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SYLVA: _OR A DISCOURSE

OF FOREST TREES & THE

PROPAGATION OF TIMBER_

_V O L U M E O N E_

{Illustration: _John Evelyn_

_From the engraving by R. Nanteuil_}

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.

Introduction page ix

Title Page of 4th Edition „ lxxiii

To the King „ lxxv

To the Reader „ lxxvii

Advertisement „ xcix

Books published by the Author „ ci

Amico carissimo „ cii

Nobilissimo Viro „ ciii

ΕΙΣ ΤΗΝ ΤΟΥ ΠΑΤΡΟΣ ΔΕΝΔΡΟΛΟΓΙΑΝ „ cvi

The Garden.--To J. Evelyn, Esq. „ cvii

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I. Of the Earth, Soil, Seed, Air, and Water „ 1

„ II. Of the Seminary and of Transplanting „ 12

„ III. Of the Oak „ 30

„ IV. Of the Elm „ 62

„ V. Of the Beech „ 75

„ VI. Of the Horn-beam „ 81

„ VII. Of the Ash „ 86

„ VIII. Of the Chesnut „ 94

„ IX. Of the Wallnut „ 101

„ X. Of the Service, and black cherry-tree „ 111

„ XI. Of the Maple „ 115

„ XII. Of the Sycomor „ 121

„ XIII. Of the Lime-Tree „ 122

„ XIV. Of the Poplar, Aspen, and Abele „ 128

„ XV. Of the Quick-Beam „ 134

„ XVI. Of the Hasel „ 136

„ XVII. Of the Birch „ 140

„ XVIII. Of the Alder „ 155

„ XIX. Of the Withy, Sallow, Ozier, and Willow „ 159

„ XX. Of Fences, Quick-sets, &c. „ 175

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I. Of the Mulberry „ 203

„ II. Of the Platanus, Lotus, Cornus, Acacia, &c. „ 214

„ III. Of the Fir, Pine, Pinaster, Pitch-tree,

Larsh, and Subterranean trees „ 220

„ IV. Of the Cedar, Juniper, Cypress, Savine,

Thuya, &c. „ 253

„ V. Of the Cork, Ilex, Alaternus, Celastrus,

Ligustrum, Philyrea, Myrtil, Lentiscus,

Olive, Granade, Syring, Jasmine and other

Exoticks „ 282

„ VI. Of the Arbutus, Box, Yew, Holly, Pyracanth,

Laurel, Bay, &c. „ 293

„ VII. Of the infirmities of trees, &c. „ 314

VOLUME II.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I. Of Copp’ces page 1

„ II. Of Pruning „ 8

„ III. Of the Age, Stature, and Felling of Trees „ 24

„ IV. Of Timber, the Seasoning and Uses, and of Fuel „ 80

„ V. Aphorisms, or certain General Precepts of use

to the foregoing Chapters „ 130

„ VI. Of the Laws and Statutes for the Preservation

and Improvement of Woods and Forests „ 138

„ VII. The paraenesis and conclusion, containing

some encouragements and proposals for the

planting and improvement of his Majesty’s

forests, and other amunities for shade,

and ornament „ 157

BOOK IV.

An historical account of the sacredness and use

of standing groves, &c. „ 205

Renati Rapini „ 269

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.

FOOTNOTES:

{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._

FOOTNOTES:

{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._

FOOTNOTES:

{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.

FOOTNOTES:

{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.

FOOTNOTES:

{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 GARDEN.

_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.

_Chertsea, Aug 16, 1666._

_Abraham Cowley._

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}

Yet this is to be consider’d, that if the place you sow in be too cold

for an autumnal semination, your acorns, mast, and other seeds may be

prepared for the vernal by being barrel’d, or potted up in moist sand,

or earth stratum s.s. during the winter; at the expiration whereof you

will find them sprouted; and being committed to the earth, with a tender

hand, as apt to take as if they had been sown with the most early; nay,

with great advantage: By this means too, they have escaped the vermine,

(which are prodigious devourers of winter-sowing) and will not be much

concern’d with the increasing heat of the season, as such as being

crude, and unfermented, are newly sown in the beginning of the spring;

