Forest of Orleans (which extends itself many miles), but the company behind us were set on by rogues, who, shooting from ye hedges and frequent covert, slew fowre upon the spot... I had greate cause to give God thankes for this escape.’ Taking boat, he went down the Loire to St. Dieu, and thence rode to Blois and on to Tours, where he stayed till the autumn. ‘Here I took a master of the language and studied the tongue very diligently, recreating myself sometimes at the maill, and sometymes about the towne.’ Here, too, he paid his duty to the Queen of England, ‘having newly arrived, and going for Paris.’ In the latter part of September, still accompanied by his friend Thicknesse, he left Tours and ‘travelled towards the more southerne part of France, minding now to shape my course so as I might winter in Italy.’ Journeying southward, partly by road and partly by river, he visited Lyons, Avignon, and Marseilles, whither he wended his way deliciously ‘thro’ a country sweetely declining to the South and Mediterranean coasts, full of vineyards and olive-yards, orange-trees, myrtils, pomegranads, and the like sweete plantations, to which belong pleasantly-situated villas ...... as if they were so many heapes of snow dropp’d out of the clouds amongst these perennial greenes.’ Taking mules to Cannes, he went by sea to Genoa ‘having procur’d a bill of health (without which there is no admission at any towne in Italy).’ On reaching ‘Mongus, now cal’d Monaco’ on the route, ‘we were hastened away, having no time permitted us by our avaricious master to go up and see this strong and considerable place.’

On Oct. 16th., after ‘much ado and greate perill’ he landed on Italian soil. He was fully prepared to have the most delicious pleasure in this classical land, having already, even during the stormy weather off the coast, ‘smelt the peculiar joys of Italy in the perfumes of orange, citron, and jassmine flowers for divers leagues seaward.’

It would be pleasant to ramble through Italy in Evelyn’s company, and to share with him the many enjoyments recorded in his Diary: but space forbids. From Genoa he went to Leghorn and Pisa, from Pisa to Florence, thence to Sienna, and on to Rome. ‘I came to Rome on the 4th November, 1644, about 5 at night, and being perplexed for a convenient lodging, wandered up and down on horseback, till at last one conducted us to Monsieur Petits, a Frenchman, near the Piazza Spagnola. Here I alighted, and having bargained with my host for 20 crownes a moneth, I caused a good fire to be made in my chamber and went to bed, being so very wet. The next morning (for I was resolved to spend no time idly here) I got acquainted with several persons who had long lived at Rome.’

Evelyn’s description of the interesting sights he saw in Rome is so good that it might well be perused in place of modern guide-books by those visiting the city. There is a delightful attractiveness about it, in which these up-to-date works are sometimes wanting. But even his youthful energy began to tire, and his keen appetite to become sated with continuous sightseeing. After more than six months of it ‘we now determined to desist from visiting any more curiosities, except what should happen to come in our way, when my companion Mr. Henshaw or myself should go out to take the aire.’ Then, however, as now for some people, the crowning event of a visit to Rome was to receive the Papal blessing. This Evelyn desired and obtained, although the event is not recorded in his diary with any great enthusiasm. ‘May, 4th. Having seen the entrie of ye ambassador of Lucca, I went to the Vatican, where, by favour of our Cardinal Protector, Frair Barberini, I was admitted into the consistorie, heard the ambassador make his ovation in Latine to the Pope, sitting on an elevated state or throne, and changing two pontifical miters; after which I was presented to kisse his toe, that is, his embroder’d slipper, two Cardinals holding up his vest and surplice, and then being sufficiently bless’d with his thumb and two fingers for that day, I return’d home to dinner.’

He quitted Rome about the middle of May after a sojourn there of seven months, which had occasioned him so small an outlay that he remarked thereon in his Diary. ‘The bills of exchange I took up from my first entering Italy till I went from Rome amounted but to 616 ducanti di banco, though I purchas’d many books, pictures, and curiosities.’ Going northwards by Sienna, Leghorn, Lucca, Florence, Bologna, and Ferrara, he reached Venice early in June. Arriving ‘extreamly weary and beaten’ with the journey, he went and enjoyed the new luxury of a Turkish bath. ‘This bath did so open my pores that it cost me one of the greatest colds I ever had in my life, for want of necessary caution in keeping myselfe warme for some time after; for coming out, I immediately began to visit the famous places of the city; and travellers who come in to Italy do nothing but run up and down to see sights.’

Evelyn had the good fortune to see Venice en fête, and in those days that must have been a sight well worth seeing. He saw the Doge espouse the Adriatic by casting a gold ring into it on Ascension day with very great pomp and ceremony. ‘It was now Ascension Weeke, and the greate mart or faire of ye whole yeare was kept, every body at liberty and jollie. The noblemen stalking with their ladys on choppines; these are high-heel’d shoes, particularly affected by these proude dames, or, as some say, invented to keepe them at home, it being very difficult to walke with them; whence one being asked how he liked the Venetian dames, replied, they were mezzo carne, mezzo ligno, half flesh, half wood, and he would have none of them. The truth is, their garb is very odd, as seeming always in masquerade; their other habits also totaly different from all nations.’

In Venice Evelyn made arrangements for visiting the Holy Land and parts of Syria, Egypt, and Turkey; but they fell through owing to the vessel, in which he would have sailed, being requisitioned to carry provisions to Candia, then under attack from the Turks. Forced to abandon this project, he remained in Venice ‘being resolved to spend some moneths here in study, especially physic and anatomie, of both which there was now the most famous professors in Europe.’ But in the autumn Mr. Thicknesse, ‘my dear friend, and till now my constant fellow traveller,’ was obliged to return to England on private affairs; so Evelyn was left alone in Venice. Very shortly after that he had an illness which seems to have at one time threatened a fatal termination. ‘Using to drink my wine cool’d with snow and ice, as the manner here is, I was so afflicted with the angina and soare-throat, that it had almost cost me my life. After all the remedies Cavalier Veslingius, cheife professor here, could apply, old Salvatico (that famous physician) being call’d made me be cupp’d and scarified in the back in foure places, which began to give me breath, and consequently life, for I was in ye utmost danger: but God being mercifull to me, I was after a fortnight abroad againe; when changing my lodging I went over against Pozzo Pinto, where I bought for winter provisions 3000 weight of excellent grapes, and pressed my owne wine, which proved incomparable liquor.’ Its goodness, indeed, seems to have been the death of it. ‘Oct. 31st. Being my birth-day, the nuns of St. Catherine’s sent me flowers of silk-work. We were very studious all this winter till Christmas, when on twelfth day we invited all the English and Scotts in towne to feast, which sunk our excellent wine considerably.’ In explanation of this passage, it needs to be said that he had soon again changed his lodging and gone to reside with three English friends ‘neere St. Catherine’s over against the monasterie of nunnes, where we hired the whole house and lived very nobly. Here I learned to play on ye theorbo, taught by Sig. Dominico Bassano.’

After ‘the folly and madnesse of the Carnevall’ was over, Evelyn left Venice for Padua in January, 1646, but went back in March to take leave of his friends there, and at Easter set out on his return journey to England in company with the poet Waller, who had been glad to go abroad after being much worried by the Puritan party. They travelled by way of Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Milan, the Lago Maggiore, the Simplon Pass, Sion, and St. Maurice to Geneva. Here again Evelyn became sick nigh unto death, from small-pox contracted at Beveretta, the night before reaching Geneva. ‘Being extremely weary and complaining of my head, and finding little accommodation in the house, I caus’d one of our hostesses daughters to be removed out of her bed and went immediately into it whilst it was yet warme, being so heavy with pain and drowsinesse that I would not stay to have the sheets chang’d; but I shortly after payd dearly for my impatience, falling sick of the small-pox so soon as I came to Geneva, for by the smell of frankincense and ye tale of ye good woman told me of her daughter having had an ague, I afterwards concluded she had been newly recovered of the small-pox.’ Becoming very ill he was bled of the physician ‘a very learned old man..... He afterwards acknowledg’d that he should not have bled me had he suspected ye small-pox, which brake out a day after.’ As nurse he had a Swiss matron afflicted with gôitre, ‘whose monstrous throat, when I sometimes awak’d out of unquiet slumbers, would affright me.’ But again he was spared for the work he was destined to do. ‘By God’s mercy after five weeks keeping my chamber I went abroad.’

Leaving Geneva on the 5th July 1646, Evelyn’s party went by way of Lyons, La Charite, and Orleans to Paris, arriving ‘rejoic’d that after so many disasters and accidents in a tedious peregrination, I was gotten so neere home, and here I resolv’d to rest myselfe before I went further. It was now October, and the onely time that in my whole life I spent most idly, tempted from my more profitable recesses; but I soon recover’d my better resolutions and fell to my study, learning the High Dutch and Spanish tongues, and now and then refreshing my danceing, and such exercises as I had long omitted, and which are not in much reputation amongst the sober Italians.’

During the course of the following winter and spring he saw much of ‘Sir Richard Browne, his Majesty’s Resident at the Court of France, and with whose lady and family I had contracted a greate friendship (and particularly set my affections on a daughter).’ To this young girl, Mary, the only child of Sir Richard Browne by a daughter of Sir John Pretyman, he was married on 27th June, 1647, by Dr. Earle, chaplain to the young Charles, then Prince of Wales, who was holding his court at St. Germains. In October he returned by Rouen, Dieppe, and Calais, and ‘got safe to Dover, for which I heartily put up my thanks to God who had conducted me safe to my owne country, and been mercifull to me through so many aberrations’ during a period extending over four years. He returned alone, ‘leaving my wife, yet very young, under the care of an excellent lady and prudent mother.’ Indeed, she was a mere child, being then not more than twelve years of age, and her father was only Evelyn’s senior by fifteen years.

IV
Evelyn’s Attitude during the Commonwealth 1647-1660.

Arrived at Wotton, he at once went to kiss his Majesty’s hand at Hampton Court and convey tidings from Paris, King Charles ‘being now in the power of those execrable villains who not long after murder’d him.’ Thence he betook himself to Sayes Court, near Deptford in Kent, the estate belonging to his father-in-law, where he ‘had a lodging and some bookes.’ It was here that he was living when his first literary work was published, Of Liberty and Servitude, a translation from the French of Le Vayer, in January, 1649, though the dedication of it to his brother George bears date 25th January, 1647. He was very near getting into trouble about the preface to this, because in his own copy he noted that ‘I was like to be call’d in question by the Rebells for this booke, being published a few days before his Majesty’s decollation.’ Although he took no prominent part in politics at this particular time, yet he could hardly help playing with the fire. Thus, on 11th December, ‘I got privately into the council of ye rebell army at Whitehall, where I heard horrid villanies.’ Having money in hand, either from savings during the four years’ sojourn abroad, where his expenses (including all purchases of objects of art and vertu) did not amount to more than £300 a year, or else from his child-wife’s dowry, he dabbled in land speculation with the fairly satisfactory result that on the whole he does not appear to have lost much by it.

On 17th January, 1649, he ‘heard the rebell Peters incite the rebell powers met in the Painted Chamber to destroy his Majesty, and saw that archtraytor Bradshaw, who not long after condemn’d him.’ But his loyalty kept him from being present at the death-scene. ‘The villanie of the rebells proceeding now so far as to trie, condemne and murder our excellent King on the 30th of this month, struck me with such horror that I kept the day of his martyrdom a fast, and would not be present at that execrable wickednesse, receiving the sad account of it from my Brother George and Mr. Owen, who came to visite me this afternoone, and recounted all the circumstances.’

While he ‘went through a course of chymestrie at Sayes Court,’ and otherwise engaged in study and in the examination of works of art, he became disquieted about the condition of affairs in Paris. Communications with his wife appear to have been very few and far between, although with his father-in-law he ‘kept up a political correspondence’ in cipher ‘with no small danger of being discovered.’ In April he touched ‘suddaine resolutions’ of going to France, before he received the news that Condé’s siege of Paris had ended by peace being concluded. The immediate carrying out of this intention was hindered by a rush of blood to the brain. ‘I fell dangerously ill of my head: was blistered and let blood behind ye ears and forehead: on the 23rd. began to have ease by using the fumes of a cammomile on embers applied to my eares after all the physicians had don their best.’ On 17th June, however, he ‘got a passe from the rebell Bradshaw, then in greate power,’ and on 12th July went viâ Gravesend to Dover and Calais, arriving at Paris on 1st. August. Curiously enough his Diary makes no mention of the child-wife, from whom he had ‘been absent.... about a yeare and a halfe,’ save that on ‘Sept. 7th. Went with my Wife and dear cosin to St. Germains, and kissed the Queene-mother’s hand.’ He remained in Paris till the end of June, 1650, when he made a flying visit to England, and again obtained a pass from Bradshaw to proceed to France. On 30th August, he was back again in Paris, where he stayed till his final return to England in February 1652. His life in Paris at this time was that of a cultured dilletante. He studied, or at any rate dabbled in, chemistry, philosophy, theology, and music; and he found amusement in examining gardens and collections of all sorts of virtuosities and antiquities. He had ‘much discourse of chymical matters’ with Sir Kenelm Digby; ‘but the truth is, Sir Kenelm was an arrant mountebank.’ Here, too, he wrote his second literary composition, The State of France, as it stood in the IXth yeer of this present monarch Lewis XIIII, which was published in England in 1652. Apart from these occupations, his time was chiefly spent in the pleasures and amusements common to the court of France and to the throng of exiles from Britain who formed the Court of the uncrowned monarch, Charles II.

Evelyn longed for settlement in England, because he saw that the Royalist cause was hopelessly lost for the time being. His father-in-law’s estate of Sayes Court had been seized and sold by the rebels, but ‘by the advice and endeavour of my friends I was advis’d to reside in it, and compound with the soldiers. This I was besides authoriz’d by his Majesty to do, and encourag’d with promise that what was in lease from the Crowne, if ever it pleased God to restore him, he would secure to us in fee-ferme.[xxxi:1] I had also addresses and cyfers to correspond with his Majesty and Ministers abroad: upon all which inducements I was persuaded to settle henceforth in England, having now run about the world, most part out of my owne country, neere ten yeares. I therefore now likewise meditated sending over for my Wife, whom as yet I had left at Paris.’ She arrived on 11th. June with her Mother; and as small-pox was then raging in and about London they sojourned for some time at Tunbridge Wells, drinking the waters. About the end of that month Evelyn went to Sayes Court to prepare for their reception, but was waylaid by footpads near Bromley and came near meeting his death from them. Fortunately, however, ‘did God deliver me from these villains, and not onely so, but restor’d what they tooke, as twice before he had graciously don, both at sea and land;... for which, and many signal preservations, I am extreamly oblig’d to give thanks to God my Saviour.’

On 24th July, 1652, Mrs. Evelyn presented her husband with their first child, their son, John, who predeceased his father in 1698. He now busied himself in acquiring full possession of his father-in-law’s and the rebels’ interests in Sayes Court, which he effected at a cost of £3,500 early in 1653.

Then he began gardening and planting on a large scale, transforming the almost bare fields around the house into fine specimens of the art of horticulture, as then practised. Sayes Court was afterwards the temporary residence of Peter the Great, who committed great havoc in the gardens and hedges during his rough orgies. Here Evelyn lived quietly till the time of the Restoration, spending his days in gardening and in cultivating the acquaintance of men of cultured tastes like his own, with occasional journeys to different parts of England. Thus he visited Windsor, Marlborough, Bath, Oxford, Salisbury, Devizes, Gloucester, Worcester, Warwick, Leicester, Doncaster, York, Cambridge, and many other places, so that he probably saw a great deal more of England than the majority of men in his position. Thus, too, he learned much about the country and about all branches of rural economy. He had not yet seriously given himself to literature, although his third work was published in 1656, An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Cerus de Rerum Natura. Interpreted and made English Verse.

In January, 1658, heavy sorrow fell upon Evelyn by the death of his younger son, an infant prodigy, and a sad and wonderful example of a young brain being terribly overtaxed. ‘After six fits of a quartan ague with which it pleased God to visite him, died my dear Son Richard, to our inexpressible grief and affliction, 5 yeares and 3 days old onely, but at that tender age a prodigy for witt and understanding; for beauty of body a very angel; for endowment of mind of incredible and rare hopes. To give onely a little taste of them, and thereby glory to God, he had learn’d all this catechisme who out of the mouths of babes and infants does sometimes perfect his praises: at 2 years and a halfe old he could perfectly read any of ye English, Latine, French, or Gothic letters, pronouncing the first three languages exactly. He had before the 5th yeare, or in that yeare, not onely skill to reade most written hands, but to decline all the nouns, conjugate the verbs regular, and most of ye irregular; learn’d out “Puerilis,” got by heart almost ye entire vocabularie of Latine and French primitives and words, could make congruous syntax, turne English into Latine, and vice versâ, construe and prove what he read, and did the government and use of relatives, verbs, substantives, elipses, and many figures and tropes, and made a considerable progress in Comenius’s Janua; began himselfe to write legibly, and had a stronge passion for Greeke. The number of verses he could recite was prodigious, and what he remembered of the parts of playes, which he would also act; and when seeing a Plautus in one’s hand, he ask’d what booke it was, and being told it was comedy, and too difficult for him, he wept for sorrow. Strange was his apt and ingenious application of fables and morals, for he had read Æsop; he had a wonderful disposition to mathematics, having by heart divers propositions of Euclid that were read to him in play, and he would make lines and demonstrate them. As to his piety, astonishing were his applications of Scripture upon occasion, and thus early, he understood ye historical part of ye Bible and New Testament to a wonder, how Christ came to redeeme mankind, and how comprehending these necessarys himselfe, his godfathers were discharg’d of their promise. These and like illuminations, far exceeding his age and experience, considering the prettinesse of his adresse and behaviour, cannot but leave impressions in me at the memory of him. When one told him how many days a Quaker had fasted, he replied that was no wonder, for Christ had said that man should not live by bread alone, but by ye Word of God. He would of himselfe select ye most pathetic psalms, and chapters out of Job, to reade to his mayde during his sicknesse, telling her when she pitied him, that all God’s children must suffer affliction. He declaim’d against ye vanities of the world before he had seene any...... How thankfully would he receive admonition, how soone be reconciled! how indifferent, yet continually chereful! He would give grave advice to his Brother John, beare with his impertinencies, and say he was but a child!’ Even allowing for Evelyn’s tendency to exaggeration, this is surely one of the very saddest stories about a child of tender years, reared in a wrong manner, that has ever been written in the English language. This loss was no doubt the occasion of his writing his fourth work, The Golden Book of St. John Chrysostom, concerning the Education of Children. Translated out of the Greek, which was published in September, 1658. A further relief from grief was also found in the translation of The French Gardiner: instructing how to cultivate all sorts of Fruit-trees and Herbs for the Garden; together with directions to dry and conserve them in their natural; six times printed in France and once in Holland. An accomplished piece, first written by N. de Bonnefons, and now transplanted into English by Philocepos.

It must have gratified his royalist feelings when, on 22 Oct. 1658, he ‘saw ye superb funerall of ye Protector.’ He remarks that ‘it was the joyfullest funerall I ever saw, for there were none that cried but dogs, which the soldiers hooted away with a barbarous noise, drinking and taking tobacco in the streets as they went.’ Not long after this, on 25 April 1659, he notices ‘a wonderfull and suddaine change in ye face of ye publiq: ye new Protector Richard slighted, several pretenders and parties strive for the government: all anarchy and confusion; Lord have mercy on us!’ For six months things drifted on, till on 11 Oct. ‘the Armie now turn’d out the Parliament. We had now no government in the nation; all in confusion; no magistrate either own’d or pretended, but ye soldiers, and they not agreed. God almighty have mercy on and settle us!’

