_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 conveniences joined to
them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of
them and the 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 otii_, 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 arrived at my little Zoar. “Oh, 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 missed, like a chemist, my great end, yet I
account my afflictions and endeavours well rewarded by something that I
have met with by-the-by, which is, that they have produced to me some
part in your kindness and esteem; and thereby the honour of having my
name so advantageously 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
designed by you to the main of the estate; you have taken most pleasure
in it, and bestowed 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 accomplished as
anything can be expected from an extraordinary wit and no ordinary
expenses and a long experience. I know nobody that possesses more
private happiness than you do in your garden, and yet no man who makes
his happiness more public by a free communication of the art and
knowledge of it to others. All that I myself 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.