especially, in hot and loose grounds; being already in so fair a

progress by this artificial preparation; and which, (if the provision to

be made be very great) may be thus manag’d. Chuse a fit piece of ground,

and with boards (if it have not that position of it self) design it

three foot high; lay the first foot in fine earth, another of seeds,

acorns, mast, keys, nuts, haws, holly-berries, &c. promiscuously, or

separate, with (now and then) a little mould sprinkled amongst them: The

third foot wholly earth: Of these preparatory magazines make as many,

and as much larger ones as will serve your turn, continuing it from time

to time as your store is brought in. The same for ruder handlings, may

you also do by burying your seeds in dry sand, or pulveriz’d earth,

barrelling them (as I said) in tubs, or laid in heaps in some deep

cellar where the rigour of the winter may least prejudice them; and I

have fill’d old hampers, bee-hives, and boxes with them, and found the

like advantage, which is to have them ready for your seminary, as before

hath been shew’d, and exceedingly prevent the season. There be also who

affirm, that the careful cracking and opening of stones which include

the kernels, as soon as ripe, precipitate growth, and gain a years

advance; but this is erroneous. Now if you gather them in moist weather,

lay them a drying, and so keep them till you sow, which may be as soon

as you please after Christmas. If they spire out before you sow them, be

sure to commit them to the earth before the sprout grows dry, or else

expect little from them: And whenever you sow, if you prevent not the

little field mouse, he will be sure to have the better share. See cap.

XVIII.

4. But to pursue this to some farther advantage; as to what concerns the

election of your seed, it is to be consider’d, that there is vast

difference, (what if I should affirm more than an hundred years) in

trees even of the same growth and bed, which I judge to proceed from the

variety and quality of the seed: This, for instance, is evidently seen

in the heart, procerity and stature of timber; and therefore chuse not

your seeds always from the most fruitful-trees, which are commonly the

most aged, and decayed; but from such as are found most solid and fair:

Nor, for this reason, covet the largest acorns, &c. but (as husbandmen

do their wheat) the most weighty, clean and bright: This observation we

deduce from fruit-trees, which we seldom find to bear so kindly and

plentifully from a sound stock, smooth rind, and firm wood, as from a

rough, lax, and untoward tree; which is rather prone to spend itself in

fruit, (the ultimate effort, and final endeavour of its most delicate

sap,) than in solid and close substance to encrease the timber. And this

shall suffice, though some haply might here recommend to us a more

accurate microscopical examen, to interpret their most secret

schematismes, which were an over-nicety for these great plantations.

5. As concerning the medicating and insuccation of seeds, or enforcing

the earth by rich and generous composts, &c. for trees of these kinds, I

am no great favourer of it; not only because the charge would much

discourage the work; but for that we find it unnecessary, and for most

of our forest-trees, noxious; since even where the ground is too

fertile, they thrive not so well; and if a mould be not proper for one

sort, it may be fit for another: Yet I would not (by this) hinder any

from the trial, what advance such experiments will produce: In the mean

time, for the simple imbibition of some seeds and kernels, when they

prove extraordinary dry, as the season may fall out, it might not be

amiss to macerate them in milk or water only, a little impregnated with

cow-dung, &c. during the space of twenty four hours, to give them a

spirit to sprout and chet the sooner; especially if you have been

retarded in your sowing without our former preparation: But concerning

the mould, soiling and preparations of the ground, I refer you to my

late Treatise of Earth, if what you meet with in this do not abundantly

encounter all those difficulties.

6. Being thus provided with seeds of all kinds, I would advise to raise

woods by sowing them apart, in several places destin’d for their growth,

where the mould being prepar’d (as I shall shew hereafter) and so

qualified (if election be made) as best to suit with the nature of the

species, they may be sown promiscuously, which is the most natural and

rural; or in streight and even lines, for hedge-rows, avenues, and

walks, which is the more ornamental: But, because some may chuse rather

to draw them out of nurseries; that the culture is not much different,

nor the hinderance considerable (provided they be early and carefully

removed) I will finish what I have to say concerning these trees in the

seminary, and shew how they are there to be raised, transplanted, and

govern’d till they can shift for themselves.

As to the air and water, they are certainly of almost as great

importance to the life and prosperity of trees and vegetables; and

therefore it is to be wish’d for and sought, where they are defective;

and which commonly follow, or indicate the nature of the soil, or the

soil of them; (taking soil here promiscuously for the mould;) that they

be neither too keen or sharp, too cold or hot; not infected with foggs

and poys’nous vapours, or expos’d to sulphurous exhalations, or

frigiverous winds, reverberating from hills, and other ill-situate

eminencies, pressing down the incumbent particles so tainted, or

convey’d through the inclosed valleys: But such as may gently enter and

pervade the cenabs and vessels destin’d and appointed for their

reception, intromission, respiration, and passage, in almost continual

motion: In a word, such as is most agreeable to the life of man, the

inverted head compared to the root, both vegetables and animals alike

affected with those necessary principles, air and water, soon suffocated

and perishable for the want of either, duly qualified with their proper

mixts, be it nitre, or any other vegetable matter; though we neither

see, nor distinctly taste it: So as all aquatics, how deeply soever

submerg’d, could not subsist without this active element the air.