Evelyn apparently now thought the time ripe for him to venture; hence, during 1659, he published A Character of England as it was lately presented in a Letter to a Noble Man of France, and also An Apology for the Royal Party, written in a Letter to a person of the late Council of State, by a Lover of Peace and of his Country. With a Touch at the Pretended “Plea for the Army.” Of the latter he remarks in his Diary: ‘Nov. 7th. was publish’d my bold “Apoligie for the King” in this time of danger, when it was capital to speake or write in favour of him. It was twice printed, so universaly it took.’ Encouraged by the success of this work, he began to intrigue with Colonel Morley, Lieutenant of the Tower, and Fay, Governor of Portsmouth, in the interest of the exiled Charles; but Morley shrank from declaring for the King, and General Monk returning from Scotland to London, broke down the gates of the city, ‘marches to White-hall, dissipates that nest of robbers, and convenes the old Parliament, the Rump Parliament (so called as retaining some few rotten members of ye other) being dissolv’d; and for joy whereoff were many thousands of rumps roasted publiqly in ye streets at the bonfires this night, with ringing of bells and universal jubilee. This was the first good omen.’

From the February till the April following thereon Evelyn was confined to bed with ague and its after effects, but found strength to write and publish a pamphlet, The late News from Brussels unmasked, and His Majesty vindicated from the base calumny and scandal therein fixed on him, ‘in defence of his Majesty, against a wicked forg’d paper, pretended to be sent from Bruxells to defame his Majesties person and vertues, and render him odious, now when everybody was in hope and expectation of the General and Parliament recalling him, and establishing ye government on its antient and right basis.’ Early in May came the tidings that the King’s application for restoration had been accepted and acknowledged by the Parliament ‘after a most bloudy and unreasonable rebellion of neare 20 years,’ and before the end of the month Evelyn was an eye-witness of the triumphal entry of the new king into his capital. ‘29th. This day his Majestie Charles the Second came to London after a sad and long exile and calamitous suffering both of the King and Church, being 17 years. This was also his birthday, and with a triumph of above 20,000 horse and foote, brandishing their swords and shouting with inexpressible joy; the wayes strew’d with flowers, the bells ringing, the streets hung with tapissry, fountaines running with wine; the Maior, Aldermen, and all the Companies in their liveries, chaines of gold, and banners; Lords and Nobles clad in cloth of silver, gold, and velvet; the windowes and balconies all set with ladies; trumpets, music, and myriads of people flocking, even so far as from Rochester, so as they were seven houres in passing the citty, even from 2 in ye afternoone till 9 at night. I stood in the Strand and beheld it, and bless’d God. And all this was don without one drop of bloud shed, and by that very army which rebell’d against him; but it was ye Lord’s doing, for such a restoration was never mention’d in any history antient or modern, since the returne of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity; nor so joyfull a day and so bright ever seene in this nation, this hapning when to expect or effect it was past all human policy.’

Despite his dilettantism and dabbling in science, philosophy and letters, Evelyn had for years past felt the desirability of having some sort of fixed employment. Previous to this, during 1659, he had communicated to the Hon. Robert Boyle, son of the Earl of Cork, a scheme for founding a philosophic and mathematical college or fraternity, and had even arranged with his wife that they should live asunder, in two separate apartments. The Restoration, however, put a stop to this scheme, which then evolved itself, soon afterwards, into the foundation of the Royal Society, Boyle and Evelyn being two of the most prominent original Fellows.

V
Evelyn’s Career after the Restoration. (1660-1685).

Evelyn was about forty years of age when the Restoration changed the whole prospects of his still long life. He had been a devoted Royalist, though it can not be denied that his zeal in this respect was ever tempered with a vast amount of caution and prudence. In addition to what interest he had earned by his own actions, he had the far more powerful influence of his father-in-law who had, like Charles himself, been exiled for nineteen years. Mrs. Evelyn was promised the appointment of lady of the jewels to the future Queen, which she never received; and Evelyn might have had the honour of knighthood of the Bath, but declined it. He was present at the Coronation in Westminster Abbey on St. George’s Day, 1661, and had prepared and printed a Panegyric poem on the occasion, a screed of bombastic doggerel in fulsome praise of the King. He was a frequent visitor at the Court, and loved to sun himself in the royal presence. One of the finest examples of this feature of Evelyn’s character is his Fumifugium, published in 1661, which will be more particularly referred to later on, a work which marks the real commencement of his literary career.

In 1661, also, Evelyn wrote a pamphlet entitled Tyrannus or the Mode, an invective against ‘our so much affecting the French’ in dress, and he was pleased with the idea that afterwards, in 1666, a change in costume then adopted by the King and court was due to this cause. He, too, donned and went to office in ‘the vest and surcoat and tunic as ’twas call’d, after his Majesty had brought the whole Court to it. It was a comely and manly habit, too good to hold, it being impossible for us in good earnest to leave ye Monsieurs vanities long.’

At length employment, at first unpaid, in the public service fell to Evelyn in May, 1662, when along with ‘divers gentlemen of quality,’ he was appointed one of the Commissioners ‘for reforming the buildings, wayes, streetes, and incumbrances, and regulating the hackney coaches in the Citty of London.’ About this same time he was also on the Commission appointed ‘about Charitable uses, and particularly to enquire how the Citty had dispos’d of the revenues of Gressham College,’ and in the original grant of the Charter of the Royal Society he was nominated by the King to be on its Council. Among the other Commissions upon which he shortly sat were those on Sewers, and on the regulation of the Mint at the Tower; but it was not till 27 Oct. 1664 that he received a paid appointment as one of the four Commissioners for the care of the sick and wounded prisoners to be made in the war declared against Holland. For this the remuneration was ‘a Salary £1,200 a year amongst us, besides extraordinaries for our care and attention in time of station, each of us being appointed to a particular district, mine falling out to be Kent and Sussex.’

Before this, however, an event had occurred which must have given intense gratification to Evelyn, when on 30th April, 1663, ‘Came his Majesty to honour my poore villa with his presence, viewing the gardens and even every roome of the house, and was pleas’d to take a small refreshment. There were with him the Duke of Richmond, E. of St. Albans, Lord Lauderdale, and several persons of Quality.’

The year 1664 was a busy one for Evelyn, as he then brought out his two great masterpieces Sylva and the Kalendarium Hortense, of which more anon, as well as the translation of a French work on Architecture. His official duties in connection with the maintainance of the Dutch prisoners also became so heavy that the charges came to £1,000 a week. The Savoy Hospital was filled with them, and a privy seal grant of £20,000 was made to carry on the work; but the expenses increasing reached £7,000 a week, and Evelyn had hard work to get money from the treasury. Harassed with anxieties of this sort, he frequently went ‘to ye Royal Society to refreshe among ye philosophers’ where he found solace in serving along with Dryden, Waller, and others on a Committee for the improvement of the English language.

In the following year the dreadful plague broke out, when he and one other Commissioner were left to deal with the task of providing for the sick and wounded prisoners. From 1,000 deaths in a week in the middle of July, the mortality increased to near 10,000 by the beginning of September, so he sent his wife and family to his brother at Wotton, and remained at work, ‘being resolved to stay at my house myselfe; and to looke after my charge, trusting in the providence and goodnesse of God.’ Prisoners poured in in larger numbers than he could receive and guard in fit places, and he was continually forced to importune for money lest the prisoners should starve. It was then, perhaps, that Evelyn was thrown most in contact with his intimate friend Pepys, for both of them remained steadfast when others had fled. And they had their reward in coming safely through their trial of faithfulness to official duty. ‘Now blessed be God,’ he writes on 31 Dec. 1665, ‘for his extraordinary mercies and preservation of me this yeare, when thousands and ten thousands perish’d and were swept away on each side of me.’

This hard work was a source of loss to Evelyn, as from time to time he advanced monies of his own to supply provisions for the needy committed to his care: and subsequent petitions for reinbursement were only partially successful. But he was rewarded by the sunny warmth of that royal favour which cost nothing, because when the King returned from Oxford to Hampton Court and Evelyn went to wait upon his Majesty there at the end of January, 1666, he duly records how ‘he ran towards me, and in a most gracious manner gave me his hand to kisse, with many thanks for my care and faithfulnesse in his service in a time of such greate danger, when every body fled their employments.’ Poor Evelyn seems to have been rather easily duped in this sort of way. ‘Then the Duke (of Albemarle) came towards me and embrac’d me with much kindnesse, telling me if he had thought my danger would have been so greate, he would not have suffer’d his Majesty to employ me in that station.’ And so on, ‘after which I got home, not being very well in health.’ It certainly was such ridiculously insincere treatment that it might well have caused immediate sickening in one of robust health.

It was, forsooth, only in very minor matters that Evelyn profited by the royal favour or by his courtiership. In April, 1666, Charles informed him that he must now be sworn for a Justice of the Peace, (‘the office in the world I had most industriously avoided, in regard of the perpetual trouble thereoff in these numerous parishes’), and he only escaped this infliction by humbly desiring to be excused from fresh duties inconsistent with the other service he was engaged in. So excused he was, by royal favour, for which he ‘rendered his Majesty many thanks.’ And on that same day he declined re-election to the Council of the Royal Society for the following year on ‘earnest suite’ of other affairs; for he had to be consistent in such different matters that would have engaged a portion of his time.

Besides his work in connection with prisoners and the Mint he was shortly afterwards nominated one of the Commissioners for regulating the farming and making of saltpetre and gunpowder throughout Britain, an appointment which was all the more appropriate from the fact that his grandfather, George Evelyn of Long Ditton and Wotton (1530-1603), had been the first to introduce the manufacture of gunpowder into England, when he established mills on both of his properties. He was also appointed one of the three Surveyors of the repairs of St. Paul’s Cathedral, ‘and to consider of a model for the new building, or, if it might be, repairing of the steeple, which was most decay’d.’

With hands and head fully occupied with business affairs he found time for other work of a useful nature, while still having plenty of leisure for social duties and enjoyments. In this respect he forms a good example of the well-known truth that it is always the busiest men who can spare most time for matters lying outside of their special grooves of work. Thus in September, 1665, he drew up a scheme for erecting an infirmary at Chatham, in which he was supported by his friend Pepys, then a high official in the Navy Department and like himself a shrewd man of business and method, and therefore finding time for other than purely routine official work; while in August, 1666, he entreated the Lord Chancellor ‘to visite the Hospital of the Savoy, and reduce it (after ye greate abuse that had been continu’d) to its original institution for ye benefit of the poore, which he promis’d to do.’

But nothing came from either of these schemes, for on 2nd. Sept. ‘this fatal night about ten, began the deplorable fire neere Fish Streete in London.’ It raged by day and by night,—‘(if I may call that night which was light as day for 10 miles round about, after a dreadful manner).’ Nothing could be done to stay its progress, and the citizens were awe-stricken and paralyzed by fear. ‘The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonish’d, that from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirr’d to quench it, so that there was nothing heard or seene but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures without at all attempting to save even their goods; such a strange consternation there was upon them, so as it burned both in breadth and length, the churches, publics halls, Exchange, hospitals, monuments, and ornaments, leaping after a prodigious manner, from house to house and streete to streete, at great distances one from ye other; for ye heate with a long set of faire and warm weather had even ignited the aire and prepar’d the materials to conceive the fire, which devour’d after an incredible manner houses, furniture, and every thing. Here we saw the Thames cover’d with goods floating, all the barges and boats laden with what some had time and courage to save, as, on ye other, ye carts etc., carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strew’d with moveables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh the miserable and calamitous spectacle! such as happly the world had not seene since the foundation of it, nor be outdon till the universal conflagration thereof. All the skie was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, and the light seene above 40 miles round about for many nights. God grant mine eyes may never behold the like, who now saw above 10,000 houses all in one flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, ye shreiking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of towers, houses, and churches, was like an hideous storme, and the aire all about so hot and inflam’d that at the last one was not able to approach it, so that they were forc’d to stand and let ye flames burn on, which they did for neere two miles in lengh and one in breadh. The clowds also of smoke were dismall and reach’d upon computation neer 50 miles in length. Thus I left it this afternoone burning, a resemblance of Sodom, or the last day. It forcibly call’d to my mind that passage—non enim hic habemus stabilem civitatem: the ruines resembling the picture of Troy. London was, but is no more! Thus I returned.’

For days the conflagration raged, although the whole situation might probably have been saved if the advice of seamen, then as now amongst the bravest and most practical of Britain’s sons, had been followed. When the court suburb of Whitehall began to be threatened,—‘but oh, the confusion there was then at the Court!’—the gentlemen, ‘who hitherto had stood as men intoxicated, with their hands acrosse,.... began to consider that nothing was likely to put a stop but the blowing up of so many houses as might make a wider gap than any had yet been made by the ordinary method of pulling them downe with engines; this some stout seamen propros’d early enough to have sav’d neere ye whole citty, but this some tenacious and avaritious men, aldermen, etc., would not permitt, because their houses must have been of the first.’ At length, however, the fire died out, the houseless citizens finding refuge in tents and miserable huts and hovels hastily erected about St. George’s fields and Moorfields as far as Highgate. But Evelyn’s abode had remained untouched. From reviewing the now poverty-striken people ‘in this calamitous condition I return’d with a sad heart to my house, blessing and adoring the distinguishing mercy of God to me and mine, who in the midst of all this ruine was like Lot, in my little Zoar, safe and sound.’

The plague and the fire were held to be the visitation of God’s anger, and Evelyn evidently thought the heavy punishment richly merited. ‘Oct. 10th. This day was order’d a generall fast thro’ the Nation, to humble us on ye late dreadfull conflagration, added to the plague and warr, the most dismall judgments that could be inflicted, but whiche indeed we highly deserv’d for our prodigious ingratitude, burning lusts, dissolute Court, profane and abominable lives, under such dispensations of God’s continu’d favour in restoring Church, Prince, and People from our late intestine calamities, of which we were altogether unmindfull, even to astonishment.’

Like Wren and Hooke, Evelyn submitted a scheme for the rebuilding of London upon an improved plan, but the new city was formed mainly upon the old lines.

Meanwhile the Dutch fleet was lying off the mouth of the Thames. Though England then happily produced all the food she required, yet the city became ‘exceedingly distress’d for want of fuell’ because of the traffic up and down the estuary being interrupted. Hence Evelyn was appointed one of a Committee to search the environs of London and find if any peat or turf were fit for use. Experiments were made with houllies or briquettes of charcoal dust and loam in the Dutch manner, and Evelyn shewed to many proof of his ‘new fuell, which was very glowing and without smoke or ill smell’. But the process never caught on, and was abandoned as giving no promise of commercial success.

Evelyn’s account against the Treasury now amounted to above £34,000, and he continued to urge for payment of it, or for the settlement of unpaid portions of it, as late as 1702, about three years before his death. Whether this straitened his means or not, he was at any rate eager to make money by speculation. So in 1667 he joined Sir John Kiviet, a Dutch Orangeman who had come over to England for protection and had been knighted by King Charles, in a scheme for making bricks on a large scale. Perhaps as a sort of advertisement of this commercial enterprise he subscribed 50,000 bricks towards building a college for the Royal Society. It was a big scheme, including the embankment of the river from the Tower to the Temple, and if successful it would have brought much gain to the partners.

Evelyn says nothing about the ultimate results of his undertaking, but Pepys furnishes the necessary clue in his diary for September, 1668—‘23d. At noon comes Mr Evelyn to me, about some business with the office, and there in discourse tell me of his loss, to the value of £500, which he hath met with in a late attempt of making of bricks upon an adventure with others, by which he presumed to have got a great deal of money; so that I see the most ingenious man may sometimes be mistaken’. Kiviet a year or two later on had a fresh scheme for draining marshy lands ‘with the hopes of a rich harvest of hemp and cole seed’, but Evelyn took no share in this new adventure.

In July 1669 his University, Oxford, bestowed upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law, but he had still no permanent official appointment, his Commissionerships now being completed. Early in May 1670 he went ‘to London concerning the office of Latine Secretary to his Majesty, a place of more honor than dignitie and profit, the revertion of which he had promised me’, though the promise was not fulfilled.

Early in 1669, it had been proposed to Evelyn by Lord Arlington that he should write a history of the Dutch War, but he declined. Towards the middle of the following year, however, pressure was brought on him to undertake the work. ‘After dinner Lord (Arlington) communicated to me his Majesty’s desire that I would engage to write the History of our late War with the Hollanders, which I had hitherto declin’d; this I found was ill-taken, and that I should disoblige his Majesty, who had made choice of me to do him this service, and if I would undertake it, I should have all the assistance the Secretary’s office and others could give me, with other encouragements, which I could not decently refuse’. This work was never completed, so much as was written by way of introduction being subsequently published in 1674 as Navigation and Commerce, their Original and Progress.

Evelyn was, however, not to have much longer to wait for regular official employment, as on 28 February, 1671, ‘The Treasurer acquainted me that his Majesty was graciously pleas’d to nominate me one of the Council of Forraine Plantations, and give me a salary of £500 per ann. to encourage me’. He was pleased with his appointment in connection with our Colonies, ‘a considerable honour, the others in the Council being chiefly Noblemen, and Officers of State’. In the following year the scope of this department was increased by adding the Council of Trade to its duties. He at once went to thank the Treasurer and Lord Arlington, Secretary of State, whose favour he possessed though he ‘cultivated neither of their friendships by any meane submissions’. And he failed not, of course, to kiss the King’s hand on being made one of that newly established Council. But Royalist though he was, he could not be blind to the profligacy of the Court and of the King, to whose Majesty his works were so grandiloquently dedicated.

On one occasion after submitting progress of his History to the King, he says ‘thence walk’d with him thro’ St. James’s Parke to the garden, where I both saw and heard a very familiar discourse between... and Mrs. Nellie as they cal’d an impudent comedian, she looking out of her garden on a terrace at the top of the wall, and... standing on ye greene walke under it. I was heartily sorry at the scene. Thence the King walked to the Dutchess of Cleaveland, another lady of pleasure, and curse of our nation’. Evelyn is usually so strict about any reference to the proprieties that it is hard to understand why this particular interview between King Charles and Nell Gwynne should be mentioned so circumstantially. As for the Court, when it went abroad, say to Newmarket, one might have ‘found ye jolly blades racing, dauncing, feasting, and revelling, more resembling a luxurious and abandon’d rout, than a Christian Court.’

Early in 1672 his father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne, resigned office as Clerk of the Council, a place which his Majesty had years before promised to Evelyn; but he was induced to give up this lien on renewal of the lease of Sayes Court for 99 years, although the King’s written engagement to grant the estate in fee-farme is still extant at Wotton. In 1673 Browne became Master of the Trinity House, and Evelyn was sworn in as a younger Brother, having in the previous autumn been chosen Secretary to the Royal Society: and two months later his son John, now 18 years of age, was also made a younger brother of Trinity House. Evelyn’s life seems now to have glided on very quietly. Much of his time was taken up with the colonial and commercial work controlled by the Council of Plantations and Trade, though he still found leisure for literary work, scientific recreation, and other affairs. His mind apparently about this time became greatly attracted towards religious subjects, and it seems more than probable that this may (in part, at any rate) have been due to a very strong though purely platonic attachment he now formed to Miss Blagg, one of the Queen’s Maids of Honour, who married Mr. Sydney, afterwards Lord Godolphin, in 1675 and died in childbed in 1678 at the early age of twenty five. His Life of Mrs Godolphin, never published till 1847, was ‘design’d to consecrate her worthy life to posterity.’ In February 1680 his son John, now 23 years of age and imitating his father’s literary beginning as a translator, was married to Martha Spencer, step-daughter of Sir John Stonehouse. That Evelyn was now fairly well off is evident from the terms of the jointure and marriage contracts then made. ‘The lady was to bring £5,000 in consideration of a settlement of £500 a yeare present maintainence, which was likewise to be her jointure, and £500 a yeare after myne and my Wife’s decease. But with God’s blessing it will be at the least £1000 a yeare more in a few yeares.’ Always of business habits, Evelyn particularly records how, in the following month, he went ‘To London, to receive £3,000 of my daughter-in-law’s portion, which was paid in gold.’

The deeply religious caste of thought above alluded to as now becoming very noticeable in Evelyn shewed itself strongly in the autumn of 1680. ‘I went to London to be private, my birthday being ye next day, and I now arriv’d at my sixtieth year, on which I began a more solemn survey of my whole life, in order to the making and confirming my peace with God, by an accurate scrutinie of all my actions past, as far as I was able to call them to mind. How difficult and uncertaine, yet how necessary a work! The Lord be mercifull to me and accept me! Who can tell how oft he offendeth?... I began and spent the whole weeke in examining my life, begging pardon for my faults, assistance and blessing for the future, that I might in some sort be prepar’d for the time that now drew neere, and not have the greater work to begin when one can worke no longer. The Lord Jesus help and assist me! I therefore stirr’d little abroad till the 5 November..... I participated of ye blessed communion, finishing and confirming my resolutions of giving myselfe up more intirely to God, to whom I had now most solemnly devoted the rest of the poore remainder of life in this world; the Lord enabling me, who am an unprofitable servant, a miserable sinner, yet depending on his infinite goodnesse and mercy accepting my endeavours.’

It were well if all men, even before attaining 60 years of age, could bring themselves to such periods of reflection on past and present acts, and even though all the good resolves may not have been quite rigidly acted up to. And even in Evelyn’s case, at any rate so far as his diary shews, he appears afterwards to have continued just as much a man of the world as he was before these solemn resolutions, although the glamour of being a courtier seems perhaps to have henceforth become less rose-coloured. A trivial incident happening while he was supping one night at Lady Arlington’s, in June 1683, gave rise to the reflection that ‘By this one may take an estimate of the extream slavery and subjection that courtiers live in, who have not time to eate and drink at their pleasure. It put me in mind of Horace’s Mouse, and to blesse God for my owne private condition.’ Twenty years previously he would not have thought or said this.

Evelyn took a leading part in the negociations for the repurchase of Chelsea College for £1,300 from the Royal Society to whom it had been recently presented by the King, and for the establishment of a hospital for old soldiers there at a cost of £20,000 with an endowment of £5,000 a year.

Several violent fits of ague having afflicted him during the winter of 1681-82, to cure which ‘recourse was had to bathing my legs in milk up to ye knees, made as hot as I could endure it’, Evelyn made his will and put all his affairs in order ‘that now growing in yeares, I might have none of the secular things and concerns to distract me when it should please Almighty God to call me from this transitory life’. In November 1682 he was asked by many friends to stand for election as president of the Royal Society, in succession to Sir Christopher Wren, but pleading ‘remote dwelling, and now frequent infirmities’ he declined the proffered honour. Subsequently, in 1690, he had actually, ‘been chosen President of the Royal Society’, but desired to decline it ‘and with greate difficulty devolv’d the election on Sir Robert Southwell, Secretary of State to King William in Ireland.’ For a third time, in November 1693, the honour was again offered—‘Much importun’d to take the office of President of the Royal Society, but I againe declin’d it.’

On 12th February 1683 his father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne, who had been created a baronet in 1649, and to whose influence he owed much, died at his house at Sayes Court, leaving Mrs. Evelyn as his sole heiress. Meanwhile grandchildren had been born to Evelyn, some of whom soon died in infancy. His appointment on the Council of Plantations and Trade seems to have lapsed before this time, for no further mention is made in his diary of Council meetings, and he seems to have resided chiefly at Sayes Court, gardening and spending his time in scholarly leisure and recreation. This surmise is borne out by what he says in 1683, ‘Oct. 4th. I went to London, on receiving a note from the Countesse of Arlington, of some considerable charge or advantage I might obtaine by applying myselfe to his Majesty on this signal conjuncture of his Majesty entering up judgment against the City charter; the proposal made me I wholly declin’d, not being well satisfied with these violent transactions, and not a little sorry that his Majesty was so often put upon things of this nature against so great a Citty, the consequence wheroff may be so much to his prejudice; so I return’d home.’

On 6th February 1685 King Charles II. died after an apoplectic fit, and his brother James, Duke of York, ascended the throne. Evelyn comments fully on the virtues and vices of the late monarch. ‘He would doubtless have been an excellent Prince had he been less addicted to women, who made him uneasy, and allways in want to supply their immeasurable profusion, to ye detriment of many indigent persons who had signaly serv’d both him and his father..... He was ever kind to me, and very gracious upon all occasions, and therefore I cannot, without ingratitude, but deplore his loss, which for many respects, as well as duty, I do with all my soul.’

VI
Evelyn’s Declining Years (1685-1706).

With the accession of James II., Evelyn was again to feel the sunny warmth of royal favour in the form of an official appointment. But previous to this he had to suffer a heavy loss by the death from small-pox of his eldest daughter Mary, in the 19th year of her age, who had been born at Wotton in the same room as her father had first seen the light.

In September 1685 Evelyn was informed that on Lord Clarendon, Lord Privy Seal, going to assume the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland the King had nominated him as one of the Commissioners to execute the office of Privy Seal during such appointment; and early in December he was ‘put into the new Commission of Sewers.’ It was nearly Christmas before he kissed hands on receiving the patent for executing this office and entered on its duties along with the two other Commissioners. They performed these till the 10th March 1687, when the King relieved them with compliments on their ‘faithfull and loyal service, with many gracious expressions to this effect’, and bestowed the seal on Lord Arundel of Wardour, a zealous Roman Catholic.

In the early days of James II’s reign the patronage which seemed to be coming in Evelyn’s direction appears to have, not unnaturally perhaps, somewhat coloured his opinion as to the new monarch’s capacity and disposition. After a journey undertaken with Pepys to Windsor, Winchester, and Portsmouth in September 1685, whither the King went to view the state of the fortifications, he recorded that ‘what I observ’d in this journey, is that infinite industry, sedulity, gravity, and greate understanding and experience of affairs, in his Majesty, that I cannot but predict much happiness to ye nation, as to its political government; and if he so persist, there could be nothing more desir’d to accomplish our prosperity, but that he was of the national church.’ Biassed and prejudiced in the royal favour as he then temporarily was, this account of King James proved so totally incorrect that it is a wonder Evelyn retained it in the compilation which he left as his Diary. The only explanation seems to be that he wished to record his prevision as regards Roman Catholicism proving the main rock upon which the King might come to grief, as he afterwards did.

Titus Oates’ conspiracy and the Duke of Monmouth’s invasion and insurrection went by without affecting Evelyn much. He was in the latter case called upon to supply a mounted trooper, which he did rather grudgingly. ‘The two horsemen which my son and myselfe sent into the county troopes, were now come home, after a moneth’s being out to our greate charge.’ But what concerned him much more was that matters frequently came before the Commission of the Privy Seal to which he could not, on religious grounds principally, give his assent. On such occasions he would sometimes go to his house in the country, ‘refusing to be present at what was to passe at the Privy Seale the next day’, because any two out of the three Commissioners formed a quorum. At other times, however, he had to face his responsibility properly, by refusing to put his seal to the papers in question, while noting his objections to the course of action proposed. The Papistry which was spreading over the country under the King’s influence seemed to darken the land and to obscure the future. ‘Popish Justices of the Peace establish’d in all counties, of the meanest of the people; Judges ignorant of the law, and perverting it—so furiously do the Jesuits drive, and even compel Princes to violent courses, and destruction of an excellent government both in Church and State. God of his infinite mercy open our eyes and turn our hearts, and establish his truth with peace! The Lord Jesus defend his little flock, and preserve this threaten’d Church and Nation.’

A staunch Protestant, Evelyn no longer possessed the King’s favour, and henceforth he received no further appointment or token of royal approval although he still frequented the Court at Whitehall. In August 1688 he was secretly informed by the Rev. Dr. Tenison, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, of the impending invasion of the Prince of Orange, and, while regularly paying his duty as a courtier, he informed the lately imprisoned Archbishop and Bishops of the intrigues on which the Jesuits were hard at work. And subsequently ‘My Lord of Canterbury gave me great thanks for the advertisement I sent him in October, and assured me they took my counsell in that particular, and that it came very seasonably.’ On 18th December, he ‘saw the King take barge to Gravesend at 12 o’clock—a sad sight,’ on the very day that the Prince of Orange came to St. James and filled Whitehall with Dutch guards. All the world at once went to pay court to the Prince whose star was now in the ascendant: and, of course, Evelyn went too. A couple of months later he ‘saw the new Queene and King proclaim’d the very next day after her coming to Whitehall, Wednesday 13 Feb., with greate acclamations and generall good reception.... It was believ’d that both, especially the Princesse, would have shew’d some (seeming) reluctance at least, of assuming her father’s Crown, and some apology, testifying her regret that he should by his mismanagement necessitate the Nation to so extraordinary a proceeding, which would have shew’d very handsomely to the world, and according to the character given by her piety; consonant also to her husband’s first decleration, that there was no intention of deposing the King, but of succouring the Nation; but nothing of all this appear’d; she came into White-hall laughing and jolly, as to a wedding, so as to seem quite transported..... This carriage was censured by many.’

After the Restoration Evelyn’s life as a courtier was practically at an end, as he never quite approved the enforced abdication of King James. So henceforth he spent his time, without further attendance at Court or seeking after office or appointment, in study, literary work, and retirement. He did not like the new régime, with its ‘Court offices distributed amongst Parliament men.... Things far from settled as was expected, by reason of the slothfull, sickly temper of the new King, and the Parliament’s unmindfullness of Ireland, which is likely to prove a sad omission.’ He even seems to have regretted that his son was in March 1692 made ‘one of the Commissioners of the Revenue and Treasury of Ireland, to which employment he had a mind far from my wishes.’ This son contracted serious illness in Ireland, and died ‘after a tedious languishing sickness’ early in 1699, aged 44 years, leaving one son, then a student at Oxford.

Some time before this his elder brother, George, having lost his last son and heir, had settled the Wotton estate upon John Evelyn. In May 1694, yielding to the request to make Wotton his home, he went to Wotton, leaving Sayes Court in charge of his daughter Susanna and her husband William Draper, whose marriage had been celebrated about a year previously. In 1696 it was let for three years to Admiral Benbow, who sublet it in 1698 to Peter the Great, then visiting the Deptford Dockyards for three months as his Majesty’s guest. So great was the destruction done to the gardens, trees, and holly-hedges, that Wren was asked to report on the compensation suitable, and £162-7-0 were paid to Evelyn for damage to the house and garden.

Early in 1695 Evelyn accepted the offer of the Treasurership of Greenwich Hospital, then about to be rebuilt and endowed for the maintainence of decayed seamen, which was made to him by Lord Godolphin, who had been the husband of his former friend Miss Blagg. During the days of Charles II. some such transformation of the Palace had been under consideration, but it was the 30th June 1696 before Evelyn and Sir Christopher Wren ‘laid the first stone of the intended foundation, precisely at 5 o’clock in the evening, after we had din’d together.’ This appointment carried with it ‘the salary of £200 per ann. of which I have never yet receiv’d one penny of the tallies assign’d for it, now two years at Lady-day; my son-in-law Draper is my substitute.’ When the new Commission for Greenwich Hospital was sealed in August 1703 Evelyn resigned his office of Treasurer in favour of Draper.

His brother George dying in October 1699, Evelyn then became the owner of Wotton, and looked to his grandson, the Oxford Student, to ‘be the support of the Wotton family.’ The lad had a bad attack of small-pox in the autumn of 1700, a malady that had caused many gaps in the family circle; but, coming safely through this illness, he was in July 1701, by the patronage of Lord Godolphin, made one of the Commissioners of the Prizes, with a salary of £500 a year, while he was still an undergraduate at Oxford. And in January 1704 the same noble patron appointed him Treasurer of the Stamp Duties, with a salary of £300 a year. He afterwards married Ann, daughter of Hugh Boscawen (afterwards Lord Falmouth), Lord Godolphin’s niece, and was created a baronet in 1713. It was through him that the present family of Evelyn of Wotton directly descend, though the baronetcy lapsed on the death of his grandson Frederick in 1812.

As he had done twenty years before, so also on now attaining his 80th birthday on 31st. October 1700 Evelyn rendered thanks for mercies with his characteristic religious feeling. ‘I with my soul render thanks to God, who of his infinite mercy, not only brought me out of many troubles, but this yeare restor’d me to health, after an ague and other infirmities of so greate an age, my sight, hearing and other senses and faculties tolerable, which I implore him to continue, with the pardon of my sins past, and grace to acknowledge by my improvement of his goodnesse the ensuing yeare, if it be his pleasure to protract my life, that I may be the better prepar’d for my last day, through the infinite merits of my blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus, Amen.’

Five times more was he to be privileged to record his thanks and prayers on successive returns of this anniversary. One of the very last entries in his memoirs is that on 31st. October 1705 ‘I am this day arriv’d to the 85th year of my age. Lord teach me so to number my days to come that I may apply them to wisdom’. And numbered, indeed, they then were; for on the 27th of February 1706 he passed quietly and peacefully away, retaining his faculties to the last. And he was laid at rest in the Chancel of Wotton Church.

During the course of his long and distinguished life he had seen many stirring events, had taken part in many important affairs, had achieved much, and had suffered much. He had outlived four reigns, two of which were terminated by a natural death, one by public execution, and one by abdication. He had served many public and other distinguished offices with zeal, ability, integrity, and success. He had given to English literature some of the classic works that are among the treasures of our literature of the Restoration period. He had outlived all of his six sons, most of whom had died in childhood, as well as his eldest and favourite daughter. Of all his nine children, the sole survivors were his daughter Elizabeth, who was soon afterwards married to a son of Sir John Tippet, and Susanna, wife of William Draper, afterwards of Adscomb near Croydon. After nearly 60 years of pure domestic wedded life, in marked contrast to the prevailing dissoluteness of the time, Evelyn was survived for nearly three years by his widow, who died in 1709, aged 74 years, cherishing to the last her love and affection for him to whom her destiny had been committed whilst she was still a mere child. ‘His care of my education’, she wrote in her last Will and Testament, ‘was such as might become a father, a lover, a friend, and a husband; for instruction, tenderness, affection and fidelity to the last moment of his life; which obligation I mention with a gratitude to his memory ever dear to me; and I must not omit to own the sense I have of my parents’ care and goodness in placing me in such worthy hands.’ Surely no husband ever had a nobler epitaph.

In an age of fierce political and ecclesiastical conflict, Evelyn, often, no doubt, strongly tempted to partisanship, managed to steer his course with prudence and great worldly judgment. But for that, his industry and business talent would probably have brought him more prominently into office under Charles II. In a corrupt and profligate age, however, his character stands out as that of one unsullied by excesses, impurities, or vices. And it is not the least of his merits that, in an age of bigotry and narrow-mindedness, he was not intolerant towards those whose religious views happened to differ from his own.

VII
Evelyn’s Literary Works.

Evelyn’s earliest publications, some of which have already been referred to, consisted mostly in translations from the French, Latin, and Greek, that of the first book of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura being in verse. Their authorship was usually veiled either under Greek pseudonyms or else more thinly under the initials ‘J.E.’ That on A Character of England (1659), a tract purporting to have been written by a foreigner, appeared anonymously.

Of all these seven publications appearing before the Restoration, the only one of any importance was The French Gardener, the translation of a work by N. de Bonnefons, which appeared at the end of 1658 and was thus referred to in the diary,—‘Dec. 6th. Now was publish’d my “French Gardener,” the first and best of the kind that introduc’d ye use of the Olitorie garden to any purpose.’ Subsequent editions of it appeared in 1669, 1672, 1691, bearing Evelyn’s name on the titlepage in place of the Philocepos on its first publication.

With the Restoration, bringing to him greater personal freedom of thought and speech, came the most active period of Evelyn’s literary production. His loyalty at once found opportunity to answer a libel on King Charles (entitled News from Brussels) in The late News from Brussels unmasked, a long vindication of his Majesty from the calumnies and scandal therein fixed on him. From a literary and antiquarian point of view, however, far greater interest attaches to a much shorter treatise entitled Fumifugium: or the Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipated, together with some Remedies humbly proposed. As this is the earliest reference to the great London Smoke Nuisance, which, like the poor, we have always with us, it is of more than passing interest to know how large this difficult problem of curing it loomed about two and a half centuries ago. Moreover, this short work affords a very typical example of Evelyn’s literary style, while at the same time well exemplyfying his profusely enthusiastic outbursts of devoted and loyal attachment to the King’s person and interests.

In the dull days of autumn and winter, when the heavy, damp air wafted inwards from the sea shrouds London with a dirty pall of fog thickened and discoloured with the smoke belched forth skywards from the long throats of thousands of tall factory chimneys and emitted from hundreds of thousands of household and workshop fires, the dweller in this vast overgrown city is tempted to range himself for the moment among the belauders of better times in the past. Almost groping his way along the streets in semi-darkness, and half choked with the sulphurous surcharge in the atmosphere, this latter-day growler may perhaps be astonished to learn that his complaint is of very old standing, and that long before the days of his great-great-grandfather, in fact more than seven generations ago, this poisoning of the atmosphere with the impurities given off from ‘sea-coal’ and other combustibles had already come to be looked on by some as a public nuisance. It will, therefore, interest Londoners in general, and will delight the hearts of Sir William Richmond R.A. and the County Council in particular, to know that their great precursor in this matter of reform nearly 250 years ago considered the question even then one of urgency, admitting of no delay. How graphic, and how refreshing, is the pithy point thus neatly scored—

‘I propose therefore, that by an Act of this present Parliament, this infernal Nuisance be removed.’

There is no beating about the bush here, and no mincing of phrases. The matter is at once probed with the needle.

Evelyn was not merely a rather notable person in the London society of that period. As a man of science he was one of the most prominent pillars of the then recently founded Royal Society. As an official he was His Majesty’s Commissioner for improving the streets and buildings of London, in addition to various other particular duties. But finally,—and, at the same time, first of all, if it be permissible to emphasise the fact in so paradoxical a manner—he was a courtier; and that at a time when expressions of loyalty to His Gracious Majesty, King Charles II., were somewhat too highly coloured, too servile and sycophantic, to suit our modern taste.

This short work Fumifugium, really only a pamphlet, was therefore dedicated to the King in language of the period extravagant in the highest degree, though eminently typical of the Royalists during the early days of the Restoration. The treatise was thus occasioned:— ‘It was one day, as I was Walking in Your Majesty’s Palace at White-Hall (where I have sometimes the honour to refresh myself with the Sight of Your Illustrious Presence, which is the Joy of Your Peoples hearts) that a presumptuous Smoak issuing from one or two tunnels near Northumberland House, and not far from Scotland-yard did so invade the Court; that all the Rooms, Galleries, and Places about it were fill’d and infested with it; and that to such a degree, as Men could hardly discern one another from the Clowd, and none could support, without manifest Inconveniency. It was not this which did first suggest to me what I had long since conceived against this pernicious Accident, upon frequent observation; But it was this alone, and the trouble that it must needs procure to Your Sacred Majesty, as well as hazzard to Your Health, which kindled this Indignation of mine against it, and was the occasion of what it has produc’d in these Papers.