The same qualification is (as we said) required in water, to which ’tis

of so near alliance, and whose office it is, not only to humectate,

mollify, and prepare both the seeds, and roots of vegetables, to receive

the nutrition, pabulum, and food, of which this of water as well as air,

are the proper vehicles, insinuating what they carry into the numerous

pores, and through the tubes, canales, and other emulgent passages and

percolutions to the several vessels, where (as in a stomach) it is

elaborated, concocted, and digested, for distribution through every

part of the plant; and therefore had need be such as should feed, not

starve, infect or corrupt; which depends upon the nature and quality of

the mix’d, with what other virtue, spirit, mineral, or other particles,

accompanying the purest springs, (to appearance) passing through the

closest strainers. This therefore requires due examination, and

sometimes exposure to the air and sun, and accordingly the crudity, and

other defects taken off and qualified: All which, rain-water, that has

had its natural circulation, is greatly free from, so it meets with no

noxious vapours in the descent, as it must do passing through fuliginous

clouds of smoak and soot, over and about great cities, and other

vulcanos, continually vomiting out their acrimonious, and sometimes

pestiferous fervor, infecting the ambient air, as it perpetually does

about London, and for many adjacent miles, as I have elsewhere{9:1}

shew’d.

In the mean time, whether water alone is the cause of the solid and

bulky part, and consequently of the augmentation of trees and plants,

without any thing more to do with that element (tho’ as it serves to

transport some other matter) is very ingenuously discuss’d, and

curiously enquired into by Dr. _Woodward_, in his _History of the

Earth_; fortified with divers nice experiments, too large to be here

inserted: The sum is, that water, be it of rain, or the river (superior

or inferior) carries with it a certain superfine terrestrial matter, not

destitute of vegetative particles; which gives body, substance, and all

other requisites to the growth and perfection of the plant, with the aid

of that due heat which gives life and motion to the vehicles passage

through all the parts of the vegetable, continually ascending, ’till

(having sufficiently saturated them) it transpires the rest of the

liquid at the summity and tops of the branches into the atmosphere, and

leaving some of the less refined matter in a viscid hony-dew, or other

exsudations, (often perceived on the leaves and blossoms,) anon

descending and joining again with what they meet, repeat this course in

perpetual circulation: Add to this, that from hence those regions and

places crowded with numerous and thick standing forest-trees and woods,

(which hinder the necessary evolition of this superfluous moisture, and

intercourse of the air) render those countries and places, more subject

to rain and mists, and consequently unwholsome; as is found in our

American plantations, as formerly nearer us, in Ireland; both since so

much improved by felling and clearing these spacious shades, and letting

in the air and sun, and making the earth fit for tillage, and pasture,

that those gloomy tracts are now become healthy and habitable. It is not

to be imagined how many noble seats and dwellings in this nation of

ours, (to all appearance well situated,) are for all that unhealthful,

by reason of some grove, or hedge-rows of antiquated dotard trees; nay,

sometimes a single tuft only, (especially the falling autumnal leaves

neglected to be taken away) filling the air with musty and noxious

exhalations; which being ventilated, by glades cut through them, for

passage of the stagnant vapours, have been cur’d of this evil, and

recovered their reputation.

But to return to where we left; water in this action, imbib’d with such

matter, applicable to every species of plants and vegetables, does not

as we affirm’d, operate to the full extent and perfection of what it

gives and contributes of necessary and constituent matter, without the

soil and temper of the climate co-operate; which otherwise, retards both

the growth and substance of what the earth produces, sensibly altering

their qualities, if some friendly and genial heat be wanting to exert

the prolifick virtue: This we find, that the hot and warmer regions

produce the tallest and goodliest trees and plants, in stature and other

properties far exceeding those of the same species, born in the cold

north: So as what is a gyant in the one, becomes a pumilo, and in

comparison, but a shrubby dwarf in the other; deficient of that active

spirit, which elevates and spreads its prolifick matter and continual

supplies without check, and is the cause of not only the leaves

deserting the branches, whilst those trees and plants of the more benign

climate, are clad in perennial verdure: And those herbacious plants,

which with us in the hottest seasons hardly perfect their seeds before

Winter, and require to be near their genial beds and nurse, and

sometimes the artificial heat of the hot-bed. Lastly, to all this I

would add that other chearful vehicle, light; which the gloomy and

torpent north is so many months depriv’d of; the too long seclusion

whereof is injurious to our exotics, kept in the conservatories, since

however temper’d with heat, and duly refresh’d; they grow sickly, and

languish without the admission of light as well as air, as I have

frequently found.

FOOTNOTES:

{4:1}

Nam specimen sationis, & infitionis origo

Ipsa fuit rerum primum natura creatrix:

Arboribus quoniam baccæ, glandesque caducæ

Tempestiva dabant pullorum examina subter, &c.

_Lucret._ l. 5.

{9:1} Fumifugium.