Sir, I prepare in this short Discourse an expedient how this pernicious Nuisance may be reformed; and offer at another also, by which the Aer may not only be freed from the present Inconveniency; but (that remov’d) to render not only Your Majesties Palace, but the whole City likewise, one of the sweetest, and most delicious Habitations in the World; and this, with little or no expence; but by improving those Plantations which Your Majesty so laudably affects, in the moyst, depressed and marshy grounds about the Town, to the Culture and production of such things, as upon every gentle emission through the Aer, should so perfume the adjacent places with their breath; as if, by a certain charm, or innocent Magick, they were transferred to that part of Arabia, which is therefore styled the Happy, because it is amongst the Gums and precious spices.’

Objectionable cottages had thus apparently only recently, probably during the democratic Commonwealth, been erected to the east of Whitehall, and were surrounded by fields. These fields were to be divided into blocks of about 20 to 40 acres, and palisades or fences of shrubs were to enclose belts of 150 feet or more between the various fields. The fences were to be formed or filled with sweetbriar, periclymena, woodbine, jessamine, syringa, guelder-rose, musk and other roses, broom, juniper, lavender, and so on,—‘but above all Rosemary, the Flowers whereof are credibly reported to give their sent above thirty Leagues off at Sea, upon the coasts of Spain. Those who take notice of the Sent of the Orange-flowers from the Rivage of Genöa, and St. Pietro dell’ Arena; the Blosomes of Rosemary from the Coasts of Spain many leagues off at Sea; or the manifest and odoriferous wafts which flow from Fontenoy and Vaugirard, even to Paris in the season of Roses, with the contrary Effects of those less pleasing smells from other accidents, will easily consent to what I suggest: And, I am able to enumerate a Catalogue of native Plants, and such as are familiar to our Country and Clime, whose redolent and agreeable Emissions would even ravish our senses, as well as perfectly improve the Aer about London; and that, without the least prejudice to the Owners and Proprietors of the Land to be employ’d about it.’ Evelyn further recommended ‘That the Spaces, or Area between these Pallisads, and Fences, be employ’d in Beds and Bordures of Pinks, Carnations, Clove, Stock-gilly-flower, Primroses, Auriculas, Violets, not forgetting the White, which are in flower twice a year, April and August; Cowslips, Lillies, Narcissus, Strawberries, whose very leaves as well as fruit, emit a Cardiague, and most refreshing Halitus: also Parietria Lutea, Musk, Lemmon, and Mastick: Thyme, Spike, Cammomile, Balm, Mint, Marjoram, Pimpernel, Serpillum, etc., which upon the least pressure and cutting, breathe out and betray their ravishing Odors.’ Plantations of trees were also to be made and nurseries formed, which would have the additional advantage, besides mere beauty and ornament, of providing for the fields—‘better Shelter, and Pasture for Sheep and Cattel then now; that they lie bleak, expos’d and abandon’d to the winds, which perpetually invade them.’ It is said that the planting of Lime trees in St. James’ Park was due to these suggestions. Evelyn’s recommendations concluded with the exhorting that ‘the further exhorbitant encrease of Tenements, poor and nasty Cottages near the City, be prohibited, which disgrace and take off from the sweetness and amoenity of the Environs of London, and are already become a great Eye-sore in the grounds opposite to His Majesty’s Palace of White-hall; which being converted to this use, might yield a diversion inferior to none that could be imagin’d for Health, Profit, and Beauty, which are the three Transcendencies that render a place without all exception. And this is what (in short) I had to offer, for the Improvement and Melioration of the Aer about London, and with which I shall conclude this discourse.’

Besides dedicating his pamphlet especially to the King, as well as proposing, on the title-page, the remedy “To His Sacred Majestie, and To the Parliament now Assembled”, Evelyn likewise adresses himself “To the Reader” by way of a second introduction; and he does so in these plainer and rather contemptuous terms:— ‘I have little here to add to implore thy good opinion and approbation, after I have submitted this Essay to his Sacred Majesty: But as it is of universal benefit that I propound it; so I expect a civil entertainment and reception....’ Confessing himself ‘frequently displeased at the small advance and improvement of Publick Works in this nation,’ he further expresses himself as ‘extremely amazed, that where there is so great affluence of all things which may render the People of this vast City the most happy upon Earth; the sordid and accursed Avarice of some few Particular Persons should be suffered to prejudice the health and felicity of so many: That any Profit (besides what is absolute necessity) should render men regardlesse of what chiefly imports them, when it may be purchased upon so easie conditions, and with so great advantages: For it is not happiness to possesse Gold, but to enjoy the Effects of it and to know how to live cheerfully and in health, Non est vivere, sed valere vita. That men whose very Being is Aer, should not breath it freely when they may; but (as that Tyrant us’d his Vassals) condemn themselves to this misery and Fumo præfocari, is strange stupidity: yet thus we see them walk and converse in London, pursu’d and haunted by that infernal Smoake, and the funest accidents which accompany it wheresoever they retire.’

Surely, if John Evelyn could in spirit revisit the metropolis he loved so well and was so much at home in, he would, while lamenting the continuation and the now much more acute form of the “infernal Nuisance”, to a certainty find ample cause for rejoicing at the admirable work of late years carried out in the London Royal Parks and Pleasure Grounds, and in the Parks and Open Spaces under the administration of the County Council.

It was in 1664, however, that Evelyn achieved his greatest literary triumph by the publication of his three masterpieces, Sylva: or a Discourse of Forest Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in His Majestie’s Dominions; Pomona: or an Appendix concerning Fruit Trees in relation to Cider, the Making and several ways of Ordering it; and Kalendarium Hortense: or the Gard’ners Almanack, directing what he is to do Monthly throughout the Year.’

The manner in which the idea of the Sylva originated is clearly shewn by what is noted in his Diary on 15th October, 1662.—‘I this day deliver’d my “Discourse concerning Forest Trees” to the Society, upon occasion of certain queries sent to us by the Commissioners of his Majesties Navy, being the first booke that was printed by order of the Society, and by their printer, since it was a Corporation.’ This latter reference evidently anticipates events, as one often had reason to note in this so-called diary, because Sylva was not actually published until the beginning of 1664, when along with it were included Pomona, and the Kalendarium Hortense. In February, 1664, ‘16th, I presented my “Sylva” to the Society; and next day to his Majestie, to whom it was dedicated; also to the Lord Treasurer and the Lord Chancellor.’

There is no doubt that Sylva was a work of national importance. Then, as now, England was dependent on her Navy. But the stock of Oak timber suitable for the requirements of the naval dockyards had become almost exhausted. From a tonnage of 17,110 tons in 1603, our fleet had risen to 57,463 tons in 1660, and during the 25 years of Charles II’s reign it increased to 103,556 tons. To supply these rapidly expanding requirements the stock of timber in the country was feared to be inadequate. From 197,405, loads of timber fit for the Navy in the New Forest in 1608, the stock sank later to 19,873 in 1707; and in the royal forests in Gloucestershire a similar state of affairs obtained. At a meeting of the Council of the Royal Society in November 1662, Evelyn followed up his recent Sylva by suggesting a discourse ‘concerning planting his Majesty’s Forest of Deane with oake, now so much exhausted, of ye choicest ship-timber in the world.’ This was before the days of steam or even of macadamized roads, when we had to grow our own supplies of food and Navy timber. True, oak for wainscoting and the like had long been imported from the Continent; but if we had been anything like dependent on foreign oak, the Dutch War which shortly afterwards broke out would probably have cut off the same entirely from reaching our ports.

It is unnecessary to say much about this charming classic of Forestry, of whose various excellences the reader can herein judge for himself. Gracefully written in nervous English and in a cultured style, ornately embellished according to the then prevailing custom by apt quotations from the Latin poets, it contains an enormous amount of information in the shape of legends and of facts ascertained by travel, of observation, and of experience. No man of his time could possibly have been better qualified than Evelyn for undertaking the special duty laid upon him; and he carried out his task in a brilliant manner. Sylva soon ran into several editions. The fourth edition appeared in the year of his death (1706) and a fifth in 1729. From 1776 to 1812 other four editions were published, with notes by Dr. A. Hunter of York, the last of which served as the text for the celebrated forestry article in the Quarterly Review for March, 1813. A later issue of Hunter’s editions appeared in 1825; but in 1827 ignorant and wanton hands were with much bombastic language and buffoonry laid on this great classic, when James Mitchell, an agriculturist, published Dendrologia; or a Treatise of Forest Trees, with Evelyn’s Silva, revised, corrected, and abridged by a Professional Planter and Collector of practical Notes forty years. Since then no other edition of Sylva has appeared until the present reprint of the 4th edition, making the 12th edition of this classic work.

The publication of Sylva gave an enormous stimulus to planting in Britain, the benefits from which were subsequently reaped at the end of the XVIII and the beginning of the XIX century, when during our war with France the supply of oak timber for shipbuilding almost entirely ran out. Dr. Hunter’s editions did much to revive the ardour for planting, which was further stimulated by the Quarterly Review article and by the advice which Sir Walter Scott put into the mouth of the Laird o’ Dumbiedykes to his son: ‘Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye’re sleeping.’ To the impetus then given to planting, many of the woods now growing in different parts of Britain, and especially in Scotland, owe their origin.

As Evelyn had given the copyright to Allestry, the Royal Society’s printer, Sylva brought no pecuniary profit to its author; and indirectly it was the cause of disappointment to him. How this came about may be seen from the following extract from a letter, dated 4th August 1690, to his friend the Countess of Sunderland, which is further of interest as giving Evelyn’s own account of the origin of Sylva—‘when many yeares ago I came from rambling abroad, observ’d a little time there, and a greate deale more since I came home than gave me much satisfaction, and (as events have prov’d) scarce worth one’s pursuite, I cast about how I should employ the time which hangs on most young men’s hands, to the best advantage; and when books and severer studies grew tedious, and other impertinence would be pressing, by which innocent diversions I might sometime relieve my selfe without complyance to recreations I took no felicity in, because they did not contribute to any improvement of the mind. This set me upon planting of trees, and brought forth my “Sylva,” which booke, infinitely beyond my expectation, is now also calling for a fourth impression, and has been the occasion of propagating many millions of usefull timber trees thro’out this nation, as I may justifie (without im’odesty) from ye many letters of acknowledgement receiv’d from gentlemen of the first quality, and others altogether strangers to me. His late Majesty Charles the 2nd. was sometimes graciously pleas’d to take notice of it to me, and that I had by that booke alone incited a world of planters to repaire their broken estates and woodes, which the greedy rebells had wasted and made much havock of. Upon this encouragement I was once speaking to a mighty man, then in despotic power, to mention the greate inclination I had to serve his Majesty in a little office then newly vacant (the salary I think hardly £300) whose province was to inspect the timber trees in his Majesties Forests, etc., and take care of their culture and improvement; but this was conferr’d upon another who, I believe, had seldom been out of the smoake of London, where though there was a greate deale of timber, there were not many trees. I confesse I had an inclination to the imployment upon a publique account as well as its being suitable to my rural genius, borne as I was at Wotton, among the woods.’

A still greater success was achieved by the Kalendarium Hortense, which reached its tenth edition (1706) during Evelyn’s lifetime, and of which two reprints have subsequently been made. This small work was the forerunner of the more modern books on English gardening, the names of which are now almost legion.

Previous to this, Sculptura: or the History and Art of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper and Mezzo-tinto, had been published in 1662, being the first work on this subject that had appeared in England. But it was a poor production, and ran into no second edition while the author lived. His chief subsequent literary successes were Terra: a Philosophical Discourse of Earth relating to the Culture and Improvement of it for Vegetation, and for the Propagation of Plants, (1676), which was first read before the Royal Society on 29th April 1675, and of which the third edition was printed in 1706, and The Compleat Gardiner, or Directions for cultivating and right ordering of Fruit Gardens and Kitchen Gardens; with divers Reflections on several parts of Husbandry, (1693), which went into five editions by 1710. His History of the Dutch War, already referred to (page xliii) would have been by far his most important work in point of length had its completion been allowed, but only the introductory portion saw the light as Navigation and Commerce; their Original and Progress, Containing a succint account of Traffick in general; etc. etc...... to the beginning of our late differences with Holland; in which his Majesties title to the Dominion of the Sea is asserted against the Novel and later Pretenders. (1674). His own account of the stoppage of the work is given in the diary for 19th August 1674,—‘His Majesty told me how exceedingly the Dutch were displeas’d at my treatise of the “Historie of Commerce;” that the Holland Ambassador had complain’d to him of what I had touch’d of the Flags and Fishery, etc., and desired the booke might be call’d in; whilst on the other side he assur’d me he was exceedingly pleas’d with what I had done, and gave me many thanks. However, it being just upon conclusion of the treaty of Breda (indeed it was design’d to have been publish’d some moneths before and when we were at defiance), his Majesty told me he must recall it formally, but gave order that what copies should be publiqly seiz’d to pacifie the Ambassador, should immediately be restor’d to the printer, and that neither he nor the vendor should be molested. The truth is, that which touch’d the Hollander was much lesse than what the King himself furnish’d me with, and oblig’d me to publish, having caus’d it to be read to him before it went to the presse; but the error was, it should have been publish’d before the peace was proclaim’d. The noise of this book’s suppression made it presently be bought up, and turn’d much to the stationer’s advantage. It was no other than the Preface prepar’d to be prefix’d to my History of the whole Warr; which I now pursued no further.’ Years afterwards, however, he wrote somewhat bitterly on this subject to his intimate friend Pepys, in a letter dated 28th April 1682, in which he says, ‘In sum, I had no thanks for what I had done, and have been accounted since, I suppose, an useless fop, and fit only to plant coleworts, and I cannot bend to mean submissions; and this, Sir, is the history of the Historian. I confess to you, I had once the vanity to hope, had my patron continued in his station, for some, at least, honorary title that might have animated my progress, as seeing then some amongst them whose talents I did not envy: but it was not my fortune to succeed.’ This certainly seems as if Evelyn had been hoping for knighthood from King Charles. If his desire lay this way, it is difficult to reconcile such private admission with the definite statement made in the diary of 19th April, 1661, that ‘he might have receiv’d this honour,’ of Knighthood of the Bath ‘but declined it.’

Evelyn’s other publications, works of considerably less importance, include Tyrannus or the Mode, in a Discourse of Sumptuary Laws (1661); A Parallel of the Ancient Architecture with the Modern (1664), and An Idea of the Perfection of Painting, Demonstrated from the Principles of Art (1668), both translated from the French of Roland Freart; Another Part of the Mystery of Jesuitisim, also from the French (1665); Publick Employment, and an Active Life preferr’d to Solitude (1667: a reply to Sir George Mackenzie’s Work on Solitude); The History of three late famous Imposters (Padre Ottomano, Mahomed Bei, and Sabatei Sevi: 1669); Mundus Muliebris: or the Ladies Dressing-room Unlock’d and her Toilette spread (1690: a burlesque poem, ‘A voyage to Marryland,’ cataloguing female follies of the time, by his daughter Mary, who died in 1685); Numismata: a Discourse of Medals, Antient and Modern: &c. (1697); and Acetaria: a Discourse of Sallets (1699), which was merely a chapter, written many years previously, of an extensive work he intended writing under the comprehensive title of Elysium Britannicum. There is no doubt that, but for his immersion in public affairs in middle life, Evelyn would have been a much larger producer of literary work than he actually was. But it seems very questionable if this would in any substantial way have added to the enduring reputation he won for himself by Sylva.

In addition to his published works, however, he left numerous manuscripts, which he had noted as ‘Things I would write out faire and reform if I had leisure,’ comprising poems, mathematical papers, religious meditations, and biographies. The most ambitious of his poems is Thyrsander, a Tragy-Comedy, which is probably one of those referred to by Pepys in his Diary for 5th Novr. 1665, when, visiting Evelyn at Sayes Court, he says that ‘He read me part of a play or two of his making, very good, but not as he conceits them, I think, to be.’ Some of these, including My own Ephemeris or Diarie, an autobiographical memoir based on the journal or common-place book kept by him ever since being eleven years of age, and his correspondence, were published posthumously as Memoirs illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn Esqre. F.R.S. in 1818. This has gone through nine editions and reprints; and it affords, along with Pepys’ diary, one of the best views of the life of those times. Each is the complement of the other, and the only matter of regret is that the original manuscript of Evelyn’s actual diary has not hitherto been forthcoming, as it would be infinitely preferable to the compilation he made therefrom, which often refers to future events. Other of his MSS. appeared as Miscellaneous Writings of John Evelyn Esq. F.R.S. in 1825, The Life of Mrs. Godolphin (see page xlv) in 1847, and subsequently in five or six editions and reprints, and The History of Religion: A Rational Account of the True Religion in 1850. Of these the so-called Diary is by far the most interesting and important, and it is on it and on the Sylva that his literary reputation rests and has a sure and abiding foundation.

VIII
Evelyn’s Influence on British Arboriculture.

There can be no doubt that John Evelyn, both during his own lifetime and throughout the two centuries which have elapsed since his death in 1706, has exerted more individual influence, through his charming Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesty’s Dominion (first published in 1664) than can be ascribed to any other individual. The attention drawn to the subject of Arboriculture by Dr. Hunter towards the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries was in connection with several new editions of that classic work, while the impulse given to the formation of large plantations between 1800 and 1830 by Sir Walter Scott and the celebrated Quarterly Review articles was connected very closely indeed with the appearance of fresh editions of Sylva.

It is easy to understand the success of Evelyn’s work and the influence he exerted on British Arboriculture. First and foremost, he held the brief in an excellent cause, because the maintenance of adequate supplies of oak timber for shipbuilding ever remained a question of very serious national importance right down to the time when this pressure was removed by the introduction of steam communication and the use of Indian Teak and subsequently of iron for purposes of construction. Then again, his position as a courtier and a country gentleman, and as one of the most prominent members of the recently established Royal Society, gave him a much higher degree of prominence than such adventitious aids would ensure in our present far more democratic days. Finally, he had no small confidence in his own ability (‘conceit’ his friend Mr. Samuel Pepys calls it in his diary); and this has been recognised in the numerous editions of Sylva that have from time to time been found worthy of publication.

Although by far the most celebrated of English writers on Arboriculture, Evelyn was by no means the first who wrote on this subject. That honour belongs to Master Fitzherbert, whose Boke of Husbandrie was published in 1534. But it is a curious fact that the most important previous contribution towards the propagation of timber—leaving Manwood’s Treatise of the Forrest Lawes (1598) out of consideration—is apparently never mentioned by Evelyn. This was a small booklet of 34 pages, a mere pamphlet in size, published in 1613 by Arthur Standish and entitled New Directions of Experience ... for the Increasing of Timber and Firewood. In this, Standish strongly urged sowing and planting on an extensive scale; and the pamphlet was so highly approved by King James I., that in 1615 a second edition was issued. This included, among the prefatory matters, a royal proclamation ‘By the King, To all Noblemen, Gentlemen, and other our loving Subjects, to whom it may appertaine,’ which set forth the ‘severall good projects for the increasing of Woods’ and recommended them to ‘be willingly received and put in practise’ with a view to restore the decay of timber ‘universally complained of’ within the realm.

Although exhortations and royal proclamations had previously been issued more than once by James I. relative to the ‘storing’ of timber trees when falls were being made in copsewoods, and generally to ensure better effect being given to the intentions of Henry VIII’s Statute of Woods of 1543, as amended during Queen Elizabeth’s reign (in 1570), yet Standish’s treatise was the first occasion (so far as I have been able to discover) on which a private subject had endeavoured to stimulate the progress of British Forestry by means of the publication of his views in the form of a small book. His aims and objects are thus described on the title-page of the second or royal edition of 1615:—“NEW DIRECTIONS OF EXPERIENCE authorized by the King’s most excellent Majesty, as may appeare, for the increasing of Timber and Fire-wood, with the least waste and losse of ground. With a Neare Estimation, what millions of acres the Kingdome doth containe; what acres is waste ground, wherever little profit for this purpose will arise—which waste being deducted, the remaine is twenty-five millions; forth of which millions, if two hundred and forty thousand Acres be planted and preserved according to the directions following, which is but the hundred part of the twenty-five millions, there may be as much timber raised, as will maintaine the Kingdome for all uses for ever. And how as great store of Fire-wood may be raised, forth of hedges, as may plentifully mainetaine the Kingdome for all purposes, without losse of ground; so as within thirty years all Spring-woods[lxvii:1] may be converted to Tillage and Pasture. By Arthur Standish. Anno Domini MDCXV.”

This was the only work of the sort which had been published up to the time of Evelyn’s Sylva appearing about fifty years later, in 1662. It is curious that he made no reference to this work written with similar objects to those he himself had in view. Another work, however, he does mention, evidently that of a practical horticulturist and arboriculturist, probably belonging to a lower status of society than himself. Writing of the New Orchard and Garden (1597, 2nd. edit. 1623), he patronises the author by calling him ‘our countryman honest Lawson’; and after giving a long quotation from it with regard to pruning, he complacently concludes by adding ‘Thus far the good man out of his eight and forty years experience concerning timber-trees.’

Evelyn had the satisfaction of seeing his work bear much fruit during his own life-time, and this must have occasioned a quite exceptionally keen pleasure to a man of his disposition. In his preface, dated 5 December 1678, to the fourth edition of Sylva, he writes in ‘The Epistle Dedicatory’ to the King that ‘I need not acquaint your Majesty how many millions of timber-trees, besides infinite others, have been propagated and planted throughout your vast dominions, at the instigation, and by the sole directions of this work; because your gracious Majesty had been pleased to own it publickly for my encouragement, who in all that I here pretend to say, deliver only those precepts which your Majesty has put in practise; as having, like another Cyrus, by your own royal example, exceeded all your predecessors in the plantations you have made, beyond, I dare assert it, all the Monarchs of this nation, since the conquest of it.’

Apart from the planting done in the royal woods and forests, details of Evelyn’s diary shew that he was frequently called upon to give advice with regard to laying out private plantations,—as well as of ornamental gardens, on which subject he was also considered one of the leading authorities of the time.

More than a century after Evelyn’s death, during the time of our wars with France, the demand for timber and the serious outlook with regard to future supplies once more drew marked attention to the propagation of timber throughout Britain, and many plantations of oak were then made which have not yet been entirely cleared to make way for other and now more profitable crops of wood. A very decided impetus was given in this direction by the re-publication of the text of the fourth edition of Sylva (as finally revised by the author in 1678), with copious notes by Dr. A. Hunter F.R.S. in 1812. A most appreciative and favourable review of this work is contained in the Quarterly Review for March 1813 (Vol. ix), which was of much assistance in drawing the attention of our great landowners to the advantages of growing timber. Plantations could then be made at about one-fourth to one-third (and often less than that) of what it now costs to make them, while the market for timber and wood of all sorts was then favourable, with a steady demand likely to increase as time rolled on and the national commerce and industries expanded,—because in those days the economic revolution, accomplished through the subsequent discoveries of the great uses to which steam and iron are now put, were not then dreamed of.

This Quarterly Review article was an appreciation of Evelyn,—and not the only one made by that celebrated periodical, as we shall see presently. It traced the history of the work, showing how Charles II. ‘was too sensible a man to think of compelling his subjects to plant, by fines and forfeitures for the omission. Example he knew would do something, and he had scope enough for the purpose in his own wasted forests; but an animated exhortation from the press, in an age when the nobility and gentry began to read and to reflect, he knew would do more. A proper person for the purpose therefore was sought and found; a man of family, fortune, and learning; an experienced planter; a virtuoso, and not a little of an enthusiast in his own walk. Such was Mr. Evelyn: and to this occasion we are indebted for the Sylva, which has therefore a title to be regarded as a national work... It sounded the trumpet of alarm to the nation on the condition of their woods and forests.’

The re-publication of the Sylva by Dr. Hunter, coming at an appropriate moment, revived the ardour which the work had excited about 60 years previously, and ‘while forests were laid prostrate to protect our shores from the insults of the enemy, the nobility and gentry began once more to sow the seeds of future navies.’

Previous to 1812, planting on any large scale whether for profit or ornament seems to have been confined chiefly to great estates, and ‘if a private gentleman, in the century preceding, planted an hedgrow of an hundred oaks, it was recorded, for the benefit of posterity, in his diary.’ The trade in the supply of plants had previously been in the hands of a few nurserymen, but on the appearance of Dr. Hunter’s new edition many private nurseries were established. This was more especially the case in Scotland, where the Scottish nobility took the lead ‘in this national and patriotic work,’—which promised to be very profitable, owing to the recent introduction of the larch. The well-deserved eulogy given in the Quarterly Review article to the rapid growth of fine timber of this valuable forest tree was the direct cause of larch plantations being largely extended, because it was said that ‘a tree which, if the oak should fail, would build navies, and if the forests of Livonia or Norway or Canada were exhausted, would build cities, is an acquisition to this island almost without a parallel.’ And it still is one of the most valuable of our woodland trees, despite the cankerous fungus-disease which has certainly been (indirectly) due in no small degree to injudicious planting in pure woods on unsuitable soils and situations.

This Quarterly Review article of 1813 probably did quite as much to stimulate planting throughout Great Britain as the Sylva itself had previously done; but as Evelyn’s classic formed the text for the exhortation, the beneficial effects must of course in great part be ascribed to his influence.

A few years later, the Quarterly Review in an article on Evelyn’s Memoirs (April, 1818), again sings the well-deserved praise of his influence on British Arboriculture. ‘The greater part of the woods, which were raised in consequence of Evelyn’s writings, have been cut down: the oaks have borne the British flag to seas and countries which were undiscovered when they were planted, and generation after generation has been coffined in the elms. The trees of his age, which may yet be standing, are verging fast toward their decay and dissolution: but his name is fresh in the land, and his reputation, like the trees of an Indian Paradise, exists and will continue to exist in full strength and beauty, uninjured by the course of time.

Thrones fall and Dynasties are changed:
Empires decay and sink
Beneath their own unwieldy weight;
Dominion passeth like a cloud away.
The imperishable mind
Survives all meaner things.

No change of fashion, no alteration of taste, no revolutions of science have impaired or can impair his celebrity.’

Another of the celebrated Quarterly Review articles on Forestry is that On Planting Waste Lands (October, 1827); and even though it was Robert Monteath’s Foresters Guide and Profitable Planter which furnished the peg for a discourse on this occasion, still the spirit breathing throughout the exhortion was the revivification of Evelyn’s influence. And the same must also be said about the article on Loudon’s ‘Trees and Shrubs’ (Quarterly Review; October, 1838), which opens with a eulogy of our great English enthusiast of Arboriculture. ‘The good and peaceful John Evelyn was a great benefactor to England. He was a country gentleman of independent fortune; he held an office under Government; and was personally familiar with Charles II. and James II; yet, in spite of the influence which he then possessed, his example effected little for his favourite object till the publication of the Sylva. Half the charm of this work lies in his contriving to make us feel interested about his trees; he gossips about them, he tells us where they came from and what they are used for, and has a few marvels—not of his own—but told with such perfect good faith that we can hardly help believing them with him. This was the secret by which he managed to attract the attention of even the wits and gallants of ‘the gay court;’ and thus it was that he gave an impulse to planting those ‘goodly woods and forests,’ the absence of which, in his own time, he so feelingly laments, and which now crown our hills and enrich our valleys. Mr. Loudon has followed Evelyn’s track. Tradition—history—poetry—anecdote enliven his pages; the reader soon feels as if his instructor were a good natured and entertaining friend. He has also not contented himself with merely recalling old favourites to our memory, but has introduced to us numerous agreeable foreigners whose acquaintance we ought to rejoice to make, since by their aid we may hope, in the course of another half century, to see our woods and plantations presenting the richness and variety of the American autumns, the trees which produce those ‘lovely tints of scarlet and of gold,’ of which travellers tell us, are all to be obtained at moderate cost in every nursery; and that they will thrive perfectly in this country Fonthill and White Knights bear ample testimony.’

Hardly anything can well be added to the above testimony regarding Evelyn’s influence on Arboriculture throughout the British Isles. Economic conditions have changed entirely since his time, but the spirit living and breathing in Sylva is still that which is found influencing many of our great landowners. And it is an influence which cannot be indicated in any mere enumeration of the number of trees planted or of acres enclosed as woodlands either for purposes of profit or of ornament.

Far more is, of course, now known with regard to the physiology and the natural requirements of our forest trees—e.g. with reference to soil and situation, demand for light and capacity of enduring shade, etc.,—than was known in Evelyn’s time. Many of his arguments could easily be shown to be wrong, and many of his recommendations could equally easily be proved to be inefficacious and inexpedient, just as old works on Agriculture can no longer be accepted as trustworthy text-books for the teaching of modern farming; because Vegetable Physiology forms the true and scientific basis of both the arts relating to the cultivation of the soil, Agriculture and Forestry; and Vegetable Physiology is a branch of botanical science which is only of comparatively recent growth.

Many works on Sylviculture or Forestry, on business principles, have appeared in England and Scotland within the last fifteen years, but this new edition of Sylva makes no pretence to belong to such an up-to-date class of works. It is merely a reprint of the last edition that was revised by Evelyn himself; and no notes of any description have been added, such as those to be found in the several editions published by Dr. Hunter. The present reprint is intended for those who love our forests and woodlands and the old trees surviving in parks and chases as links with the distant past; and it will also, for its own sake, appeal no less strongly to those who love to peruse a classic work, written in the very highly polished and ornate style affected by writers of distinction in the seventeenth century.

John Nisbet.

[xxxi:1] This promise Charles afterwards failed to keep as, in 1672, he merely renewed the lease of the pastures for 99 years.

[lxvii:1] Coppices.

S I L V A,
Or a DISCOURSE of
FOREST-TREES,
AND THE
PROPAGATION of TIMBER
In His MAJESTY’s DOMINIONS.

As it was Deliver’d in the ROYAL SOCIETY the xv^th of October, MDCLXII
upon occasion of certain Quæries propounded to that Illustrious Assembly, by the
Honourable the Principal Officers and Commissioners of the Navy.

In TWO BOOKS.

Together with an Historical Account of the Sacredness and Use of Standing Groves.

TERRA,
A Philosophical ESSAY of EARTH, being a Lecture in Course.

To which is annexed
POMONA:
OR, AN
Appendix concerning Fruit-Trees, in relation to CYDER;
The Making, and several Ways of Ordering it.

Published by Express Order of the ROYAL SOCIETY.

ALSO
ACETARIA:
Or, a DISCOURSE of SALLETS.

WITH
KALENDARIVM HORTENSE;
OR THE
GARD’NERS ALMANACK;
Directing what he is to do Monthly throughout the Year.

All which several Treatises are in this FOURTH EDITION much Inlarg’d and Improv’d,
By the AUTHOR
JOHN EVELYN, Esq; Fellow of the ROYAL SOCIETY

........Tibi res antiquae laudis & artis
Ingredior, tantos ausus recludere fontes. Virg.

LONDON:
Printed for Robert Scott in Little-Britain; Richard Chiswell in St. Paul’s Churchyard; George Sawbridge in Little-Britain; and Benj. Tooke in Fleetstreet. MDCCVI.

TO THE
KING.

For to whom, Sir, with so Just and Equal Right should I present the Fruits of my Labours, as to the Patron of that SOCIETY, under whose Influence, as it was produced; so to whose Auspices alone it owes the Favourable Acceptance which it has receiv’d in the World? To You then (Royal Sir) does this Third Edition continue its Humble Addresses, Tanquam MEMORUM VINDICI; as of old, they paid their Devotions,[lxxv:1] HERCULI & SILVANO; since You are our Θεὸς ὑλικός Nemorensis Rex; as having once Your Temple, and Court too, under that Sacred Oak which You Consecrated with Your Presence, and we Celebrate, with Just Acknowledgment to God for Your Preservation.

I need not Aquaint Your Majesty, how many Millions of Timber-Trees (beside infinite others) have been Propagated and Planted throughout Your vast Dominions, at the Instigation, and by the sole Direction of this Work; because Your Gracious Majesty, has been pleas’d to own it Publickly, for my Encouragement, who, in all that I here pretend to say, deliver only those Precepts which Your Majesty has put into Practice; as having (like another Cyrus) by Your own Royal Example, exceeded all your Predecessors in the Plantations You have made, beyond (I dare assert it) all the Monarchs of this Nation, since the Conquest of it. And, indeed what more August, what more Worthy Your Majesty, or more becoming our Imitation? than whilst You are thus solicitous for the Publick Good, we pursue Your Majesty’s Great Example; and by cultivating our decaying Woods, contribute to Your Power, as to Your greatest Wealth and Safety; since whilst Your Majesty is furnish’d to send forth those Argo’s and Trojan Horses,[lxxvi:1] about this Happy Island, we are to fear nothing from without it; and whilst we remain Obedient to Your just Commands, nothing from within it.

’Tis now some Years past that Your Majesty was pleas’d to declare Your Favourable Acceptance of a Treatise of Architecture which I then presented to You, with many Gracious Expressions, and that it was a most useful Piece. Sir, that Encouragement (together with the Success of the Book it self, and of the former Editions of this) has animated me still to continue my Oblation to Your Majesty of these Improvements: Nor was it certainly without some Provident Conduct, that we have been thus solicitous to begin, as it were, with Materials for Building, and Directions to Builders; if due Reflection be made on that Deplorable Calamity, the Conflagration of Your Imperial City; which nevertheless, by the Blessing of God, and Your Majesty’s Gracious Influence, we have seen Rise again, a New, and much more Glorious PHOENIX.

This TRIBUTE I now once more lay at the Feet of our ROYAL FOUNDER.

May Your Majesty be pleas’d to be Invok’d by that no Inglorious TITLE, in the profoundest Submission of

Gracious Sir,
Your Majesty’s
Ever Loyal, most Obedient and
Faithful Subject and Servant,
J. Evelyn.

Sayes-Court,
5 Decemb.
1678.

[lxxv:1] Cato de R. R. cap. 73. Aurel. Vict. Class. Phil. apud. Tranquill. And so Nemestinus Deus Nemorum. Arnob. l. 4.

[lxxvi:1] Argon, lib. 1. That Famous Ship built of the Dodonaean Oak.

TO THE
READER.

After what the Frontispiece and Porch this Wooden Edifice presents you, I shall need no farther to repeat the Occasion of this following Discourse; I am only to acquaint you, That as it was delivered to the Royal Society by an unworthy Member thereof, in Obedience to their Commands; by the same it is now Re-publish’d without any farther Prospect: And the Reader is to know, That if these dry sticks afford him any Sap, it is one of the least and meanest of those Pieces which are every day produc’d by that Illustrious Assembly, and which enrich their Collections, as so many Monuments of their accurate Experiments, and publick Endeavours, in order to the production of real and useful Theories, the Propagation and Improvement of Natural Science, and the honour of their Institution. If to this there be any thing subjoyned here, which may a while bespeak the Patience of the Reader, it is only for the encouragement of an Industry, and worthy Labour, much in our days neglected, as haply reputed a Consideration of too sordid and vulgar a nature for Noble Persons, and Gentlemen to busie themselves withal, and who oftner find out occasions to Fell-down, and Destroy their Woods and Plantations, than either to repair or improve them.

But we are not without hopes of taking off these Prejudices, and of reconciling them to a Subject and an Industry which has been consecrated (as I may say) by as good, and as great Persons, as any the World has produced; and whose Names we find mingl’d amongst Kings and Philosophers, grave Senators, and Patriots of their Country: For such of old were Solomon, Cyrus, and Numa, Licinius surnamed Stolo, Cato, and Cincinnatus; the Piso’s, Fabii, Cicero, the Plinies, and thousands more whom I might enumerate, that disdained not to cultivate these Rusticities even with their own hands, and to esteem it no small Accession, to dignifie their Titles, and adorn their purple with these Rural Characters of their affections to Planting, and love of this part of Agriculture, which has transmitted to us their venerable Names through so many Ages and Vicissitudes of the World.

That famous Answer alone which the Persian Monarch gave to Lysander, will sufficiently justifie that which I have said; besides what we might add, out of the Writings and Examples of the rest: But since these may suffice after due reproofs of the late impolitique Wast, and universal sloth amongst us; we should now turn our Indignation into Prayers, and address our selves to our better-natur’d Countrymen;[lxxviii:1] that such Woods as do yet remain intire, might be carefully preserved, and such as are destroy’d, sedulously repaired: It is what all Persons who are Owners of Land may contribute to, and with infinite delight, as well as profit, who are touch’d with that laudable Ambition of imitating their Illustrious Ancestors, and of worthily serving their Generation. To these my earnest and humble Advice should be, That at their very first coming to their Estates, and as soon as they get Children, they would seriously think of this Work of Propagation also: For I observe there is no part of Husbandry, which Men commonly more fail in, neglect, and have cause to repent of, than that they did not begin Planting betimes, without which, they can expect neither Fruit, Ornament, or Delight from their Labours: Men seldom plant Trees till they begin to be Wise, that is, till they grow Old, and find by Experience the Prudence and Necessity of it. When Ulysses, after a ten-years Absence, was return’d from Troy, and coming home, found his aged Father in the Field planting of Trees, He asked him, why (being now so far advanc’d in Years) he would put himself to the Fatigue and Labour of Planting, that which he was never likely to enjoy the Fruits of? The good old Man (taking him for a Stranger) gently reply’d; I plant (says he) against my Son Ulysses comes home. The Application is Obvious and Instructive for both Old and Young. And we have a more modern Instance, almost alike that of the good old Laertes. Here then upon the Complaint of learned Persons and great Travellers, deploring the loss of many rare and precious Things, Trees and Plants, especially instancing the Balsam-Tree of Gilead (now almost, if not altogether failing, and no more to be found where it grew in great plenty.) He applys himself to young Eperous, to consider it seriously, and to fall a planting while time is before them, with this incouraging Exclamation, Agite, ô Adolescentes, & antequam canities vobis obrepat, stirpes jam alueritis, quae vobis cum insigni utilitate, delectationem etiam adferent: Nam quemadmodum canities temporis successu, vobis insciis, sensim obrepit: Sic natura vobis inserviens educabit quod telluri vestrae concredetis, modo prima initia illi dederitis, &c. Pet. Bellonius De neglecta stirpium Cultura. Problema ix.

My next Advice is, that they do not easily commit themselves to the Dictates of their ignorant Hinds and Servants,[lxxix:1] who are (generally speaking) more fit to Learn than to Instruct. Male agitur cum Domino quem Villicus docet, was an Observation of old Cato’s; and ’twas Ischomachus who told Socrates (discoursing one day upon a like subject) That it was far easier to Make, than to Find a good Husband-man: I have often prov’d it so in Gardeners; and I believe it will hold in most of our Country Employments: Country People universally know that all Trees consist of Roots, Stems, Boughs, Leaves, &c. but can give no account of the Species, Virtues, or farther Culture, besides the making of a Pit or Hole; casting, and treading in the Earth, &c. which require a deeper search, than they are capable of: We are then to exact Labour, not Conduct and Reason, from the greatest part of them; and the business of Planting is an Art or Science (for so Varro has solemnly defined it;[lxxx:1]) and that exceedingly wide of Truth, which (it seems) many in his time accounted of it; facillimam esse, nec ullius acuminis Rusticationem,[lxxx:2] namely that it was an easie and insipid Study. It was the simple Culture only, with so much difficulty retrieved from the late confusion of an intestine and bloody War, like that of Ours, and now put in Reputation again, which made the noble Poet write,

........How hard it was
Low Subjects with illustrious words to grace.
........Verbis ea vincere magnum
Quam sit, & angustis hunc addere rebus honorem.
Georg. 3.

Seeing, as the Orator does himself express it, Nihil est homine libero dignius; there is nothing more becoming and worthy of a Gentleman, no, not the Majesty of a[lxxx:3] Consul. In ancient and best Times, Men were not honour’d and esteem’d for the only Learned, who were great Linguists, profound Criticks, Reader and Devourers of Books: But such whose Studies consisted of the Discourses, Documents and Observations of their Fore-Fathers, ancient and venerable Persons; who, (as the excellent Author of the Rites of the Israelites, cap. xv, &c. acquaints us,) were oblig’d to Instruct, and Inform their Children of the wonderful Things God had done for their Ancestors; together with the Precepts of the Moral Law, Feasts, and Religious Ceremonies: But taught them likewise all that concern’d Agriculture; joyn’d with Lessons of perpetual practice; in which they were, doubtless, exceedingly knowing; whilst during so many Ages, they employ’d themselves almost continually in it: And tho’ now adays this noble Art be for the most part, left to be exercis’d amongst us, by People of grosser and unthinking Souls; yet there is no Science whatever, which contains a vaster Compass of Knowledge, infinitely more useful and beneficial to Mankind, than the fruitless and empty Notions of the greatest part of Speculatists; counted to be the only Eruditi and learned Men. An Israelite, who from Tradition of his Fore-fathers, his own Experience, and some modern Reading, had inform’d himself of the Religion and Laws which were to regulate his Life; and knew how to procure Things necessary: Who perfectly understood the several qualities of the Earth, Plants, and Places agreeable to each sort, and to cultivate, propagate, defend them from Accidents, and bring them to Maturity: That also was skill’d in the nature of Cattel, their Food, Diseases, Remedies, &c. which those who amongst us pass for the most learned and accomplish’d Gentlemen, and Scholars, are, for the most part, grosly ignorant of, look upon as base, rustick, and things below them: is (in this learned Author’s Opinion) infinitely more to be valued, than a Man brought up either in wrangling at the Bar; or the noisie, and ridiculous Disputes of our Schools, &c. To this Sense the learn’d Modena. And ’tis remarkable, that after all that wise Solomon had said, that All was vanity and vexation of Spirit (among so many particulars he reckons up,) he should be altogether silent, and say nothing concerning Husbandry; as, doubtless, considering it the most useful, innocent and laudable Employment of our Life, requiring those who cultivate the Ground to live in the Country, remote from City-Luxury, and the temptation to the Vices he condemns. It was indeed a plain Man[lxxxii:1] (a Potter by Trade) but let no body despise him because a Potter (Agathocles, and a King was of that Craft) who in my Opinion has given us the true reason why Husbandry, and particularly Planting, is no more improved in this Age of ours; especially, where Persons are Lords and Owners of much Land. The truth is, says he, when Men have acquired any considerable Fortune by their good Husbandry, and experience (forgetting that the greatest Patriarchs, Princes, their Sons and Daughters, belonged to the Plough, and the Flock) they account it a shame to breed up their Children in the same Calling which they themselves were educated in, but presently design them Gentlemen: They must forsooth, have a Coat of Arms, and live upon their Estates; So as by the time his Sons Beard is grown, he begins to be asham’d of his Father, and would be ready to defie him, that should upon any occasion mind him of his honest Extraction: And if it chance that the good Man have other Children to provide for; This must be the Darling, be bred at School, and the University, whilst the rest must to Cart and Plow with the Father, &c. This is the Cause, says my Author, that our Lands are so ill Cultivated and neglected. Every body will subsist upon their own Revenue, and take their Pleasure, whilst they resign their Estates to be manag’d by the most Ignorant, which are the Children whom they leave at home, or the Hinds to whom they commit them. When as in truth, and in reason, the more Learning, the better Philosophers, and the greater Abilities they possess, the more, and the better are they qualified, to Cultivate, and improve their Estates: Methinks this is well and rationally argued.

And now you have in part what I had to produce in extenuation of this Adventure; that Animated with a Command, and Assisted by divers Worthy Persons (whose Names I am prone to celebrate with all just Respects) I have presumed to cast in my Symbol; which, with the rest that are to follow, may (I hope) be in some degree serviceable to him (who ere the happy Person be) that shall oblige the World with that compleat Systeme of Agriculture, which as yet seems a desideratum, and wanting to its full perfection. It is (I assure you) what is one of the Principal designs of the ROYAL SOCIETY, not in this Particular only, but through all the Liberal and more useful Arts; and for which (in the estimation of all equal Judges) it will merit the greatest of Encouragements; that so, at last, what the Learned Columella has wittily reproached, and complained of, as a defect in that Age of his, concerning Agriculture in general, and is applicable here, may attain its desired Remedy and Consummation in This of Ours.

Sola enim Res Rustica, quae sine dubitatione proxima, & quasi consanguinea Sapientiae est, tam discentibus eget, quam magistris: Adhuc enim Scholas Rhetorum, & Geometrarum, Musicorumque, vel quod magis mirandum est, contemptissimorum vitiorum officinas, gulosius condiendi cibos, & luxuriosius fercula struendi, capitumque & capillorum concinnatores, non solum esse audivi, sed & ipse vidi; Agricolationis neque Doctores qui se profiterentur, neque Discipulos cognovi.[lxxxiii:1] But this I leave for our Peruk’d Gallants to interpret, and should now apply my self to the Directive Part, which I am all this while bespeaking, if after what I have said in the several Paragraphs of the ensuing Discourse upon the Argument of Wood, (and which in this Fourth Edition coming Abroad with innumerable Improvements, and Advantages (so furnished, as I hope shall neither reproach the Author, or repent the Reader) it might not seem superfluous to have premised any thing here for the Encouragement of so becoming an Industry. There are divers Learned, and judicious Men who have preceded Me in this Argument; as many, at least, as have undertaken to Write and Compile vast Herbals, and Theaters of Plants; of which we have some of our own Country-men, (especially, the most Industrious and Learned Mr. Ray) who have (boldly I dare affirm it) surpass’d any, if not all the Foreigners that are extant: In those it is you meet with the Description of the several Plants, by Discourses, Figures, Names, Places of Growth; time of Flourishing, and their Medicinal Virtues; which may supply any deficiency of mine as to those Particulars; if forbearing the Repetition, it should by any be imputed for a defect, though it were indeed none of my design: I say, these things are long since performed to our hands: But there is none of these (that I at least know of, and are come to my perusal) who have taken any considerable pains how to Direct, and Encourage us in the Culture of Forest-Trees (the grand defect of this Nation) besides some small sprinklings to be met withal in Gervas Markham, old Tusser, and of Foreigners, the Country-Farm long since translated out of French, and by no means suitable to our Clime and Country: Neither have any of these proceeded after my Method, and particularly, in Raising, Planting, Dressing, and Governing, &c. or so sedulously made it their business, to specifie the Mechanical Uses of the several kinds, as I have done, which was hitherto a great desideratum, and in which the Reader will likewise find some things altogether New and Instructive; and both Directions and Encouragements for the Propagation of some Foreign Curiosities of Ornament and Use, which were hitherto neglected. If I have upon occasion presumed to say any thing concerning their Medicinal properties, it has been Modestly and Frugally, and with chief, if not only respect to the poor Wood-man, whom none I presume will envy, that living far from the Physician, he should in case of Necessity, consult the reverend Druid, his[lxxxv:1] Oaks and his Elm, Birch, or Elder, for a short Breath, a Green Wound, or a sore Leg; Casualties incident to this hard Labour. These are the chief Particulars of this ensuing Work, and what it pretends hitherto of Singular, in which let me be permitted to say, There is sufficient for Instruction, and more than is extant in any Collection whatsoever (absit verbo invidia) in this way and upon this Subject; abstracting things Practicable, of solid use and material, from the Ostentation and Impertinences of divers Writers; who receiving all that came to hand on trust, to swell their monstrous Volumes, have hitherto impos’d upon the credulous World, without conscience or honesty. I will not exasperate the Adorers of our ancient and late Naturalists, by repeating of what our Verulam has justly pronounced concerning their Rhapsodies (because I likewise honour their painful Endeavours, and am obliged to them for much of that I know,) nor will I (with some) reproach Pliny, Porta, Cardan, Mizaldus, Cursius, and many others of great Names (whose Writings I have diligently consulted) for the Knowledge they have imparted to me on this Occasion; but I must deplore the time which is (for the most part) so miserably lost in pursuit of their Speculations, where they treat upon this Argument: But the World is now advis’d, and (blessed be God) infinitely redeem’d from that base and servile submission of our noblest Faculties to their blind Traditions. This you will be apt to say, is a haughty Period; but whilst I affirm it of the Past, it justifies, and does honour to the Present Industry of our Age, and of which there cannot be a greater and more emulous Instance, than the Passion of His Majesty to encourage his Subjects, and of the Royal Society, (His Majesty’s Foundation) who receive and promote His Dictates, in all that is laudable and truly emolumental of this Nature.

It is not therefore that I here presume to instruct Him in the management of that great and august Enterprise of resolving to Plant and repair His ample Forests, and other Magazines of Timber, for the benefit of His Royal Navy, and the glory of His Kingdoms; but to present to His Sacred Majesty, and to the World, what Advices I have received from others, observed my self, and most industriously collected from a studious Propensity to serve as one of the least Intelligences in the ampler Orb of our Illustrious Society, and in a Work so necessary and important.

And now since I mention’d the Society, give me leave (Worthy Reader) as a Member of that Body, which has been the chief Promoter of this ensuing Work, (and, as I stand oblig’d) to vindicate that Assembly, and consequently, the Honour of his Majesty and the Nation, in a Particular which concerns it, though (in appearance) a little forreign to the present Subject.

I will not say that all which I have written in the several Paragraphs of this Treatise, is New; but that there are very many New, and useful things, and Observations (without insisting on the Methods only) not hitherto deliver’d by any Author, and so freely communicated, I hope will sufficiently appear: It is not therefore in behalf of any Particular which concerns my self, that I have been induced to enlarge this Preface; but, by taking this Occasion, to encounter the unsufferable Boldness, or Ambition of some Persons (as well Strangers, as others) arrogating to themselves the being Inventors of divers New and useful Experiments, justly attributable to several Members of the Royal Society.[lxxxvii:1]

So far has that Assembly been from affecting Glory, that they seem rather to have declin’d their due; not as asham’d of so numerous and fair an Off-spring; but as abundantly satisfied, that after all the hard measure, and virulent Reproaches they had sustain’d, for endeavouring by united Attempts, and at their own Charges, to improve Real Philosophy; they had from time to time, cultivated that Province in so many useful and profitable Instances, as are already published to the World, and will be easily asserted to their Authors before all equitable Judges.

This being the sole inducement of publishing this Apology; it may not perhaps seem unseasonable to disabuse some (otherwise) well-meaning People, who led away and perverted by the Noise of a few Ignorant and Comical Buffoons, (whose Malevolence, or Impertinencies intitle them to nothing that is truly Great and Venerable) are with an Insolence suitable to their Understanding, still crying out, and asking, What have the Society done?

Now, as nothing less than Miracles (and unless God should every day repeat them at the Call of these Extravagants) will convince some Persons, of the most Rational and Divine Truths, (already so often and extraordinarily establish’d;) so, nor will any thing satisfie these unreasonable Men, but the production of the Philosophers-stone, and Great-Elixir; which yet were they Possessors of, they would consume upon their Lux and Vanity.

It is not therefore to gratifie these magnificent Fops, whose Talents reach but to the adjusting of their Peruques, courting a Miss, or at the farthest writing a smutty, or scurrilous Libel, (which they would have to pass for genuine Wit) that I concern my self in these papers; but, as well in Honour of our Royal Founder, as the Nation, to Assert what of other Countries has been surreptitiously Arrogated, and by which, they not only value themselves abroad; but (prevailing on the Modesty of that Industrious Assembly) seek the deference of those, who whilst it remains still silent, do not so clearly discern this glorious Plumage to be purely ascititious, and not a Feather of their own. —But still, What have they done?

Those who perfectly comprehend the Scope, and End of that noble Institution; which is to improve Natural Knowledge, and inlarge the Empire of Operative Philosophy; not by an Abolition of the Old, but by the Real Effects of the Experimental; Collecting, Examining, and Improving their scatter’d Phænomena, to establish even the Received Methods and Principles of the Schools (as far as were consistent with Truth, and matter of Fact) thought it long enough, that the World had been impos’d upon by that Notional, and Formal way of delivering divers Systems and Bodies of Philosophie (falsely so call’d) beyond which there was no more Country to discover; which being brought to the Test and Tryal, vapours all away in Fume, and empty Sound.

This Structure then being thus Ruinous and Crazy; ’tis obvious what they were to do; even the same which skilful Architects do every day before us; by pulling down the decay’d and sinking Wall to erect a better, and more substantial in its place: They not only take down the old, reject the useless and decay’d; but sever such Materials as are solid, and will serve again; bring new-ones in, prepare and frame a Model suitable to so magnificent a Design: This Solomon did in order to the Building of the Material Temple; and this is here to be pursued in the Intellectual: Nay, here was abundance of Rubbish to be clear’d, that the Area might be free; and then was the Foundation to be deeply searched, the Materials accurately examined, squared, and adjusted, before it could be laid: Nor was this the Labour of a Few; less than a much longer time, more Cost and Encouragement than any which the Society has yet met withal, could in reason be sufficient effectually to go through so chargeable a Work, and highly necessary.

A long time it was they had been surveying the Decays, of what was ready now to drop in pieces, whatever shew the out-side made with a noise of Elements and Qualities, Occult and Evident; abhorrence of Vacuum, Sympathies, Antipathies; Substantial Forms, and Prime matter courting Form; Epicycles, Ptolemæan Hypotheses, magisterial Definitions, peremptory Maximes, Speculative, and Positive Doctrines, and alti-sonant Phrases, with a thousand other precarious and unintelligible Notions, &c. all which they have been turning over, to see if they could find any thing of sincere and useful among this Pedantick Rubbish, but all in vain; here was nothing material, nothing of moment Mathematical, or Mechanical, and which had not been miserably sophisticated, on which to lay the stress; nothing in a manner whereby any farther Progress could be made, for the raising and ennobling the Dignity of Mankind in the Sublimest Operations of the Rational Faculty, by clearing the Obscurities, and healing the Defects of most of the Phisiological Hypotheses, repugnant, as they hitherto seemed to be, to the Principles of real Knowledge and Experience.

Now although it neither were their Hopes, or in their prospect to consummate a Design requiring so mighty Aids, (inviron’d as they have been with these Prejudices) yet have they not at all desisted from the Enterprize; but rather than so Noble and Illustrious an Undertaking should not proceed for want of some generous and industrious Spirits to promote the Work; they have themselves submitted to those mean Imployments, of digging in the very Quarry; yea even and of making Brick where there was no Straw, but what they gleaned, and lay dispersed up and down: Nor did they think their Pains yet ill bestow’d, if through the assiduous Labour, and a Train of continual Experiments, they might at last furnish, and leave solid and uncorrupt Materials to a succeeding, and more grateful Age, for the building up a Body of real and substantial Philosophy, which should never succumb to Time, but with the Ruines of Nature, and the World it self.

In order to this, how many, and almost innumerable have been their Tryals and Experiments, through the large and ample Field both of Art and Nature? We call our Journals, Registers, Correspondence, and Transactions, to witness; and may with modesty provoke all our Systematical Methodists, Natural Histories, and Pretenders hitherto extant from the beginning of Letters, to this period, to shew us so ample, so worthy and so useful a Collection. ’Tis a Fatality and an Injury to be deplored, that those who give us hard words, will not first vouchsafe impartially to examine these particulars; since all Ingenuous Spirits could not but be abundantly satisfied, that this Illustrious Assembly has not met so many Years purely for Speculation only; though I take even that to be no ignoble Culture of the Mind, or time mispent for Persons who have so few Friends, and slender Obligations, to those who should Patronize and Encourage them: But they have aimed at greater things, and greater things produc’d, namely, by Emancipating, and freeing themselves from the Tyranny of Opinion, delusory and fallacious shews, to receive nothing upon Trust, but bring it to the Lydian Touch, make it pass the Fire, the Anvil and the File, till it come forth perfectly repurged, and of consistence. They are not hasty in concluding from a single, or incompetent number of Experiments, to pronounce the Ecstatic Heureca, and offer Hecatombs; but, after the most diligent Scrutiny, and by degrees, and wary Inductions honestly and faithfully made, to record the Truth, and event of Tryals, and transmit them to Posterity. They resort not immediately to general Propositions, upon every specious appearance; but stay for Light, and Information from Particulars, and make Report de Facto, and as Sense informs them. They reject no Sect of Philosophers, no Mechanic Helps, except no Persons of Men; but chearfully embracing all, cull out of all, and alone retain what abides the Test; that from a plentiful and well furnish’d Magazine of true Experiments, they may in time advance to solemn and established Axiomes, General Rules and Maximes; and a Structure may indeed lift up its head, such as may stand the shock of Time, and render a solid accompt of the Phænomena, and Effects of Nature, the Aspectable Works of God, and their Combinations; so as by Causes and Effects, certain and useful Consequences may be deduced. Therefore they do not fill their Papers with Transcripts out of Rhapsodists, Mountebancs, and Compilers of Receipts and Secrets, to the loss of Oil and Labour; but as it were, eviscerating Nature, disclosing the Ressorts, and Springs of Motion, have collected innumerable Experiments, Histories and Discourses; and brought in Specimens for the Improvement of Astronomy, Geography, Navigation, Optics; all the Parts of Agriculture, the Garden and the Forest; Anatomy of Plants, and Animals; Mines and Ores; Measures and Æquations of Time by accurate Pendulums, and other Motions, Hydro- and Hygrostatics, divers Engines, Powers and Automata, with innumerable more luciferous particulars, subservient to human life, of which Dr. Glanvil has given an ample and ingenious Accompt in his learned Essay: And since in the Posthumous Works of Dr. Hooke, lately publish’d by the most obliging Mr. Waller, already mention’d.

This is (Reader) what they have done; and they are but part of the Materials which the Society have hitherto amassed, and prepared for this great and Illustrious Work; not to pass over an infinity of solitary, and loose Experiments subsidiary to it, gathered at no small Pains and Cost: For so have they hitherto born the Burden and Heat of the day alone; Sapping and Mining to lay the Foundation deep, and raise a Superstructure to be one day perfected, by the joint Endeavours of those who shall in a kinder Age have little else to do, but the putting and cementing of the Parts together, which to collect and fit, have cost them so much Solicitude and Care. Solomon indeed built the glorious Temple; but ’twas David provided the Materials: Did Men in those days insolently ask, What he had done, in all the time of that tedious preparation? I beseech you what Obligation has the R. Society to render an Accompt of their Proceedings to any who are not of the Body, and that carry on the Work at their own expence amidst so many Contradictions? It is an Evil Spirit, and an Evil Age, which having sadly debauch’d the Minds of Men; seeks with Industry to blast and undermine all Attempts and Endeavours that signifie to the Illustration of Truth, the discovery of Impostors, and shake their sandy Foundations.

Those who come (says the noble Verulam) to enquire after Knowledge, with a mind to scorn, shall be sure to find matter for their Humor; but none for their Instruction: Would Men bring light of Invention, and not fire-brands of Contradiction, Knowledge would infinitely increase. But these are the Sanballats and Horonites who disturb our Men upon the Wall[xciii:1]: But, let us rise up and build, and be no more discourag’d. ’Tis impossible to conceive, how so honest, and worthy a Design should have found so few Promoters, and cold a welcome in a Nation whose Eyes are so wide open: We see how greedily the French, and other Strangers embrace and cultivate the Design: What sumptuous Buildings, well furnish’d Observatories, ample Appointments, Salaries, and Accommodations, they have erected to carry on the Work; whilst we live precariously, and spin the Web out of our own Bowels. Indeed we have had the Honour to be the first who led the way, given the Ferment, which like a Train has taken Fire, and warm’d the Regions all about us. This Glory, doubtless, shall none take from us: But whilst they flourish so abroad, we want the Spirit should diffuse it here at home, and give progress to so hopeful a beginning: But as we said, the Enemy of Mankind has done us this despite; it is his Interest to impeach (in any sort) what e’re opposes his Dominion; which is to lead, and settle Men in Errors as well in Arts and Natural Knowledge, as in Religion; and therefore would be glad, the World should still be groping after both. ’Tis he that sets the Buffoons, and empty Sycophants, to turn all that’s Great and Virtuous into Raillery and Derision: ’Tis therefore to encounter these, that like those resolute Builders,[xciii:2] whilst we employ one hand in the Work, we, with the other are oblig’d to hold our Weapon, till some bold, and Gallant Genius deliver us, and raise the Siege. How gloriously would such a Benefactor shine! What a Constellation would he make! How great a Name establish! For mine own part (Religiously I profess it) were I not a Person, who (whilst I stood expecting when others more worthy, and able than my self, should have snatch’d the Opportunity of signalizing a Work worthy of Immortality) had long since given Hostages to Fortune, and so put my self out of a Capacity of shewing my Affection to a Design so glorious; I would not only most chearfully have contributed towards the freeing it from the Straits it has so long struggl’d under; but sacrific’d all my Secular Interests in their Service: But, as I said, this is reserv’d for that Gallant Hero (whoe’er it be) that truly weighing the noble and universal Consequence of so high an Enterprize, shall at last free it of these Reproaches; and either set it above the reach of Envy, or convert it to Emulation. This were indeed to consult an honest Fame, and to embalm the Memory of a Greater Name than any has yet appear’d amongst all the Benefactors of the Disputing Sects: Let it suffice to affirm, that next the Propagation of our most Holy Faith, and its Appendants, (nor can His Majesty or the Nation build their Fame on a more lasting, a more Glorious Monument;) The Propagation of Learning, and useful Arts, having always surviv’d the Triumphs of the proudest Conquerors, and Spillers of humane Blood;) Princes have been more Renown’d for their Civility to Arts and Letters, than to all their Sanguinary Victories, subduing Provinces, and making those brutish Desolations in the World, to feed a salvage and vile Ambition. Witness you Great Alexander, and you the Ptolemees, Cæsars, Charemain, Francis the First; the Cosimo’s, Frederic’s, Alphonsus’s, and the rest of Learned Princes: Since when all the Pomp and Noise is ended; They are those little things in black (whom now in scorn they term Philosophers and Fopps) to whom they must be oblig’d, for making their Names outlast the Pyramids whose Founders are as unknown as the Heads of Nile; because they either deserv’d no Memory for their Vertues, or had none to transmit them, or their Actions to Posterity.

Is not our R. Founder already Panegyriz’d by all the Universities, Academists, Learned Persons, divers Princes Ambassadors, and Illustrious Men from abroad? Witness besides, the many accurate Treatises and Volumes of the most curious and useful Subjects, Medicinal, Mathematical, and Mechanical, dedicated to His Majesty as Founder; to its President, and to the Society, by the greatest Wits, and most profoundly knowing of the European World, celebrating their Institution and Proceedings: Witness, the daily Submissions and solemn Appeals of the most learned Strangers to its Suffrages, as to the most able, candid and impartial Judges: Witness, the Letters, and Correspondencies from most parts of the habitable Earth, East, and West Indies, and almost from Pole to Pole; besides what they have receiv’d from the very Mouths of divers Professors, Publique Ministers, great Travellers, Noblemen, and Persons of highest Quality; who have not only frequented the Assembly, but desir’d to be Incorporated and ascrib’d into their Number; so little has his Majesty, or the Kingdom been diminish’d in their Reputation, by the Royal Society, to the reproach of our sordid Adversaries: Never had the Republique of Letters so learned and universal a Correspondence as has been procur’d and promoted by this Society alone; as not only the casual Transactions of several Years (filled with Instances of the most curious and useful Observations) make appear; but (as I said) the many Nuncupatory Epistles to be seen in the Fronts of so many learned Volumes: There it is you will find CHARLES the II. plac’d among the Heroes and Demi-Gods, for his Patrociny and Protection: There you will see the numerous Congratulations of the most learned Foreigners, celebrating the Happiness of their Institution; and that whilst other Nations are still benighted under the dusky Cloud, such a refulgent Beam should give day to this blessed Isle: And certainly, it is not to be supposed that all these Learned Persons, of so many, and divers Interests, as well as Countries, should speak, and write thus out of Flattery, much less of Ignorance; being Men of the most refin’d Universal Knowledge, as well as Ingenuity: But I should never end, were I to pursue this fruitful Topic. I have but one word more to add, to conciliate the Favour and Esteem of our own Universities, to an Assembly of Gentlemen, who from them acknowledge to have derived all their Abilities for these laudable Undertakings; and what above all is most shining in them of most Christian, Moral, and otherwise conspicuous, as from the Source and Fountain, to which on all occasions, they are not only ready to pay the Tribute and Obsequiousness of humble Servants, but of Sons, and dutiful Alumni. There is nothing verily which they more desire, than a fair and mutual Correspondence between so near Relations, and that they may be perpetually Flourishing and Fruitful in bringing forth (as still they do) supplies to Church and State in all its great Capacities:[xcvi:1] Finally, that they would regard the Royal Society as a Colony of their own planting, and augure it Success. And if in these Labours, and arduous Attempts, several Inventions of present use and service to Mankind (either detecting Errors, illustrating and asserting Truths, or propagating Knowledge in natural things, and the visible Works of God) have been discover’d, as they envy not the communicating them to the World; so should they be wanting to the Society, and to the Honour of divers Learned and Ingenious Persons, (who are the Soul and Body of it) not to vindicate them from the ambitious Plagiary, the Insults of Scoffers and injurious Men: Certainly, Persons of right Noble and subacted Principles, that were Lovers of their Country, should be otherwise affected; and rather strive to encourage, and promote Endeavours tending to so generous a Design, than decry it; especially, when it costs them nothing but their Civility to so many obliging Persons, though they should hitherto have entertain’d them but with some innocent Diversions. To conclude, we envy none their Dues; nay we gratefully acknowledge any Light which we receive either from Home, or from Abroad: We celebrate and record their Names amongst our Benefactors; recommend them to the Publique; and what we thus freely give, we hope as freely to receive.

Thus have I endeavour’d to Vindicate the Royal Society from some Aspersions and Incroachments it hitherto has suffer’d; and shew’d under what Weights and Pressure this Palm does still emerge: And if for all this I fall short of my Attempt, I shall yet have this satisfaction, That tho I derive no Glory from my own Abilities (sensible of my great Defects) I shall yet deserve their pardon for my Zeal to its Prosperity.

Epictetus, κθ.

Φιλοσοφίας ἐπιθυμεῖς‧ παρασκευάζου αὐτόθεν, &c.

Wouldst thou be a Philosopher; Prepare thy self for Scoffs: What, you are setting up for a Virtuoso now? Why so proud I pray? Well, be not thou proud for all this; But so persist in what seems best and laudable; as if God himself had plac’d thee there; and remember, that so long as thou remain’st in that State and Resolution, thy Reproachers will in time admire thee: But if once through Inconstancy thou give out & flinch, διπλοῦν προσλήψῃ καταγέλωτα, Thou deservest to be doubly laugh’d at.

Lord Verulam, Instaur. Scient.

Some Men (like Lucian in Religion) seek by their Wit, to traduce and expose useful things; because to arrive at them, they converse with mean Experiments: But those who despise to be employ’d in ordinary and common matters, never arrive to solid Perfection in Experimental Knowledge.

The changes and Alterations in the several Chapters and Parts throughout this Discourse, with the Additions and Improvements, have often oblig’d me to alter the Method, and indeed to make it almost a New Work.

J. Evelyn.

[lxxviii:1] See Petrarch de Remed. utriusque fortunae L. 1. Dial. 57.

[lxxix:1] Vide & Curtium, l. 7. &c.

[lxxx:1] De R. R.

[lxxx:2] In agris erant tunc Senatores. Cic. de Senect.

[lxxx:3] Silvae sunt Consule dignae. See this of the Poet Interpreted, Scaliger l. 2. c. 1. Poet. P. Nennius, Sueton. Jul. in Lipsium. Tacit, iv. Annal. 27. concerning the Quæstor’s Office.

[lxxxii:1] Palissy, le Moyen de devenir Riche.

[lxxxiii:1] Praefat ad P. Silvinum; which I earnestly recommend to the serious perusal of our Gentry. Et mihi ad sapientis vitam proximè videtur accedere. Cic. de Senectute.

[lxxxv:1] Ne silvae quidem, horridiorque naturae facies medicinis carent, sacra illa parente rerum omnium, nusquam non remedia disponente homini ut Medicina, fieret etiam solitudo ipsa, &c. Hinc nata Medicina, &c. Haec sola naturae placuerat esse remedia parata vulgo, inventu facilia, ac sine impendio, ex quibus vivimus, &c. Plin. l. 24. c. 1.

[lxxxvii:1] Consult Hist. Roy. Soc. and their Registers.

The Laws of Motion, and the Geometrical streightning of Curve Lines were first found out by Sir Christopher Wren and Mr. Thomas Neile.

The equated isocrone Motion of the weight of a Circular Pendulum in a Paraboloid, for the regulating of Clocks; and the improving Pocket-Watches by Springs applied to the Ballance, were first invented and demonstrated to this Society by Dr. Hooke; together with all those New and useful Instruments, Contrivances and Experiments, Mathematical and Physical, publish’d in his Posthumous Works by the most accomplish’d Mr. Waller, Secretary to the R. Society. And since those the incomparably learned Sir Isaac Newton, now President of the Royal Society; Mr. Haly, the Worthy Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford; Dr. Grew, and several more, whose Works and useful Inventions sufficiently celebrate their Merits: I did mention the Barometer, to which might be added the prodigious effects of the Speculum Ustorium, surpassing what the French pretend to, as confidently, or rather audaciously, they do, and to other admirable Inventions, injuriously arrogated by Strangers, tho’ due of right to Englishmen, and Members of this Society; but ’tis not the business of this Preface to enumerate all, tho’ ’twas necessary to touch on some Instances.

[xciii:1] Neh. 2. 19.

[xciii:2] Neh. 4. 17.

[xcvi:1] Since this Epistle was first written and publish’d the University of Oxford have instituted, and erected a Society for the promoting of Natural and Experimental Knowledge, in consort with the R. Society, with which they keep a mutual Correspondence: This mention, for that some Malevolents had so far endeavour’d to possess divers Members of the University; as if the Society design’d nothing less than the undermining of that, and other illustrious Academies, and which indeed so far prevail’d, as to breed a real Jealousy for some considerable time: But as this was never in the Thoughts of the Society (which had ever the Universities in greatest Veneration) so the Innocency and Usefulness of its Institution has at length disabus’d them, vindicated their Proceedings, dissipated all Surmises, and, in fine, produced an ingenious, friendly and candid Union and Correspondence between them.

ADVERTISEMENT.

That I have frequently inserted divers Historical and other Passages, apposite, agreeable to the Subject (abstaining from a number more which I might have added) let it be remember’d that I did not altogether compile this Work for the sake of our ordinary Rustics, (meer Foresters and Wood-men) but for the more Ingenious; the Benefit, and Diversion of Gentlemen, and Persons of Quality, who often refresh themselves in these agreeable Toils of Planting, and the Garden: For the rest, I may perhaps in some places have made use of (here and there) a Word not as yet so familiar to every Reader; but none, that I know of, which are not sufficiently explained by the Context and Discourse. That this may yet be no prejudice to the meaner Capacities, let them read for

Ablaqueation, laying bare the Roots.
Amputation, cutting quite off.
Arborator, Pruner, or one that has care of the Trees.
Avenue, the principal Walk to the Front of the House or Seat.
Bulbs, round or Onion-shap’d Roots.
Calcine, burn to Ashes.
Compost, Dung.
Conservatory, Green-house to keep choice Plants, &c. in.
Contr’espaliere, a Palisade or Pole-hedge.
Coronary Garden, Flower-Garden.
Culinary, belonging to the Kitchin, Roots, Salading, &c.
Culture, Dressing.
Decorticate, to strip off the Bark.
Emuscation, cleansing it of the Moss.
Esculent, Roots, Salads, &c. fit to eat.
Espalieres, Wall-fruit Trees.
Exotics, outlandish, rare and choice.
Fermentation, working.
Fibrous, stringy.
Frondation, stripping of Leaves, and Boughs.
Heterogeneous, repugnant.
Homogeneous, agreeable.
Hyemation, protection in Winter.
Ichnography, Ground-plot.
Inoculation, budding.
Insition, Graffing.
Insolation, exposing to the Sun.
Interlucation, thinning and disbranching of a Wood.
Irrigation, Watering.
Laboratory, Still-house.
Letation, Dung.
Lixivium, Lee.
Mural, belonging to the Wall.
Olitory, Acetary, Salads, &c. belonging to the Kitchin-Garden.
Palisade, Pole-hedge.
Parterre, Flower-Garden, or Knots.
Perennial, continuing all the year.
Quincunx, Trees set like the Cinque-point of a Dy.
Rectifie, re-distil.
Seminary, Nursery.
Stercoration, Dunging.
S. S. S. Stratum super Stratum, one bed, or layer upon another.
Tonsile, that which may be shorn, or clip’d.
Topiary-works, the clipping, cutting and forming of Hedges, &c. into Figures and Works.
Vernal, belonging to the Spring, &c. The rest are obvious.

BOOKS Published by the AUTHOR of this Discourse

1. The French Gard’ner, III. Edition, Twelves, with Mr. Rose’s Vineyard.

2. Fumi-fugium: Or, A Prophetic Invective against the Smoke of London. Quarto.

3. Silva: Or, A Discourse of Forest-Trees, &c. the IVth Edition, very much improv’d. Folio.

4. Kalendarium Hortense, both in Folio and Octavo. The Xth Edition, much augmented.

5. Sculptura: Or, The History of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper, the Original and Progress of that Art, &c. Octavo.

6. The Parallel of Architecture, being an Account of Ten famous Architects, with a Discourse of the Terms, and a Treatise of Statues. Folio. 2d Edition.

7. The Idea of the Perfecting of Painting. Octavo.

8. Navigation and Commerce, their Original and Progress. Octavo.

9. Publick Employment and an Active Life, prefer’d to Solitude and its Appanages, &c. Octavo.

10. Terra: Or, A Philosophical Discourse of Earth, the IIId Edition. Folio and Octavo.

11. Numismata, a Discourse of Medals; to which is added, A Digression concerning Physiognomy. Folio.

12. Acetaria: Or, A Discourse of Sallets. 2d Edition.

Naming the last Discourse (save one) I take this Opportunity to acquit my self of some Omissions and Mistakes, left out in the Errata of Numismata; but, upon discovery, immediately after, notify’d, and reform’d in the next Philosophical Transactions of that Month.

Amico carissimo Johanni Evelyno,
Armigero,
e Societate Regali Londini, J. Beale, S.P.D. In Silvam.

Fare age quid causae est quod tu Silvestria pangis,
Inter Silvanos, capripedesque Deos?
Inter Hamadryadas laetus, Dryadasque pudicas,
Cum tua Cyrrhæis sit Chelys apta modis!
Scilicet hoc cecinit numerosus Horatius olim,
Scriptorum Silvam quod Chorus Omnis amat.
Est locus ille Sacer Musis, & Apolline dignus,
Prima dedit summo Templa sacranda Jovi.
Hinc quoque nunc Pontem Pontus non respuit ingens,
Stringitur Oceanus, corripiturque Salum.
Hinc novus Hesperiis emersit mundus in oris,[cii:1]
Effuditque auri flumina larga probi.
Hinc exundavit distento Copia cornu,
Qualem & Amalthææ non habuere sinus.
Silva tibi curae est, grata & Pomona refundit
Auriferum, roseum, purpureumque nemus.
Illa famemque sitimque abigens expirat odores,
Quales nec Medus, nec tibi mittit Arabs.
Ambrosiam praebent modo cocta Cydonia. Tantum
Comprime, Nectareo Poma liquore fluunt.
Progredere, O Sæcli Cultor memorande futuri,
Felix Horticolam sic imitere Deum.

[cii:1] Gen. 1. c. 2.

Nobilissimo Viro Johanni Evelyno,
Regalis Soc. Socio dignissimo.

Ausus laudato qui quondam reddere versu,
Æternum & tentare melos, conamine magno
Lucretî nomenque suum donaverat aevo:
Ille leves atomos audaci pangere musa
Aggreditur, variis & semina caeca figuris,
Naturaeque vias: non quæ Schola garrula jactat,
Non quae rixanti fert barbara turba Lyaeo:
Ingentes animi sensus, & pondera rerum,
Grandior expressit Genius, nec scripta minora
Ev’linum decuisse solent.

Tuque per obscuros (victor Boylæe) recessus,
Naturae meditaris opus, qua luce colores[ciii:1]
Percipimus, quali magnus ferit organa motu
Cartesius, quali volitant primordia plexu
Ex atomis, Gassende, tuis; simulacraque rerum
Diffugiunt tacito vastum per inane meatu:
Mutato varios mentitur lana colores
Lumine; dum tales ardens habet ipse figuras
Purpura, Sidonioque aliae tinxere veneno:
Materiam assiduo variatam, ut Protea, motu
Concipis, hinc formae patuit nascentis origo,
Hinc hominum species, & vasti machina caeli:[ciii:2]
Ipse creare deus, solusque ostendere mundum
Boylæus potuit, sed nunc favet aemula virtus,
(Magne Eveline) tibi, & generosos excitat ignes:
Pergite, Scipiadæ duo, qui vet mille Marones
Obruitis, longo & meriti lassatis honore.

Tu vero dilecte nimis! qui stemmate ab alto
Patricios deducis avos, cerasque parentum
Wottonicæ[civ:1] de stirpe domus; virtutibus aequas
Nunc generis monumenta tui, post taedia ponti
Innumerasque errore vias, quid Sequana fallax,
Hostilis quae Rhenus agit, quae Tibris, & Ister,
Nota tibi: triplici quid perfida Roma corona
Gessit, & Adriaca Venetus deliberat arce,
Qualiaque Odrysias vexârunt prælia lunas.
Hic qui naturae interpres & sedulus artis
Cultor, qui mores hominum cognovit, & urbes:
Dum Phœbo comes ire parat, mentemque capacem
Vidit uterque polus, nec Grajum cana vetustas
Hunc latuit; veterum nunc prisca numismata regum
Eruit, & Latias per mystica templa ruinas:
Æstimat ille forum, & vasti fundamina Circi,
Cumque ruinoso Capitolia prisca theatro,
Et dominos colles altaeque palatia Romæ:
Regales notat inde domos, ut mole superba
Surgat apex, molles quae tecta imitantur Ionas,[civ:2]
Qualia Romulea, Gothica quae marmora dextra,
Quicquid Tuscus habet, mira panduntur ab arte.
O famae patriaeque sacer! vel diruta chartis
Vivet Roma tuis; te vindice, laeta Corinthus
Stabit adhuc, magno nequiquam invisa Metello.

Nunc quoque ruris opes dulcesque ante omnia curas
Pandis ovans; tristes maneat quae cura Decembres;
Pleiades haec Hyadesque jubent, haec laeta Bootes
Semina mandat humi, atque ardenti haec Sirius agro
Cœpit ut aestiva segetes torrere favilla,
Hoc Maii vernantis opus, dum florea serta
Invitant Dominas ruris, dum vere tepenti
Ridet ager, renovatque suos Narcissus amores.

Haud aliter victrix divinam Æneida vates
Lusit opus, simul & gracili modulatus avena,
Fata decent majora tuos, Eveline, triumphos,
Æternum renovatur honos, te nulla vetustas
Obruet, atque tua servanda volumina cedro
Durent, & meritam cingat tibi laurea frontem
Qui vitam Silvis donasti & Floribus ævum.

R. Bohun.

[ciii:1] Libro de coloribus.

[ciii:2] De origine formarum.

[civ:1] De Wotton in agro Surriensi.

[civ:2] Consule librum Auctoris de Architectura.

ΕΙΣ ΤΗΝ ΤΟΥ ΠΑΤΡΟΣ ΔΕΝΔΡΟΛΟΓΙΑΝ

Ὑμνήσω φρονίμοιο πατρὸς μελέεσσιν ἐπαίνους,
ὑμνήσω ἐπέεσσιν ἀριστεύοντα γεωργῶν·
οὐρανίην ταναῆς ἀρετὴν δρυὸς αὐτὸς ἔγραψεν,
καὶ ποταπῶν γενεὴν δένδρων κατὰ δάσκιον ὕλην.
ἀθανάτων κύδιστος ἔη νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς,
ἔσχεν δὴ δένδροιο φίλαις πραπίδεσσιν ἐέλδωρ,
φύλλοις τ' ἀμβροσίοις θαλερᾶς δρυὸς ἐστεφάνωτο·
Ἀγγλιακῶν ὃς ἄριστος ἔη θεοείκελος ἀνήρ,
ἱστορίην δένδρων τέλεσεν φρεσὶ κυδαλίμοισι,
ὑλογενής κηπουρὸς ὑπείροχος, ὃς μέγ' ὄνειαρ
ἀνδράσιν ἐσσομένοις κατὰ γαίην πουλυβότειραν,
νηυσί τε ποντοπόροισι βαρυγδούποιο θαλάσσης.

Jo. Evelyn, Fil.

THE
G A R D E N.
To J. Evelyn, Esquire.

I never had any other Desire so strong, and so like to Covetousness as that one which I have had always, That I might be Master at last of a small House and large Garden, with very moderate Conveniencies joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my Life only to the Culture of them, and study of Nature,

And there (with no Design beyond my Wall) whole and entire to lie,
In no unactive Ease, and no unglorious Poverty;

Or as Virgil has said, shorter and better for me, that I might there Studiis florere ignobilis otî (though I could wish that he had rather said, Nobilis otii, when he spoke of his own:) But several accidents of my ill Fortune have disappointed me hitherto, and do still of that Felicity; for though I have made the first and hardest step to it, by abandoning all Ambitions and Hopes in this World, and by retiring from the noise of all Business and almost Company; yet I stick still in the Inn of a hired House and Garden, among Weeds and Rubbish; and without that pleasantest Work of Human Industry, the Improvement of something which we call (not very properly, but yet we call) our own. I am gone out from Sodom, but I am not yet arrived at my little Zoar: O let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my Soul shall live. I do not look back yet: but I have been forced to stop, and make too many halts. You may wonder, Sir, (for this seems a little too extravagant and Pindarical for Prose) what I mean by all this Preface; it is to let you know, That though I have mist, like a Chymist, my great End, yet I account my Affections and Endeavours well rewarded by something that I have met with by the bye; which is, that they have procur’d to me some part in your Kindness and esteem; and thereby the honour of having my Name so advantagiously recommended to Posterity, by the Epistle you are pleased to prefix to the most useful Book that has been written in that kind, and which is to last as long as Months and Years.

Among many other Arts and Excellencies which you enjoy, I am glad to find this Favourite of mine the most predominant, That you choose this for your Wife, though you have hundreds of other Arts for your Concubines; though you know them, and beget Sons upon them all, (to which you are rich enough to allow great Legacies) yet the issue of this seems to be design’d by you to the main of the Estate; you have taken most pleasure in it, and bestow’d most Charges upon its Education; and I doubt not to see that Book, which you are pleased to promise to the World, and of which you have given us a large earnest in your Calendar, as accomplish’d, as any thing can be expected from an Extraordinary Application, and no ordinary Expences, and a long Experience. I know no body that possesses more private Happiness than you do in your Garden; and yet no Man who makes his Happiness more publick, by a free communication of the Art and Knowledge of it to others. All that I my self am able yet to do, is only to recommend to Mankind the search of that Felicity, which you instruct them how to find and to enjoy.

1.

Happy art thou whom God does bless
With the full choice of thine own Happiness;
And happier yet, because thou’rt blest
With Prudence how to choose the best:
In Books and Gardens thou hast plac’d aright
(Things well which thou dost understand,
And both dost make with thy laborious hand)
Thy noble innocent delight:
And in thy virtuous Wife, where thou again dost meet
Both Pleasures more refin’d and sweet:
The fairest Garden in her Looks,
And in her Mind the wisest Books.
Oh! who would change these soft, yet solid Joys,
For empty Shows and senseless Noise;
And all which rank Ambition breeds,
Which seem such beauteous Flowers, and are such poisonous Weeds?

2.

When God did Man to his own Likeness make,
As much as Clay, though of the purest kind,
By the great Potters Art refin’d,
Could the Divine Impression take:
He thought it fit to place him, where
A kind of Heav’n too did appear,
As far as Earth could such a likeness bear:
That Man no Happiness might want,
Which Earth to her first Master could afford;
He did a Garden for him plant
By the quick hand of his Omnipotent Word.
As the chief Help and Joy of Humane Life,
He gave him the first Gift; first, ev’n before a Wife.

3.

For God, the universal Architect,
’T had been as easie to erect
A Louvre, or Escurial, or a Tower,
That might with Heav’n communication hold
As Babel vainly thought to do of old:
He wanted not the skill or power,
In the World’s Fabrick those were shown,
And the Materials were all his own.
But well he knew what place would best agree
With Innocence, and with Felicity:
And we elsewhere still seek for them in vain,
If any part of either yet remain;
If any part of either we expect,
This may our judgement in the search direct;
God the first Garden made, and the first City, Cain.

4.

O blessed Shades! O gentle cool retreat
From all th’ immoderate Heat,
In which the frantick World does burn and sweat!
This does the Lion Star, Ambitions rage;
This Avarice, the Dog-Stars Thirst asswage;
Every where else their fatal Power we see,
They make and rule Man’s wretched Destiny:
They neither set, nor disappear,
But tyrannize o’er all the Year;
Whil’st we ne’er feel their Flame or Influence here.
The Birds that dance from Bough to Bough,
And sing above in every Tree,
Are not from Fears and Cares more free,
Than we who lie, or walk below,
And should by right be Singers too.
What Princes Quire of Musick can excel
That which within this Shade does dwell?
To which we nothing pay or give,
They like all other Poets live,
Without Reward, or Thanks for their obliging Pains;
’Tis well if they become not Prey:
The Whistling Winds add their less artful Strains,
And a grave Base the murmuring Fountains play;
Nature does all this Harmony bestow,
But to our Plants, Arts, Musick too,
The Pipe, Theorbo, and Guitar we owe;
The Lute it self, which once was Green and Mute:
When Orpheus struck th’ inspired Lute,
The Trees danc’d round, and understood
By Sympathy the Voice of Wood.

5.

These are the Spells that to kind Sleep invite,
And nothing does within resistance make,
Which yet we moderately take;
Who wou’d not choose to be awake,
While he’s incompass’d round with such delight,
To th’ Ear, the Nose, the Touch, the Taste, and Sight?
When Venus wou’d her dear Ascanius keep
A Pris’ner in the downy Bands of Sleep,
She od’rous Herbs and Flowers beneath him spread
As the most soft and sweetest Bed;
Not her own Lap would more have charm’d his Head.
Who, that has Reason, and his Smell,
Would not among Roses and Jasmin dwell,
Rather than all his Spirits choak
With Exhalations of Dirt and Smoak?
And all th’ uncleanness which does drown
In pestilential Clouds a pop’lous Town?
The Earth it self breaths better Perfumes here,
Than all the Female Men or Women there,
Not without cause about them bear.

6.

When Epicurus to the World had taught,
That Pleasure was the Chiefest Good,
(And was perhaps i’th’ right, if rightly understood)
His Life he to his Doctrine brought,
And in a Gardens Shade that Sovereign Pleasure sought.
Whoever a true Epicure would be,
May there find cheap and virtuous Luxury.
Vitellius his Table, which did hold
As many Creatures as the Ark of old:
That Fiscal Table, to which every day
All Countries did a constant Tribute pay,
Could nothing more delicious afford,
Than Natures Liberality,
Helpt with a little Art and Industry,
Allows the meanest Gard’ners board.
The wanton Taste no Fish or Fowl can choose,
For which the Grape or Melon she would loose,
Though all th’ Inhabitants of Sea and Air
Be listed in the Gluttons Bill of Fare;
Yet still the Fruits of Earth we see
Plac’d the third Story high in all her Luxury.

7.

But with no Sense the Garden does comply;
None courts or flatters, as it does the Eye:
When the great Hebrew King did almost strain
The wond’rous Treasures of his Wealth and Brain,
His Royal Southern Guest to entertain;
Though she on Silver Floors did tread,
With bright Assyrian Carpets on them spread,
To hide the Metals Poverty:
Though she look’d up to Roofs of Gold,
And nought around her could behold
But Silk and rich Embroidery,
And Babylonian Tapistry,
And wealthy Hiram’s Princely Dy:
Though Ophirs Starry Stones met every where her Eye;
Though she her self and her gay Host were drest
With all the shining Glories of the East;
When lavish Art her costly work had done,
The honour and the Prize of Bravery
Was by the Garden from the Palace won;
And every Rose and Lilly there did stand
Better attir’d by Natures hand:
The case thus judg’d against the King we see,
By one that would not be so Rich, though Wiser far than he.

8.

Nor does this happy place only dispense
Such various Pleasures to the Sense,
Here Health it self does live,
That Salt of Life which does to all a relish give,
Its standing Pleasure, and intrinsick Wealth,
The Bodies Virtue, and the Souls good Fortune, Health.
The Tree of Life, when it in Eden stood,
Did its Immortal Head to Heaven rear;
It lasted a tall Cedar till the Flood;
Now a small thorny Shrub it does appear;
Nor will it thrive too every where:
It always here is freshest seen;
’Tis only here an Ever-green.
If through the strong and beauteous Fence
Of Temperance and Innocence,
And wholesome Labours, and a quiet Mind,
Diseases Passage find,
They must not think here to assail
A Land unarmed, or without a Guard;
They must fight for it, and dispute it hard,
Before they can prevail:
Scarce any Plant is growing here
Which against Death some Weapon does not bear.
Let Cities boast, that they provide
For Life the Ornaments of Pride;
But ’tis the Country and the Field,
That furnish it with Staff and Shield.

9.

Where does the Wisdom and the Power Divine
In a more bright and sweet Reflection shine?
Where do we finer Strokes and Colours see
Of the Creator’s real Poetry,
Than when we with attention look
Upon the third days Volume of the Book?
If we could open and intend our Eye,
We all like Moses should espy
Ev’n in a Bush the radiant Deity.
But we despise these his inferior ways,
(Though no less full of Miracle and Praise)
Upon the Flowers of Heaven we gaze;
The Stars of Earth no wonder in us raise,
Though these perhaps do more than they,
The Life of Mankind sway.
Although no part of mighty Nature be
More stor’d with Beauty, Power, and Mystery;
Yet to encourage human Industry,
God has so ordered, that no other Part
Such Space, and such Dominion leaves for Art.

10.

We no where Art do so triumphant see,
As when it Grafts or Buds the Tree;
In other things we count it to excel,
If it a Docile Scholar can appear
To Nature, and but imitate her well;
It over-rules, and is her Master here.
It imitates her Makers Power Divine,
And changes her sometimes, and sometimes does refine:
It does, like Grace, the fallen Tree restore
To its blest State of Paradise before:
Who would not joy to see his conquering hand
O’er all the vegetable World command?
And the wild Giants of the Wood receive
What Law he’s pleas’d to give?
He bids th’ ill-natur’d Crab produce
The gentle Apples Winy Juice;
The golden Fruit that worthy is
Of Galetea’s purple Kiss;
He does the savage Hawthorn teach
To bear the Medlar and the Pear,
He bids the rustick Plumb to rear
A noble Trunk, and be a Peach,
Ev’n Daphnes Coyness he does mock,
And weds the Cherry to her stock,
Though she refus’d Apollo’s suit;
Ev’n she, that chast and Virgin-tree
Now wonders at her self, to see
That she’s a Mother made, and blushes in her fruit.

11.

Methinks I see Great Diocletian walk
In the Salonian Gardens noble Shade,
Which by his own Imperial hands was made:
I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk
With the Ambassadors, who come in vain
T’ entice him to a Throne again:
If I, my Friends (said he) should to you show
All the Delights, which in these Gardens grow;
’Tis likelier much, that you should with me stay,
Than ’tis that you should carry me away:
And trust me not, my Friends, if every day,
I walk not here with more delight,
Than ever after the most happy fight,
In Triumph to the Capitol I rod,
To thank the gods, and to be thought my self almost a god.

Abraham Cowley.

Chertsea, Aug 16, 1666.

DENDROLOGIA
THE FIRST BOOK

CHAPTER I.
Of the Earth, Soil, Seed, Air, and Water.

1. It is not my intention here to speak of earth, as one of the common reputed elements; of which I have long since publish’d an ample account, in an express Treatise (annexed to this volume,) which I desire my reader to peruse; since it might well commute for the total omission of this chapter, did not method seem to require something briefly to be said: Which first, as to that of earth, we shall need at present to penetrate no deeper into her bosom, than after paring of the turfe, scarrifiying the upper-mould, and digging convenient pits and trenches, not far from the natural surface, without disturbing the several strata and remoter layers, whether of clay, chalk, gravel, sand, or other successive layers, and concrets fossil, (tho’ all of them useful sometimes, and agreeable to our foresters;) tho’ few of them what one would chuse before the under-turfe, black, brown, gray, and light, and breaking into short clods, and without any disagreeable scent, and with some mixture of marle or loame, but not clammy; of which I have particularly spoken in that Treatise.

2. In the mean time, this of the soil, (which I think is a more proper term for composts) or mould rather, being of greater importance for the raising, planting, and propagation of trees in general, must at no hand be neglected, and is therefore on all occasions mentioned in almost every chapter of our ensuing discourse; I shall therefore not need to assign it any part, when I have affirm’d in general, that most timber-trees grow and prosper well in any tolerable land which will produce corn or rye, and which is not in excess stony; in which nevertheless there are some trees delight; or altogether clay, which few, or none do naturally affect; and yet the oak is seen to prosper in it, for its toughness preferr’d before any other by many workmen, though of all soils the cow-pasture doth certainly exceed, be it for what purpose soever of planting wood. Rather therefore we should take notice how many great wits and ingenious persons, who have leisure and faculty, are in pain for improvements of their heaths and barren Hills, cold and starving places, which causes them to be neglected and despair’d of; whilst they flatter their hopes and vain expectations with fructifying liquors, chymical menstruums, and such vast conceptions; in the mean time that one may shew them as heathy and hopeless grounds, and barren hills as any in England, that do now bear, or lately have born woods, groves, and copses, which yield the owners more wealth, than the richest and most opulent wheat-lands: and if it be objected that ’tis so long a day before these plantations can afford that gain; the Brabant Nurseries, and divers home-plantations of industrious persons are sufficient to convince the gain-sayer. And when by this husbandry a few acorns shall have peopl’d the neighbouring regions with young stocks and trees; the residue will become groves and copses of infinite delight and satisfaction to the planters. Besides, we daily see what course lands will bear these stocks (suppose them oaks, wall-nuts, chess-nuts, pines, firr, ash, wild-pears, crabs, &c.) and some of them (as for instance the pear and the firr or pine) strike their roots through the roughest and most impenetrable rocks and clefts of stone it self; and others require not any rich or pinguid, but very moderate soil; especially, if committed to it in seeds, which allies them to their mother and nurse without renitency or regret: And then considering what assistances a little care in easing and stirring of the ground about them for a few years does afford them: What cannot a strong plow, a winter mellowing, and summer heats, incorporated with the pregnant turf, or a slight assistance of lime, loam, sand, rotten compost, discreetly mixed (as the case may require) perform even in the most unnatural and obstinate soil? And in such places where anciently woods have grown, but are now unkind to them, the fault is to be reformed by this care; and chiefly, by a sedulous extirpation of the old remainders of roots, and latent stumps, which by their mustiness, and other pernicious qualities, sowre the ground, and poyson the conception; and herewith let me put in this note, that even an over-rich, and pinguid composition, is by no means the proper bed either for seminary or nursery, whilst even the natural soil it self does frequently discover and point best to the particular species, though some are for all places alike: Nor should the earth be yet perpetually crop’d with the same, or other seeds, without due repose, but lie some time fallow to receive the influence of heaven, according to good husbandry. But I shall say no more of these particulars at this time, because the rest is sprinkl’d over this whole work in their due places; wherefore we hasten to the following title; namely, the choice and ordering of the seeds.

3. Chuse your seed of that which is perfectly mature, ponderous and sound; commonly that which is easily shaken from the boughs, or gathered about November, immediately upon its spontaneous fall, or taken from the tops and summities of the fairest and soundest trees, is best, and does (for the most part) direct to the proper season of interring, &c. according to institution.

Nature herself who all created first,
Invented sowing, and the wild plants nurs’t:
When mast and berries from the trees did drop,
Succeeded under by a numerous crop.[4:1]